eelkat
07-04-2006, 11:45 AM
Hi... I know it's been a while since I was last here,
my new goal (project)... well old goal actually... so I thought I'd see if you guys can help me:
I own what is belived to be the very first MTD 3 Wheeled Mud Bug ever made, it's the 1971 proto-type before production began, so it looks a bit differant from the ones pictured in the sales brochures, and it appears to be quite a bit bigger than the ones shown as well. from the pictures on the sale lit, the one sold to the public seems to be sized for kids and teens, but the one I have is a full size trike, much like a motorcycle.
My grandmother won it on December 17, 1971, as a door prize from some place where she was a member, I forget where. It was made as a show room model to show the world what they would look like once production for the public began. It is all original expect for the engine. Shortly after production started the engines (which caught fire or simply didn't work at all) were recalled. We were sent a replacement engine, which it now has in it.
Here are some pictures of it (I hope they show up, I'll try reposting them differantly if they don't) ... I just took them this week, so you are seeing the MudBug as it looks today, a bit shabby I'm afraid, not all shinny and pretty like it was in the old days, it has been well loved and well used by 3 generations :
my grandmother, the original owner of it;
my dad, who used to race it on Old Orchard Beach, Maine;
and now me...
I have been driving it since I was 4 years old, back in 1979, as a child I practiclly lived on this wonderful machine, I loved it more than any toy and unlike other girls who played with dolls, I played with trikes. Trikes and comics and pet roosters... I was a tom boy!
Behind the forest, behind our house is a man made sand pit, used by the town to sand the roads dureing Maines freezing ice storms and blizzards... that is were me and the Mud Bug spent much of the 1980's, scareing the daylights out of my mother, as I drove the sides of the pits near-verticle sand cliffs... it said it could do that in the brochures, yes, just as the brochure states, it could do that!
They are very rare machines, only a handful was built from 1972-1973 (my 1971 model is a pre-production proto type), they were sold only in towns with beaches, because they were sand buggies, much bigger than your traditional 3-wheel ATV, with gainormous smooth treadless rear tires, made for fast speed over sand.
As you can see from one of the pictures, I still have the now very rare ski as well, that came with it, good thing I'm a pack rat! everything that came with my MUD Bug is still with it!
though the Mud Bug flew across the sand with ease, even with the ski it had great difficulty cruiseing on the snow, because it was so very heavy... the thing wieghs half as much as a small car! Unless the snow was packed down well, it would sink (and in Maine snow is pretty deep) and get stuck. Even so, I used the Mud Bug year round, until it died when I was 14.
Since the early 1990's it has sat waiting for me to rebuild it. Saddly, I have learned that NO ONE has ever heard of my beloved Mud Bug. and so my earlier goal of simply restoring it has never been able to happen... I can find no original parts.
MTD made only a handfull them and very few of them have survived today, the few that are around are owned by people who like me, have a dead one they want to restore, and are only looking for others for parts... To date, I have only been able to track down 4 people who remember the Mud Bug, and only 3 of those still have theirs.
I have long wanted to rebuild the Mud Bug, and cruise the sand dunes with it again. However, this spring I (now an adult at age 30) decided that I probly wouldn't use an off road trike much today if at all, but a street legle trike, oh yes! And so, this week, I unwraped the old Mud Bug, to examine it and see what I could do with it.
The plan is: it shall live again, but no longer as a beach buggie, instead it'll be revived as a street legal trike, and me and my beloved Mud Bug well once again become the local holy terrors.
I saw a trike in Saco and it's so much like the MudBug, that it got me wondering if there was a way to not only get the MudBug running again, but to totaly rebuild it into a street legle trike instead of an off-road trike. here in lies my problem: I don't know how to do that. I don't know what it is that makes one street leagle and the other not... LOL! I know zip about mechanices!
The MudBug has no trans, no brakes (came with brakes but my dad removed them, though I still have the brakes) , and the headlight has vanished, can't find it anywhere...
as it is now it's run like a lawn mower: pull the chain and hope you can jump on before it runs away without you....
the frame is damaged and I think needs major changes anyways, before it can be considered street legal (that's how we found out I needed glasses, back when I was 9 I ran head on into the giant oak tree, and never saw it--- split the frame right in 2, so the frame has been rebuilt once already)...
the leather seat rotted back in the 70's so it needs a new seat too, you sit on the bare body right now...
it's got sand dune tires on it, the original ones that came with it, diffinatly not street legle...
it has a little itty bity gas tank, definatly needs a bigger one before it can be used on the road...
I know the engine isn't street legal either, it's basicly a big lawn mower engine 5 horse power I think, it's on it's second engine, which is about dead, so it needs new engine before it can run anyways... that's one of the things that kept me from fixing it for so long... since it needs a new engine anyways, it might as well have a real one put in, a car engine.. the guy in Saco said he used a VW engine in his... (I had asked daddy to stop and look at it because when I first saw the fiberglass orange metalflake body I thought it was another MudBug, the guy who owned it was out in the driveway while we were there, so I got to talk to him about his, gave me lots of great ideas)...
so basicly to make it street legle I'd have to totaly disasmble it, and than build it from the ground up, like a model car kit on a large scale. but I have no idea how to do that, I no nothing about mechanics, don't know where to find parts to build it, or what I'd even need to build it with. I can't find any books on it, though I've only been looking a few hours now, and google comes back with millions of sites on trikes, so still looking... but if anyone knows of a book about this that they can recomemnd that'd be a big help
one thing that does help, is my dad was once a car mechanic, and cars never got out of his blood, so of course we've got dead cars stacked all over the land, and he's said that I can take whatever I need off of them to build my trike... now to figure out what I need!
as it turns out the only car really usable (the others are rusted wicked) is a 1989 Olds Custom Cruiser with 3rd seat, but it has no engine.
What my question for you guys here is... has anyone of you ever taken on a project like this? Do you have any advise? I pretty much need step by step instructions, cause I've never done anything like this before, so any help would be a blessing!
here are pics of my Mud Bug: :pics:
The 1971 MTD Mud Bug: front view:
http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/3811/mudbugfullviewfront8zn.jpg
The 1971 MTD Mud Bug: back view:
http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/7519/mudbugfullviewback5rw.jpg
Mud Bug Logo: (this was original bright orange but faded to white)
http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/6593/mudbuglogo7me.jpg
Mud Bug rear end:
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/8333/mudbugrearend5zc.jpg
Mud Bug engine:
http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/7052/mudbugtheengine1qu.jpg[IMG]
What Lies Underneath: The Framework:
[IMG]http://img351.imageshack.us/img351/4388/mudbugframe9jb.jpg[IMG]
The Mud Bug (the cartoon charater seen on the machine):
[IMG]http://img351.imageshack.us/img351/6995/mudbugdecal4td.jpg
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
when I get done, I'd like it to be somthing like one of these machines... to give you an visual idea of where I'm going with this project...
http://www.national3wheelers.org.au/Memberpages/JimH/index.html
http://www.national3wheelers.org.au/Memberpages/MarkAnna/index.html
http://www.national3wheelers.org.au/Memberpages/Vivian/index.html
http://www.national3wheelers.org.au/Memberpages/JohnAnne/index.html
it's been pointed out to me that the Mud Bug is a bit on the small side for a car engine, yep, as you can see from the pics, it is small; I'm not planning to go as big as the ones on the sites I listed there, cause those have a back seat for passengers, which accounts for alot of the size, I'm going more for the Honda GoldWing-size, which is simalar to what it is right now... not sure what I'm gonna do for an engine yet, at this point it's still in the planning stage, so it could go any direction right now... I'm also considering the possabilty of putting a motorcyle engine on it, and saving the VW Trike project just for the Olds... I'll end up with 2 trikes that way, the Mud Bug as a small single passenger, and the Olds as a larger 4 passenger...
my new goal (project)... well old goal actually... so I thought I'd see if you guys can help me:
I own what is belived to be the very first MTD 3 Wheeled Mud Bug ever made, it's the 1971 proto-type before production began, so it looks a bit differant from the ones pictured in the sales brochures, and it appears to be quite a bit bigger than the ones shown as well. from the pictures on the sale lit, the one sold to the public seems to be sized for kids and teens, but the one I have is a full size trike, much like a motorcycle.
My grandmother won it on December 17, 1971, as a door prize from some place where she was a member, I forget where. It was made as a show room model to show the world what they would look like once production for the public began. It is all original expect for the engine. Shortly after production started the engines (which caught fire or simply didn't work at all) were recalled. We were sent a replacement engine, which it now has in it.
Here are some pictures of it (I hope they show up, I'll try reposting them differantly if they don't) ... I just took them this week, so you are seeing the MudBug as it looks today, a bit shabby I'm afraid, not all shinny and pretty like it was in the old days, it has been well loved and well used by 3 generations :
my grandmother, the original owner of it;
my dad, who used to race it on Old Orchard Beach, Maine;
and now me...
I have been driving it since I was 4 years old, back in 1979, as a child I practiclly lived on this wonderful machine, I loved it more than any toy and unlike other girls who played with dolls, I played with trikes. Trikes and comics and pet roosters... I was a tom boy!
Behind the forest, behind our house is a man made sand pit, used by the town to sand the roads dureing Maines freezing ice storms and blizzards... that is were me and the Mud Bug spent much of the 1980's, scareing the daylights out of my mother, as I drove the sides of the pits near-verticle sand cliffs... it said it could do that in the brochures, yes, just as the brochure states, it could do that!
They are very rare machines, only a handful was built from 1972-1973 (my 1971 model is a pre-production proto type), they were sold only in towns with beaches, because they were sand buggies, much bigger than your traditional 3-wheel ATV, with gainormous smooth treadless rear tires, made for fast speed over sand.
As you can see from one of the pictures, I still have the now very rare ski as well, that came with it, good thing I'm a pack rat! everything that came with my MUD Bug is still with it!
though the Mud Bug flew across the sand with ease, even with the ski it had great difficulty cruiseing on the snow, because it was so very heavy... the thing wieghs half as much as a small car! Unless the snow was packed down well, it would sink (and in Maine snow is pretty deep) and get stuck. Even so, I used the Mud Bug year round, until it died when I was 14.
Since the early 1990's it has sat waiting for me to rebuild it. Saddly, I have learned that NO ONE has ever heard of my beloved Mud Bug. and so my earlier goal of simply restoring it has never been able to happen... I can find no original parts.
MTD made only a handfull them and very few of them have survived today, the few that are around are owned by people who like me, have a dead one they want to restore, and are only looking for others for parts... To date, I have only been able to track down 4 people who remember the Mud Bug, and only 3 of those still have theirs.
I have long wanted to rebuild the Mud Bug, and cruise the sand dunes with it again. However, this spring I (now an adult at age 30) decided that I probly wouldn't use an off road trike much today if at all, but a street legle trike, oh yes! And so, this week, I unwraped the old Mud Bug, to examine it and see what I could do with it.
The plan is: it shall live again, but no longer as a beach buggie, instead it'll be revived as a street legal trike, and me and my beloved Mud Bug well once again become the local holy terrors.
I saw a trike in Saco and it's so much like the MudBug, that it got me wondering if there was a way to not only get the MudBug running again, but to totaly rebuild it into a street legle trike instead of an off-road trike. here in lies my problem: I don't know how to do that. I don't know what it is that makes one street leagle and the other not... LOL! I know zip about mechanices!
The MudBug has no trans, no brakes (came with brakes but my dad removed them, though I still have the brakes) , and the headlight has vanished, can't find it anywhere...
as it is now it's run like a lawn mower: pull the chain and hope you can jump on before it runs away without you....
the frame is damaged and I think needs major changes anyways, before it can be considered street legal (that's how we found out I needed glasses, back when I was 9 I ran head on into the giant oak tree, and never saw it--- split the frame right in 2, so the frame has been rebuilt once already)...
the leather seat rotted back in the 70's so it needs a new seat too, you sit on the bare body right now...
it's got sand dune tires on it, the original ones that came with it, diffinatly not street legle...
it has a little itty bity gas tank, definatly needs a bigger one before it can be used on the road...
I know the engine isn't street legal either, it's basicly a big lawn mower engine 5 horse power I think, it's on it's second engine, which is about dead, so it needs new engine before it can run anyways... that's one of the things that kept me from fixing it for so long... since it needs a new engine anyways, it might as well have a real one put in, a car engine.. the guy in Saco said he used a VW engine in his... (I had asked daddy to stop and look at it because when I first saw the fiberglass orange metalflake body I thought it was another MudBug, the guy who owned it was out in the driveway while we were there, so I got to talk to him about his, gave me lots of great ideas)...
so basicly to make it street legle I'd have to totaly disasmble it, and than build it from the ground up, like a model car kit on a large scale. but I have no idea how to do that, I no nothing about mechanics, don't know where to find parts to build it, or what I'd even need to build it with. I can't find any books on it, though I've only been looking a few hours now, and google comes back with millions of sites on trikes, so still looking... but if anyone knows of a book about this that they can recomemnd that'd be a big help
one thing that does help, is my dad was once a car mechanic, and cars never got out of his blood, so of course we've got dead cars stacked all over the land, and he's said that I can take whatever I need off of them to build my trike... now to figure out what I need!
as it turns out the only car really usable (the others are rusted wicked) is a 1989 Olds Custom Cruiser with 3rd seat, but it has no engine.
What my question for you guys here is... has anyone of you ever taken on a project like this? Do you have any advise? I pretty much need step by step instructions, cause I've never done anything like this before, so any help would be a blessing!
here are pics of my Mud Bug: :pics:
The 1971 MTD Mud Bug: front view:
http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/3811/mudbugfullviewfront8zn.jpg
The 1971 MTD Mud Bug: back view:
http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/7519/mudbugfullviewback5rw.jpg
Mud Bug Logo: (this was original bright orange but faded to white)
http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/6593/mudbuglogo7me.jpg
Mud Bug rear end:
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/8333/mudbugrearend5zc.jpg
Mud Bug engine:
http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/7052/mudbugtheengine1qu.jpg[IMG]
What Lies Underneath: The Framework:
[IMG]http://img351.imageshack.us/img351/4388/mudbugframe9jb.jpg[IMG]
The Mud Bug (the cartoon charater seen on the machine):
[IMG]http://img351.imageshack.us/img351/6995/mudbugdecal4td.jpg
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
when I get done, I'd like it to be somthing like one of these machines... to give you an visual idea of where I'm going with this project...
http://www.national3wheelers.org.au/Memberpages/JimH/index.html
http://www.national3wheelers.org.au/Memberpages/MarkAnna/index.html
http://www.national3wheelers.org.au/Memberpages/Vivian/index.html
http://www.national3wheelers.org.au/Memberpages/JohnAnne/index.html
it's been pointed out to me that the Mud Bug is a bit on the small side for a car engine, yep, as you can see from the pics, it is small; I'm not planning to go as big as the ones on the sites I listed there, cause those have a back seat for passengers, which accounts for alot of the size, I'm going more for the Honda GoldWing-size, which is simalar to what it is right now... not sure what I'm gonna do for an engine yet, at this point it's still in the planning stage, so it could go any direction right now... I'm also considering the possabilty of putting a motorcyle engine on it, and saving the VW Trike project just for the Olds... I'll end up with 2 trikes that way, the Mud Bug as a small single passenger, and the Olds as a larger 4 passenger...