I first saw this trike at the relaunched Welsh National show at Builth Wells in May 2011, then saw it on eBay a week later, did exactly what you shouldn't do and bid on it without even viewing it. TBH when I put a bid in it had 2 days to run, was only at £2100, and my max bid was £2200, it was an impulse panicky buy after being told I was going to be a dad... Anyway, 2 days later I watched the end of the auction and was surprised to find I won it for my first bid of £2150.
Picked it up a few days later, rode it back, and when I got home I wondered what the hell I'd bought! Obviously I should've looked at it before buying it, and done a little research about trikes... I persevered with it for a few months, having the immediate problems fixed, using it for work and a few little rides, but finally had to admit it was going to cost more than I could spend at the time, especially as I was having to move house imminently to be with my GF when our son was born. So it was agreed my dad would look after the trike, have a few things done to make it rideable, and I'd have it back in a few years.
Roll forward to October 2015, my dad hadn't done anything with the trike, and was looking at getting a 3rd bike to use for work, my Dragstar had just suffered big end failure and so I was looking for a new project, so I arranged to have the trike trailered up to me in Corby to start work.
First thing I did was list all the problems that needed sorting:
Dodgy wiring,
Complete lack of a speedo,
Front brake was awful, looked like it was off a CG125, and had no effect on the speed of the trike at all,
Rear brakes not very good, I think the master cylinder has the wrong size bore and so I'm not getting the full power of the brakes,
Clutch ridiculously heavy,
Throttle cable was badly made, and breaking,
Forks seemed slightly twisted,
Paintwork all cracking as he used so much body filler,
Mudguards not very secure, brackets snapped a couple of times back in 2011,
No marker lights,
No front indicators,
Very short fuel range.
Thats all I can think of at the moment.
The first thing I did was to tackle the clutch. Previous owner had made a solid linkage between the pedal and the lever on the clutch housing, with only 1 pivot point part way along. The solid bar rubbed on various things along the way, so as a temporary measure I've fitted a standard beetle clutch cable, and used some small U-bolts to hold it onto the pedal. It's not great, still quite heavy, and needs some sort of stop to stop the pedal coming back so far, and it rubs in a couple of places. I've bought some nylon rod to put between the cable and the bits it rubs on, to hopefully stop it braking the cable.
Next was to make a new throttle cable, never made a cable before, but it was quite easy, especially as on the carb end the cable passes through a nipple and a bolt tightens against the cable to hold it in place. When removing the old cable, he'd threaded it through a hole in the frame, that was only just big enough to fit the cable through, so with vibration etc the outer had completely worn away, and the cable inside was rusty and fraying.
I decided that while I quite liked the springer front end that was fitted, it would be too much work to try and get a speedo drive and better brake to fit, and as I was breaking my old Dragstar, it would be easier to use the whole front end from that, and sell the springers on. So now it's got a decent front disc brake (though I need a new brake line as it's stretched to max atm), and a speedo drive, just need an extension for the speedo cable. Unfortunately I still need to look at the front end, as now when I turn the forks the rear also pivots. Again, should've sought advice before jumping in and doing something.
I've bought some cheap LED DRL's off eBay to try and use as running lights. 1 pair is just bright white LED strips, about 5" long. The other pair is a flexible tube, with white LED's as running lights, and then can flash orange as indicators. Not sure which I prefer, and not sure if either would pass an MOT either.
The fuel tanks look like Harley style fat bob tanks, don't seem to hold much, and the trike seems to splutter even if the tanks are still 1/4 to 1/2 full, as it running out of fuel. Not sure how the Beetle carbs are fed, are they vacuum, or just gravity? If it's just gravity, then I guess the tank is higher than the carbs and I'll need to fit a fuel pump.
I'm not sure about wiring, but I guess thats a skill I'll be teaching myself this winter!
Now for some photos, not changed much since I bought it apart from the front end.
As I bought it:
And as it is now, sorry about the kids...
This is the solid clutch link, the silver rod, attached to some welded chain, followed by my temporary cable:
Need to protect the cable from rubbing in these 2 places though:
These are some of the DRL's I bought as marker lights, think they might actually be too bright though:
And I prefer these, if they would be ok doubling up as indicators, the orange isn't very good on it's own, but the combination of switching from white to orange does make it more noticeable, and would save having to have separate lights. Fitted either along the bottom front edge of the mudguards, or up the sides:
And hopefully a video of them changing from white to orange, not very good 'cos it was hard trying to hold the camera steady and get a good connection on the battery with the bare wire.
And this is the rear brake master cylinder, pretty sure someone told me it should be 3/4, and not the 1/2 that is currently fitted.
All advise and criticism is welcomed and appreciated, I've worked on my bikes before, done a little work on my car, but I've no idea about trikes, and I've no idea about the VW engine, carbs, gearbox etc. So please be prepared for a lot of questions.
Nothing more will be getting done for at least a month now as I'm skint, and my wife needs a new car
