Fatbones With Champion Avenger Sidecar

Dave, that Champion Avenger sidecar is going to be the perfect match for your modified Fatbones bike. Excellent choice of sidecar.

And, the Avenger sidecar has the door in the side of the sidecar, making ingress and egress much easier.

Very smart man !

What a good looking bike! Will make a beautiful rig.  Looking forward to the pictures. 👍 

Thank you for the comments

The first stage will mostly be fiberglass work, tub has some issues due to low speed collision.  Will be modifying fender to accept matching tombstone taillight.

Will be relacing the wheel, switching to black rim

I will post pictures throughout the project.

Right On! 

Looking forward to this.  I really enjoy build threads.  Always great ingenuity, and ideas that come from them. 👍 

Yeah, what Sheath said.  We love to watch.

A n̈new T shirt design coming up. 

Monkey see monkey do.

The sidecar arrived at 7:00am Saturday morning and it killed me to put in the garage for a few days and not look at it.

i am a local Santa and had to see hundred of children over the weekend and hear what they wanted for Christmas all the time knowing I got my present already, a Champion Avenger sidecar!

The sidecar had been attached to another bike and took a hit in the nose.  There is considerable fiberglass work to do, but I’ll tackle that after assessing everything else I have in front of me.

in looking at the sidecar, the wheel and fender do not lineup and the wheel appears to be towed in more than what I would expect, and the top of the wheel appears to tilt then towards the tub.  The swing arm is not parallel to the frame and runs out about an inch over the length of the swing arm.

Tomorrow I will remove the fender and get a better look and start the main assessment of the frame, swing arm, axle and suspension.  There is no obvious damage in this area.  I’ve emailed Champion to try and get some type of technical specifications so I can check and see what if anything is misaligned.  I’m hoping to hear soon from champion.  In the meantime, any ideas of where I can go and how I can get specifications for these areas of the frame, swing iron and suspension if Champion doesn’t come through?

I’m hoping someone from our community may have a champion sidecar who would be willing to show me what is normal/factory correct.

The last/bottom picture shows the run out on the swing arm.  I know it’s not a good picture and I’ll post more  tomorrow once the fender is off.  If the runout on the swing arm is normal it will help me focus on other issues.  

I do have the installation manual ,  but it hasn’t been much of help

Dave, hopefully the guys at Champion will come through for you, because whilst there are other Champion sidecars out there in our community, they don't all have that same frame, or swingarm that your sidecar does. Once you get the fender off, start by taking a straight edge to as many things as you can, such as the swingarm, the axle itself, etc, just to see if you can find anything bent.

Is there any sign that the accident that damaged the nose of the sidecar, might have also had the sidecar tire/wheel hit the curb hard enough to bend anything, is the fender itself damaged?

It's Winter, take your time, do things right...and..THANK YOU for being a Santa to your local community.

I used to do that myself, even had my own very nice Santa outfit, from head to toe, and would visit the local nursing homes and old folks homes during Christmas, until....the little olde ladies kept hitting on me, so I had to quit, just for my own health sake.

Oh, and Dave, I have to ask...WHERE do you live ?  I ask, because it may be that very same Haul-Bikes truck that will be heading my way to pick up my Euro-Wing sidecar rig in early January, to ship it down to Ocala, Florida, to their warehouse, where I will pick it up from there, and have it ship from Orlando, to Germany. That's only a little over 3 weeks from now, so........

Thank you for the reply and advice.  I live in Massachusetts on the New York border and the truck came out of Harrisburg PA.  The driver was great and even helped me get the sidecar into my workshop.

No damage on the fender or the rim, cosmetic or otherwise.  I’ve looked closely and felt all around the rim.  

I hope to remove the fender this afternoon and get the sidecar on the lift.  Once leveled it should be easier to begin getting measurements and checking angles.  I’ll share what I find.

Good looking setup!

Began the tear down of the sidecar this evening in attempt to find the cause of the misalignment of the wheel.  Taking the fender off revealed the extent of the problem.  It appears that swing arm mount is bent which caused everything else to shift.  I’ll check all components for damage.  See photos

Dave, you may get lucky, and find that the only thing that is bent is that swing arm mount.

I spoke with the seller last night who removed the sidecar from the bike after purchasing the pair.  I asked him if he disconnected the brake lines for the sidecar brake.  He said the brake was never hooked up which confirmed my suspicions. There were no wear marks on the disk brake rotor. There is very little wear on a tire and I wonder how long it was on the bike and the experience of the pilot??  I’m not sure why someone would pay extra for the sidecar brake and then not plumb it in?  

I can’t help but wonder about the original install.  Everything tells a story but the physics involved in bent swing mount makes zero sense given the visual evidence.  Reminds me of a punch line to a joke……”and the farmer tells the bartender, somethings you just can’t explain”