I’ve gotta say, that’s a nice looking three wheeler. Making a car with a high displacement V-twin is an interesting choice, especially when you consider the V-twin came into prominence because of how it needed to fit into a small space to be used on a motorcycle. The vibration you get with a single crank pin is often considered one of the downsides of the V-twin design, which is why I preferred the offset crank pin (really a small crankshaft) used in Honda’s Shadow line. Not using a single crank position for both pistons in a V-twin really smooths out the engine.
Yes, that is a sweet ride for a sunny day. A 2-L twin? Those are some big honking cylinders.
The cool fact about the Morgan three wheeler is that it was originally designed in the early 1900’s and reintroduced in 2011. And it’s still cool after all these years.
A major flaw (at least to me) with the Morgan 3 wheeler is that it’s an air-cooled engine. Getting stuck in traffic with no air moving over the cylinders cannot be good for it. Whitelining on a 3 wheeler may be kind of dicey.
The engines are S & S which is somewhat of a Harley clone and has been popular with some motorcycle manufacturers and custom builders for quite some time.
It’s no different from sitting in traffic on a bike… except you’re not sitting on top of the engine.
Re: the “whitelining”, it’s driven like a car, not a bike.
It's no different from sitting in traffic on a bike.... except you're not sitting on top of the engine. Re: the "whitelining", it's driven like a car, not a bike.
When I rode air cooled motorcycles, I found that it helped a lot to simply switch the engine off during those long red lights, railroad train crossings, and drive through bank lines, especially when the mercury hit the triple digits during the summer. It’s not that hard to push your bike forward one car length at a time while waiting in line for the teller window, and your engine doesn’t cook. Helps your gas mileage too.
ok4450
A major flaw (at least to me) with the Morgan 3 wheeler is that it’s an air-cooled engine. Getting stuck in traffic with no air moving over the cylinders cannot be good for it.
B.L.E.
When I rode air cooled motorcycles, I found that it helped a lot to simply switch the engine off during those long red lights, railroad train crossings, and drive through bank lines, especially when the mercury hit the triple digits during the summer.
The best mechanic (he was also a motorcycle dealer) I’ve ever known said that sitting still with an air-cooled engine running didn’t hurt a thing. That even with no air-flow, idling just didn’t compare to having a substantial load on the motor.
Another guy I knew sort of tested this with his KZ900 back in the '70s. He let it idle on a warm summer day for about 2 hours while he played softball. No apparent effects.
Yes, but it still saves gas. Even now with my liquid cooled motorcycles, I still switch the engine off while trains go by and I still wait in drive in teller lines with the engine off, pushing the bike forward a car length at a time.
A 1200 cc engine can easily go through a quart of fuel per hour just sitting there idling.
@ok4450, I ride an air cooled motorcycle, and if it’s designed right, it doesn’t overheat while in traffic. I’m thinking the item I circled in this picture might be an oil cooler.
H-D has also used cylinder deactivation to prevent such overheating.
I read somewhere that when my motorcycle was designed (a Honda Nighthawk 750), there were initial problems with overheating that were resolved by adding an oil cooler.
The best mechanic (he was also a motorcycle dealer) I've ever known said that sitting still with an air-cooled engine running didn't hurt a thing. That even with no air-flow, idling just didn't compare to having a substantial load on the motor. Another guy I knew sort of tested this with his KZ900 back in the '70s. He let it idle on a warm summer day for about 2 hours while he played softball. No apparent effects.
I was just thinking, just because the engine survived, it doesn’t mean it didn’t overheat. My last air cooled bike, a Suzuki DR 650, would ping on a hot summer day if I accelerated moderately after a two light cycle wait at an intersection. After a mile of steady cruise, the engine temps would lower enough for detonation to not be a problem. This was during a brutal summer heat wave with afternoon temps hitting 105 to 107. That’s when I started switching the engine off while waiting for those forever red intersections with four way protected lefts.
I had the same problem with my old 1974 BMW R90/6, which needed the most premium gas I could find along with a couple of degrees of retard in the ignition timing to not ping. This bike was brand new back in the days of leaded premium and it was designed for it.
In the winter, I could actually run a lower grade of gas in the Suzuki DR650 without detonation due to lower cylinder head temperatures.
( Continued from page 4.) I just wanted to add this pic of the first version of Dad’s invention planing at about 25 MPH. The car was a 1951 Packard and was first “launched” in 1956. In 1959, the original 140 HP straight eight was replaced with a 300 HP Buick V8 crate engine. Dad did all this in our garage. I have no idea how hard it was to mate the new engine up to the Packard clutch, but it didn’t take him long. It was his car that he drove to work every day. He also had to move the “three on the tree” shifter and linkage to the left side of the steering column because of the left exhaust header. After Dad got the Dodge, I used the Packard to drive to my first year of college. Speed limits were 70 MPH and that thing would fly down the interstate.
@insightful It sounds like your dad would have been much in demand in Cuba, where they routinely ‘fixed’ old American cars with parts designed for something quite different. Making a Buick engine to a Packard is something those guys would do without worrying. Now those cars are so old there aren’t so many left, but I’m sure there are still plenty out in the farm villages where speed doesn’t matter.