Pictures of my outfit....

Beautiful work on a very nice looking outfit! Thanks for sharing your handiwork. Now when will the Rocket 3 get a sidecar? THAT will be fantastic 🙂

I've seen two hack'd R3's. One at the Stevenson Rally and last year in Arkansas. Just waiting for my ship to come in.Send donations!!!

What a beautiful rig! I hope to eventually be able to convert my fleet to Bonnevilles. I am looking forward to reading reports as you get some saddle time with this outfit!

Vernon:

I've logged around 1000 miles on it so far.

It mostly goes to ride-in shows though I do trailer it now and then.

I changed out the front fork springs to Progressive units and went to 15 weight fork oil.

The engine has been ported and the intake tract polished and I run a 17 tooth counter shaft sprocket.

I wanted to retain the front forks so a steering damper is fitted and the outfit is stable at 80 with no head shake at any time.

I like the new Triumph Bonneville. It's a very reliable bike with none of the flaws associated with the earlier Meriden bikes. Electrics are state of the art, carburetion is Kehin CV and the frame is very rigid. Triumph Motors, Hinkley retained the classic look with a modern engined bike. The push rod valve actuation is gone, replaced with chain driven double overhead cams with shim over bucket adjustment and air-oil cooling.

The stock bike suffers from under gearing even with the 5 speed but with a sidecar attached, the gearing is right on.

I spent the better part of 3 years building the outfit. I wanted to retain the classic look at the same time having a tractable outfit. Lots of trial and error went into the bike and sidecar. Mary at Motorvation was extremely patient with me, thank goodness.

Even the paint was involved with spectroanalysis and custom color mixing. I pinstriped the outfit myself as I couldn't find a pinstriper willing to come to my shop to do it. I wanted an exact color match on the stripes as well as width so I practiced for 3 months before I laid a brush on the tub. It took me the better part of 2 months to stripe it, rolling the tub on padded sawhorses like a rotisserie while I striped it. I'm glad my wife is strong and patient too.

I had LOC Performance Bikes in Plymouth, Michigan install the tub and align it. The owners of LOC actually are in the custom machining business and bikes are a hobby/sideline. The alignment was done on a horizontal planer bed and instead of using straightedges, lasers were used.

The brakes were a problem. I wanted identical pedal travel as well as placement of the tub brake lever in relationship to the T100's brake pedal so I custom machined the brake mounts in my machine shop. Identical travel was obtained by repositioning the fulcrum point of the actuator lever in relationship to the master cylinder piston rod. Of course all the bronze bushings were replaced with sealed needle bearing cartridges.

It's a gas to ride and draws a crowd wherever I take it. The bike and sidecar is very unique.

The exhaust system was custom made for the bike. The head pipes are hydroformed and are plasma coated with Jet Hot proprietary coating. The mufflers are stock '68 Triumph peashooters with no baffles of course. It's nice to be different, but being unique and different take quite a bit of time and expense.

Joyce:Couple of things.....

You'd look good on a Rocket but they have soooo much power you might get in trouble. You have to be very careful with your right wrist.

and...

It's very easy to post pictures as I found out.

Claude:

One problem I can see with the R3 is that the engine is a stressed member of the frame, much like monocoque construction. It's very similar to the old Yamaha Virago but uses a twin spar tube backbone instead of Yamaha's pressed steel spine.

To achieve a true 4 point triangulated mount, a sub frame would have to be fabricated to carry the lower front mount and the headstock would have to be modified to achieve an upper front mount.

The lower rear and upper rear mount are no problem.

Then, there is the fork problem. Again, the bike would not look aesthetically pleasing with a leading link replacement. Triumph did an nice job of making an in line engined bike look "right" and I'd not want to upset that balance with Earle's forks.

All the mounts as well as the sub frame would have to be very robust as this bike makes a tremendous amount of torque and horsepower.

Lots of challenges to be overcome for a final, tractable mount.

Hi Flip,
What are you talking about cabin fever for? It doesn't look very much like winter in those photos! Oh sure, now you're going to say those weren't taken just this morning? ;>) PS: Super rig!

Originally written by Joyce on 2/11/2007 9:38 AM

I've seen two hack'd R3's. One at the Stevenson Rally and last year in Arkansas. Just waiting for my ship to come in.Send donations!!!

Didn't you see the black one with the spyder at Animosa? We didn't see it until we were on our way out of town. He was parked on main street just east of the museum.

Originally written by SCT100 on 2/11/2007 1:33 PM

Claude:

One problem I can see with the R3 is that the engine is a stressed member of the frame, much like monocoque construction. It's very similar to the old Yamaha Virago but uses a twin spar tube backbone instead of Yamaha's pressed steel spine.

To achieve a true 4 point triangulated mount, a sub frame would have to be fabricated to carry the lower front mount and the headstock would have to be modified to achieve an upper front mount.

The lower rear and upper rear mount are no problem.

Then, there is the fork problem. Again, the bike would not look aesthetically pleasing with a leading link replacement. Triumph did an nice job of making an in line engined bike look "right" and I'd not want to upset that balance with Earle's forks.

All the mounts as well as the sub frame would have to be very robust as this bike makes a tremendous amount of torque and horsepower.

Lots of challenges to be overcome for a final, tractable mount.

Actually all of your concerns are shared with many sidecar hookups today. The 'no frame/ stressed engine' deal is commonplace with many and can be overcome. Yes, I agree that subframe and mounts need to be robust enough to do the job they need to do but this is true with any rig.
Aesthtics as far as the front end goes? There are other ways to reduce trail other than building a leading link into the final product. Tree mods or axle relocation are two of them. Of course there are other things that can be done to increase steering leveraqe apart from changingthe trail which may even be an option.
There are a couple of R3 sidecar rigs around but I ahve not seen one yet. One guiy did approcah me at a rally late last year asking about installing a sidecar on his. He has yet to make his decision. Hope he decides to go throuh with it as i am really looking forward to doing one of them.

Originally written by SCT100 on 2/11/2007 10:33 AM

Claude:

One problem I can see with the R3 is that the engine is a stressed member of the frame, much like monocoque construction. It's very similar to the old Yamaha Virago but uses a twin spar tube backbone instead of Yamaha's pressed steel spine.

To achieve a true 4 point triangulated mount, a sub frame would have to be fabricated to carry the lower front mount and the headstock would have to be modified to achieve an upper front mount.

The lower rear and upper rear mount are no problem.

Then, there is the fork problem. Again, the bike would not look aesthetically pleasing with a leading link replacement. Triumph did an nice job of making an in line engined bike look "right" and I'd not want to upset that balance with Earle's forks.

All the mounts as well as the sub frame would have to be very robust as this bike makes a tremendous amount of torque and horsepower.

Lots of challenges to be overcome for a final, tractable mount.

Well, someone has figred it out-I saw this bad boy at the Yakima Unrally

http://adventuresidecar.com/yakima_sidecar_un.htm

That's not the one we saw in Iowa. That guy said Dauntless put it together for him. He was really happy with the combination and couldn't say enough good about Jay and Company.I thought he said he was from Nebraska, but I could be wrong on that. In fact, I'm not sure it was a spyder car now that I think of it. We met a lot of people that day. Maybe Jay could pipe in and tell us where he's from.

Vernon:

That looks like a Vetter on the black R3.

Early R3's had some teething problems associated with the final drive (a bearing in the driveline between the Hookes universal joint and the torque snubber) as well as some gearcase problems which Triumph stood behind (after some prodding).

The bikes are insane to 100 per and the 280 section rear tire goes fast if discretion isn't employed.

I have enough room in the shop for another and too that end, I have a pre-purchase agreement on a 2008 Moto Guzzi Norge. I've always admired the simplicity of the Guzzi and the Norge is a nice example of a sport touring machine. Between the R3 and the Norge, one will wind up with a chair attached.

Here is a couple ROCKET III rigs done at Watsonian (one being an EZS):

http://www.watsonian-squire.com/press_release_jan_07.htm

http://www.watsonian-squire.com/october_2006.htm

And Charnwood.
Here is a short report from when Jim and Rose D'arcy, of Charnwood Classic Restorations showed up with it at Mallory Park:
>> This outfit created quite a lot of interest. Jim has modified the front wheel set up, and he told me that the outfit is very rapid to 80 mph, after which it starts to tail off. He has colour-matched it and it looks very impressive.

(I've had a ride in the chair and on the pillion of that very machine, with Jim D'arcy at the controls. VERY impressive! Acceleration to make your eyes bulge, and don't-back-off steering which tackles even small roundabout with unexpectedly nimble ease. One of life's memorable experiences. Rowena).?<<

Claude:

The R3 makes an impressive tug for sure. As a solo bike you have to have quite a bit of discretion in your right wrist or your driving priveliges could go south in a big hurry. The R3 has a fantastic "smile per mile" ratio, but, to be perfectly honest with everyone, I purpose built the T100 and the Spyder. It was my intention from the initial purchase of the bike that it be tethered to a chair.

It was never my intent to do that with the R3 and for practical purposes, one outfit is enough in my garage. That's not to say that the R3 or the pending Guzzi Norge would never become a tug. My rides are for the most part solo adventures and I really don't need a lot of room. Amy is a non rider and I can sympathize with that. We had a very bad experience a number of years ago with our FLT and she wants no part of motorcycling anymore. It took me over 10 years to get back into bikes myself.

I probably would have never considered another bike if it weren't for my good friend Ed Lyons and an e-mail note about the Triumph website. It's interesting how events unfold and the unlikely roads one takes in life.

Getting back to the T100/Spyder, it was my intention to assemble a 'classic' outfit and I did quite a bit of searching for the 'correct' tub. The spyder fit that bill with a few modifications. The mounts required no fabrication or altering of the frame on the Bonnie and the tub is light enough not to tax the bike to a point where riding it isn't enjoyable, actually, it's quite spirited and while the outfit won't pull the solo top speed of 112 mph, it pulls a respectable 85-90 mph depending on your lack of brains at the time...

With an very easily achievable top speed of over 155 mph and 0-60 times in the mid 3 second range (depending on what tune is loaded in the computer), the R3 isn't what I'd consider to be a sedate sidecar tug. I believe the Norge with its long stroke twin and abundant torque would be more suited to a chair. Only time will tell if, indeed, either mount winds up as a tug.