Two months ago give or take, my neighbor Hot Rod Brian told me he'd seen a trike earlier that day while looking over some cars for sale. He showed me this picture.
I told Brian we needed to get our hands on that ASAP, but Brian does take his time with things. He's missed out from time to time with his balking, but I wasn't letting that happen this time. The seller is 91 and it's son's machine, who lives out of state. Hot Rod Brian is a bit older than myself, I'm 38. I figured this particular deal might take a little more than a day or a week...
It did. I don't recall exactly when it was initially brought up, but it's been around two months as I said. Today we were able to go pick it up. Brian's probably just going to poke around the yards here on it and then if he's gonna let it go it will go to me. We've got another guy who hangs out here all the time who wants it as well.
So we went and picked it up for short money and it looks great! The gas tank has one small dent but it's cleaning up really nice and there is next to no rust in it, as it was topped off with pre-ethanol gasoline. It was orange but there was no damage to the carburetor. The carb was gummed solid, but everything is usable inside of it and the float works fine. I miss pre-ethanol carb cleaning. Although all the small passages were gummed, they all cleaned easily and there was next to nothing in the bowl itself, really not terrible.
The OEM plastics are patched but good for a rider. Rear brake works fine but the front is missing the barrel that the cable goes through on the brake actuation lever on the hub itself. Rear wheels are currently gold so those need to get painted. Forks need to be rebuilt, boots are trashed.
I threw my battery in it and my gas tank on it and the electric start did not work. There was a clicking sound like a solenoid, but no action on the starter. I jumped up on it and kicked once, twice, second kick it was running. It caught us all by surprise. No smoke, no noises, it's tight and smooth. It died before it reached ten seconds of run time, that's when I found out the carb was gummed. It ran really well though.
One thing we are in search of is an 86-87 headlight shell. Ol Shep is sending over a 200X shell to see how it looks (Shep is the man!), we don't know what it's going to look like but it's worth a shot. If anyone has any white 86-87 SX headlight shells please, let me know.
I'll update as this barn find comes together. The OEM Ohtsu on the front has 95% tread, but unfortunately it's a loss. I was really bummed to see the weather checking on it where it was flat on the ground. The Wooly Boogers are hard as rocks and one has a tube, so those will go bye bye if it becomes mine. They're probably fine for what Brian's going to use it for.