opie79 - 7/16/2015 10:05 PM Mr Johnny Sweet you are truly amazing!!!! it turns out that I have had one of your sidecars sitting in my barn for almost 5 years -an SL-440 I'm nearly certain. I have wondered many times about how I was going to install it, and to what kind of bike. I mainly ride Harley's these days, but I'm one of those that likes nearly all makes and models. I believe that I am about to make an extended "loan" of my rig to my cousin with a physically challenged son. I cannot wait to see it attached to his Road King. After reading these stories I'll never sell it for sure!!! P.s., my rig has the original upholstery, the chrome hubcap, original windshield and is in fantastic shape ALL THE WAY DOWN IN THE TEXAS PANHANDLE!!! I will post pics soon. I had no idea that I had such a special sidecar just sitting in the barn.
Thanks for all the great information and more importantly for you service to our country. It truly is the " the Land of the free because of the brave"! Welcome to the Carolinas! You picked a great place to live. Enjoy!
As usual, Mr. Sweet is a perfect gentleman and willing to help anyone who asks. He is definitely 'Old School' and he knows what he is talking about.
Hi Johnny: I have enjoyed reading all the great info that you have posted here on the forum. I have enjoyed talking to you and the e-mails from you. I am looking forward to you building a Sweet Classic Sidecar for my 07 Yamaha Road Star Midnight Silverado 1700. It is a pleasure to be able to talk and see a real crafts mans work. Chuck Hudson,Fl.
Hello Johnny,
I noticed in one of your pictures you have one of your sidecars on a KLR650. Have you designed any sidecars that are for dual sport use, with the emphasis on dirt, not pavement?
De Oppresso Liber
Tom
maquette - 1/3/2016 11:37 AM Hello Johnny, I noticed in one of your pictures you have one of your sidecars on a KLR650. Have you designed any sidecars that are for dual sport use, with the emphasis on dirt, not pavement? De Oppresso Liber Tom
ar. I built twelve sidecars in 2015 for some really great people. The sidecars have changed many lives. I guess that's what it's all about. When it stops being fun Ill be all done but for the time being I'm having a great time. We drive our sidecars every good day and living in South Carolina affords me the opertunity to drive almost every good day with the temperature above sixty degrees. I've found a niche and what I produce fits my customer demands.
batic airplanes . I have about a dozen sketch books on all sorts of interesting things. I never know where my minds going to take me.
e before the mold burns up. Production boats use an aluminum mold and thousands of boats can be made from these kinds of molds. Today fifteen years later two of my boats, the Carolina and the Avatar are still being made from the original aluminum molds. It's funny because when I was modeling the new Avatar sixteen foot boat I had to look up the definition of Avatar. Years later they make a movie named Avatar; go figure. Ya, I know it had nothing to do with the boat. So they take the mold that's attached to a metal frame and open it up. It looks like a big clam. They then pour colored plastic powder into the mold spreading the plastic powder around. The little competition boats weigh between eighteen and twenty two pounds and the sixteen and eighteen foot boats that are sold to the public weigh over forty pounds. The mold is then closed up and sent into the furnace. The mold is attached to a big machine that rotates the mold in two directions at the same time. The furnace heats up the mold and the powdered plastic starts to melt and stick to the inside surface of the mold. The plastic powder inside the mold flows around the surface of the inside of the mold as it is being rotated touching every area of the mold. In areas that the powdered plastic has a hard time flowing into the machine will stop for a few second when it reaches that area. This places the specific area of the mold in the lowest point so that the plastic can bunch up in that area. They heat the mold and rotate it until all the powdered plastic has melted and produced a plastic boat the shape of the inside of the mold. The finished boat is a little smaller than the inside of the mold once it's removed. The shrinkage allowance is all pre determined during the modeling process. The model will be slightly larger than the finished boat. When we were in the design process of the new boats we used fiberglass molds. They built a few boats out of each mold. We would take one of the new boats and cut it into quarters inspecting and measuring the boat thickness. At time we would cut the quarters up into little pieces for a closer inspection. The team paddlers while testing the boats would determine how thick they wanted the boats in different areas. Some liked a thicker bottom than others. It's an art and a science getting the boats thickness figured out. A skilled machine operator that knows his trade can look at a mold and within two boats will have the heating and rotation sequence figured out. The roto molded Kayaks process was developed in South Carolina around forty years ago in a two stall garage. The rest is history. Hundreds of thousands of plastic Kayaks have been built and most involved that started these businesses became very wealthy.
ambassador for sidecars.
ian. Going to lunch was always interesting. We had the Lehman, Victory, and Harley engineers all sitting around the table. More than once the subject of sidecars came up. Layman wasn't interested in the slightest when it came to sidecars. The Harley engineers knew that they wouldn't be building sidecars any longer in the near future and never got into the conversation. But for some reason one Engineer from Victory was very interested. At the time I thought it was more for academic reasons. The two of us were kind of kindred Engineering spirits. I mentioned that my designs were considered eminent domain designs and anyone can use them. So I was asked for information on how I fabricated my sidecar frames and how I mounted them to the different motorcycles. I sent drawings and detailed information on the complete process for him to go over. For a short time we sent emails back and forth and like anything in life we moved on. I couldn't help but wonder if any of my design was considered when the new prototype Police sidecar was in the design process. Some have mentioned that police sidecar looks like a Hannigan design. Time will tell who the builder is. I was also told that Liberty Sidecars is building new sidecars for the DC Police department and their Harley's. That's exciting because it would be a first time that a small company would be building sidecars commercially for a big police department. This is monumental! It's proof that with a great time proven design and honest buisness practices a small company can reach for the stars and make it into the stratosphere. I bet their excited! I'm thinking that they should do very well with a police sidecar product. Pittsburgh uses their sidecar rigs year round possibly in the future Liberty will be building sidecar for them as well. We can only wish them the very best. Great product!
At the moment I'm having fun building and driving my sidecars but I still have a few projects that I would still like to get completed before my time runs out. More than a few years ago I designed a tilting mechanism for what's called a "Three Wheel Tilting Vehicle". I first got interested in tilting vehicles in the late 80's when I saw the GM "Lean Machine" at the Epcot Center. I had the idea in the back of my head for years and then saw a video of the Carver tilting car around 2010. They were produced in Europe and one made it's way into the US. They say the Jay Leno has it in his collection. The company that built the Carver went out of buisness but a few hundred were built. You can't sell something for twenty thousand dollars when it costs forty thousand to build it. Typical "Socialist" thinking. It was subsidized somehow to get the first production run going then when it came time to making money they couldn't and they went out of buisness. Along the way some guy had the patent on the tilting system and he got ten thousand dollars for every one that was used. It was one of those deals that someone figured out a way to make a quick buck with other peoples money. I looked over what was being used for the tilting mechanism and right away figured there had to be a better, simpler way to do it. They had electric over hydraulic actuators controlled by a computer for the tilting mechanism. A back up unit was needed just in case the first unit failed. I could see the driver crashing the darn thing when the tilting unit fails while it's in a turn. Anyways I took a look at the design and spent about a month on it using a design schedule broke up into half hour segments. In the end I came up with something quite different and interesting. My tilting mechanism is designed around a power steering unit from a F 150 Ford pick up truck. I take rotational axial movement and convert it to linear motion rotating around a center point. I even use the same coupling between the frame and the passenger pod that allows it to tilt as we used in the hydroplanes between the engine and the prop shaft. It was a matter of converting readily available parts to a tilting mechanism. My design can be built for around $200. When is the last time a steering box failed? They wear out but rarely break down. So to prove my design for a tilting mechanism I have to build a prototype three wheel tilting vehicle. I started on the front end four years ago and have the tooling and jig fixture completed. I procured artist drawings of the body. This was simple. A defunct company that had spent thousands of dollars on the body design abandoned the design and I just picked em up. I have about a hundred hours in the frame and tilting design down to the smallest items. Car parts will be used that will bolt right into the body. Things like doors, windows, lights and any parts that are easier to by used than to make. The plan is to build a Three Wheel Tilting Vehicle in a kit form. It would be a roller with my tilting mechanism installed. The builder would install their engine out of a motorcycle. Preferably a water cooled bike engine that way a heater could be installed in the passenger compartment; tilting pod. The concept vehicle could be driven year round. So as you can see even though I'm having a great time building my sidecars I have this tilting vehicle on the back of my mind. I'm thinking that I could build sidecars half the year during the warm season and then the tilting vehicle the other half. It's just a matter of splitting my time up. The tilting vehicle once completed will require building a small company. I can't build them myself. It will require a small work force and a larger building not like my sidecars. I build my sidecars myself with a little help from one of my friends when he's around the shop. Sidecars are easy where tilting vehicles will be much more involved. The area that I live in is slowly becoming one of the nations leading auto industrial regions. It all started with BMW and to date over four hundred auto related companies have started up or moved to the area. We even have an inland port for those with products that are shipped around the wold. BMW has become the largest auto producer shipping more product out of the country than any other. We even have a university and R&D campus that's developing composite technology along with various other disciplines in the auto industry. A few times a year the employment head hunters show up at the shop wanting me to head up one of the new teams that they are putting together. I tell em, "I'm just to darn old". They try to get me to come in a few hours a day but I always turn em down. It's nice to know that my name is still out their. They say that Greer is the new Detroit of the South. At least the numbers sure do speak for themselves with BMW shipping over one million cars out of the country in the last twenty plus years. I do have some people that want to take my Sweet Tilting Vehicle and do a "start up" and run with it. As of this writing the project is still in a holding pattern. The election this year should say a lot. If the country continues in the same direction that it's been going in then a start up small buisness with a new unproven product wouldn't have a chance. Granted a good thought out product with a solid buisness plan and marketing strategy can be successful. But if things don't change then the regulations imposed on small buisness will make it almost impossible to show a profit. At the moment around twenty five percent of what a buisness makes is used up in regulatory crap. Only t
ime will tell how it will all shake out.
Well thanks for reading and once again thanks to all my friends and follower.
Johnny Sweet PE.
A few pictures of some of the new generation of Sweet Sidecars that I've been building.
Sweet Three Wheel Tilting Vehicle:
Many must read this site because I've received five emails asking about my tilting vehicle in less than a day. So I figured that I would post some pictures of this crazy thing.
The tilting vehicle concept is about thirty five years old. It's pretty simple. The pod that holds the passenger or passengers tilts while the two wheeled power pack in the rear sits stationary as it travels down the road. The passenger pod steers the vehicle as it tilts while under way. A slight dihedral angle at the tilting point allows for a very slight "rear steer" during the tilting movement. Power is to the rear wheels only. The device used to tilt the pod is the hart of the design. In the past some of the tilting mechanisms used were very expensive. My design comes in at around $200. With that a compete kit could be built selling at around ten thousand dollars. The customer of kit dealer would supply the salvage parts totaling no more than another thousand dollars. The engine could be from a motorcycle. I get asked about this project a few times a month. At the moment It's on hold.
These are artist renderings that I acquired. The completed design will only use the design box that this represents. The lines will be different but the shape will be the same.
This vehicle concept has a very large following. Their not motorcycle people or car guys and I'm not even sure if they would even like my concept of a kit vehicle. I'm thinking that kit dealers would be needed just like when I was manufacturing my Sweet 55 T Birds back thirty five years ago. I had thirty nine dealers back in the day and they were well received at the time. Could this vehicle concept do as well in this time in history? That's hard to say. It's not for everyone but for those that are interested, it's something that they have been waiting for for some time.
This prototype vehicle was built in Japan as a test bed to see if the concept was viable. It was and they have written a few papers on it. I personally like this design. My thinking is that once my prototype is completed I can make molds for a composite pod. The pod would allow for the use of readily available parts like doors, trim, glass and all the accessories needed to finish out the passenger compartment. Outer composite panels would be bonded to the outer door skin. The doors that will be used for the design have yet to be determined. I'm looking for a ten year availability on any parts that will be used from salvaged cars. My concept is pretty simple. Take readily available parts and bolt them into the composite pod. Window glass for the side doors will come with the complete salvage doors. I'm thinking that two doors are in order. If you pulled into a parking space you could choose what side to exited from. In some situations you wouldn't have to exit into passing traffic but on the curb side. The windshield is no more than a full size windshield that's been cut to fit. Tempered glass can be cut using a water jet or a sand blaster with minimal braking. Lights coming from salvage cars with a DOT sticker on them.
I wish that I could have been involved in the modeling of this project. It looks like their having a good time.
Another artist rendering. I think that this one was for an electric. Good luck with that!
This is when I was designing the front end.
A sketch of the front swing arm with dimensions.
Completed swing arm just before I stopped working on the project. A sidecar wasn't very far away.
This is the jig fixture for the swing arm. The swing arm is simple and easy to make.
Well thanks for reading and viewing. It's a crazy vehicle and not for everyone but sidecars arn't for everyone. It's all in what you like.
Johnny Sweet PE.
As usual, a well thought out posting. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it and seeing the pix. Mr. Sweet is a treasure trove of info on sidecars.
Mr. Sweet, you're like a real life Most Interesting Man in the World! I'm sure you hear this often, but if you wrote a book, I'd buy it. As I typed this I realized I started on page 7 (a search brought me here). I'm so happy I get to flip back six pages and read more of your adventures!
I made a trip to the Sweet farm and you talk about impressed, I am. Thank you Johnny for the background and the help you have been to me on my sidecar.
Ulysses
Ulysses - 7/17/2017 7:29 PM I made a trip to the Sweet farm and you talk about impressed, I am. Thank you Johnny for the background and the help you have been to me on my sidecar. Ulysses
Ulysses, It was great spending time with you and your buddy. Your HOT ROD Sidecar should be a fun drive when it's completed. I must say that the two of you were good students. Us old timers have to stick togehter. Good luck and stay in touch.
Johnny
I just noticed that Photobucket blocked all the pictures on this thread. They want $400 a year so that they are stored and can be viewed. Those of you that know about such things. Where can I store the pictures at a reasonable price or for free? Anyone. Any help would be appreciated.
Johnny
Dropbox perhaps?
