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| I ran into a group of guys at a gas station during the rain in Ohio. All of them were riding rat trikes made from VW rear ends. They were kind of cool in a Mad Max looking sort of way. Anyway it looked like something I could build with some instructions along the way. I might give it a shot if I can find a old bug cheap enough. Anyone here built a VW trike?
Torqueman
Battle Creek, MI
V-Strom 06
Goldwing 03
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| Didn't make a trike. But took one and cut out the back seat and made it like four feet shorter. You could pull a wheelie with the dang thing. And if you pulled enough of them the welds give way and the car will land one time really hard and split in two. Sometimes I think back on the stuff / $@#% we use to do and can not figure out how we have managed to live this long. VW's are great because the entire drive chain is all over the back wheels, the only thing that extend forward is a long rod to operate the transmission. If you can find an old bug it should be easy to modify. I think I paid 2 hundred bucks for mine, back say 40 years ago. Gush I'm getting old!
Gfurlo
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I've got two friends that have built VW trikes. Both were done without any plans other than trying to get the rake as close to the rake on the bike the front ends came off of.
One of them is known as JYD or Junk Yard Dog and was made on a very low budget, old bug, old HD tanks, a pair of boat trailer fenders, some lumber and foam & upholstery for the back seat/trunk and the neck/forks etc off one of the CB750 parts bikes I have laying around along with a fairing he scared up from somewhere.
The other guy put a bit more cash in his using a similar approach but purchasing an entire front end for an HD.
The both used the engine & transaxle from the bug and built a bumper/cage assembly to go behind the engine that is readily removed for servicing. They both built similar trunk/rear seats that lift off the top for access as well. I believe they used something on par with 1 inch box tubing for the seat and bumper/cage and two by four box tubing for the main frame, which was welded to the portion of the bug that houses the torsion bar for the rear. Ample flat stock was used to gusset welds with a main back bone coming straight forward to just behind where the front wheel would be, then a relatively vertical going up to the steering neck. A third member was run from just in front of where they attached a bucket style seat to the neck forming a triangle as viewed from the side. Foot pegs and rear brake & clutch were welded to the vertical member going up to the neck from the main tube.
Each one will readily haul three passengers in the rear seat and there's ample storage in the trunk. They each tagged them as cars.
JYD was the first one built and the other guy did some improvements. JYD was relatively short and the back of the driver's seat is a bit close to the rear seat and it pulls wheelies a bit too easy. The other guys being a bit longer and having the more heavy HD front end will wheelie but not as readily. Even with the light front end, steering is pretty tight especially under engine braking.
If you want I can get some digital photos the next time I see one of the bikes and perhaps some measurements and e-mail 'em to you. That may not be for a while as we've all become boring old farts and don't get out much anymore.
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Photos would be cool when you get the chance. I think the hard part will be finding a donor VW that has a decent engine.
Torqueman
Battle Creek, MI
V-Strom 06
Goldwing 03
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I highly recommend grabbing a copy of John Muir's "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive a Manual for the Complete Idiot." Excellent book on VW wrenching and offers substitute bodges for those tools you need to use only one time.
You do not need to get a running one either. J C Whitney has loads of parts for them. As long as the block doesn't have a huge hole in it and the tranny is free you're in bidness. You probably don't to just slap one together around a running engine without going inside the thing anyway.
Dead easy engine to work on. The jugs come right off for easy access/replacement/etc. I cannot tell you how many of them I've got back on the road by a simple points adjustment as the owners never seem to know how to maintain them. If you can find one that the owner said was sputtering and backfiring a lot before it died then grab it. Chances are the points were worn and just needed gapping again.
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| It looks to me as if almost any front-wheel-drive car would supply a donor power package, too. Same as the VW, all the running gear is in a relatively small package. Move it to the rear, weld or bolt the steering gear so it can't move (or leave it so you can move it, should you desire to play or perhaps park in a really tight spot), and proceed as if you had a VW. If you use an automatic package, you won't have to engineer a clutch linkage, and the shifter can be fairly simple since you won't use it often. Pontiac made the Fiero some years ago by moving the power package from an X car aft to mid-engine, proving it could be done. If you want to modify the VW package, the old Formula V racing class simply took the ring gear off the differential and bolted it to the other side, then reversed the whole engine package to put the engine in front of the axle and make a mid-engine out of it. That would make control linkage trickier, but the plans ought to be available in Formula V literature. With the engine in front, wheelies ought to be reduced. Years ago I talked to a couple of people running the VW trikes, and their fuel mileage was just about what the VW Beetle got. Same power plant, worse aerodynamics, less weight.
Predictions are very difficult, especially about the future.
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I may have found one without an engine for free. I did find a company that makes adapter plates to adapt many different blocks to the VW transmission. I might take the free one just to get started. Still looking for a great deal with engine attached. $500 or less would rock. 
Torqueman
Battle Creek, MI
V-Strom 06
Goldwing 03
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