Let’s See If This Trike From 1974 Can Still Run

After 40 years of sitting, this rare 1974 Tri Sport gets a wake-up call.

By: Earl Davidson

Feb 12, 2023 at 1:12pm ET

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Restorers and rare bikes often make for the best videos, but this time we have a restorer and a rare trike. Making things more interesting, 2vintage, the YouTuber we’ll be following this time around, was able to get a rare 1974 Tri Sport two-stroke trike that hasn’t been touched for over 40 years.

The first part of the video opens up with him checking out the registration, which is surprising because the vehicle’s actually legal to use on public roads. With the paperwork checking out, and the initial walkaround on the back of the trailer concluded, the trike was pulled off the trailer and pushed into the shop.

First order of business? Getting the engine checked out. All the electrical connections were checked out, some of the mechanical bits were inspected and even a compression test was done. Amazingly, the engine returned some compression which indicated that it wasn’t worn through and busted. After 2vintage made sure that the electricals checked out and the spark plug was sparking, it was on to the next step.

With the compression test checking out and the spark plug firing, the fuel system was next. The carburetor got a nice clean and fresh serving of fuel. Once that was out of the way, it was time to pull the cord. Amazingly, there were already signs of life the moment that the cord was first pulled. On the second try, we got a few combustion cycles and then even more on the third pull.

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The engine died after that, but it refused to fire up after. More fuel was added, the cord was pulled a few more times, and finally, the engine had its first idle after over four decades of sitting still. It idled until it ran out of gas which was a great sign. A lot of things came out of the exhaust pipe of the 340cc two-stroke motor, but at least the trike started.

There were a ton of things that still needed to be done and you can catch the updates on it in the second video that 2vintage posted on his YouTube channel here: