Operation "Fugly"

[coolpool]

Here's my latest purchase; 1977 ATC 90. The good; new tires, tank might not leak, runs strong (now that the carb is done and the timing isn't off by 5 degrees), shifts nice in Hi &Lo, brakes and cables stiff but working. The bad, everything else. I have it sold to a guy who has limited income for his son for whatever I put into it. Mattdragontamer said I will put $200 more into this before I'm happy. I have lots of extra US90 parts so we'll see; and my labour is free. I hope to keep it to a $100 on top of purchase price, game on! The kill switch might be the only expensive part I will keep a running total on this as I go. Should I tack on a nominal amount for parts I already have?

Original price = 150.00
Paint= $32.00

$182.00

P.S. I won't compromise safety/dependability to save a buck even if Matt proves me wrong, lol.

[Akracing]

Looks like it will be a fun challenge, I recently started one my self but The original plan was just to clean it up a bit, now I have a bare sandblasted and primed frame hanging in my shop lol... Keep us updated on your progress... and do you ever sell 90 parts?

[ScreaminRed]

If you have lots of 90 parts like you say, i'm sure you can keep the cost really low. :)

[coolpool]

If you have lots of 90 parts like you say, i'm sure you can keep the cost really low. :)

Ak I haven't sold any to date but who knows. I do have two disassembled that are future projects so not everything is up for grabs.

Screamin I plan to see what I can use. Looks like a beat up/functional metal fender and an extra set of bars will be used to start with. I've got enough old seat cushions to piece one together and a homemade cover. I did say it's "fugly" right, lol.

[Akracing]

It was worth a try lol... I really don"t need much other then redoing the tank which prolly wont be very fun...

[coolpool]

So "fugly" is tore down; no huge surprises. I'm re-doing all seals and bearings, brakes are great, cables all freed up nicely, sandblasting is almost complete. As for the oil leaks, the previous owner put a blue plastic pug in the cam chain adjustment hole and swapped out the only acorn nut on the head with a regular one. That should fix those leaks up. I had some minor welding to do on the frame and I'll have to fab/fix the chain case cover and front fender. I broke down and bought new decals since the tank is going to look Purdy. It also needs an air cleaner foam and two rear hub washers/nuts. I think all total I'm around $275.00 now:wondering

[briano]

Looking good. I think what you're doing is awesome, every kid should be able to have some off road fun, be it on a dirt bike, quad or trike.

[Akracing]

Looking good... It all looks so familer... I just started putting mine back together...

[ScreaminRed]

You have $125 left...:)

[coolpool]

Here's an update. Been kind of slow getting to old "Fugly". Matt's been helping a lot since I get distracted easily by camping, cheer and riding! I ended up replacing the rear bearings, front and rear seals. The air cleaner foam was pricey at $20.00. I even splurged on some new decals for the tank. I wasn't going to bother making it pretty but what the heck, I've gone this far. The US90 fenders have a nasty habit of cracking in the front so I figured there should be a way of preventing this. I opened up the folded over lip under the fender and put a piece of heavy wire under the lip through all the cracks. I then welded the cracks from the bottom. Seems to do the trick. I put a little bondo on the fender and banged out most of the dents and splashed on some paint. Better than nothing and it's free! The chain case was an easy fix, a little more welding and it's on. I slapped on my temporary tank and gave it a pull; fired right up first shot. I'm going to hate to give this one up but there's a young lad who needs it more. Total cost to date, $320.00. Hours of labour between Matt and me 20+:crazy:

P.S. I'm not a welder or will I ever claim to be one. If it holds....it's a good weld in my books, lol

[Ghostv2]

It actually cleaned up really well. Good job, at least its going to a good home so you wont feel too bad.

[Yamaha_Rules69]

Im actually in the same boat as you are. The neighbor lady next door to my friend has a son who is 12. He wanted something to ride, so she bought him a 85 125m, then asked me to fix it up. The thing is rigged badly. When I first fired it up it smoked like a freight train. Today I rebuilt the engine, I had just got the cylinder bored .020 over, installed new gaskets and no more smoke. It had some random Chinese pitbike carburetor on it, and it has no screws on the bottom to take the bowl off! I was able to find the correct carb from a guy at work, and all he wanted was one mountain dew! So far Im doing all the labor for free, although she paid for the piston and gaskets. A few bad things on this one are: fugly welding to make a "seat latch" on the rear of frame, welded SOLID right axle nut to axle, bolts instead of studs on left wheel, badly dented gas tank, no front fender - just a 2 inch piece of it snapped off, rear fenders busted all to heck, seat duct taped with black tape, chain sloppy, tires on rear are bald, carb I got for a pop has a hole in the plastic float. The plus' are the headlight looks great, and the front tire is new - that's it. I was wondering as I was rebuilding the engine if it was worth it, but then I remembered when I was the same age, but on a YT 125. It is deffinatly worth it to tp me to make this thing rideable for this boy.

[kb0nly]

Its worth it... And in the long run teach the kid how to care for, maintain, and wrench on it!! These kids now days learn nothing without use guys that know how to do it teaching them. I had a neighbor a couple years ago in his 20's that has never changed oil on anything, didn't know how to do much other than put in gas and check air in tires. He kept saying he could afford to get the oil changed or get this fixed or that. I coaxed him into buying the supplies or parts and made him do the work. Even saving the $30-$50 and doing an oil change yourself these days is a huge help on the monthly bills!

Your doing good work for a good cause, sounds like its a basket case but that can be fixed over time. My first trike i bought myself was rough, it took me a couple years of scrimping and saving and pinching parts off eBay but i got it back together! Got to start somewhere.

This operation Fugly thread really got a friend of mine going, he read through it one day while he came over to shoot the bull. He has a 110 in the shed that hasnt been touched in roughly 15 years!

[coolpool]

Way to go guys. I should have named it the "pay it forward" thread. Wait till you see the progress tomorrow! I wonder how many of us have fixed a machine up for the less fortunate?

[kb0nly]

Looking forward to your final result! I really fell in love with my 90 I just did. Such a fun little bugger! Was really surprised how much it can pull around to.

[coolpool]

It's starting to come together.....or so I thought. Lost spark today; I'll get to that tomorrow; and found out the left steering stop is worn out allowing the tank to get hit by the fork. Off comes the forks again for some welding. That rear fender is such a pain in the azz. I'm sick of sanding. Don't expect a fancy job on that; long live "fugly".

P.S. Loaded up for a car show tomorrow so I can sit and do nothing for 5 hours:Bounce. Matt (Mattdragontamer) let me borrow his awesome new trailer! Way better than the old red neck toy hauler I have,lol.

[Big G]

Wow, that's coming together real nice. The tank looks sharp! How are you going to fasten the seat to the rear fender? Just let it sit on there? Also, did you put in a new chain tensioner/chain/rear sprocket? If you did, where did you get them from? Just wondering cause it looks like I'm going to have to change the ones on mine.

[rizz1135]

For the rear fenders; it looks like one picture you have a sheet metal patch riveted to the plastic (fiberglass) and then the next picture shows it primered gray and very smooth. What steps did you take between the sheet metal patch and the primer? Is there a ton of body filler on the fenders? Is it still rough and the picture just doesn't show the patchwork well? Just curious. Project looks great either way but just wondering if the gas tank was made to look clean if the fenders would be that clean also. Seems like you are doing you best to clean up the look of the trike so I think the rear fenders would not be an exception.

[kb0nly]

The fiberglass fenders are a PITA i know that for a fact!! I spent days sanding the set of 74 fenders i fixed. And in the end i traded them to another guy for a complete set of 80's plastic rear fenders with seat and mud flaps. He wanted the fiberglass, i wanted them out of here after staring at them for so long... LOL

Looking really good!!! I wouldn't call it fugly now.. LOL

[coolpool]

Big G - I cut a piece of heavy puck board (plastic) that the seat cover will wrap around and will be fastened from the bottom. I'll get pics up once I get to that part. The chain, tensioner and sprockets are good!

rizz1135, kbOnly - after I riveted in the aluminum patch, I laid down some fibreglass resin and glass sheet under the fender covering the patch. On the top I roughed up the aluminum and basically covered the patch and surrounding area with a couple of coats of resin only. I sanded that down as best I could. The bondo is making it all look nice ;-0. I'm hoping the fenders will look as good as the tank but as kb said himself, fibreglass fenders are a PITA and I'm getting sick of sanding. We'll see.

Right now the mysterious no spark issue is baffling me a little. I've checked and adjusted the points, tried a known working plug, checked the static timing, disconnected the kill switch, trimmed the sparkplug wire back and screwed it back in. There was some nasty wiring under some silicone coming from the magneto so I put in a spare one I had. I'm going to bolt on a working coil/condenser tonight to see if that's it before I try wrangling the old coil and wiring harness out.

[oscarmayer]

any updates?

[coolpool]

any updates?

Yes. I dragged a US90 motor down from the loft that I can run outside of a frame on a test bench. The coil/condenser is attached right to the motor. I pulled over the US90 motor and got a nice blue spark. My plan was to interchange parts onto fugly until I got spark. Mattdragontamer was helping me and he suggested changing the sparkplug first. I stated I already tried changing plugs with no luck. Well what the heck, I put the US90 sparkplug on and guess what....IT WAS THE EFFING PLUG ALL ALONG!! Hot, fat, blue spark! The good of all this is that I found the crappy wires coming from the magneto and switched it out; and got to clean all the contacts to pristine condition. I removed the forks last night and welded up the stops. I should be able to get back to square one again tonight with the forks back on. With any luck I'll be able to finish the rear fender and seat this weekend. Barring any more issues the young lad should have this NLT Labour Day weekend.

[Big G]

Good to see it was an easy fix! Looking forward to seeing the finished product! Also thanks for the idea for fastening the seat to the rear fenders :p

[coolpool]

Well it's been a while since I updated. Obviously I failed in getting this to the young lad before the end of summer. I have to confess this has been the most frustrating fixer upper I've ran into. I wanted to burn it at times! The ghost electrical problem reared it's ugly head again. It wasn't the plug after all; it was an intermittent short in the points. Then the carb started overflowing no matter what level I ran the float at. Switched out the needle and seat and that seems to have worked. The bodywork on the rear fender took WAY longer than I wanted it to but I'm satisfied with the end result for a rider. I even did some homemade pin striping and stenciling to break up the paint a little. The seat....well it works but compliments "fugly", lol. I couldn't save the old shifter no matter how much I micro filed the grooves. It would work for a bit a trip out again. I even felt like welding it on. In the end I borrowed a shifter from one of my US90's until I find a cheap replacement. If anyone has one for cheap let me know please! I have to thank Matt (Mattdragontamer) for donating some elbow grease. I now owe Matt dinner since we had a bet. I went over the $350.00 budget, total cost is $400.00ish, not including 60+ hours of labour, lol.

[coolpool]

I'm finally ready to deliver this to the young man. I went through a bad stint trying to dial in the carb. One day it would work fine, the next , blah. I ended up donating an upper portion of an older carb which has seemed to do the trick. Probably too much play in the slide barrel. It seems a bit hard to shift so I cahnged the oil again and followed the clutch adjustment procedure. One thing I can't figure out is the manual said to turn in the screw one full turn clockwise as the first step. This will only go in half a turn; does that mean the clutch is wore out? It still shifts but you have to be quick when upshifting. It's acting like the clutch plates aren't releasing when you let off the throttle between shifts?

[coolpool]

Been awhile since I've updated. I got kind of forced into delivering it before I was happy with it. Seems that the boys Granfather told him about it which drove everyone nuts to get it finished. Wouldn't you know it the tranny piled up on day 1, arghhh! A bit embarrassing for me as you can well imagine. I had to concede that the cost of putting another motor in it would render this build over the top in terms of cost. I'm still on the lookout for a low dollar machine; probably lean toward a 185/200s now since the boy sprouted abit over the winter. Over the winter I threw in another 73 US90 motor in it to have a run about. Turns out it also had tranny issues and sub-trans issues. It's been parked since March.

[coolpool]

Fast forward to May 2014, I picked up a $25 1983 110 frame with CDI motor and handlebars from the dump. Besides the fact that the forks were bent bad, the frame welded at the head, the axles cut off, it turned over fine and was only missing the coil to be a runner. The shifter was bent outwards from hitting something also. The motor had good spark but 0 compression; off comes the top end. I found a bent intake valve along the seat but the internals spec'd out OK. A quick hone, Ebay supplied me with a gasket set, valve and sprocket. All seals were replaced from Honda, Zoomerman sent me a coil, and Kickstand1 sent me a carb, (the original was seized up), thanks guys! Wouldn't you know it it runs and shifts on the bench, a bit of a smoker but for under $200 all in, who cares! Still don't know what it's really like under load? My daughter and myself are transplanting it into Fugly. Got it in last night but are dealing with a leaking petcock and all the rest of the little crap that'll drive you nuts. Should be running under it's own power tonight, here's hoping!

[jb2wheels]

I like those 110CDI engines. My "90" project got one.

198294 198295

On a side note - I think I have a shifter for an ATC 90 you can have if you still need a replacement shifter. I missed your original note last year...

Let me know - I think I even know where it is in the garage - I'll check.

[coolpool]

I like those 110CDI engines. My "90" project got one.

198294 198295

On a side note - I think I have a shifter for an ATC 90 you can have if you still need a replacement shifter. I missed your original note last year...

Let me know - I think I even know where it is in the garage - I'll check.

Sweet looking 90! Did I miss the build? Thanks for the offer jb! Don't need a 90 shifter at the moment, those projects are on hooooold. The shifter that was on this works fine. The side case that sticks out broke when the shifter got hit but didn't do any other damage. I straightened the shift shaft and put a new seal in. It seems to be holding out. I sure have big plans for the underdogs, eh.

[coolpool]

Well ole Fugly made it's first ride with the 110 engine last night. As normal with anything I touch it looks like I'm in for a bit more carb tuning/cleaning. Boy does this motor pull! The tranny was whining a bit at first but seems to have quietened (sp?) down now. Who knows how long that motor sat in the junk yard? It shifts well and the Hi-Lo works. I managed to break my 90 kill switch so I threw on the 110 control on the left handlebar for now. Who knows I might add lights down the road? A quick question on timing, I know timing is everything on a points motor, but does it really affect a CDI motor if the pulse generator timing is tweaked either way? It doesn't seem to make any difference in performance either way I move it? I've got to adjust the front fender so it doesn't hit the longer motor. Thought I'd run without it but ate too much mud without it.

[jb2wheels]

I'm lazy - if a CDI engine runs, I don't even check the timing.

You should be able to run a cheap eBAY LED or 2 for a headlight. I used something like this (http://www.ebay.com/itm/27w-LED-Off-Road-Work-Lights-Spot-Beam-For-SUV-Boat-Jeep-Truck-UTV-4wd-Vehicle-/301230553210?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item4622bd787a&vxp=mtr)on my TRX70.
Used a regulator like this (http://www.ebay.com/itm/221288047344?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT) basic 2-wire dirt bike regulator.

I didn't do a build thread on the 90 - just some before and after pics:
http://www.3wheelerworld.com/showthread.php/110610-Finished-my-90-110-hybrid
It was fun but I sold it shortly after the final pics with the big tires. Somebody got a great deal on it - like $450 I recall. Took forever to sell it. No demand. Frustrating because it had some hard to find pieces like the stupid seat pan (it was the early version with a "pan" only on the back 1/3 of the foam) and seat button/straps on the front sides and a great 4+4 4x130 aluminum front rim.

[coolpool]

I'm lazy - if a CDI engine runs, I don't even check the timing.

You should be able to run a cheap eBAY LED or 2 for a headlight. I used something like this (http://www.ebay.com/itm/27w-LED-Off-Road-Work-Lights-Spot-Beam-For-SUV-Boat-Jeep-Truck-UTV-4wd-Vehicle-/301230553210?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item4622bd787a&vxp=mtr)on my TRX70.
Used a regulator like this (http://www.ebay.com/itm/221288047344?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT) basic 2-wire dirt bike regulator.

I didn't do a build thread on the 90 - just some before and after pics:
http://www.3wheelerworld.com/showthread.php/110610-Finished-my-90-110-hybrid
It was fun but I sold it shortly after the final pics with the big tires. Somebody got a great deal on it - like $450 I recall. Took forever to sell it. No demand. Frustrating because it had some hard to find pieces like the stupid seat pan (it was the early version with a "pan" only on the back 1/3 of the foam) and seat button/straps on the front sides and a great 4+4 4x130 aluminum front rim.

Thanks for the info jb! Wow $450 for that machine, that stinks, sorry for your loss. I'll tackle the carb again on saturday and set the timing dead centre to the plate cut out. Here's hoping it works good. Can't wait to beat on this thing. Too many nice ones that don't get rode hard in the shop.

[danbur55]

Think you should post some pics of the smiles that come from hoppin this thing around even it's your happy face but especially the youngsters. I know the look of my granddaughters faces only caused me to try harder. Priceless

[coolpool]

Took it out for a long ride yesterday and was happy with the performance. See http://www.3wheelerworld.com/showthread.php/169245-Berry-Picking-and-Triking-Good-Times! Just have to address a bad sparkplug boot and monitor the oil consumption; which seems to smoke only on start up :-). I might even put a nice rear fender on this if it continues to run well (seen some in classifieds :twisted:) , we'll see!

[coolpool]

Update! Thanks to Mattdragontamer and my tickle trunk of parts, Fugly now has lights. Since I was using a 110 wiring harness and handlebar control, we thought "what the hey" might as well install some lights. Matt did a great job as usual! Don't know why my pics are sideways, Mac thing I guess? I'm in the process of getting a rear fender now; might not deserve "Fugly" for long.