Make Your Own "Motor Trikes"

Make Your Own "Motor Trikes" AG WORLD 27-2-24 While attending a car show a couple years ago, Darrel Hampton saw something he really liked. "It was a motor trike made on a cut-down car frame with a Chevy 350 V-8 engine," he says. "The only problem was the company wanted $28,000 for it. "I had a couple of old Chevy Caprices back home and figured I could probably make my own," says the South Dakota rancher and metal fabricator. Hampton went to work by stripping the body from a 1983 Caprice Classic that was equipped with a 3.8 L V-6 and 3-speed automatic transmission. Once he was down to the driveline and axles, he cut down the driveline to about 6 in. long. He built a motorcycle fork by machining a couple of cold rolled steel shafts to fit inside some heavy-walled tubing with just 0.005 in. clearance. He added zerks to make the fork greasable. For suspension, he added springs he found at a local IH dealership. "I took the tubes to the dealer and asked him to find some heavy-duty springs that would fit over them. He came up with some coil springs from an IH field cultivator." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Darrel Hampton, 39694 201st St., Huron, S. Dak. 57350 (ph 605 352-6152; E-mail: shaz-darham@santel.net).

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