I took a 7 week coast to coast road trip after being laid off from Boeing back in 2003. I didn’t have a camper but realized that being able to pull off the road at a rest or truck stop was the way to go to make the trip affordable. With a few sheets of 1/2″ plywood and miscellaneous  hardware this is what I came up with. The effort was well worth the time and materials.

A hot wire was routed from a spare battery in back to the engine battery for recharging. An ac-dc converter then powered the radio, television, light, fan, and cell phone. The spare battery was also used to powered the electric boat.

Two plywood ‘L’s were made and screwed down on each side of the bed. This is the view of the tiny kitchen.

Holes were cut in the sides so clothes and misc. supplies could be stored. A wide board was my table when seated and stored on the side when not in use. Not visible was a small cloths closet on the front drivers side.

The futon laid on a section of plywood that hinged up into a sitting position. A camping propane burner and wash tub were mounted in the counter and a 2.5 gallon water jug was positioned over the wash tub. Curtains where also added for privacy.

I had purchased a used lawn edger for $45. It came equipped with a healthy 2 hp, 4 stroke, under 49cc briggs motor. My original intent was to mount it on a bicycle. This idea somehow evolved into what you see here. The imagination can be a dangerous thing….

The free wheeling front wheel assembly was purchased new from ‘Triton’ tricycle company for $35. A few chuncks of steel were used to mount the assembly onto the bmx fork. I may upgrade to suspension forks soon. One has to be attentive hitting a bump at 23 mph.

The whole frame is made of various wall thicknesses of square steel tubing. This way I was able to do all the fabricating myself. Some thin wall tubing, taken from a collapsed gazibo, was used on non-supporting parts of the frame. Bending the thicker wall tubing was achieved using plywood forms skrewed onto my work bench, then blocking the part down on one end and push the part around the form. It’s a workout! Thin wall will collapse during bending, except for minor bows.

This view shows where I can rest my feet while under way, but doing this required fabricating a trustworthy stop-lever to keep the pedals from spinning with the wheel, thus preventing the scary wabbles.

Detail of the underside.

The top opens up for venilation and storage access. The bottom door folds up in case I want to carry something tall.

An enthusiastic neighbor kid talked me into building him this little one speed rig after trying out  my other recumbent.

After making a successful light weight coroplast kayak,  I wondered if I could attach a motor and  hike the whole thing to a mountain lake.

An electric trolling motor would have been preferred, but decided that would be too heavy.  I ended up purchasing a 15 pound 2 cycle 1.2 hp Gamefisher outboard motor, (no neutral or reverse.)  After mounting the motor I quickly decided to use 6mm thick coroplast.  I wanted this boat to be tough in case I ran into underwater snags.  I also decided on a more traditional wider hull design for stability.

1/4″ plywood was added to the transom to better support the motor.

This boat should be able to fold into a 2ft by 4ft rectangle similar to my yellow kayak.

I cut grooves in 1/2″  PVC  and slid them over the side wall edges. The copper wire holds the front end together.

Making the steering wheel. No welds.

The steering pulley is a modified wire spool that I obtained for free at my local hardware store.

Just like a normal speed boat I located the original throttle handle by my hand on the right side rail.  The original short throttle cable was used from the engine to the quick disconnect, and a bicycle brake cable, after filing the disk connector down to fit the throttle handle, was used from the throttle control to the quick disconnect.

Tension springs were also added to the steering lines.

This shows the quick release throttle cable mechanism. The slot on the middle piece is where the engine cable end slides off, similar to some quick release bicycle brake set-ups. Also shown is the high tech cable stabilization screw,  (patent pending

This little guy was probably the only bike I put together that was unridable.
I saw one mid steering bike and thought I’d figured out the steering geometry but got it wrong. Looking back I kinda wished I hadn’t given up so soon because minor tweaking would have solved the control issue. As it was the bike was disassembled and the little kids bike reassembled for a money refund.

This was the first of my latest renditions of a Micro survival kit. After seeing other so called survival kit renditions on U-tube I began to think of my own version, and after spotting this nice little bare tin at a market store, the challenge was on.  Although I have most of what a person would need in this kit,  my number 3 kit goes a little further than this one, but this would still work fine.  Check out this video, then check out the #3 survival kit video to see what I mean.