Build: My 82 ATC110

[Isaakfirestar]

Hey all,
Since I'm new here and new to working on these three wheelers, thought it might be worth starting a build thread to document my revival project and give me a place to get help along the way.
How did I end up here? I wasn't supposed to buy anymore projects, let alone a three wheeler! After all, I haven't even owned anything on two wheels yet! Well, I just helped one of my buddies do a revival on one of their two wheeled type vehicles, and I was having so much fun on it that I decided I needed one for myself! But why have two wheels, when I could have just as much fun on three!
Luckily, I pretty quickly found another local three wheeler enthusiast who was more than happy to sell me their most dilapidated, halfway-stripped machine from their collection.

That's a really long winded way of saying I'm the proud new owner of one rough 1982 Honda ATC110.

How rough? At first glance, everything seemed to be there. Frame, wheels, engine, tank, plastics, seat. But what is there is an amalgamation of one worn out 82 ATC110, a very rough tank of a 1980 ATC110, and a mystery seat with a nonexistent seat pan, and a lot of missing parts.
The front fork bearings are worn out. The rear axle bearings are worn out. The brake foot pedal moves, but doesn't seem to actuate the brakes. The gas tank clearly had holes, and has been absolutely slathered with tank sealer and JB Weld. The plastics are cracked, faded, and missing large chunks. I think the handlebars might be bent. The auxiliary transmission is disassembled, and the engine is missing nearly all of its accessories, and is locked up to boot.

When I first got it home, I performed this quick assessment, and decided the best course of action would be to unstick the engine. I pulled the rear wheels off, removed the chain guard, and couldn't find the master link on the very stiff and rusty chain. With the o-rings on each link, I think it might be original, but I couldn't find rivets on it anywhere either. I ended up pulling the engine mount bolts and manipulating the engine enough to pull the chain off the rear drive sprocket and remove the engine with the chain still attached.

From there pulling the head was a snap. Most of the phillips screws came free without the need for a manual impact, at least on the top end covers, but I ordered a set of Vessel JIS manual impact bits for future use.
The internals that had seen oil were in surprisingly good shape. The oil was dark, but didn't have any water contamination or evidence of rust or dirt, which gives me hope for the bottom end and transmission. The exhaust valve is in good shape and moves freely, but the intake valve is frozen by rust, and I found the piston near the bottom of the bore, with surface rust and cylinder wall scoring. So much for my hopes of freeing up rings and making this a running bottom end for free.

While I'm confident I can refresh the top end myself, I can't fix this bore with the tools I have at my disposal, so I decided to send it out. DrATV is both close to me, and offers very competitive pricing for his bore package, so I decided to have his business perform the work. In the meantime I got the head stripped down and the intake valve out. It has rust on the backside of the valve but the face looks like it will come out okay with just some lapping compound. We shall see after cleaning.

I've ordered fork bearings, rear end bearings, and a bunch of sub-transmission internals to get mine put back together. Most of what I have I think I can salvage, but I'm hoping to find someone parting out a similar machine so I can buy a bunch of what I don't have. Buying a carb/intake, exhaust, and recoil start at ebay prices would totally kill my budget for this project!

[shortline10]

Looks like a fun project and good luck finding the parts at decent prices .
That motor is pretty specific parts wise 1981-83 for bottom end parts , recoil , H/L range gears .

[Isaakfirestar]

Thank you. I had understood that the recoil was pretty specific to the model/year, I didn't know about the high/low assembly. I'll have to see if the parts I bought are compatible, I'm not sure what year atc110 they came out of

[knappyfeet]

The front fork bearings are worn out. The rear axle bearings are worn out. The brake foot pedal moves, but doesn't seem to actuate the brakes. The gas tank clearly had holes, and has been absolutely slathered with tank sealer and JB Weld. The plastics are cracked, faded, and missing large chunks. I think the handlebars might be bent. The auxiliary transmission is disassembled, and the engine is missing nearly all of its accessories, and is locked up to boot.

I'm looking forward to this project....thank you for posting.

It's nice to see someone else besides me knee deep inshit.

Curious...what's your budget?

It will be rewarding once completed.

[Isaakfirestar]

I'm looking forward to this project....thank you for posting.

It's nice to see someone else besides me knee deep inshit.

Curious...what's your budget?

It will be rewarding once completed.

I'm trying to get this thing running and riding for under $500. If I had started with a complete three wheeler, no problem. The expense of the cylinder bore and new piston eats a significant chunk of that, but if I can keep my costs down on the used parts I think I can make it.
My hope is to find someone who's doing performance upgrades on their ATC110 and buy their stock intake and exhaust.

[350for350]

Please ley us know how DrATV treats you. I'm, going to need a cylinder bore on at least one cylinder coming up soon.

[ATC King]

Congratulations on getting into trikes.

You're budget may be a bit low and that's going to be the hardest part to work around. Everything is expensive now. Just new tires will eat half of your current budget. In the end, things cost what they do. Sometimes waiting for the best deals can take years to score and long term projects are much more likely never be completed, which is time and money spent but never rewarded. A budget is good to have, but so is a finish date, which many never set on a home project. A budget will keep the project from running away a completion date will help keep motivation up.

The biggest thing to check on the 110 is the frame. If there are cracks, have them welded up now, before they get worse. The engine is a stressed member, it's integral to frame stiffness. Make certain all engine bolts are there and tight or it puts more stress on the frame. There's a bolt/spacer or two that go through the rear of the frame, both sides. Make certain those are there and tight as well. I think one of them goes through the stock muffler as a mount, which is why the bolt is often lost when the exhaust is removed in the middle of a project and never reassembled.

Hopefully it has all metric fasteners still and someone hasn't ed in some SAE. That's almost guaranteed for the recoil starter bolts. I think, by law, at least one recoil bolt has to be some random SAE, probably from a junked Murray mower that's sitting in front of the trailer house, next to the filthy Escalade with a flat tire and one cellophane window. If there's bolt or nut with red paint, that means danger. If it's tight, leave it alone. If it's loose, the hole is now twice the stock size and you'll need at least a 1/2" NPT, preferably from the derelict plumbing of a dilapidated house. I'm pretty sure I've seen that episode on YouTube, maybe the FTWH (FixingThingsWithHammers) channel.

Good Luck

[Isaakfirestar]

I know my budget is low (and its really not a fixed number, just more of a goal), but I see a path to a rider from where I am. I'm not replacing anything that doesnt need replacing, and for the first ride, this thing will be pretty bare bones. Once I can have fun on it, I can worry about some of the more cosmetic parts of it.

Everything that's there is metric and all the hardware has been coming off pretty easy, with the exception of the rear brake jam nuts. Spent some time fooling with them last night to no avail.
Frame looks good, but a once-over isn't a bad idea. I've been real busy this past week but I have some more time to work on it now. Plus, my parts have started showing up!

Speaking of new tires, I was looking at the Deestone D929's at $30 each. Are these guys any good? I really only need a front right now, since its a garden tractor turf saver tire, but I should probably do all 3 eventually.

[Isaakfirestar]

After nearly a week of being sick and busy, I had some good weather and free time to get some more done on the ATC yesterday!
My first order of business was to get the old ruined piston off of my connecting rod so I'd be ready when my cylinder and piston make my way back from DrATV.
One of the clips came out easy, but the other didn't want to come. Upon closer inspection it appeared to be impacted into the side of the piston by the pin shifting.
Through a lot of heat, some ing, and persistence, I got the piston pin to move and the other clip out. Once both clips were out, the pin came with relative ease and my old piston came off!

My original plan was to reuse this piston, but now that it's off I'm glad I didn't. Scoring on the pison is severe, and the pin is blued from overheating and has some aluminum transfer from the piston on the pin. Not good.
On the bright side, the side clearance of the rod is within spec, and the small end hole doesn't appear to be damaged!
The presence of sludge in the rings and underneath the piston makes me want to inspect the lower end assembly, but I was planning to take the case apart anyhow.

[Isaakfirestar]

My next task was to make sure that the high/low parts that I bought were gonna work. I cleaned them all up in solvent and put all my new parts side-by-side with the bits and pieces that were left under my old cover. After some comparing, I determined that with the exception of the new case cover that everything looked to be compatible.

So, I did a quick assembly and test to confirm that everything fit and my new parts would shift. Lo and behold, they did!
I'm still not sure what year my sub-transmission parts came out of, but internally they all seem to be the same! I'm ecstatic to have these parts in working shape, and even have a handful of spare parts just in case something ever happens.

This reassembly isn't going to be permanent, since the left side cover needs to come off so I can change the timing chain, but until my flywheel puller come in it'll be a good place to store all the parts.

[Isaakfirestar]

My final task for yesterday was to disassemble the rear end and replace the rear wheel bearings. The rear end had a lot of play and the rear brake didn't work so it all needed to come apart. While I suspected worn bearings, I was hoping that the rear shoes would be in good condition and all I'd need to do there was clean and grease the moving components.
The first step is to get past the giant lock nut Honda put on the rear axle. On a properly maintained machine I'm sure these aren't a big deal, but my 3 wheeler doesn't have any signs of maintenance or care from previous owners, and I suspect these nuts have never been off in the machines life.
Over the course of two days and a combination of heat, penetrating oil, and two cheater pipes on the biggest adjustable wrench I could find, it finally came loose.

Next, the cover and drum came off. Everything came apart without much fuss, although the drum did need a little persuasion from my small pry bar to unstick. I quickly determined the cause of my brake issues.

No wonder the brakes didn't work! Looks like I'm gonna need a new set of shoes. I might be able to clean and reattach the friction material, but imo brakes are too important to fool around with like that. Luckily I already found a set of new aftermarket ones for less than $15. Glad I don't have disc brakes or anything hydraulic here or I'd be spending an arm and a leg!
With the brakes out, a couple taps with my soft blow was all it took for the axle shaft to leave its home. Compared to some of the other ones I've seen on here it's in pretty nice shape, but the rust on wheel bearing seal areas makes me a little nervous.

Finally, with the axle out, all that remains is to pull the bearing hub out and see what's what!
Pulling the hub took more work than it should have, mainly due to the addition of a trailer hitch/tow hook on the back of the 3 wheeler. Whoever added this was not gifted with welding skills, and it would seem that their weld slobber got on the brake drum backing plate as well as the skid plate. As such, while chain backing plate came off without issue, removing the brake drum backing plate involved unbolting the headlight mount as well as the skid plate and maneuvering the whole assembly off the shoe pivot and off the bottom of the 3 wheeler. A bit of a pain, but I'm not ready to remove the tow hook and clean all of that up yet, so this was the easiest method.

From there, pulling the hub was easy and pretty painless. With it out, I'm even more convinced this rear end has never been apart, as I can't imagine everything would be in such poor condition otherwise.

Based on appearance, I think this rear end has been underwater when the machine was still running and riding. I'm not sure where so much rust and mud would come from otherwise, with the rest of the three wheeler in relatively good condition. At this point, I'm worried that in addition to the bearings being bad, that the outer races may have spun in the rear end housing and caused wear that would require a sleeve or replacement.
As I pulled it apart, however, I was delighted to find this wasn't the case! The bearings are absolutely toast, but based on the markings on the bearings and seals, I believe them to be original. Koyo open bearings and NOK seals seem like the originals to me, maybe theres an expert here who could confirm this, not that it really matters in this build.

The old ones came out with a punch, and after cleaning all the crud out of the housing, the new ones went in. Heres where my solution to the damaged sealing surface comes in: sealed bearings to replace the originals. These ones are chinesium junk, so I pulled the seals out and repacked them with decent high temp grease before installation.

A light coat of grease on the seals, and our rebuilt hub is good to go!

From here, I'm ready to reassemble. Before I did though, I wanted to take care of some of the damage the covers and plates had sustained in their life. The chain guard backing plate had a small dent on the rear, the skid plate is all bashed up and dented, and the drum backing plate was a little warped from me trying to figure out the best way to remove it all as an assembly.
I'm no panel beater, but with a little bit of work I got all of the plates straighter and certainly in better shape than I started with. Not the prettiest, but it should help everything to line up better than it did before.

With that, I'm at a good stopping point! The covers are back on, the axle is back in, and until I have my new brake parts I'm as far as I can go there.

[350for350]

Just for future reference, you only need to take one circlip out in order to remove the wrist pin. It only comes out one side of the rod. It does look like you're having some good luck so far.

[Isaakfirestar]

Just for future reference, you only need to take one circlip out in order to remove the wrist pin. It only comes out one side of the rod. It does look like you're having some good luck so far.

It should come out one side of the rod, but I had one heck of a time getting it out the direction of the "easy" circlip. After getting the other clip out and pushing it the other direction it came out no problem

[ATC King]

Speaking of new tires, I was looking at the Deestone D929's at $30

Where are you getting a 22x11x8 tire for $30?

[Isaakfirestar]

Where are you getting a 22x11x8 tire for $30?

I found a website with the Deestones I mentioned in the stock tire size for around $30. I havent tried to order them yet, but all my tires hold air so until im running and riding they can wait.