Fun in Thailand

Interesting week. Trike broke down in far NE edge of province. Left it with local (trusted) mechanic, took a 'song thao' home. 'Two Row' open air bus. 100 baht a head for 100 km trip, in this situation I booked a solo bus, 3 of us, 800 B, no stops, and the guy was 'fast'.

You can't really see straight ahead when seated in back, so not sure how well he was driving, except we survived.

Interesting thing about this trip I take often, usually I only have one traffic light to deal with for the whole trip, and we aren't talking major highways.

Due to COVID, a lot of places are shut down, so the mechanic had trouble finding parts, but picked up the trike yesterday and drove home. Very reasonable cost for parts and labor. meanwhile I had 4 days at home without 'wheels', but survived with cheap delivery food, and other food available with a ten minute walk.


camera and more elaborate power point set up coming on the trike this sunday morning....if I feel brave.
 
Lots of changes and drama, so not been online.

Will be moving into a small house in a few days. Can't give too many details about the reason, since this is thailand. (But problems with landlord, landlords deadbeat daughter, her undercover cop boyfriend, and various drug activity connected with all the above, has something to do with the move)

Has been too hot to work on trike. Finding parts I wanted has been a pain in the butt, and ended up ordering via Lazada, which means it takes forever to show up....and often they cancel the order after you have waited a few weeks. I have found extensive led lights cheap in china....once I get to the new house the trike will be pimped out, and cameras finally installed correctly.

One thing I am reminded of, daily, is, rational thought or common sense does not apply in thailand. If you acclimate too much, you are unable to function outside of thailand.
 
Sorry to hear that things aren't going as smooth as they should. And it seems your approach to it all may be best- reminds me of what someone once said of trees in a hurricane: The strong oaks break fighting the unavoidable winds, but the palms just bend with the flow and survive even if they do lose something in the process.

Hope your next living situation works out better for you. Still looking for the same thing here but not finding what I need. Always something getting in the way of success- my life's story. Be well neighbor, and don't let the crap drag you down ;)

Phil
 
well, its always something. New landlord is nice, younger guy, speaks some english.

Signed lease on house.

the driveway has two separate carports in a row, from the gate, to halfway down the house on one side. Enough room to park 3 cars.
It appears the trike is too tall to enter the driveway.

It cleared everything OK when loaded down with moving stuff. Not so well unloaded. Wouldn't clear some of the cross members.

I had to call girlfriend at work in the area and get her to run over for a few minutes, back the trike out of the carport, while I stood on the rear bumper.
Cleared ok, but need to find two more inches of clearance.

Will find out if oK to modify that offending crossmembers.
 
Or lower the driveway if it's not hard-paved. Might be easier to raise or extend the support posts. Always look for the alternative solutions, sometimes they work best ;)

Phil
 
Concrete.

The yellow arrows point to where the trike hits on the front and rear frame. I think modifying those two bottom sections may be easiest. Might cost me 50 bucks to have welder come out. With labor so cheap the obvious solution is not always the cheapest. Kind of doubt extending the upright supports would be fast or cheap? Would have to jack up roof, who knows? Only need 3 inches or so.

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I think i would bump my head on that too then ( 6 foot 3 ) :)
 
Concrete.

The yellow arrows point to where the trike hits on the front and rear frame. I think modifying those two bottom sections may be easiest. Might cost me 50 bucks to have welder come out. With labor so cheap the obvious solution is not always the cheapest. Kind of doubt extending the upright supports would be fast or cheap? Would have to jack up roof, who knows? Only need 3 inches or so.

View attachment 51966View attachment 51966
Is it possible or feasible to lower the roof of the trike?
 
I'd be leery of altering those beam parts- they look to be contributing to the roof's load strength considerably. If you look at how the outer post-to-roof connection is made it seems like it wouldn't be tough to extend those posts or the connection at that location. The inner end can probably pivot or bend enough to not need consideration. If you raise the post/roof connection point, do the same along the whole line so the roof doesn't twist.

@DT MI might have the best idea here (y)I wonder if he's interested in a dirty low-paying job working on old houses down in the hot and humid South? :ROFLMAO:

Phil
 
@DT MI might have the best idea here (y)I wonder if he's interested in a dirty low-paying job working on old houses down in the hot and humid South?
Given I'm pretty much bored out of my mind because of pandemic restrictions I'm interested except for 3 things: 1) dirty, 2) low-paying and 3) hot and humid. :D

Back many years ago when I was in the military a 30+ year veteran told me if I ever had a difficult, nasty job to be done give it to the laziest person you have 'cause they will invariably find the easiest way to get it done. Might explain why I got more than my fair share of difficult nasty jobs to do. ;)
 
I the roof of the offending carport was ineptly raised, but looks strong. Total cost for materials and 3 hours of labor for two 'workers', with some power tools, and an electric welder?
$45 .

No way to lower the roof of the trike, the new roof part is a complete second roof that covers the existing (Not removed) cab roof. Have to do a total revamp of the front body work, not worth it.


It's not pretty, but it works.
IMG_20200609_071603.jpg
 
Oh, the 'workers'. They had no plug on the power cable for the portable welder. They stuck the bare wire ends into a jury rigged electrical outlet socket a previous tenant had installed....using what looks lamp cord. I kept my rubber shoes on, and far away from anything metal.
 
It's not pretty, but it works.


We will see when the next typhoon make landfall.

I dont dare to think what the cost would be for a job like that up here in Denmark, or how many permits you had to fill out to MAYBE be able to do it.
Many people here have done something to their house, only for someone else to complain, and then get asked to tear it all down again, this even include whole houses.
But ! this of course to not apply to the elite that illegal can build whole malls, and then get the permit for it afterwards. :cry:
 
The minimum cost for that to be done legally here would be 10X what he paid, and would require a building permit and code compliance inspection before use was allowed. As a structural item you would not even be allowed to have your dog walk underneath it until it was inspected and approved :eek: And in some places they would require a licensed engineer's drawing too, making the cost at least double again to 20X what he paid :devilish:

Which is why for things like this most people here just do it and hope that the code inspector doesn't drive by while the work is being done ;) Then the cost would be only 3X more than he paid which is reasonable.

Phil
 
Still have rent paid on other place until the 25th, but have moved into the 'new' house.

AC died. We were only using it at night, basically only one unit in the master bedroom, thermostat appears to not work. Then began to blow hot air.

Landlord not surfaced as promised to fix something else.

Had broadband installed. It worked one day. ($18 a month)

Bought a 'smart' tv. It's either smarter than I am, or stubborn.

Broadband fixed again. Can't get google play to recognize smart tv.

Installer says 'need android box'. (Think that is what he said.)


I did pick up some very nice bookshelf/monitor speakers for $30. I have had high end audio stuff before, klipsch, bose, etc.

These sound great and look like to be a big name speaker cranked out in a chinese factory with a no name brand stuck on them. I know it's not likely, but the quality is there.


It's cooled off a bit and will be able to dive into the trike for some projects, soon.

The throttle cable broke a few days ago as I was running into town on saturday night. I could idle on the shoulder of the road at 2 mph, but not enough momentum to get across speed bumps and big pot holes. I had to push it the last 1 km down the back streets in my neighborhood.

The next day the local mechanic came to the house and fixed it, $9. I tried to watch him since the carb/throttle setup was new to me. I thought I could fix it myself if happened again. He used a generic/bulk cable, and solder to make the cable end/stop on the card end. He wrapped solder in a spiral around the cable, melted it with the lighter. Took him two tries to get it right.
 
Old trail-riders trick: run 2 cables together and tape off the ends of one. Just hook up the ends when the first one breaks. Also get a can of spray cable-lube with the adaptor that clamps onto the cable to spray into. Hold a rag on things when you spray- the one time you don't will show you why.

Phil
 
the carb setup was unfamiliar to me, I will have to carefully take it apart, partially, and see if I understand enough to fix it myself in an emergency.
I'm also looking for a mechanic who will actually do what I say and pay for, instead of rolling his eyes at the foreigner who will waste fifty cents to to replace a part on it's last legs, but isn't broken....yet. The clutch and brake cables are straight forward.
 
Well there's not much strain on a throttle cable normally, but the way that guy "fixed" it doesn't leave me feeling confident about it. If he didn't flux the cable that solder blob will likely slip right down the cable and off. Might check with the folks who made the samlar and see if they can supply a couple proper spares. CV carbs have the cable outside- eyeballing shows how to do, but slide-type carbs end inside the carb. If the cable goes into the top of the carb, it's likely a slide-type. Those can be a bit tricky to reassemble for a noob, as they have a metering rod going into the jet holder which might need to be guided into place through the carb air venturi; needle nose pliers are your friend but use them gently to keep the brass rod smooth. Never force a slide assembly into place; everything should slip together easily or something is wrong. If the cable breaks in that kind of carb, the slide and slide spring will have to be withdrawn manually, but if everything is together just pulling the carb top lets it all come out intact and you can see how it all goes. Pretty simple, just not for guys whose preferred tools are a hanmmer and a crowbar.

It's been so long ago I can't remember all the parts suppliers we used in the shop, but I do remember we could get 2-3 different grades of cables for most bikes and the ones I used were SO much better made with coated flat-wound cables, better sheathing, and much thicker plastic on the outside of it. Cost was like 50% more but worth 3 times their cost in smooth reliable service life. You could do with cheaper cables if you kept them lubed, but the 'gritty' feel was always there if you knew what good cables felt like.

Finding a good Mechanic, Doctor, and Lawyer is one of life's hardest tasks, and if you ever manage to get all 3, go buy a lottery ticket because it's the luckiest day of your life!

Phil
 
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