Custom Electric Drift Trike With Metal Spider Webs, Flames and Led Lights

So my kids all have electric vehicle's simply for the ease of use. I got tired of gas engines. I modified my sons 4 wheeler and added a 36v motor and I was not disappointed. So I may have got a little jealous so I decided it was time to build me a vehicle that could ride with them and it took a weird turn. I would like to introduce you to the Spider Drift trike.

36 volt motor kit

green led lights

m6 rivet

m6 colored bolts

terminal strips for wiring

rocker switches

head light https://amzn.to/3SyFYuZ

hangers https://amzn.to/3MP5uKT

handle bar stem https://amzn.to/3VH4v3A

brake line https://amzn.to/3z1x3uT

brake handle https://amzn.to/3EWY0DI

Chain https://amzn.to/3EYjnVj

spring https://amzn.to/3TkfBdg

I bought a 50$ 110cc 4wheeler that was not working thought it was a deal since most axel kits are over 100$ and I wanted the shocks to make it look different than all the rest of the drift trikes. I also had an old bike that was ready to join the build. Other material was scrap metal and paint the cost of your trike could be a lot different

tools needed for this project include

Welder

drills

grinder with cutting wheel

hand tools such as pliers socket sets

rivet tool

heat shrink tube

heat gun

and misc hand tools

This could be the scariest part but just know you have a welder and little to no skills we can do this.... Just a side note I jumped into this project not knowing how to weld and this project I was able to learn a lot and I hope you do to so lets get after it!

Cut the pedals off the bike remove the sprocket (you can try and take them off they are reverse thread and normally pretty tight).

Next step get it down to bar bones anything you can remove remove it then start cutting.

For the 4 wheeler part of the project i was able to pick this up for 50$ thinking it would save me money since most axel and wheels set are well over 100$ I started slow and unbolted everything not wanting to stay on the 4 wheeler once you have unbolted and removed all the motor handle bars and such cut off all the unwanted material. We are wanting the front forks and the bottom part of the frame of the bike for the front and the back half of the 4 wheeler i tried to keep as much of the bottom of the frame as i could to give it a longer stance.

So a lot of drift trikes I seen are really low to the ground and probably for good reason.(not sure what those are yet) lower center of gravity probably. But I am getting a little older and my knees hurt and I wanted something different and I think I succeeded in that. please give me your thoughts on the design in the comments!! good or bad I posted on the internet I am aware of the repercussions... I used scrap metal I had laying around. The new frame is made from sprinkler pipe. The tail fin was made from metal from shipping a go cart.

The spider webs started out using 1/8 rod and it worked great the only problem was the price so i switched to hangers and this worked well I burned through them accouple times until I got the settings right on the welder. but this was a pretty simple task once you get the hang of it and see how long to pull the trigger on the welder. I used rebar to attach the foot peddles and this was taken off the 4 wheeler in the demo stage. I really tried to use as much from the scrap as i could to save on money and keep it out the dump!

I had no plan going into it but I wanted it to look old school 80s so I went on eBay and got a vintage mag wheel for the front wheel and a old school banana seat to match. I receive a lot of flack on the internet for that since its plastic and will probably break. HOW ABOUT you all sit back and enjoy the show!!!

I just kept adding supports until it felt sturdy then added a couple more.

Then I had the idea I better put a spoiler on it so I fabricated some small round tub into a spoiler and then used my heat gun to melt the plexy glass to form the shape. I started with a big piece and cut off the excess. this gave me a good base to start adding the spider webs to any open area. I used a rivet to attach some plexy glass on the sides to cover the wiring and control box. I made them removable by using rivet nuts into the frame. The spider webs were a great way to hide my horrible welds

For this Project I choose to go with a 36 volt motor kit https://amzn.to/3yYkX5Q from amazon. This is the same motor my son has in his quad and it works great. The great thing is i can always upgrade to something bigger. The kit came with everything I needed minus the battery nic cad batteries are trash hate them for kids stuff cause they don't understand the charging and running it empty be for re charging it. so go lithium https://amzn.to/3g6WIfF

I used a piece of 1/4 inch steel to make the motor mount and drilled over sized holes so i could adjust if needed the mount can slide up or down to allow the chain to be tightened.

I really wanted to powder coat this but the cost got away from me and i ran out of money in the budget so i just went with all white paint. i think the contrast of the green lights makes it look sick. i bought some m6 decorative bolts these are really cheap and if you over tighten them they will snap! but they look ridiculously good on the trike i ordered a cheap 12v head light and made custom spider webs to mount it to the trike.

Wiring was really simple but... I made it harder because I didn't like the messy look of the pre terminated wire harness so I cut them off and put them on terminal boards https://amzn.to/3TyxtRa . Once it started looking good I needed away to show it off so I went to amazon and found some 12v outdoor rated green lights https://amzn.to/3EYhjN3 to match the wire covering. I covered all the exposed wire with the neon green cable wrap sealing them with heat shrink tubing so the ends would not fray. It would have bee hard to hide the wires so i decided to make them part of the design and I couldn't be happier with the results. I added 3 rocker switches one for the green lights one for the head light and 1 for the brights. All this is wired to a 12 v battery not associated with the motor. i want to do some research on the controller i am sure there is a 12 power on there that would be better so i could kill all the lights by removing the key.

Like I said before I was shooting for a 80s style look with the meg wheel. I was able to find a banana seat on eBay as well. I love leather working but I still need a lot of practice but what better project to practice on then this so the handle grips where to stock for me so I covered them with white faux leather from hobby lobby then used neon green string to give it the pop it deserves. I plan on re doing these to get a better finished product but for now I think they look great

Problem 1 was that the atv hubs do not work with go kart wheels the hole pattern is different. The way i over came this was by drilling new holes the size of the go kart rim, then cut away the excess with the grinder. I think at high speeds this could give it some wobble but i am willing to live with that. For me personally will buy the axel kit for the trike next time https://amzn.to/3EylGOd

Problem 2

was what contest to enter this in most stuff i make would only fit in to one maybe 2 categories. But this one was a tough.

I know this wasn't the best step by step but i hope it brings you inspiration please leave me a comment if you have any questions I will do my best to answer them in a timely matter.