The Worlds Fastest Pram
When I found out I was going to be a Dad my mind got straight to thinking of a gadget to mark the arrival of my son.
It just seemed the most sensible thing to do "PUT AN ENGINE IN A PRAM!"
It just seemed the most sensible thing to do "PUT AN ENGINE IN A PRAM!"
Tig welding frame
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Controls
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Gear shifter
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MAKING THE MEGAPRAM
This was a simple but tricky build, knowing what I had learnt from putting the engine in the mobility scooter, fitting the engine was easy, it was the controls that caused the head aches. As Guinness had specified I had to stand in a normal pram pushing position I could not get in it or have a pushchair style seat, so everything had to be operated from the handle bar. This includes the shift for moving up and down gears, accelerator, brake, and the engine start and stop, which is more than most handle bars can hold with out getting messy. The twin rail idea evolved from this. The picture on top in the middle shows this best with the red buttons running from left to right are ,engine start ,shift up ,shift down ,engine stop the accelerator and brake is operated by mountain bike gear levers flipped upside down under the handlebar. To steer the pram the top bar pivots inside the two silver 90* bends and has a cable linking this down to the forks at the front. The gear shift system was made from a small pneumatic ram where the red buttons opened solenoid valves to fire it backwards or forward as it sits in the centre when nothing happening. To store the air pressure I used an old Co2 bottle that I use for my small mig welder and fitted a car inner tube valve one end and a connector to the 6mm push fit pipe to other end. This was at first a temporary idea just to see if ram worked as I thought the bottle would not hold enough as I was only filling it with a foot pump or compressor to around 8bar. It did however, give around 18 shifts and as this is only going to be run in short bursts this proved good enough and saved me from buying Co2 gas and the expensive regulators. The last thing to make was what I was to stand on, which is like a V shaped trailer (or a parent sized buggy board!). Firstly I tried skateboard wheels but they melted at speed (they were pretty cheap) then I tried some heavy duty fixed casters but the vibration after 20mph made my legs go numb! In the end I was lucky that my good mate at stamford mobility scooters gave me some really small mobility scooter wheels and these are brilliant! It's at this point I will add that this is not legal to use on the road, which is a shame but thats the modern world we live in.
ANYONE WANT A RIDE
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COULD BE TWINS NEARLY
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TRICKY BITS
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