Newb with a 78 ATC 90 project

[PuddleJumper]

Hi there everyone, I've been lurking for a bit and finally decided to join up. I've got a 78 ATC 90 that I saved from dying a slow painful death in the back of my dads shed. I loved riding this thing as a kid and just couldn't let it rot anymore. The story behind it is that it was originally built to pull buggies around at the race tracks back in the late 70's early 80's. It has an after market tube frame and supposedly bored out to a 110. It had been repainted a goldish color appropriate for the time and then sanded down to be repainted but never was. I wish I still had the pictures of it being dragging out of the shed cause it looked so sad with the one dry rotted tire that had a huge hole in it. But here it is at its current state and I have no intention of restoring it, the goal is to bring it back to its glory days but better.



Slowly piece by piece its getting cleaned up.





Had to do a little rewiring, waiting on the right connectors.



And now for the questions, does anyone know of a place that I can find a whole new top end? It turns over fine and I'm sure the internal parts are ok but I'm planning on doing a total rebuild this winter and would rather start with new or after market parts if they are available.

[brapp]

check out the entire lifan motors thier cheap and they suposedly work well. that would save the hassle of wiring and you have a brand new motoe and u can get them as big as 138 with a 4 speed manual clutch. thats what i intend to get for my atc70 her ein the nextmonth or so.

[Eric250R]

Looking good so far, keep up the good work and ....

[PuddleJumper]

Hey, thanks for the replies and the welcome guys. The only re-wiring that had to be done was to the generator(?). At one point the wires had been repaired with crimp connectors which was less than pleasant to look at. I'm fairly familiar with the lifian motors and will be staying away from that route. Just have to keep an eye out for a decent used head and cylinder if no one that makes reproductions.
On to the next question. Does anyone have any comments on this place?
www.atcheaven.com
My seat pan is toast and I see that they have some on their site. There isn't even enough left to fabricate one from it.

[PuddleJumper]

Comments anyone?

[team-red-rider]

that hole in the head is completely normal

[neo19672000]

I got some stuff from ATCHEAVEN little crap nothing big but I got that stuff from australia 2 days before I got some things from here in the states that I ordered the same day.

[PuddleJumper]

Yeah, EMS shipping is usually faster because it goes from where ever you order it directly to your local hub. Take me for example, if I order something from Japan, it jumps a plane to Chicago and is in the Milwaukee area within three days. If I order something from California it can take a week to get here. But as long as ATCHaven delivers what they sell, I'm cool with that.

[Vealmonkey]

There are no reproduction heads. You will have to find used and have it refurbished. You can still get the 110 pistons pretty easy and you should really see about scoring a mild cam and nice exhaust. I would pick a DG exhaust over a cobra any day, unless your lucky enough to find an old kerker, supertrapp, hooker header or bassini pipe. It's not too hard to find a conversion suspension front end unless you have your heart set on a rut-rider and they are pretty tough to find. You have a nice start. See about scoring some polished aluminum rims and some nice tires. You are kind of limited since the bike is a hard tail. Have fun and remember the trike is a hardtail atc90, not a suspension 200x. Unless your totally nuts and have to build a big bore 181cc stroker with all the goodies!!!!

[gottahaveaUS90]

Welcome to the site - I hope you are successful in your restoration.

ATC Heaven is tops for all your restoration needs - I was going to start a new thread for my US90 resto - but here is a link to what I have so far.

What you can't find at ATC Heaven you can find from http://www.vintagemotorsports.net/ for the ATC 90 or eBay of course...... check out the "new" rear fenders I got through ATC Heaven

[PuddleJumper]

Yeah, I'm not going to go too crazy with mods, but thats good to know about atc heaven. I have to get a hold of the guy that originally built the engine to see if he can remember what he all did to it, as far as I know it could already have a cam in it.

I've seen on some web sites that there were different sized pull start ropes used on different atc models being that the new ones used thicker ropes I guess. Can anyone clear that up for me? Rather than going to the hardware store and buying a $3 rope for a lawn mower, someone went and pulled this one all the way out and then cut it off with a knife, which I believe also broke the spring inside.

[Dirtcrasher]

What do you have against the LIFANs? I don't have one but allot of members are going that route, just wondered what you felt or had heard about them....

[Vealmonkey]

The lifans are not a bolt in engine for the atc90\110. You would have to do some redriling of one of your bolt holes. Your only real options besides the atc90\110 are mainly cl90, sl90, ct90, st90 or the ct110. With the cl90, sl90 you get kick start and manual shift. Ct90, st90 or ct110 you pretty much have the same engine, so you're kind of limited. I believe the biggest bore you can go is 124 or slightly larger by resleeving your cylinder, but now that I'm thinking, if you have a atc90, you can't really go over 103 or 107 without resleeving and cutting your cylinder spigot bigger. I know the atc125 engine will fit, but then you will have to find a place for the battery and such for the electric start. Your best bet to go bigger is to put an atc110 engine in. There are lots of parts for the atc110 and they are fairly cheap to build. Whatever you decide, have fun. Post pictures of the frame!

[PuddleJumper]

What do you have against the LIFANs? I don't have one but allot of members are going that route, just wondered what you felt or had heard about them....

Its not that I have a problem with the motors themselves, its that the cheap knock off parts ruin the market for quality parts. In this case there aren't any quality new parts available but I still don't want to fund the Chinese parts market if possible.

And I'll see if I can whip up some pictures of the frame.

[PuddleJumper]

Other than the fact that its in need of some paint or PC, the frame is perfect. Actually if it wasn't for the frame I probably wouldn't have even taken on this project.