1971 Tricycle Special Construction

The Build

The first step was to acquire the motive power and that turned out to be the easiest. Someone I knew had planned to build a go-kart but made little progress before losing interest. He had a vertical shaft 2-stroke motor that was already mounted in the correct position to a right angle metal plate. A pulley was installed on the shaft, and there was a gas tank attached with custom built brackets. It took little negotiating on my part to secure a great deal. I now had the most important component and the cost thus far was nil.

The next stage required a frame, and that too fell into my hands without cost. I remembered once seeing an apparently abandon

The Olds in the background in the very same that was used to transport my Honda 65s and Sears 250.

ed tricycle lying tipped over in a puddle in the middle of a field. Upon investigation, I was thrilled to find that it was still there. Just in case someone else might lay claim to it, I immediately stashed it in my father's garage. Project tricycle was quickly coming together.

I mated the motor to the frame using a couple of pieces of lumber. The high handlebars and the front wheel came from a bicycle I had obtained in trade sometime earlier. I also happened to have had a salvaged wheel off a wheelbarrow found in the trash, but unfortunately I needed two. Thanks to the statute of limitations, I can now reveal that the other wheel was obtained by a midnight scavenger hunt through the backyards of my town. And the pulley that would be attached to that wheel? Well let's just say that some poor housewife would not be hanging her laundry the next day.

I now had all the parts needed to complete the project except for the drive belt. This I actually purchased from the local garage and was my only cash expense. I assembled all the bits and pieces together, borrowed some pre-mix from my father's lawnmower, and with a strong tug on the cord, the engine came to life.

I would have liked to write at this point that my creation was a total success, but then I would have been writing fiction rather than historical fact. While the trike actually did move on its own power, its performance fell far, far short of my expectations. And perhaps that was for the better as I had neglected the small detail of installing brakes. The transmission of power from the engine to the wheel was accomplished using an idler pulley mounted on a lever that applied tension to the drive belt. This would have worked very well if the engine mount was not made of soft steel and bent with the increase of pressure. I suppose with a bit of time I could have worked out the bugs and become the envy of all the kids on my block, but I was about to move to a new city and province and the trike had to go. I sold it to a French kid on the next street from mine. Due to an unfortunate language barrier, I was unable to inform him about the tricycle's technical, uh, idiosyncrasies.

But wait - there's more!

As a side note, I did manage to spend some time playing with the tuning of the two stroke motor. One time I experimented with the removal of the muffler. It was bad timing that I had decided to do this on an early Sunday morning, as my Russian next door neighbour Smirnoff charged out of his home in his bath robe brandishing a double barrelled twelve gauge and threatening to blast me and my tricycle into oblivion. I didn't stop running until I was well out of sight. Although I lean to the side of the fence that states Loud Pipes Save Lives, I can assure you that was most definitely not the case that morning.