Constructing Meanderer trike lower swing-arms

Continuing the Meanderer custom trike project, here is the previous post:

• Meanderer trike steering swivel — September 24, 2025

Regarding choice of shock-absorber, there are two basic types; for motorcycle or bicycle. This photo shows both, motorcycle type on the left:

The bicycle type has an 8mm hole and spacing required for the supports is 24mm. The motorcycle type has a 10mm hole and spacing is less. I'm using the bicycle type.

I cut brackets out of 20x5 mm steel strap, with 50mm spacing centre-to-centre of the holes, and welded them on top of the rings:

I would like to give some advice, what I didn't do, but in retrospect it would have been better...

Firstly, the 50mm spacing of the holes turned out to be a bit too close. At maximum tilt, the shock-absorber springs touch the backbone, so a little bit more clearance would be better; either increase the spacing at the top, to say 60mm, or make the bottom mounting a bit higher.

Secondly, aligning those two top brackets. What I should have done is install the shock-absorbers before welding, to get the bottom of the shock-absorbers in exactly the right position. I didn't do that because I was worried about the heat damaging the rubber/plastic parts of the shock-absorber.

There may be rubber parts internally, but at the top, there are rubber washers that can be levered off, then the shock-absorbers mounted. Then some tack welds to hold the brackets in place.

In my case, the bottom of the shock-absorber was not quite centred on the lower swing-arm, but passable:

...and as can be seen, some 50x5 plate welded underneath the swing-arm.

What was constructed next was brackets for the shock-absorber and for attaching the wheel-knuckle. I estimated a reasonable height for the bracket holes, though, as mentioned above, in retrospect would have like the shock-absorber to be a bit further away from the backbone:

The shock-absorbers that I am using have a centre-hole-to-hole distance of 165mm and a rating of 350 pounds per inch. I bumped the rating up a bit, because prototype #1 has 200 pounds/inch, which is very soft and contributed to the instability when cornering. However, now that there is tilt control, perhaps the very soft springs will be more acceptable.

These are very cheap shock-absorbers, no damping. I got them off AliExpress, but also readily available from other online shops such as eBay. You can get them off old bicycles, but do note that they are likely to have a high rating, usually 650 pounds/inch or higher, due to being for the rear wheel I suppose; you might find those to be too harsh on the trike front wheels. Anyway, once the trike is running, I'll report back how the 350lb/inch ones feel.

What to do next? Probably construct the top swing-arms.    

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