3 Wheel Drive?

[patriot1]

So...I do not have the skills and knowledge to pull this off yet but-by blind luck I happened upon a Christini 450 AWD motorcycle this week. I thought to myself "An All Wheel Drive dirtbike could be converted into a 3WD!"

Has anyone attempted a conversion on one of these? Honestly, I had never heard of them until I got one.

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[ATC King]

Now that you have the bike, if you don't trike it, you're going to HELL! :lol:



I've seriously been waiting to see this done for years. That's a pretty ratty looking bike though, considering they're so expensive.

It's not going to be simple or inexpensive though, and virtually impossible without the aid of Christini to make new triples, because the lower one has the drive mechanism inside, that sends power to each telescoping shaft on the fork legs. It would also mean a custom front hub, to make the drive work. In the end, it only sends power to the front when the rear slips.


That's the Chinese engine one, isn't it? They started out doing conversions, then put their own model together. 2wd isn't anything new, obviously Rokon's been doing it for decades, but there were performance models also. Yamaha desert raced one with a hydraulically powered front wheel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CLrW4G8y-o

[El Camexican]

That’s pretty darn cool. Haven’t see an AWD trike, but if you build one you’ll be my hero.

[coolpool]

Liking the concept but honestly I think the Rokon system would be more suited to this application not to mention cheaper. Build away!

[patriot1]

I am years away from a build for sure. Just got the idea this week when I came across the bike. But, in order to save my soul, it has to be done. I am going to the crossroads to meet a man later tonight.

[ATC King]

Some pictures of the internals, from the Christini website.

Inside the steer tube
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Drive shaft from the primary chain drive, to the steer tube gearbox
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And...the mess inside the lower triple that'll hamstring a trike conversion
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[350for350]

One more thing to consider. You'll need to make sure that your gearing is absolutely perfect with the new tire sizes.

[El Camexican]

Some pictures of the internals, from the Christini website.

Inside the steer tube
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Drive shaft from the primary chain drive, to the steer tube gearbox
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And...the mess inside the lower triple that'll hamstring a trike conversion
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That’s a serious piece of engineering. Beautiful, but yeah, between that and the gearing that was mentioned puts a damper on converting that bike.

[MrConcdid]

You could follow the blue print for a ROKON 2wd off-road dirt bike.
I could see a 3 wheeled version of the Rokon pretty easy.
I have seen a few in person, there seem heavy and not well balanced, that said, 3 wheels would fix that.

[ATC King]

The Rokons are slow, utilitarian and insanely expensive for what they are.

There have been numerous 3x3 builds and home made 2x2 motorcycles.

Here's one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kdpcOGNcIE

They're all utilitarian and slow.

Something built more like a Christini would be totally different. To build an AWD trike that's performance oriented would be a much bigger undertaking than something built with off the shelf hardware parts.

[floydechoes2000]

Someone out there could make custom wider triples like those fairly easily, then get a longer chain.

[ATC King]

Christini has been at it for a while and I'd bet they have some inside knowledge of things most other people would overlook.

There's probably more to it than just longer chains. With no tensioners, that may be specially treated chain, to decrease wear or improve tensile strength. It has to be spot on too, with the tension, because there is no adjustment.

They probably had a few failures before they got to the current product.

Maybe they'd work with one of the custom trike builders to come up with something.

[big specht]

Thought those would make a great platform for a 3wd trike build too. You don’t find those bikes for sale very much at least not ruff ones that you don’t mind cuttting up. With it being chain drive I don’t think the gearing will be that hard to figure out or at least change to work with what ever size Atv tires you use.

[floydechoes2000]

Christini has been at it for a while and I'd bet they have some inside knowledge of things most other people would overlook.

There's probably more to it than just longer chains. With no tensioners, that may be specially treated chain, to decrease wear or improve tensile strength. It has to be spot on too, with the tension, because there is no adjustment.

They probably had a few failures before they got to the current product.

Maybe they'd work with one of the custom trike builders to come up with something.

I do tend to oversimplify with my replies but I totally agree with you, it would take some experimentation. I also envisioned the possibility of a small tensioner being mounted in there and wondered how Christini got around chain stretch being an issue.

I've been watching some builders videos on youtube lately and there are some extremely talented, creative people out there and I stand by my statement that someone could do this.

Check out the stuff these kids are building: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCivi_f1nniBzEOfKhRoN12Q

[ATC King]

Regardless, whatever the OP does now, is to keep Beelzebub off his rear.

It's a sin to post up something like that, without following through. :p

[patriot1]

lol. King: You know my limitations and knowledge is no where near where it is to be able to pull that off as I said in the original post but a very interesting idea! I said 10 years if then or maybe I can just bring down there and let you take care of it. You could figure it out and make it work for sure but I don't have the skills at this time lol

I will be the most surprised if I get my 81 200 (no letter) put back together!