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3-Wheeler Repowered With 12-Hp. Briggs & Stratton
Mark Rahn of Ellis Grove, Ill. recently sent FARM SHOW photos of an old Honda 125 3-wheeler he repowered with a Briggs & Stratton 12-hp. vertical shaft, electric start engine.
    “It’s a tar-eating machine that doesn’t go very fast, but has a lot of power. Adding the Briggs & Stratton engine was like installing a V-8 engine on a motorcycle,” says Rahn. “When my kids were little they used to ride the heck out of this machine, and had a lot of fun spinning it around on snow and ice. We mounted a straight pipe on the new engine that makes it sound a lot like a Harley Davidson motorcycle.”
    To make the engine fit they had to turn it on its side at a 45-degree angle, and redesign the “oil slinger” in order to distribute oil throughout the engine. They also had to make custom intake and exhaust manifolds.
    “At first we chain-drove the engine straight to the rear axle, but the driver had to be going about 40 mph before the centrifugal clutch would engage. That was dangerous,” says Rahn. “So we decided to chain-drive the 3-wheeler’s rear axle through a series of sprockets and an add-on shaft, which gears the machine down. However, the machine then had so much torque that after about a month of riding and doing doughnuts, we managed to break the frame in half - twice. That was the only problem we had. So we reinforced the frame and have had no problems since then.”
    Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Mark Rahn, 7342 Gum Spring Lane, Ellis Grove, Ill. 62241 (ph 618 615-6659; markrahn66@gmail.com).


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2021 - Volume #45, Issue #3