Tilt and turn test with heim-joints

In the previous post in the custom tilting full-suspension tadpole trike project, I showed that replaced the ball-joints on the wheel-knuckles with vertically-oriented heim-joints:

• Wheel knuckle change ball to heim joints — October 16, 2025

Another change is that I changed the shock-absorbers from 350 pound/inch to 250 pound/inch. Today have put it together for preliminary assessment:

...looks good, but there are some problems; limitation of the tilt and also the turn.

I mentioned in the previous post that getting the trike to turn around corners may be a problem. Yes:

And turning the other way:

...what is limiting the turning is the spacers. Tomorrow, plan to chamfer the end of each spacer, to hopefully get enough turning. If I can't... well, the wheel-knuckle will need to be completely redesigned.

Another problem is the angle of tilt is limited not by the rings hitting the trike backbone, which is what I want, but by the heim-joints hitting the wheel-knuckle:

...the bottom heim-joint is the problem. I need to grind out a bit more of the wheel-knuckle, so that the bottom heim-joint can turn upward a little bit more.

Hopefully with a bit of grinding tomorrow, these two issues can be fixed. I'm keen to get this part of the trike reasonably OK, so can move onto the next phase. Which will be the steering linkages.

EDIT 2025-10-27:
Today, used a grinding wheel to chamfer the spacers, so as to enable the heim-joints to rotate more horizontally:

...took the wall thickness down from 2mm to about 1mm. Could have shaved off a bit more, but we will see if this is enough.

To improve vertical rotation of the heim-joints, used an angle grinder to shave off some metal on the bottom of the wheel-knuckle:

After reassembly, looks good.   

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