A swashplate type piston motor with a tripod joints is introduced to improve compactness and starting torque in conventional types of motor. If the driving torque of motor shaft is transmitted by utilizing the mechanism, its friction torque loss would be drastically reduced and mechanical efficiency would be improved because the lateral force on the piston of the rod type motor with tripod joints mechanism is relatively smaller than that of the conventional plunger type motor. In particular, kinematics analysis for the mechanism are done as a preliminary study to investigate the feasibility of the mechanism in the axial piston motor. General formulas are derived from the displacement and velocity analysis of the mechanism, showing relationships between output shaft and shoe holder motion. A series of numerical calculations are carried out for a medium size motor with 160cc/rev using the formulas and their graphical plots are shown as well.