Been searching for decent and active sites for future help with a VW Trike I am about to rebuild from scratch in 2018 and here I seem to have found it.
I am retired military and 100% disabled with a flag on my files "Unemployable." Go figure! So I work on what everyone else wants/needs from home remodeling to metal work. For the last three years it has been almost six days a week and eight to ten hour days with NO pay. Next year this will stop as I am finishing the last major project and I will be saying NO, NO, NO to everyone one (except when it comes to my daughter and her house! Just turning 60, bad knees, and two rods from T2 through T12 inclusive holding my back together, riding in cars is very uncomfortable. Bikes on the other hand keep my back from hurting (85% better) and just plain relaxing.
I fabricated my own rear axle assembly for my Stratoliner and after 15,000 miles a bearing disintegrated just south of Michigan rendering it unrideable. Trucked it home the 1000 or so miles and turned it back into a two wheeler until I can build another axle. Now a friend of mine handed me a VW Trike he bought for $500 to repair. While "I" would have paid the money for it just to have the engine and transaxle, overall it is a pile of poop. I tore it down to just the engine and transaxle and getting ready to dig into the engine. I did get it running on the stand, but want to put new seal/gaskets in it and see if anything major is wrong internally before going forward.
The bike had the typical engine in back mounting, but I want to spin that around to a mid engine trike. So I will be having questions I hope people will be able to assist me with and motivation to keep going while working on both the VW and Stratoliner. I see my wife peeking at me so it's time to get to finishing my friends laundry room cabinets...