Wow. Capac is a beast. On the surface there was little technically 'wrong' with Capac, however I wanted to pull out all the stops to make it the ultimate unitrike. So here's the lowdown:

The turning was a bit stiff as the truck tensioners were the plastic skateboard style so I replaced them with two rubber table feet and an extra rubber washer for the appropriate padding. Hey, it may not be high-tech but you can't argue with the results :)

As the pedals are mounted much higher on Capac than on the other unitrikes, I needed the seat to be correspondingly higher up. The trouble was that the only way to do this was to replace the seat post and finding a 25mm seat post is not an easy job these day. After a lot of searching Wiggle.co.uk sorted me out :)

The previous owner had replaced the original truck and wheels with extra extra large kit (which rule - a 100mm wheel handles the bumps so much better and the wider truck adds a good bit of stability) however the solid plastic wheels make for a lot of vibration in the ride. I inserted a 1/2 inch rubber shock riser against the truck (which also necessitated longer truck fixing bolts) to add a little suspension and push the centre of gravity a little further back, allowing for better stunts!
At this point I should mention that in addition to the new truck and the wheels the previous owner had added two inches of metalwork betwixt truck and frame to move the centre of gravity back which allows for better bump handling and stunts.

Now to the brake isssue. Capac came fitted with a cable brake - lever mounted under the seat connected to a caliper brake above the back wheel. I quickly replaced the brake pads and cable but still had issues with the mounting of the lever. Where it was mounted makes it difficult to operate, compromises balance and makes it look like your scratching yourself when you use it. Not good. So my idea was to make another brake to work in parallel with this one that I could hold in my hand as I ride. For this I would need a new brake lever and a bar end (aka bull bar) to form the two sides of the handle. An additional extra long brake cable would give enough slack to allow a good range of arm movement while holding the handle and could be attached at the brake caliper to work alongside the original brake. I should point out that the original brake is staying where it is untouched, as if I were to drop the 'hand brake' I would need a backup to avoid plowing face-first into the number 47 bus.
This was where the only bit of metalwork I had to do was involved. I had to get two brake cables to connect in parallel to the brake. There was already the hole from the original cable sleeve clamp in the brake caliper and I could easily get hold of a pair of matching cable sleeve clamps. The trouble was connecting the clamps to the caliper. What I used was a 1 inch washer and put three holes in it in a triangular formation allowing it to be fixed to the caliper at the top with the sleeve clamps side by side below. The beauty of the sleeve clamps being close together and below the caliper bolt is that when the brakes are applied only a very small turning force is produced. If the sleeve clamps were further apart or on the same level as the caliper bolt then much of the movement of the brake cable would be transferred into simply rotating the clamps relative to the caliper. Of course this would be reduced with extra tightening of the caliper bolt but the problem still be there. Works like a charm.
I also glued the other ends of the brake cables into the levers as, when one lever is operated, slack is produced in the cable of the other lever and this can allow the end of the brake cable to pop out of the lever.

Since bar ends come in packs of two I was in the delightful position of having a spare which I mounted at the top of the seat post just below the original brake lever to use as a stunt handle.

Due to the longer wheel base, I realised that I would be able to attach stunt pegs without them getting in the way of my feet as I pedalled. They will make for some interesting riding. The only problem being that once your feet are off the pedals your centre of gravity is brought well back - there is a much bigger danger of the seat falling backwards and the unitrike flying out in front of you.

Finally, the tyre was pretty perished, the tube valve seemed to have a slow leak and the seat post clamp had a big loose bar through it that was scratching the paintwork so I replaced all three. Final blinging touches then included a retro aluminium mudguard, a pump and water bottle clamp and a mini saddle bag. Dude.

After riding well for a while, one issue that reared its ugly head was the brake cable getting caught between the rear wheel and the mudguard. This completely trashed the sheath of the original cable brake so I put a new lever/cable assembly together and used a 2 inch length of plastic pipe to guide it along the frame and away from the wheel. Works like a charm!

Judas arrived looking well used but well loved, however it was immediately clear on initial inspection that there were some issues that needed dealing with. Firstly I needed to replace the inner tube as it had a Presta valve and I don't have a pump that can handle that. Most normal bikes/unitrikes use Schrader valves. Then the skate wheels and bearings needed a good cleaning - the bearings were pretty well gunked up so I replaced a couple of them with the spares from Atisha's pack.

At this point I realised quite how worn the inner rim of one of the wheels was. This happens when the wheel isn't fastened to the truck tightly enough and it scrapes as it wobbles around. Not great for stability at all, however this gave me the opportunity to test a theory I'd had a while back when Atisha's wheels were wobbling - rebuild the inner rim with a glue gun. This was a bit of a gamble as the only way to get the rim right was to squirt in the glue and then push in the bearing to make the right hole. With too much glue this could easily jam up the bearing permanently but it appears that fate was on my side because it fitted beautifully was wobble-free.
However the saga didn't end there. I took Judas out for a relatively long ride and noticed the wheels loosening up after a while - it turned out that the heat generated in the wheels was melting the glue! Agh! Then once I stopped the glue set again and completely stuck the bearings. Time for plan B. I took one of my old inner tubes and cut a couple of strips out of it then inserted them around the inner rim of the wheel. After carefully pushing new bearings in everything was nice and tight.

Finally the truck tensioners needed replacing, they were the most perished I'd seen so far and were completely unsalvageable. With the other unitrikes I'd always had enough spares to make good tensioners, often by some careful cutting away of perishes sections of old tensioners and putting two freshly cut sections in place of one old perished section. Unforunately I no longer had enough spare bits to to a whole truck. So once more I headed off to Homebase and bought a couple of sets of rubber doorstops and table feet! I found some solid table feet that were about 8mm high and some 20mm partially hollow doorstops. 'Hollow, ain't that a bad thing?' I hear you cry - not after I filled the holes my trusy glue gun it weren't! These plus an extra washer combined to make a pretty well tuned truck. Not too stiff, not too loose and most importantly, very evenly balanced.

One thing that was letting down the ride was the vibration due to a seriously perished truck riser - the clasic issue with the previous owner tightening it too far. I got a new 14mm riser but it was too large for the truck so I put it on Lazarus and fitted Lazarus' riser to Judas.

And so it rode well for a time. However after its adventure at the unicycle convention the worn wheel started playing up again. I don't know whether the inner tube stips had fallen out or melted from the friction but the wheel was loose again and the bearings were terminally gunked up with rubber residue. This needed drastic action, the inner rim was now more worn than ever and it was well past bodging. I ordered some 30mm bearings (normal bearings are 22mm) which were a little wider than the worn hole. I carefully cut the wheel rim to fit one and it's now a good solid fit. Hopefully ending the saga!

When Rameses arrived it looked in pretty good nick except for a bald tyre on the main wheel and a dodgy valve on the inner tube. After they were replaced (thankfully 12.5 inch wheels are a standard size for kids bikes) and I'd given the whole thing a good polish and oiling it was already riding very well.

My only other issue was the stiffness of the truck. Turning right was still quite stiff but left just wasn't happening. I replaced the lower truck tensioners and loosened off the bolt a little way and it's feeling better. I think it still needs a smaller upper tensioner both to help the handling and allow the bolt to be retracted slightly as it is occasionally catching on bumpy ground.

Despite looking all shiny and new when it arrived, Atisha was far from problem free. Initially Atisha was just very unstable. No matter how tight I made the truck the turning was still very loose. I thought that the bent truck bolt was the knub of the problem but it soon turned out that in addition the rubber truck tensioners had perished due to being sat unused in a box for 20 years.
I eventually managed to find a new imperial bolt to replace the bent truck bolt and found some new skateboard truck tensioners. They were a little small on their own so I cut an extra 5mm rubber washer to pad them out. With the right bolt tension it be all kinds of good.

The next problem was the chain repeatedly slipping off the pedal cog due to the main wheel being out of alignment. This could have been fixed by some creative frame bending but as a less brute force alternative I changed the axle nuts to shift the main wheel sideways. The chain slipping off also snapped off the plastic chain cover. A little araldite lovingly placed and this was all good.

Finally, after a time of smoothe riding Atisha got a random spontaneous flat tire. Nothing had gone into the wheel and it was all very confusing until I saw the metal stiffening wires in the tire were poking out and into the inner tube. Bloody perished rubber again! A puncture repair kit and some electrical tape to cover the wires and we were back on the road!

From there Atisha still had a little trouble with wobbly skate wheels. It looks like the wheels had expanded over time and the bearings were a little loose within. I tried cutting some rubber washers for the inner rim to secure the bearings and stiffen the ride back up. This helped to a point - it still rode pretty darned well but the handling wasn't what it could be.

However I was soon riding through the park when a strange squeaking sound began eminating from the truck. I thought little of it until one of the wheels fell off due to a destroyed bearing. I bought a new set and replaced both in that wheel and oh the joys, they were a smidge larger than the old ones and dealt with my wobbly wheel problem aswell. Damn!

A year on the ride had been getting progressively worse for a while and I discovered it was the old loose bearings issue again causing wobbly skate wheels. Luckily I still have most of a pack of 30mm bearings left over from when Judas' wheel gave up so once again I took some careful time with a craft knife making the bearing holes larger and got the new ones tightly fixed in. Mharvellous!

When Lazarus first arrived I seriously doubted that anything could be done for him. Where there wasn’t rust or 10 years of grime there was bright pink paint. The chain was completely seized up, the back wheel was out of alignment and the seat bolt was useless. However after a lot of cleaning, sanding and oiling, a new quick release seat bolt and a new paint job, things were looking up.

The first job was to realign the back wheel as this was causing a whole host of problems - slight right hand turn and slipping chain being the most important. This was quite easily done however it requires an extra person to keep the wheel correctly aligned and the chain tight whilst tightening up the wheel nuts.
Next we had to tighten and balance the truck suspension. The suspension is by means of the rubber plate between the truck and frame and is tuned via the bolts at each corner. Too loose and your truck will slip and spin relative to the frame, too tight and the suspension will do nothing, imbalance the bolts and the unitrike will lean.
Finally the truck bolt needed tightening. The truck bolt attaches the axle to the truck base and controls how easy it is to turn by tightening the rubber washers that are on either side of the axle. Too tight and you will have trouble turning at all and find yourself going up on one wheel. Too loose and you will lose stability. This is a very personal alignment - being a tall person I have greater leverage on the truck and so prefer a tighter bolt, my housemate however is shorter and prefers it looser.

So all was well with Lazarus until disaster struck! The plastic truck wasn’t strong enough for the action it was getting and snapped along one side. This meant that turning let felt normal enough but there was no resistance whatsoever in a right turn and you could easily find yourself with your shoulder planted in the ground.
So a new truck was needed. I bought a skateboard truck and then drilled additional screw holes in it to align with the plate on the frame. The wheels were permanently attached to the old truck so needed some gentle persuasion with a hacksaw to be extracted. However, without being braced at either side by the truck they would not stay attached to their bearings and had to be jettisoned.

Then we met the major difficulty - the new truck with normal skateboard wheels causes the front to sit too low producing instability, lost rear traction and seriously compromised handling of bumps. Bigger wheels would fix it however too big and they could get in the way of the pedals, particularly on turns as the unitrike leans.
The ultimate answer, beyond managing to source a new unitrike truck, would have been a balance between extra large skateboard wheels and adding spacers between the truck and the frame. However I looked into skateboard wheels and couldn't find any under £30 and since £30 is about the average price of my unitrikes I was reluctant to fork out that kinda dough. So what I did was go to Homebase and for £1.49 each I got hold of two 100mm by 15mm trolley wheels and bored out the holes to make them fit the new truck. The wheels are big enough to give a very nice front/back balance and also thin enough so that although they overlap the pedals, they come up the inside and out of the way. They have no bearings and will probably last 6 months tops but hey, then I can just get some more!

Also I should note that the smaller width of these wheels makes the left/right balance a little more twitchy and the new truck does not turn as well as a unitrike truck. However since fitting an entirely new set of truck tensioners it is the bomb for reasonably straight journeys and learning.

Finally I had to face the facts that Lazarus was never going to be a viable unitrike, since the new truck and wheels lacked sufficient stability and turning control and a worrying grinding sound had begun to emanate from the bearings within the pedal mounting. This time Lazarus shall not rise again, he has been stripped for parts and sent to the great skate park in the sky.