Originally written by Hack'n on 5/20/2007 11:56 AM
Good luck on your installation.
Which Sidecar Meet are you headed for?Lonnie
Northwest Sidecar
It's going to be a tight schedule to have my rig ready, but I hope to attend the: 4th Annual Lake Berryessa Sidecar Meet and Greet, Saturday June 09, 2007. Held at Spanish Flat Parking Area, Lake Berryessa, CA
It's a meet and greet type of gathering of sidecars and anyone else who has an interest in them, two wheelers are welcome to. Their will be a Bring Your Own Bar-B-Que also. I attended last year, but drove my Mazda pick-up. I saw a dozen or more different type of sidecars and how they were set up. I even got to me the famous Heather, who rides a special adapted sidecar, she and others built from a Ural sidecar frame, she supervised. They had a raffle last year and gave out a couple of really nice Helmits, and other door prizes.
Getting their on a sidecar is half the fun, lots of twisty turns and pretty scenery, best of all if your interested, plenty of different types of camping. One word of caution, if you trailer your rig, then ride. You may want to come a day early and find a place to park your vehicle and trailer, the parking lot was pretty crowded with the sponsers layout and of course, all the sidecar rigs and two wheelers attending.
Anyway, even if I fail to make it, Come one, Come all and have some great fun and meet some old and new friends who also enjoy sidecaring.
Ongoing saga of "Installing SC Mounts On MC Not A Bed Of Roses"
I started to do a ruough fit of my sidecar frame to my Goldwing, first off I noticed that the front upper arm way to long. The rear upper arm was shorter so I swapped them out. The front upper arm's length is just right now, but the rear mount, although now with the longer arm, it still to short. Sent urgent message to Jay at Dauntless, hope he can help me with out hurting my pocket book to badly.
I'm not sure how they make the arm extentions, but If I were to make one, what type of metal round stock would I use. Drilling and tapping this rod, I would definately leave to a professional, since I have niether a jig nor drill press, for this purpose. Also it appears that both lower arms will require cutting off a bit off the end material, since they stick up to high and interfere with the upper arms as I move the sidecar into it's proper positioning.
Anyone know where I might find end-caps for the lower arms, so that water may not get down into them?
One step closer, two steps back. LoL
Jay also has plastic end caps for the clamps and bosses. They don't always fit perfectly so I would recommend sealing them with silicone. Lowe's and Home Depot may also have plugs.
High strength steel is not needed to extend upper struts. They don't take the brunt of forces like the lower mounts do. Short strut tubes can be sectioned and slipped into a length of A36 steel tubing or schedule 40 black steel pipe and welded to get the desired length.
Lonnie
Northwest Sidecars
Welding something medium to large in size, I can handle, trying to weld around something smaller requires more skill than I think I can muster with my wire feed welder. If I had the time and money to spare, I would probably give it a try, that is if I could find the rod stock and tubing and don't forget the tap I would also have to buy so that I can use the end piece off my old strut. Of course their is the miner detail of how to make or supply the opposite end connecting peace.
I'll check with Lowes and Home Depot on the end caps, when I have the extra time. Not a high priority at this time.
Originally written by Hack'n on 5/21/2007 12:45 PM
Jay also has plastic end caps for the clamps and bosses. They don't always fit perfectly so I would recommend sealing them with silicone. Lowe's and Home Depot may also have plugs.
High strength steel is not needed to extend upper struts. They don't take the brunt of forces like the lower mounts do. Short strut tubes can be sectioned and slipped into a length of A36 steel tubing or schedule 40 black steel pipe and welded to get the desired length.Lonnie
Northwest Sidecars
I build my own to fit. You can use black iron pipe for them Get two nuts that fit the ends you have ,cut pipe to size then weld nuts to bouh ends. Make sure you have right hand on one end and left on the othes. Call me if you need help or information.Phone # at bottem
Now you want me to weld a nut on the end of a round pipe. Even as it were, I had to practive quite abit, just to get some of my welding skills back. It would take me to much time to weld something up, like what you are discribing. No, I will let those who know what their doing make the part, so long as it doesn't cost more than I can spare and I wasn't so pressed for time. I'll keep this post in mind if things should change.
To lenghten a strut I would cut the one you have in half and then find a piece of tubing that has a I.D. close to the O.D of the exisitng tube. Cut the large piece to the length needed the drill a good sized hole in the sides of it , one fairly close to each end. Make the hole large enough so it can be welded to the smaller tube through it once all is slipped together. This is called a plug weld. It gives a lot of strength to the assembly. The welds at the ends will then be called upon to do less work but will still seal the connection of the tubes up okay.
Note that when you weld a tube that has threads inside of it you shoudl be prepoared to chase the threads with a tap after welding as they can get distorted.
Do not try and just weld a common nut on the ends of a tube unless you are sure of what you are doing!! Even then it is not the best practice. There are 'weld nuts' avaiable that are necked down for this purpose where a portion of the 'nut' is turned down to slip inside the tube.
Another option is to use alonger threaded rod to extend the strut. If there is a concern about too many threads being exposed a threaded sleeve can be put over then with a jam nut or even a piece of tubing with the correct I.D. will add strength.
Probably the best thing is to see if you can just exchange your short strut for a longer one with Jay.
All in all welcome to the world of rigging sidecars 🙂
Talked with Jay about a new strut, between $60 and $80 was his best price, did not offer to swap or give me a core charge credit. He did however suggest what you just did. I found an outlet in town that carrys the pipe I need and I am going to try and weld the pipe over the old strut after cutting it in half. Buying another tap, along with the pipe stock, is a whole lot cheaper than buying a new strut at this time. The idea of a plug weld was something I was considering, Now that I know it will do the job, I'll combine that with welding the end of the pipe stock as well.
Thanks for hanging in there and helping me out. I hope welding a quarter of the pipe stock and then turning it, welding another quarter section, as Jay suggested, works as well as it sounds.
Thanks again
If it is okay with you from an aesthetics standpoint the new larger tube does not have to run all the way to the end(s) of the older one. I assume your strut is threaded on one end only coming from Jay. If you can keep the welded portion back down away from where the threads are you will have little concern of the threads being distorted and may be able to forgo the need to chase them with a tap.
If you want to send me your strut I will make you one for $35 +shiping
Claude S.: I was thinking along the same lines, but if I am able to make my connecting buses in town, picking up a $5.00/$6.00 tap won't be any problem. If it works out, I might think on doing it to the front, not only to even it aesthetics wise, it would make the front a bit stronger, not that it needs it.
My next hurdle will be after I complete my rough install. I will have to find a nice level place to do the fine adjustment. Can't do it on the street because the roads are slight domed for melting snow run off and of course the traffic. My gravel driveway wouldn't be any better. I'm going to call one of my neighbors to see if he will let me use his garage for a short time, but he's not usually home very much, that is when he isn't out riding his Harley.
Thanks for the suggestion and all the input on this miner problem.
Originally written by claude #3563 on 5/22/2007 3:30 AM
If it is okay with you from an aesthetics standpoint the new larger tube does not have to run all the way to the end(s) of the older one. I assume your strut is threaded on one end only coming from Jay. If you can keep the welded portion back down away from where the threads are you will have little concern of the threads being distorted and may be able to forgo the need to chase them with a tap.
This is a great thread.Gives a good idea on what is involved in mounting a sidecar.I attached a Kenna to a Yamaha FJ 1100.For struts I used
1 inch square tube that I had left from building a laser cutting table.
A local welder(farm and pulpmill) welded nuts to the ends.One end had 3/4"
fine thread,the other end 3/4" left hand standard thread.Then I had
1" by 1/2" pieces of flatbar welded to the ends of threaded rod to form forks.Those I ground to shape.Not that elegant but plenty strong.
So my work was mostly hacksawing(with a portable bandsaw) and grinding.
Left the welding to the expert.Some pictures of my attachments to bike are in the foto section under storch. Gary
I'm curious, how can you adjust it with a NF thread on one end and a NC on the other, they bind don't they?
Ted
Ted,
One rotation is still one rotation. The coarse threaded end will just extent farther than the NF or SAE threaded end will at each turn.
Lonnie
Northwest Sidecars
I could not find 3/4" rod and nuts with left hand thread,so coarse had to do.
Gary
