It was two years ago this week when I finished repairing the crank boom on the Quest velomobile. See my blog post of Nov 2, 2013. It turned out that I should have also reinforced the fiberglass where the aluminum connects to it, holding the front end of the crank boom in place.
As you can see in this first photo, the fiberglass has broken and the aluminum support has fallen down into the nose cone.
This second photo shows how the original construction contained two layers of fiberglass, and they were not bonded properly to each other. The two layers have delaminated.
The other side doesn't have two layers of fiberglass. I wonder why not.
Here you can see how the aluminum structure aligns with the fiberglass. I have two spring clips holding the aluminum structure up against the fiberglass. Not really a good match, but that would be because the aluminum crank boom broke at the weld and was re-welded two years ago. I think it came out about one quarter inch shorter than the original, causing this mis-alignment and some fairly ugly matching between the top and bottom fiberglass shells.
This last photo shows how the headlight, mounted on the crank boom, nearly aligns with the hole in the center of the nose cone.
I need to think about how I am going to build up that fiberglass again, without causing additional alignment problems, and correctly locate and drill some new holes for bolting the aluminum to the fiberglass.
2 comments:
Dang me - that's a pain in the butt.
Have you contacted the manufacturer or BlueVelo for ideas?
Send them an email, with a link to your blog posts - I'm sure they will provide lots of good ideas.
Did you run up far enough on the dirt washout a couple weeks back to have contributed to this problem?
I contacted Blue Velo when the weld on the crank boom failed. They suggested it was caused by too much torque, provided by the electric assist motor. The Quest was not designed to handle electric assist motors and they don't recommend installing one.
The Quest was obviously designed for the flatlands of the Netherlands, not the rolling hills of the Pacific Northwest. An electric assist motor is a practical necessity here. Besides, the forces that caused this damage were more from the pedal cranks than the electric motor. In fact it was the electric motor that got me home last week. The motor provides a steady pulling tension rather than the side-to-side rocking and alternating twisting motion of the pedals.
I am considering some design improvements and will be posting photos of the repair in a subsequent blog article.
The mudslide Lief mentioned was unrelated to this failure. I was able to stop the Quest before the fiberglass came into contact with the mud. Then I dragged the Quest over the top of the mud pile like a sled, with only the wheels (and my shoes) sinking into the mud.
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