took to the hills today for brake testing, all seemed to work well
with one exception. Wheel bearing oil seals had dried and stiffened causing
unwanted friction/drag. Didn't have the CRC with me to enable correction,
so will roll it out again later today, it could help with the pushing up hill too.
The new sail arrangement is still not ready, coming soon 
May need
small wear pads on underside of driving platform as it catches when one does
wheely, makes disconcerting scraping noise on contact with bitumen 
An early series one photo of my cart with original
rolling gear, bike wheels and caliper brakes, Very hairy.
Also my own designed suspension set up which worked well.
Main problems experienced here were the wheels and tyres
could not take the load, spreading and causing road drag
series two updated to motor cycle wheels with a drum
brake to the rear wheels, was a great improvement,
but not the best result, so to the present up grade
Lots of interesting development work going on here Joe It will be interesting what the final arrangement is But I guess there never is a final arrangement when I think about it with these things
Which is what makes these projects interesting
spot on Hiko, I have a heap of stuff sitting waiting to be installed,
however it needs to be in sequence, waiting on my sail, waiting,
waiting, waiting, now mixed by the draw down of xmas cash which
will put things back again, i can see the finish of this rebuild. But
not the end of experimentation.
It seems to me that to gain credence in this forum I will have to build my interpretation of the LLM. That is the yardstick for homeapathick builders
I have been watching closely the progression of all, in a nice way.
Believe you me i have some very interesting and radical thoughts and I
ask the question............why not?????
Well good for you Joe I will look forward to seeing the results of your efforts in building a mini
When I built mine I had a great time dreaming up all sorts of ideas and I would think they were fantastic for a few days and then a little flash of enlightenment would poke through and it would be rejected for the next absolutely stupendous idea and so on and on
It was great fun
In the end though I ended up building an almost bog standard LLF Mini because its just so hard to improve on
It is what it is and it does the job really well
Gilding the lily is a hard thing to do as they say but perhaps it can be done
It sure is a lot of fun trying or dreaming about it anyway
cheers Hiko
Every now and again a little bit of forgotten magic reappears,
like this one prepared earlier, August 2002
Australian 4WD monthly Awards Edition Nov 2002
Half way between Wentworth and Pooncarie, 1st time out
Santa came early with a part i wanted
so I jury rigged the old sail gear for xmas treat
tonight local chrissy parade so it will boost the local input
and afterwards .........let the hooning begin.......wahhhhhhoooooo!!!
lookout world coming to a street near you soon.... The Old Bugger lives 
Joe
So good to see you having fun with it. Can't wait to see you out and about (on the national news???)
I myself have just disassembled my mini and painted it today. As many have said the end of the project is not coming yet, just the start of actually using it. Then rebuild, then modify, then tweak..... repeat.
All part fo the fun! 
Brett
Happy chrissy photos..... Santa muscled the sail maker and the result was
my new cut sail turned up ...so you see the first fit, more tweeking to come
An after thought add-on detachable "connooodling' chair for those
days when one wants to just sail, in comfort, for the lovers of the activity
another seating handling area shot, not quite ready in time for the
Sydney-Hobart will settle for the Skidknee-Gocart later in the year
Some more and an apology ... I have been deemed to be too unstable [odd] to
receive a permit to traverse Aboriginal lands. Bikers and Walkers are kooky.
Landyachters don"t rate, not in imagination of Darker Australians.....sad !!
I can live with that, will just go elsewhere, not a problem with myself.
so from the pilots perch, or the drivers workbench.....I CAN SEE FUN !!!!!
A small problem of/with rolling resistance [poor design by me]
In early trials I found some rolling resistance, upon checking I found that
the oil seal on the stubb axles had cut a relief in the ID of the seal where it
runs. So carefully I cut /eased the seal out and went back out on the test track
there was some improvement, but still some resistance so had to do some
more testing.
If as with a bike front wheel when held off the ground, and given a spin
it seems to roll forever and i would have to class that as 9.5/10
As in the photo you can see where the oil seal has been running, on a
metal spacer that is attached to form the wheel track width, it is fixed to
the axle with a compression pin. However the OD has never been trued
in a lathe.
So I summarize that by running it in a lathe and trimming/truing it up a
micky whisker i should increase the rolling performance to about 85-90o/o
or make it an 8.5-9.5 effective. I have had a go with a file on the one in the
background, but a lathe would give best results
Hi Joe
I made up a gadget for testing the rolling resistance of my wheels It is just a hook
that is taped to the top of the tyre that a metal ring sits on
When the weight of the ring rolls the tyre to the bottom the ring drops off and the wheel keeps on rolling I just count the number of turns until it stops
This has been useful as a comparison test to check whether one wheel is better than another and I have learned quite a bit from it regarding seals different greases whether the bearings are side loaded or not etc etc
You may find it useful also as rolling resistance is important to our landyachts
Is that a Lidguard Rudling Logo on that sail?
Cheers Hiko
thanks for that Hiko,,,a rough drawing would be good
think you be correct about the sail, I know he as Luke
A good comment about the grease. mine is fairly heavy.
hopefully it comes into it;s own with increase in temp.
I have roller caged ball bearings running on inside,
and tapered roller on outside ....cheers
Hi Joe, it's a very long time ago that most sand carters threw the grease tube away. I would personally use the seals back to front, to keep the crap out rather than the lube in and be prepared to put oil in on a regular basis. I do know that lot of people have been using sewing machine oil for years.
DO NOT use any kerosene based product (CRC is a good example of this) as it washes the lube away, WD40 has more oil, and Inox better still. Perhaps a smear of grease around the outside of the seal to trap the sh1t before it gets to the bearings?
A overseas tourist bloke I met on the road a couple of years ago nth of
Quorn, tracked me down in this forum today and sent this old photi in
edit....large green bottle is eco fly trap ...a must for outdoor enjoyment
.....they are a bit smelly thou....very effective
New sails completed with my markings
Southern cross on main sail and pointers on jib
Made with holographic lettering paper to give reflective
variation in sunlight, should work good in motion.....pi..weak photo ....sorry
Good news for me, managed to get my trailer today,so will be at Pt Gawler
Easter Saturday for a bit of a tryout and general muck about. Anyone who
wants a looksee is welcome, wont be hard too find......joe
not a good result........low offshore breeze, and a bit of wheel resistance
and maybe a tad of mast bend. Time to do some serious re-thinking,
Not great news Jo, but as you know (and demonstrate) the journey is what matters most. Thanks for keeping us in the loop, hope your one step closer to getting out on the open road mate
