Who here flips trikes?

[MrConcdid]

ATC-Eric, nice bike, I like the wheels, I run those same rear tires on my Big red, their kinda stiff but hookup really good. thanks for posting, yeah its funny all the crazy stories of how we find these bikes and the people who had/have them, we are all a little nuts.

Yesterday, I am crossing the parking lot at my local hardware store (minding my own business)(always put that in at the beginning of a good story) and a truck passes in front of me and laying in the bed was a Honda rim with a new 25x12-9 knobby tire mounted on it. You know what happen next, I turned around and I walked over and it was a younger fella driving. I ask if that tire in the back goes to a 3 wheeler? He said no, and laughed, as if I was crazy......... He said it fits his dads old 85 Honda Fourtrax 4 wheeler. I about died, I said yes, those are great, and run the same wheel and tire as the three wheeler's, he just said oh, ok. There's that crazy cat lady in every town, I guess I have become that crazy 3 wheeler guy. As of last night there was 9 running 3 wheeler's in the shop. and 7 parts bikes out back.

MrC.

[MrConcdid]

So, I needed to do some spring cleaning, and let my girls breath a bit. Its turning colder, perfect weather finally.
This is the most I have had at any one time, I didn't get them all out but this is most of them. The 350x didn't make the show, its under the knife, and Bradford is in pieces. I may never have this many at one time again. When inventory is high, the bank is low. I am really thinking of downsizing to just the XXX bikes (350x, 200x, 250sx) their my favorite.

Enjoy.

2- 1985 Big Red 250es
1- 1985 250sx
1- 1984 200x
1- 1984 200s
1- 1986 125m
1- 1980 185

MrC.

[ATC King]

Down with the sickness?


I don't know, but it seems like if I stop the truck long enough, these keep jumping into the back of it. Lord knows I need another one, like a knot on the head.

I'm not even going to lie to myself and say I'll flip it, but I've got to do something, because I'm out of space and these are going to have to start living under tarps, and that ain't no way for a trike to live.

It does run, but hasn't for years. I sprayed some gas through the carb and it fired right up. I've got to pull the tank and carb for a thorough cleaning. The previous owner put some new parts on it before it sat, like a (Chinese) carb, coil, throttle cable. The axle bearings feel good and the only tire I put air in is the front one, the rear tires haven't been touched and are still round. The front won't hold air though, it sat flat too long and has cracks in it.

Except the parking brake lever and cable, and the muffler, it's all there. Taillight is even in good condition. I'm pretty certain the seat pan is roached though. The plastics are mostly solid, with a couple small cracks starting in the rear.

It's got the front axle extenders, fork (highway?) pegs, and I guess what's left of a gun rack on the fork.

These things are too small for me, but I may keep this one as a loaner for guest riders. I've even got some 110 parts left over, and have a new foam air filter element in the cabinet. Got the repair manual from the last one I owned too.

1982, so it is a CDI engine.

Aftermarket exhaust prices have gone nuts for these though. If I can't find something reasonable, I'll fab something. The head pipe is still there, so it'll just need a little more to run out the back and into a muffler.

Attachment 264710

None of those stupid TrailPros though! At least I don't have to mess with a set of them. I do have some split rim O-rings in hand, in case I have to mess with those.

[MrConcdid]

What a Year!

I told the wife, I was going to sell off what inventory I had and close out the year on top.
Now I didn't say I wouldn't buy any more, but She may have gotten that idea, IDK.
Loving my little trailer, I drug another home one this past weekend.

This one makes for a nice pair of 200s's
Is that the plural of 200s?
I want to sell these as a pair, we will see.

So soon to be for sale is 2- 200s, 1-185, and maybe 1- 250es, 1- suzuki 90 (shhh, don't tell anyone I had it)

So my goal now, is to sell off at least 4 bikes before Christmas 2020
That will put me real close to selling 30 bikes for the year, I don't have the spread sheet in front of me.

I want to do a few projects for myself over the winter.
I have a vintage go-cart frame, and as I child I always wanted to put a motorcycle engine on one with gears to shift.
I also plan to make my 200x into a 200auto-x. I have a nice 200 engine, I think I will put the new topend of the 200x onto it.
MrC.

Hey King, I have a 110 with those same pegs, I thought they were homemade, I guess not. Nice find.

[ATC King]

Hey King, I have a 110 with those same pegs, I thought they were homemade, I guess not. Nice find.

Thanks. I knew I had seen those pegs on here somewhere recently. The axle extenders are still somewhat common.

I'm pretty certain I've seen the same type of fork top bracket on here before too, also missing the top section. The square tube that bolts to the fork mount and the gun holders are missing on mine. Although it looks crude, I think they were produced and sold in some numbers.

The only picture I could find quickly, shows the complete assembly, but the pictures aren't very clear.



Edit: I found these on a YouTube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_phtivwSA8M
Attachment 264741Attachment 264742Attachment 264743Attachment 264744

What's left on my 110 is definitely a part of an aftermarket gun rack. Certainly, someone on here knows who the manufacturer was. The point is, I've seen these before, without the rest of the rack, so don't discount them as some one-off homemade piece.

[MrConcdid]

These two hit the marketplace as a pair.
We will see if I get any bites.
They turned out super nice. Got a chance to change my first stator. It ohm 110, knowing a good one is 200, I swapped it. Now it fires right up. Before it would hit and miss.
Matched pair of 200s 1- 1984 and 1- 1985.

MrC.

[ps2fixer]

Have to love stators huh? I grabbed the spec since there's a range, and it's 150-400 ohms, so 200 is in range, but 100 is too low so nice catch there. I finally got a specs page up for the the 200/s and 185/s machines.

https://atvmanual.com/honda/atc200s/1984-specs

You've done some pretty major flipping since I really followed the thread. It seems you're quite good at fixing up machines, have you thought about starting a small business for atv repair? Even if you only worked on Honda's I think you'd do well. You seem to have a good skill buying/selling the machines too, that should translate well to repair work for customers.

Either case, you're probably saving a lot of machines from being parted out, having fun and making a profit at the same time.

[MrConcdid]

Hey King,
I have had 2 different gun rack mounts come through this year (one bolted to the 4 bolts holding the handle bars on, the other bolted onto the top of the triple trees), I normally take them off, just to clean up the look of the bikes, and personally, I would hate to go head first into the rack if I hit something hard. I think the scabbard is the better option. Interestingly they both came in on second gen 200es Big Reds.
Anyways, I still have 1 or 2 racks laying around, I will post some pics of them if you want. One had large rubber bands squeezing it together when I bought it. As for the foot pegs, mine came in on the brown 110, like I said, I thought they were homemade, and just laughed them off.


Hey PS2Fixer,
Thank you, that means a lot coming from you (you were the first person to reach out to me when I joined, thank you), yes I have found a ton of ATC bikes this year. I have been lucky to have been able to save most of them. I have yet to see the need to part out a good bike. Though I will concede, I have sold Parts, but those parts came off bikes I felt to far gone to save and turn a profit. I have 1 bike "Bradford" It will more than likely be parted, it needs everything, I was going to save it, I paid to much for it, it has a bent axle on top of all the other issue's. its a 200e first gen Big Red I have it running good, this is the engine, harness, batt box, I will put in my 200x. It will not be wasted, and I will recoup my investment no problem, I just hate buying a complete bike and not selling it as such. The fenders are very nice, and will allow me to save another 200e I have that needs them.

As for the business idea, I have considered it, a few things keep me from doing it. I work alone, no deadlines, no pressure, no customers complaining. I do not like strangers at my home (shop). So this leaves the option of opening a small business in a commercial space, of course then your committed; rent, utilities, licenses, taxes, customers, deadlines, pressure. I would have to triple my out-put to make the same as what I have done this year.
The bigger elephant in the room, is there is a finite number of ATC in my area, my business model is flawed, there will come a day I can not find any ATC close by. Also ATC may be a fad. Sure there will always be a strong following but may not be the hay day we are in right now.

I try to fix what I can, no I can not "restore" them and make them perfect. I try to fix what is needed and only what is needed to make them safe, reliable and in some cases look better. I try to give good value to the buyer, and along the way make a little for myself to keep the lights on. I am coming up on my first year anniversary of working with ATC, I have made a few mistakes along the way, they have taught me a lot. Its been a wild ride for sure.

I hope in some way I have added value to this forum, I have shared my success's and my set backs, I have encountered problems and the board has offered solutions, thank each one of you for your help.
I don't know what 2021 may bring, I am open to new ideas, I see other trends with-in the Honda line; The Odyssey, ct70 and z50 all have a cult followings, may be I will pick a few of those up.

MrC.

[ps2fixer]

By business, I meant working on like any atv, odyssey, ct70, z50, quads, 3 wheelers, side by sides (if you want to learn them), etc. There's way more machines out there than you'll ever be able to buy/fix on your own. If you limit down to 3 wheelers only, yea I can see the market being too small. If you had a business, you'd charge shop rates to fix things, at the low end that's around $40/hr, dealerships charge $100+/hr. If word gets out that you are the person to take atv's to, you'd probably have a pretty good booming business. The bonus for being your own business is that you call all of the shots. If you have a customer you really can't get along with, you can tell them to take the machine somewhere else, not the greatest for the business rep, but you have the say so. Same story with deadlines, if someone wants their machine fixed within a day, you don't have to accept the work. Generally people are understanding you're effectively a one man show and don't have endless hours. The long term goal would be to get to the point you could hire someone you trust to do the repairs and maybe a clerk to handle customers/walk ins and you'd just be down to managing the business, on hand parts, part sources, etc.

For your current job, clearly I'm not suggesting to quit it and go all in on the atv stuff, you have to have a customer base to even think about that. Not willing to have people at your house is a limiting factor for a startup, but I understand the concerns too. This is where innovation comes in, maybe you could meet with people at a public place, or like a storage unit and have that be your "shop" 99% of the work doesn't require power or air, but they are nice to have. If you have cordless tools you could charge them at home, and bring them with you whenever you want to work on atv's. Any specialized tools you could leave in the storage unit and if you needed to build a tool, you could always load up the customer's machine and take it to your house. I suspect since that's quite a unique setup, your name would be passed around quite a lot as the guy that fixes atvs in a storage unit lol.


Anyway, I'm not 100% sure what you do as a job, if it pays well already then the business idea might not be so ideal for you. I figured you'd be able to do your current job, and on the side do the business idea like you currently do with the buy/resale. Bonus is, you don't have to buy or sell machines, just fix them and get paid, and probably get paid more than what you'd normally make buying/selling the same machines with lower risk since if it's a total loss, the customer is the one that owns it. You could also pick up cheap machines that way too. My dad used to work in a poorer city and the business owner bought cars fairly often that were too expensive for the customer to fix, but he could afford to fix on the side and resell for a profit, or scrap the car if it's that bad.

I can't really ignore the numbers though on your repair specs, 34 machines, and 20 fixed/resold, that's over 50% buying effectively junkers. On top of that you have 5 for your self which I assume are atleast running/riding machines. Only 9 parts machines is amazing. I bought something like 25 machines, and I probably ended up with 15 parts machines. I really held out for the worst and cheapest machines though lol.

[ATC King]

Throwing this into the thread, because, lets face it, many times the only realistic option is a Chinese clone carb. Especially if you're trying to get one of these running and turn a profit.

I'm of the mind that they aren't really all that bad, just don't expect them to have the correct jetting. For the money, they're a deal, but on the last trike I bought, one of those carbs is what caused the previous owner to give up on it.

He had spent a little time and money trying to get the ol' 110 running right, but said he never could. I FOUND THE PROBLEM! It was a bad carb and no amount of jetting changes would have every made it run right. I was able to fix the problem at no cost though.

All the fuel circuits also have air circuits. That's those little holes in the front of the carb throat, at the bottom. In the stock carbs, they typically both have a small brass jet driven in. In the process of getting the 110 running, I knew it had sat for a long time, so the carb had to come off for a cleaning. It wasn't really dirty at all inside, just about like new. While blowing air through all the circuits, I noticed there wasn't hardly any coming out of the main's air circuit. I looked into it for a blockage, and the answer was clear. The factory had never fully drilled the circuit. There was a very tiny hole, too small for supplying the main jet emulsion tube with enough air. Like the very tip of the bit had just barely poked through.

Attachment 264781
Attachment 264782
Attachment 264783

It runs like a it's supposed to now. Fires up on the first pull, idles great, and runs out in top gear. I did put some stock size jets I had laying around in it. The ones it came with were a few sizes too small.

[ps2fixer]

Nice find on the China carb, great to actually see issues diagnosed with them when they don't work right. Always china's #1 problem, fit, finish, and wiring. If they could work out those details on their parts, there wouldn't be a reason to not buy Chinese.

Pretty amazing you got such good photos, must have been manual focus?

I haven't had much experience with the Chinese carbs, but the little I have, it does seem like the jetting is off a bit. Never had a machine that wouldn't run, but you could hear it's a little too lean/rich. Wasn't my machine and I didn't do the work, so I didn't touch it. It was an ATC200S and it ended up getting traded off for a TRX250X with intermittent spark problems, then that was traded to a 83/84 mixed ATC250R, and it had low compression and poor jetting, so ended up trading that machine to me for an ATC250SX that he still has and hasn't really given any major problems. Big difference when someone is willing to put in the effort to fix things right, it's just a little ugly with a bad rear fender.

[ATC King]

Pretty amazing you got such good photos, must have been manual focus?

I use a MV105/108 borescope that works with my Autel scan tool for stuff like that. It works pretty good, but I like the Snap-On one better, because it has an additional camera and LED on the side. The Autel one uses a mirror adapter if you want to get images 90 degrees from the borescope end. The lighting is better on the Snap-On too, but it's definitely more expensive.

It's pretty hard to work on anything without having a borescope, once you've gotten used to having one. In my "Moved to the Yellow Side" thread, that's what I used to find the dirt dauber nest inside the frame's top tube, which was blocking air flow. It's not possible to look into it that far without a borescope, the rest of the frame prevents line-of-sight. It's possible to just jam stuff in there in an attempt to clean out an obstruction, but you'll never see if you got it all out or possibly what it even was.

I had actually cleaned that tube out earlier, but the nests were built after that and I didn't know it until I seen them.

[ps2fixer]

I actually throught the image looked a bit like a bore scope. What I mean though is you took pics down a hole and it was focused at the end of the hole, 99% of cameras would focus at the top of the hole because it makes up most of the screen. Pretty interesting you was able to get it to focus where you wanted in the pic, maybe you just got skilled with using it, or the product is designed to reverse the focus logic xD. Even the 2nd pic, the bottom of the hole isn't center of the screen. They are defo an interesting chunk of tech, my dad bought one to use with his cellphone, some china special I'm pretty sure but he's been happy with it. He's diagnosed engines with out being able to see inside of them all of his life, some things you really don't know until you take it apart, the bore score would be a game changer in those cases.

[MrConcdid]

That was quick, less than 24hrs posted and "Quincy" and "Loyd2" (2- 200s) sold as a pair to the same guy.
I must admit, if something sells that fast you under priced it, but oh well. only 2 more to sell to clean out the shop. The rest are keepers.

Tonight, I made my 200x an autoX with a 83 200 no letter donor motor. I have it running but no lights.
on the 200 there was only 3 wires coming from the stator, and the previous 200x engine had 2 wires, I connected the yellow and black wires, grounded the green, and she fired up. the factory kill switch works but no lights. the light worked before so I am not sure what I'm missing, I will tackle it in the Am.

Thanks for the encouragement PS2fixer, but I wont be quitting my day job anytime soon, I have almost completed 5 years of college to continue to do it. I see small engine repair as a hobby I really enjoy. You are correct on all fronts, But I enjoy the buying and selling, I enjoy getting out and not being tied down, the short travel, the haggle and repair is all part of what I like, the risk is what makes it exciting. I started this venture with a $400 200es big red, some basic hand tools, a simple understanding of business and small engines. Today I met a man and his father and his son, the deal was done in 10 minutes, but we visited for an hour, talking 3 wheelers and the like. Granted all of them aren't like that, but that's why you enjoy the ones that are.

To date in 2020 I have bought 40 bikes, kept 5, Sold 22, 10 parts bikes , 1 for sale, 2 being built.




MrC.

[ATC King]

...He's diagnosed engines with out being able to see inside of them all of his life, some things you really don't know until you take it apart, the bore score would be a game changer in those cases.

Yes, it is a game changer. Even on things that don't have problems, if I pull a spark plug out, I'm shoving the camera in. They only focus on things close-up. You won't be taking any landscape pictures with them.

We're living in a technological golden age right now, where people have more power in the palm of their hands than the moon landings. Just the apps and devices able to connect via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi most people's 'smart' phones gives them the power to understand a large portion of what science has discovered. They'll use them for Twitter and Facebook though.

The point is, yes, things used to be more difficult and time consuming, but embracing new technology shouldn't be like changing religions. A $1,000 of automotive diagnostic equipment twenty years ago is like a Casio calculator watch compared to what the same money will buy now. That's minuscule to what's currently available to the general public, but even that little bit of money will buy things unimaginable to people back in the day used to using something like a Sun Infra-Red, which was a machine the size of a couple modern refrigerators.


Endoscope, borescope (inspection camera), meh, it's still going into a hole to find something. One goes into something squishy and the other into mechanical stuff. If you know about the latest Oklahoma castration/cannibal story, it's probably used for both, just wipe off the 10W-40 and smear on the Surgilube. Sooner or later...