another budget trike

[skiprat]

ok so this ones slightly misleading as I bought it as a trike, albeit in need of work, but it was for sale and anyone could have bought it at the same price, so its still classed as budget

this is a 1999 honda shadow VT750 ACE, USA import originally, engine is so damn silent and smooth I am gobsmacked, havent owned a Honda since about 1995ish, now wish I had discovered these before

the bike portion of the bike is in amazing condition, all engine covers were highly polished originally and wont take much work to get them right again, all brakes are s**t hot, the rear caught me out when moving it into my garage. forks etc are fine, some very tiny amount of pitting on some of the chrome, but I soaked it all in WD40 and gave a gentle rub with a cloth to everything to try and prevent any worse.

so this is regged as a trike, properly registered with manufacturer as "shadow"

had a private plate transfer to the M reg plate thats on it

its a swingarm conversion, I believe the axle setup to be the outer ends of an MGB axle, its then been modified to take a sierra diff with sprocket, the setup is really bad

both back wheels point to the right, and the diff points to the left, the right wheel has a 75mm spacer, while the left has a 35mm spacer LOL

the swingarm has snapped right up the front where the swingarm narrows, I beleive it was broken some time, and the seller had covered the damage with sikaflex or something similar.

according to the history thats with the trike, someone swapped a Harley for the trike back in 2009, then the previous owner to me paid £5000 for it back in 2011

I am planning to build a new swingarm for it, but something a bit different to the current setup, twintube design, tubes on top of each other, and put the pickup points outside the frame to widen the pickup points and hopefully reduce stresses etc

so as it currently stands.

another budget trike

another budget trike

another budget trike

they both fit in the garage, but you have to hop over one and limbo under the bars of tuther LOL

another budget trike

[nabsim]

A mate of mine did the swing arm with over and under tubes, was a 525 Virago and the result looked real nice. It was the first one I had seen like that and had some nice curves on it. Think it is up Leeds way now

[skiprat]

cool, its sort of a favourite design style of mine, the top tubes on my GTR trike are twin tube

and the LL front end for the GR trike are twintube, figure 8 style

its going to add weight, but hey ho, with a VT750 lump Im not exactly going MotoGP racing anyway LOL

[zakboy]

very nice, keep it coming skiprat

[steven brock]

Wow Jinlun panniers like mine ! There's always someone who's done it before you .. Lol.. Nice

[BikerGran]

Nice looking but are you going to paint it?   Sems to me it needs colour....

[skiprat]

top box gone and it does indeed look loads better already, I thought it looked ok, but its far better without it

hopefully this week the strip apart can start properly, trouble is lack of space.

the main problem appears to be that the swingarm conversion was made from box section, about 80x40 at a guesstimate

with multiple pieces and many welds it was just asking too much of it in my opinion

the snap is right alongside where it was welded, so possibly undercut and weakened when it was welded, but closer inspection where I can, shows signs of cracking in other places too.

got a s**t load of work to do, but its far easier to cut it up, get the bits I need and then make everything else myself

but hey £350 what did you expect LOL, the bike portion of the trike is spot on, and its regged properly, so not too worried about it

I am going to go with twintube swingarm for deffo, the frame doesnt really lend itself to an easy hardtail job.

toying with while its all apart, mocking it up with no rear mudguard, bin the panniers, build it back up as single seat and nice luggage rack on the back