another one followed me home .......Manco Mini Quester

Kyminibiker

Kyminibiker

#1
#1
semi recently discovered that Manco made "mini" versions of their 3 and 4 wheelers, finally saw a pic of one and was on the lookout from there. Now boys this one is rough but mostly all there and decent enough to work with. not sure if this is gonna happen but i hope to make this one a low budgeted "respectable" for trikefest in june IF i can even make it. has a new 212/tav 30 on it but i plan to drop my drag bikes 228/tav30/juggernaut on it for now but eventually i want to build a nice 5 hp flatty briggs with e start/charge coils and as much reliable hp as i can with that combo. These are slightly bigger then a atc70, so i'm 5'11" and 230 lbs, just a light seat down on it and ready to ride and it wasn't too cramped, so perfect size as i thought. I want to terrorize some of those honda guys at the drags with it if possible lol

I am gonna try to use plastic epoxy and window screen to reinforce and repair the cracked and missin areas. thats after I strip the layers of thick brushed on paint off. I will then get it in ready to paint stage and leave it as i may try to splash a fiberglass mold off this (also plan to do front fender for this one and some parts for the fullsize quester like hatch lid and gas tank cover) to make replacement bodies. I found 2-3 without bodies, so this be a great way to save those bikes. since its so rough, i don't feel bad about puttin a mm212 frt fork setup on it. I do plan to make the body/seat/rims look 100% stock though when finally done, but it will just have hidden horses and sportier 19x7-8 front tire on it, with the stock rear 18x9.5-8's on the back, should look like a baby 200x.

the seat will have to get done sooner then later, any suggestions for a high quality foam to give it some real cushion for as thin as it is? I thought a really dense lower layer with one of those gels of some sort on top, this sound like it might work? don't know much on that side of things and whats available anymore.

I even picked up a giant banner and got a couple hats and shirts to rep at trikefest lol

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Kyminibiker

Kyminibiker

#3
#3
Thanks. Now I have GOT to stop buyin these things lol I'm runnin out of dry areas to put em lol I don't know why i love these manco 3 wheelers so much but they scratch all the right itches for me.

ultimate goal is to do the manco 308 i got a month or so ago in the same color as this mini. That way i can re-do a very small utility trailer up to match, tow the matchin pair of mini on the trailer behind the big quester which is gonna get the kawasaki taken off and a nice briggs 13hp in its place when i rebuild the rear diff and the bike itself.. all murican baby!!!!!!!!! and then there's my v twin quester in the works .... I think that would be pretty cool for the annual trikefest parades, espeically since manco's were made in Indiana.
 
Kyminibiker

Kyminibiker

#6
#6
got the bare essentials ordered last night but did splurge on new tires since this thing should easily do 60 mph and i wanna attempt to be safe. got kenda speed racers in the 18x9.5-8 in the back and then got the 19x7-8 version of the ultimate mini bike tire for the front. I mostly run the roads around here and blast from field to field drivin the dogs nuts, so street skins don't tear stuff up as much. Based on the sears catalog pic, looks like they used a manco t bird handle bar on it, so i have 3 t birds and will snag the straightest one. all bearings are on the way, peg grips, i think i have some mx style waffle grips in my stock pile of wasted money. I am kickin around the idea of sandwiching the body where it bolts under the seat with a 1/2"-1" layer of wood and maybe a 1/8" thick dense rubber mat and do the same above with the seat base, try to spread the load out as much as possible for the body. besides hopefully supporting the body better, it should give me enough room under the faux tank area to put in a 2L whizzer tank which would be good for now. Future plans when I do it up NICE will be a tank in the rear and hopefully hold 1-2 gallons of gas there as well. I run up to 10 miles each way on these toys iof mine when i go to bs with my buddies around here on weeekends, so i like to have plenty of fuel on hand. I got some VHT gold wheel paint which looks pretty darn close to the catalog pic.

I have the mm212 front fork setup mocked on, will have to chop the shock supports another 1-3/4"-2" so that will make it sit about just under 7" higher in the front, stock height from top triple to the center of axle was 18". Hopefully it looks like a smaller 250r and not a 70's street freak chopper. I won't cut at hing though until i get all the tires mounted and on, can always add solid spacers at the neckarea to move it up and down, little hokey but would work. since the mm212 frt end has headlight and disc brakes, makes things pretty simple on me in that dept. I will use this coleman fender i picked up a few months back but will eventually fix and mod the front fender to fit. Will need to mount a decent sized battery someplace to as no chargin coils on the 228 obviously. I like to have a headlight and tail light though.
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I started to strip the layers of paint off the body, thankfully just 2 coats. one very thick coat of brushed on red paint and a blue layer under it which is tougher to get off. usin cheap heavy duty oven cleaner as it shouldn't hurt the abs accordin the intraverse, i don't let it sit for more then 15-30 minutes on it and then rinse off very well a few times as i scrape. I plan to repair the smaller areas first and the larger tin reinforced areas a few rivets at a time and peel back the patch, but on one spot might have to try and fix it all with the tin removed. Thats the good thing about abs plastic, its easy to work with and fix, but it needs to have its shape before I put any plastic epoxy on it as I don't think that bends when heated. It's slow goin as you need to wire brush the paint surface so the oven cleaner can get in it, but it's doable.
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the kid i got this from broke and lost the brake rod before i got there, I will either try to find or make a cable or will use a piece of all thred with eyelet ends, cover it in rubber hose of some sort and call that done. Needs to be about 15-15.5" from end to end. I think with the 4" band via foot and solid linkage and the dual piston frt disc, it should stop pretty good. Not sure i'll upgrade to a rear disc if it works good enough as it is. I also discovered he lost one of the rear axle spacers, so need to sort that out. not a big deal but little more stuff to try to remember.

I do still have to find a header that fits the frame, its a tricky one but i'll worry about that later. I still have a month till trikefest. Heres some pics of things as they progress. I will likely leave the forks painted all black with the black boots to sort of keep with the originals look. I might switch to bolt on hubs and wheels on the rear, not a fan of the axle nut/keyed wheel setup. I may even space the rear wheels out a 1.5" or so, might help give it that racer 3 wheeler look, which the factory fender will kill lol. here's as good a pic as i could get as I am workin in sub station alpha aka the old horse stalls so excuse the mess, I just use this old place to toss crap out of my way for a while and keep it dry. Not sure how I like this headlight size but once its a roller and has the screen guard on, we'll see. need to order a brighter led bulb for it to if i use it.
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Kyminibiker

Kyminibiker

#7
#7
all it does it rain here ugh progress has been slow, waitin on a few little must have parts. ddi get the front wheel all painted and tire on. I should be able to really nail the stance. I can lower the rear an inch if i want and haven't even begun to set the frt end. VHT gold wheel paint was pretty darn close to the original. I couldn't use the manco t bird bars, not enough room for things, used a set of trailmaster mb200 bars for now, not too bad.
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Kyminibiker

Kyminibiker

#9
#9
sparkwizard said:
It's just not fair! Some of us don't have ANY Mini Questers.
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well i do only have just one..................for now lol I did just miss out on a body-less mini quester outside lexington ky last week, was only 40.00. might have made it an hour before it was sold. Hopefully whoever got it shows up here or on the FB groups and doesn't hack on the frame at all. I will keep my eyes out for them big time now, but since none of them seem to have bodies, no one knows what they are when they list them, so its a little tricky to search for them.

I always hit the clearance sections when I place parts orders and throw in dirt cheap stuff i might be able to use. I had picked up a few coleman ct100u seats for like 5.00 each, looks like i just need to make a wooden base and re staple the cover and foam to it. so will use that for now.

I bought a header kit from OldMiniBikes and stainless muffler from AR exhaust (he sells a lot of stuff on ebay) and it even came with a spark arrestor in it. really high quality muffler in stainless, its a true muffler and not just a few plates with holes in it offset like RLV's which don't muffle much and then he high heat powder coated it and still cheaper or same price as a similar rlv muffler, best part its all American made. I will report back on that with a vid because I'd really like to see this guys stuff take off in our hobby. I got a clamp on style so i can go back and forth from a staged/trumpet end when I wanna wake everyone in the holler up and the muffler for when I want to hear myself think and when i'm on any sort of state land that requires spark arrestors.
 
Kyminibiker

Kyminibiker

#11
#11
pretty much mechanically done, other then i need to cut a inch or so off those shock tubes on the lower triple tree, but this thing rips!! I haven't started to tune the driven in yet so it basically goes into high gear shortly after take off but still fun. will try to get vids posted in a while.
 

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Kyminibiker

Kyminibiker

#16
#16
they respond to anything lol we have 7 of our own and 4 fosters we got shoved on us back in sept that were sposed to be gone in oct, here it is july ugh a couple of them have that high pitched collie type bark that eats right into your brain

They aren't the best vids but will try to get some more, maybe on the road this time since those bumps really kill me goin faster.
 
Kyminibiker

Kyminibiker

#19
#19
RobertC said:
I didn't realize there were two sizes.

Don't take this the wrong way, but that's a nice pair ya got there !
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lol

yea once i learned of the mini's existence, that explained one someone tried to sell me a year or so ago. I asked if it had a storage locker and he said no, but he also told me it had a 8 hp briggs on it, but he must have misread the 3 for an 8. I said i wasn't sure what he had but it wasn't a manco, joke was on me. I also have recently learned they made them for Indian cycles, so there are also Indian 3 wheelers out there made by manco. Seems the bodies on these mini versions really got battered more easily as evidenced on this one from some 2011 pics I found on a forum. I know the guy who just recently bought this same bike, he and I have been talking. He is going to trace the mini's stripes for me so i can get blueline graphics to make me a set but with the Manco logo instead of the Indian.

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