Stop Dreaming and Start Building

June 10th, 2008 | Posted by Justin Kaiser | Category: @ Big Bob - General Discussion | Comments

I’ve wanted to have a garage of my own ever since my dad taught me how to weld and we built that first trailer in our garage on the uneven floor.  As a senior in High School I restored and painted a 1968 Ford Mustang with a 289 K Code. 

15 years later my wife and I have settled down, bought a house, and I finally have a garage.  My priorities have changed over the years and I make a living off of my voice now, however the want and need for a project hasn’t changed any.

Shortly after purchasing the house, I converted a 12x 24 foot section into a voiceover studio and office plus another 8×6 into storage space.  In addition, my wife is a Pre-K teacher and has a lot of books and teaching materials on “her side”.  

So, space is a bit limited, but plenty of room for a VW Trike.  I give you…  Big Bob…  dedicated to my dad “Bob Kaiser”.

So, why a VW Powered Trike?  Well, I’m told that when they are well designed and engineered, they can be easy and inexpensive to build and half the parts are already available from Volkswagen Beetle vehicles.  Also, with the price of today’s gas, the light weight of a VW Trike like Big Bob can get up to 45 miles per gallon and the transmission can be easily re-geared for many different size engines to gain a high gear overdrive, which reduces gas consumption and engine wear. The Volkswagen frame can be mated into many large scale motorcyle frames or can be custom constructed with a a little engineering.

After announcing the fact that I was going to build this project, Dan Booi from Ashkum, IL offered up a donor Yamaha XS850 frame with dual front brakes on the front.  A seemingly perfect starter for the front end of our trike… until I someone mentioned using a Harley front end.  It still seems a bit pricey and I think this front end will be heavy enough and the Dual Disc brakes in front will be a nice addition.

And shortly after finding the donor bike, I’ve found a donor frame…  It’s going to need quite a bit of welding and reworking but it’s a great place to start.

But will my Jap Bike front end work with this bike???

Is this donor frame safe?