• The rear fender mod helped, however signs of cracking on the sides is again evident - it needs more support along the sides.
• Choke cable malfunction and got stuck closed, simple fix to correct.
• Bolts/nuts that hold the engine mounts to subframe loosened up allowing engine to shift a bit. When I added the rubber mounting pads I did not have any lock-tite.

Small issues and very happy with the way that it handles and have adapted my driving technique to the ways that the vehicle wants to be handled/driven.

With the engine choice that I have it wants to turn at higher rpm's in order to get power out of it for climbing hills and for highway cruising. If you live in relatively level terrain then you might be able to get by with a smaller engine (< 750cc), but I think that an engine about 900cc, one with good low rpm horsepower/torque would be the best solution. Just don't go too big or maintenance issues arise like getting your hands/tools into tighter areas, it's almost a non-issue with the V4 750cc engine that I have.

To date I have not gotten a professional front end alignment, I feel that I lucked out and got it very close to where it has to be. This is evident by the way that the vehicle handles, very positively with no vibration/shake/pulling and the fact that it corners quite nicely as well. It's a good thing too as most front end shops have said that with the equipment that they have they need the rear wheels and basically do a 4 wheel alignment, of course with the Vortex there is only a single wheel...

I find it strange, that one pillow block seemed bad from day one and another is going bad already. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with the stainless units, high loads/rpm's, or the fact that they simply need to be greased often. I had greased them when I installed them, and have not since re-greased them.

Not sure if it is from the heavy load or more likely from the rotational speed that they turn, probably a combination of both.

It is pretty easy to tell when one is starting to go as the drive-line noise gets increasingly louder, due to the relatively solid mounting of the engine subframe to the chassis all noise and vibration are transmitted to the body.

I brought my vehicle to a local car show that was going on in the neighboring town. I figured that the locals had seen my vehicle around for a couple of months so this would give me the opportunity to let them get up close to it and check it out. So I spent part of the previous night in getting it all cleaned up exterior and interior.

The next morning when I was getting ready to leave I did not want to leave my tools that I carry around with me for - just in case - to clutter up the vehicle so I left all my tools home. I figured that - hey I was just going over to the next town... That was mistake #1 I got overly confidant.

On the way down the mountain I started to hear what sounded like driveline noises and I figured that it might have been the older pillow block that I left on the jack shaft (mistake #2) so I continued down the mountain. As I drove the noise got louder and louder until it sounded like it was making more noise than the engine, by that time I was almost to the show so I decided to continue to the show and deal with it when I got home.

During the show at one point in time I had to reposition the vehicle as the number of cars showing exceeded expectations, so I simply pushed it into the new position. Without the engine running and the rear hatch opened I was able to hear the noise very clearly and it did not sound like a bearing, it was more of a click/clack sound.

Upon inspecting the driveline I noticed that the gear on the intermediate shaft (which converts chain to flat belt) had moved to the right by almost an *inch* causing the chain and belt to be skewed. It was the chain running on an angle that was creating the noise, not to mention that both sides of the flat belt were frayed - one from riding on the edge of the pulley and the other from rubbing on the rear fender. My initial thought was that the set screw that held the gear in position loosened up and allowed the gear to move.

At one time during the show I was able to borrow a big hammer and a length of steel and move the gear back into it's proper position. My hope was that at least by doing this that I should be able to make it home after the show.

Lots of really fantastic cars showed, truly show quality stuff so I did not feel bad to not winning anything. It was easy to see that all day long there was continuously the largest crowd around my vehicle with everyone examining it and asking lots of questions.

Show over and time to go home. By the time that I reached the base of the mountain that I had to drive up the noise was back! It sounded like trouble. After climbing the mountain for about a mile I heard the flat belt come off and pulled over to the side of the road. It was obvious that the gear had again moved over about an inch and the chain was straining. In addition the belt had lost a small piece from one side which I was able to use my knife and cut it off, I was able to get the belt back onto the pulleys and continue with my drive.

Got about another 3/4 mile and threw the belt again. This time it was obvious that it was shredded beyond use and even flipped upside down. So I was able to hitch a ride home from another person that brought their car to the show.

Once home loaded up the trailer went back loaded up the Vortex and got it home.

Hind-sight being what it is I believe that I know what the root cause of the problem was - but yet to confirm it. I believe that the pillow block that I replaced with the new unit has a different height to it than the one that remained on the intermediate shaft. This set the shaft on a slight angle, but enough of one that under power was able to slowly move the gear to the side.

To remedy the situation I will be replacing the chain, flat belt and possibly the rear pulley. I also believe that I will use some tubular 'spacers' on either side of this gear between the existing pillow blocks to ensure that this never happens again. While it is not optimal, I don't believe that it should be a huge issue with having the gear at a slightly offset angle

So today I had some free time and figured that I would address the drive line issue that I last had with the vehicle. Inspecting the jack shaft I certainly saw that the combination pulley had in fact moved over to the right by about 1". It probabaly would have gone more but the chain tension kept it from moving any additional distance.

I took off the jack shaft, pillow blocks and checked things out. Initially I suspected that the 2 pillow blocks that I used were of a different height, this did not turn out to be the case surprisingly! I did notice that the set screw on the combination pulley *did* come loose and that it was the real culprit after all.

I decided that this was not a good thing and went with my initial thought about making up some spacers to put on either side of the combination pulley and keep it in position between the pillow blocks. With some close measuring I decided that one had to be about 3-3/4" long and the other one 2-1/2" long.

I found a length of EMT tubing that was in the corner of my shop, it has an ID slightly over 1" and cut off two pieces, squared off the ends, painted them and re-assembled the jack shaft. I also used two new (matching) pillow blocks and greased them up.

• $140 - Tsubaki 530 Sigma sealed o-ring chain 10,600 lbs tensile strength (#H18-138-100)
• $5.95 each - extra master links (#H18-139)
• $180 - Gates 126 tooth, 1-1/2" wide flat belt (#43-9055)

Problems with the choke cable again, this time it appears that the cable snapped just behind the vernier control. Possibly from turning the vernier too many turns and cable failed? Will have to replaced at a future date.

I also made up some new rubber pads for the engine mounts, the EPDM that I used got squeezed pretty thin, so this time I tool an old tire that I had laying around and using tin/snips cut out sections of the wall of the tire and used them. The sidewall of the tire is pretty stiff, reinforced and durable rubber, so they should hold up to the abuse of vibration and weight of the engine better.

It was a nice day so I took it out for about a 30 mile spin - it is still turning heads! As the weather seems to finally be settling into winter mode this might be the last opportunity that I might have to drive the vehicle until spring time.

I am hoping to attend the Carlisle Import Kit/Replicar auto show which is happening May 16-18. I have not yet decided if I will be driving the Vortex the 360 miles (round trip) or if I will be trailering it. I will drive the vehicle around during April and make the decision the other concern also is if my wife goes, then I drive the truck with the trailer and do a combination

Last year I quickly learned the down-side of not having functional windshield wipers. Driving around in the mountains and valleys of WV I often came across small pockets of dense/cold air that would quickly fog up the outside of my windshield - so much so that I would not be able to see and have to stop and clean off the outside of the windshield. So I decided on getting mine working before the spring driving season.

Last year I had ripped out of my donor vehicle (1997 Isusu Trooper) the electronic control as well as the switch. This system had the capability of intermittent/slow/fast speeds and I really would have liked to keep them functional. I located an electrical diagram and trial wired up all the connections - they all worked!

The tough part was going to mount the control inside my vehicle, it was formed up to be a part of the original dash and would have to take some thinking about how to mount it. I actually started thinking about this a couple of weeks ago, and already determined how I was going to mount up the control.

Today I used a length of 10gauge copper wire and shaped it up around the control, left some extra length to make up mounting tabs on each end and using a propane torch soldered it together. Here is a picture showing the completed mount on the control:

On the right side of my steering column was the perfect space for mounting it:

• door thresholds
• install some sort of seat belts
• repair some damaged fiberglass on the rear canopy
• neaten up the front of the dash by making a brushed stainless steel cover plate
• put the radio into the dash instead of below the dash
• apply any touch-up paint on the affected areas
• install interior carpeting

Had some spare time so I decided that I would start by working on the door thresholds. When I made up my doors I built into them a bottom lip that was about 3/8" high. The purpose of the raised thresholds is just to give a little bit of height so that most of the water that comes down the doors is pushed into the air intakes - instead of being driven into the inside of the vehicle.

When done I will use some 1/4 - 3/8" rubber gasket material along the bottom of the doors to help seal this area up. I am trying to work as neatly as possible so that re-paint work is at a minimum. First thing out were the seats so that I could have total access to the areas that needed work.

I put down some construction paper and marked out the shape that I needed to make up for the thresholds. I then transferred it to a couple of pieces of 1/4" birch plywood and cut them out. Next I put down some masking tape and marked out the door profile along the top of the existing threshold.

Finally got the nerve to start grinding on my painted vehicle and took out my grinder and removed all of the paint in the affected area down to the bare fiberglass in preparation to installing the thresholds:

Then I did any final fitting of the plywood pieces and marked their locations so that they fit as good as I could get them. The following picture of the wood insert also has a mark on it where the inside of the door falls. There is enough room towards the front inside portion of the threshold to put in a cup holder so before I am done I plan on putting in a recessed cup holder into each side::

Then I wetted out the entire area, put down one layer of fiberglass matt, then the 1/4" plywood on top of it and using my pneumatic brad nail gun fixed the plywood into place. I then followed up the top profile with one layer of fiberglass matt and then a single layer of fiberglass cloth on the top and finished it off using a squeegee along the surface:

It was pretty cold out (20 degrees) so I put in extra MEK peroxide into the resin, even so I still had to take out my kerosene bullet heater to apply head otherwise the resin might never have gone off.

Where I positioned the cup holders they slightly went into one of the diagonal 'pontoon' supports but I don't think that they take away any strength. I just happened to have the proper hole saw for the cups (3" OD diameter) so got them in. The cup holders are about 2-3/4" ID and can fit cans as well as 16oz plastic bottles, however the larger 20oz bottles will not fit. You have to go to the next size larger if you want them to fit.

So I took a straight edge and put it along the two flat belt pullies and ensured that it was straight with the chassis, made up new spacers for the pulley-combination on the jack shaft. When I got the flat belt straght I noticed that the alignment of the chain now appeared to be off.

Recently I did a lot of searching and research on motorcycles/trikes that use jack shafts and was not surprised to see that most of the applications did not use pillow block bearings. In fact most of them which did have a jack-shaft, configured it so that the jack-shaft did not actually rotate.

A non-rotating jack-shaft is not optimal for the Vortex as additional devices (reverse gear) would need to be attached to it, so for my application this is not the way to go.

So I started researching housed bearings of which pillow blocks are one style, and I noticed that in any of them that mounted to a 1" diameter shaft that the 'standard' pillow blocks *all* used spherical bearings. Below is an exploded image of how 'standard' pillow block bearings are made (image courtesy FYH Bearings):

In a high torque application there is very little contact area between the balls and the inner/outer races. I believe that this small contact area between the balls and races is the real problem, and that use of a roller bearing would be more suitable. Most of the force applied to the bearings is radial, however there also is a lateral force being applied - as previously my sprocket/pulley block shifted itself to one side...

There are designs that incorporate tapered roller bearings and special cylindrical bearings, however they are very expensive and I did not find any of them that utilized under 1-1/2" diameter shafts, my current setup uses a 1" diameter jack-shaft.

I contemplated other mounting styles such as flange mounted and plummer block bearings, but the mounting style of the pillow block is nice and simple, not to mention that my engine subframe is already designed and built to utilize them. The original Vortex plans incorporated them so it would be nice to have a bolt-in replacement.

After a number of days searching I have not found anything that is appropriate the closest ones I could find were too large to fit into the confined area that is already allocated for them, so I took on the job of designing my own bearing housings!

The design that I come up with is a bolt-in replacement and fits into the allocated area. Each bearing housing utilizes a tapered roller bearing and two shaft seals. My design utilizes opposing tapered roller bearings that a dynamic load capacity of 8920 ft/lbs, and static capacity of 9100 ft/lbs. This design will not only handle the radial loads, but also lateral ones and will incorporate a zerk fitting to allow for easily re-greasing the bearings. The jack-shaft will need to be turned down on the ends but that is a minor modification.

I removed the existing jack-shaft and pillow block bearings and after comparing them to the other sets of pillow blocks that I had removed I noticed a pattern. The outer portion of the spherical bearing that allow for mis-alignment were *extremely* loose, and the grease was spewing from this area as well.

I suspect that with the load that they were supporting along with the rotating speed (about 1500rpm highway) that the outer portions of the spherical bearings were rotating (and they should NOT be) only the inner race should be rotating! At least three pillow blocks had the identical problems. You might get by longer with them doing city driving, but once you hit the open road they can't take the load and from my experience that they will always eventually fail!!

Here is an image that shows the forces (red arrows) that are applied to the jack-shaft when the vehicle is accelerated:

The bearing on the right side of the jack-shaft is put into compression, it is suppored on the side that the bearing is being tried to be pushed towards. While on the other side the bearing is trying to be pulled off the mounting surface. I have found that it is the pillow block bearing on the left hand side that always has failed for me.

The radius was rough as they had no good way to cut it so they just roughed out the 1.5" radius using a band saw and grinders. I took them over to my belt sander and cleaned them up, once done I polished them on my polishing wheel and they came out looking fantastic! Here they are after a couple of hours of sanding and polishing:

The only thing I would do slightly different is to put the grease zerk fittings on a 22.5 degree angle instead of straight up, I did not realize that they would be so close to the mounting surface. I then pressed in the back seals into the housings.

Next up was the modification to the original 1" diameter jack shaft. The tapered bearings have a 20mm ID so I had to turn down the ends of the shaft, dummy up the new blocks in their mounting position and slowly figure out the shaft dimensions. Here is a picture showing the modifications to the jack shaft:

It is necessary for these spacers to rotate with the jack-shaft, so I had to mill down some key stock and welded them to the inside of the spacers.

Finally pack the bearings with grease (as well as extra into the bearing housings) and pressed the inside grease seals on.

After a bit of fine tuning I got the jack-shaft reinstalled with the new bearing blocks. I have to say that the jack shaft rotates *extremely* smoothly and quiet as well! Assembly went well, and they are a direct bolt-in replacement for the pillow blocks!

Here are some pictures from various angles showing them installed into the vehicle: