My 110 Nicholson diversion

[zeeker1]

Diversion............Doing what you want to do instead of what you're SUPPOSED to do!

SO...I asked a couple of my forum friends if they thought anybody would be interested in the mock-up of my 110 Nicholson build. The first guy said
"Who cares. I would! If the 250, go fast crowd don't like it, let em go read something else! I kinda liked that response. The second guy said, "sure, I think a lotta guys would enjoy it." Okay, so here we go, like it or NOT!
I own two trikes and have two grand kids so when the oldest has outgrown this 149836, he might not quite big enough for this. 149835
I've been gathering up parts and pieces for about a year and as all you ebay buyers know, you don't always get what you THINK your getting. More on that subject later! My first purchase was this fine frame from nice forum member "lardog". He winged it all the way from California to Ohio with nary a scratch. 149828 My next buy was these two old dogs for $200.00. One is a '79 and the other is a '83. I made both motors run before I tore em down to scrap metal. Parts, you know! 149829 149830 I decided to use the '83 CDI motor but if I had it to do over I probably should have chose the points engine. This will become apparent later but I'm committed to make this work. One of my first ebay buys was this set of triple trees. They came off a suspended '185 but the guy wouldn't sell me the forks. 149833 They were made for 30mm tubes (MY 185 had 33mm) so now I'm doing HOURS of research trying to find out WHAT fits! Well, I bought a pair of SL-100's cheap. They looked good in the picture, BUT!!!!!!!!!!!! Next I bought a pair of XL-175's 149832 They are REALLY nice but when I took them apart for new seals, I discovered there were NO springs in them. the seller bent over backwards trying to help but he had no springs so he refunded half the price. Nice guy. So I took the springs out of the 100's and put in them. Okay, the first order of nonsense is to assemble the front end to smoke out the steering stops. The '185 has it in the back and the '110 has it in the front. Lots of measuring, twisting and turning later, I drilled and tapped for a pair of stainless socket heads. First modification DONE. Many more to follow!
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This comment is for the purists. I'm NOT building OLD SCHOOL!!! This MOCK-UP will be assembled with mostly old sandblasted parts stripped off the two old beaters just to see how this stuff fits together. I have many new parts for final assembly (when ever the hell that might be). If anybody cares, feel free to comment...........zeeker

[matt22895]

Looks like a great build. I enjoyed the first one alot i will be following this one.

[atc007]

NOONE here will complain about a build thread! Especially one this cool! Good luck!

[sinsayers]

Yeap cool build man.

[brapp]

this is definitly a cool build i have contemplated something similar also but on a lil bigger scale hehehe

[bandito90]

Looking forward to watch this build progress.

[briano]

I like it, no complaints from me. I will be following your build.

[86T3]

I like your way of telling the story, i was always much better with picture books. Keep up the good work!

[zeeker1]

Thank You so much all you low horsepower guys for the comments. Heck, even some hi horsepower guys chimed in. Well, the next up was a seat and a tank so I could see what the overall profile was gonna look like. First I set up the '83 tank and seat and stood back and eyeballed. That would be a BIG NO...........149892 Next I tried the '79 seat with the '83 tank. Another NO 149893 A quick PM to shortline produced this FINE old '90 tank. 149890 Things are looking up now! Up next was a seat so I striped the '79 seat down to bare bones and this is what I found. 149889 There's just not much you can do with this pile of rust so off to ebay I went again. Many dollars later I got a usable seat pan and decent foam.149887149888 After my seat cover lady touched it I ended up with this. 149886 By the way, at the bitter end of this thread I'm gonna tell you guys just how much it REALLY costs to do what I'm doing. I truly believe with an engine rebuild and some nice bling, I can spend three times this much!

[RapidRick]

Thanks for the motivation Zeeker1, I'm trying to roundup my parts so I can start my Nicholson build. I really needed this. :beer

[KI4UJO]

This should be good, and it's nice to see another 110 build.

[lardog]

Its looking good Zeeker1.

[pipeline triker]

looking nice, I have a 77 atc 90 with some stuff done to it and little tires, 18 inch armstrongs on the back and a 20 inch knoby on the front. It is one of my funnest trikes to ride. My wife loves it also. I have US 90 tank, fenders and front forks on mine. Keep up the good work.

[Vealmonkey]

You already know that I think this is a sweet build. This is the kind of stuff that I really dig. Now, open those pockets up and get some really neat aftermarket stuff on that trike. It deserves it.

[shortline10]

Very nice !!! I'm with Pat all aftermarket , but it will def cost you :) .

[trizilla]

looking good! cant wait for more progress..

[zeeker1]

Okay boys and girls.....Part two. I got side tracked the last few days fixing my favorite bar ladies kid's ancient Manco go cart. She's gonna foot the parts bill but she says I'm in for a NICE SUPRISE for the labor! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOh Yeah. 150046 Well, now to the business at hand. Something I didn't notice until I assembled these trees is that they were bored at about a five degree angle. 150045 When I installed a set on my old 185s thirty years ago, they were not and it steered like a kids tricycle so I cut a slot in the top tree and pulled it back, then made a filler piece to drop in the hole. That method's probably not good on those tiny ball bearings but it's always worked so far. When I bought the trees they came with this complete 185 front brake setup so I figured I'd use it on this. 150044 I just had to be sure to buy the proper wheel for it. So, I assembled the whole damn front end and three days later as I was sitting in the garage looking at it......WTF......It's on BACKWARDS. What a moron! 150043 Bearings being prepared. Man, that freezer looks pretty scurvy. Maybe I ought to clean that thing!150047 Anyway, the rear is pretty straightforward 110 stuff. Somewhere I read that you could only use a 79 to 82 bearing carrier but I compared my 79 to the 83 and they look the same to me. So that's what I used! I've also noticed most guys don't use the brake drum cover. The frame is a hell of a lot thicker than stock and when you tighten up the axle nuts the drum rubs the inside cover. Used creative grinding on the humpty frame welds and on the inner edge of the brake drum. Problem solved.I also wanted to use all the bolts in the cover so I put a notch in the proper spot and drilled and taped a hole in another.
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If a pile of go cart parts don't fall in my mailbox, part three will be forthcoming!

[thestud25]

Looking real good! I love the aftermarket builds.

[shortline10]

You must of had a couple :beer in ya on the first tripple tree install :lol:
The drum cover turned out nice !!!!

[zeeker1]

Are not you supposed to have a adult beverage when your sitting on your stool in the garage looking at your NONCENSE????? Believe me, I put it together properly when I was measuring for the steering stops, I'm just OLD!!!!

[zeeker1]

Okay, Part three, four and five........Sorry I've been a slacker. I'm still screwing with that Manco Go Kart. I need some kind of governor linkage that's kind of beyond me. Hopefully one of these forums I joined will tell me!!!
Let's talk PLASTIC. Rear fender plastic. If I would have bought it from Meier direct would it have come pre drilled? I did not and it WAS NOT.. I have drilled this stuff before and It's not easy to put all these holes in it without screwing it up. With these tools I managed to make it fit on the frame. More about that later!!! 150628 150629 150630

[zeeker1]

We shall now talk about a hand brake cable......Because this frame is about three inches longer than stock, I had my doubts that a stock 110 rear brake cable was going to be long enough. I always wanted to use one because I got used to it riding my 185s (I never rode anything else). So I bought a brand spanking new one and sure enough, it was too short. I asked a ebay seller how long a 125m cable was and he said they were the same length. WTF am I gonna do now????? BACKGROUND...............About a year or so ago I bought a bolt on rear suspension for a 185s for a spare and asked the seller if it came with the two longer cables that were included in the original kit. He said, Hell, he didn't know but he had a pile of cables and he would send them along. Neither one was the right cable. BUTTTTTTT, One of those cables had a 110 rear hook up and was 12 inches longer. SUPER......Just need shortened a tad.

150631 Cut cable to length and make new ball end. (somebody probably makes these) 150632 150633 150634
I didn't wanna trust just the setscrews so I decided to silver solder it on.
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[zeeker1]

Bracket making 101. I swear I've already put this on here but it's disappeared. I needed a coil bracket because this frame is made for the early style motor and the coils are different, therefore different mounting. I drilled out the spot-welds and came up with this.151004 After some cutting and bending we have this. 151005 151007 151006 So I PM'd shortline and asked him just where this brake spring was supposed to hook.151008 He says there is a hole down there. Ain't no hole in this frame! Drill out more spot-welds and we have this...151009 More cutting and feeling and walla...151010151011

[zeeker1]

Well, I'm on a roll today. I didn't much care how the seat latched. The original rod was bent and shaky so I decided to use the '83 style and that required more bracket making. 151015 151016 151017 I also felt it needed some more spring tension so just one more Do-Dad. 151018

[zeeker1]

We shall now talk about mufflers and pipes. First off, in my neighborhood, QUIET is the word of the day. Your not allowed to drive these things around on the streets and I don't want to give any of my nut-case neighbors a "reason"....You know what I mean! I was having a tough time finding a down and under pipe so a message was dispatched to my favorite parts provider Shortline and lo and behold this fine example found its way to my mailbox. 151029 Since quiet was the need, off I went in search of the perfect muffler. I also wanted something with a spark arrestor just in case it needed to go in the woods. (Especially this summer.DRY) Some nice ebay seller laid this 125M unit on me for a nice tidy sum and sawed off what I needed....................QUIET..................1 51030 151031

[shortline10]

She should be quiet with that !!!! Coming along nicely .

[zeeker1]

I know, I know......this build is taking WAY too long. Old guys like me don't do much of anything very fast (except maybe run to the bathroom), Anyway, this is the end of the mock-up. Since I'm not building a hot rod, I figured the stock air-box would work for my purposes. 158893

So I bought these wheels from Summit Racing ,see, and Stevie Wonder could see that one of them was a tad different. Fortunately their store is just up the road from me AND fortunately I took one of the proper ones with me, so after a long conversation with a couple of morons in the return goods department, I pointed out that the part numbers weren't even close. Three weeks later they dropped shipped the right wheel!

158894 So now we're in the tear-down mode and off to powder coat and ceramic for the pipe and muffler.
By the way, I'm in need of a choke lever if anybody might have an extra. It will look a LOT different......next time.....zeeker 158895

[Kickstand 1]

Keep it going! Looking like a Trike now. Just in time for SNOW!!!!!

[jb2wheels]

This is cool.

Please don't list the total $$ at the end. I know the answer but if I close my eyes I can pretend I don't know. If you list it, I lose my deniability...

And seat pans? Try finding the early 90 parts in decent shape. What a pain...I had help from the forum for that for sure!

[thestud25]

Making good progress! I am anxiously awaiting the finished product!

[Micahdogg]

Looks good!

[lardog]

Bump This build is parted out on ebay.

[Dirtcrasher]

Got a link??

[lardog]

I dont have a link, Search Atc 90 frame on Ebay its at the top of the page it is painted white now.