My brother in law Vic bought this trike from a mate who claimed it'd originally been built by Desperate Dan.
Yeah right!, Desperate yes, Dan no. Although it had an MOT, it was dangerous. The carb was leaking petrol onto the exhaust manifold and the back brakes didn’t work at all.
So I stripped it down to the bare frame. The welding was pretty bad. It looked more like pigeon poo than weld. We had it sand blasted and as Vic's a master welder, he completely re-welded it.
I had a new headstock machined and we set it in at an angle of 50°, (Vic had been watching too much American Chopper!). This gave the trike a nice stance and gave plenty of room to fit a radiator later. We weren't keen on the old Kawasaki front end, so we ditched it in favour of a complete Yamaha
XJ900 Diversion set-up which I bought from Bernie’s Bike Breakers of Aldershot for a great price. This was fitted in after having the fork legs and front wheel polished by Barry from Bracknell Polishing. Not sure if Vic regrets the choice of finish as he’s not much cop with the chrome cleaner!
Lights & indicators came from eBay and we picked up the ape hanger handlebars and Harley tank from the annual Surrey Harley autojumble.
The rear wheels -bloody great Wolfrace slot mags, complete with new tyres - again came from eBay. We drove up to Ilkston in Derbyshire to pick them up and the seller turned out to be none other than Ian from Custom Cycles. He showed us his own bikes, including his missus’s very nice Sportster trike, and gave us some top advice for the re-build. Cheers Ian. Good luck with the new venture.
I had to get the wheels plugged, welded and re-drilled to the Reliant bolt pattern before we could fit them. This was done by a friend of a friend -cheers John. When we finally stuck them on they looked awesome, big as a bloody Hummer. I quickly took a tape measure to the width, just to make sure they were within the regulations, and would you believe it they were on the nose, phew!
Vic then made the stainless exhaust, foot rests, rear tray, battery box, bull bar, gearstick, seat base and mudguards at a mate's workshop. He's a clever sod, though he reckons he’s not mechanically minded!
We had the paint job done by A & C finishing in Newbury, Berks. Great job they did too, even gave us a tin of touch up paint for the stone chips!
All the final polishing was again done by Barry of Bracknell Polishing.
I bought all the remaining parts mostly on eBay and put her together. I did the wiring myself, with the help of J Partridge's website, (trike wiring for beginners). Check it out. Couldn’t have done it with out you John.
The engine is the original 1978 850cc Reliant, untouched by human hands so far. I gave it a clean and a bit of paint and a buff up and it started first time. Amazing.
We overhauled the rear brakes with new cylinders and shoes, but they’re still cr*p. It passed the MOT, but thank God for the twin front discs.
We mounted the seat on a pair of Harley shocks just to give it a little bit of comfort.
It goes and handles really well. As Vic is disabled we’re looking to make the clutch pedal a little easier to use.
The Trike passed its MOT and is now on the road. It's bloody wide and takes some getting used to. It's not fast, but Vic and Julie love it and spend most of their time waving back to passers by.
This was our first go at building anything. I’m pretty pleased with it. Thanks to all the guys & gals at Manky Monkey Motors who have helped in getting the finer points finished off.
I called it Barkin' Mad cos to be honest, it is and Vic & Julie definitely are!

-Mick