I finished mounting the dnepr car on the 1987 FXLR today. Set it up with 1/2 inch toe-in and 1 deg lean out. Don't have the steering damper installed yet. Took it for a ride of about 3 miles and I do have front end wobble... more than I really expected from my experience with the cushman scooter with a car. Wobble was about nonexistant on smooth road but the road I was on had a lot of patches in the asphalt. It isn't uncontrollable but I hope to reduce it. Are there changes in the alignment you would recomend or will the damper take care of it? I will try to be in the chat tomorrow evening and pick some brains there.
Keith
You probably will need more toe-in and a steering damper to smooth out the Dnepr ride. You may also want to check out the Dnepr wheel for excessive runout. They are famous for having non concentric wheels.
Lonnie
Thanks Lonnie,
you mentioned in the "leanout" thread about different ways toe-in is measured. I used straigh edges on the rear tire of the bike and on the car tire.. measured as close to the front and rear tires as possible. The low rider is a long bike so 1/2 inch is not a lot of toe-in. I didn't notice any pull either way so looks like the lean-out may be pretty good. I would like to get it riding as good as possible before installing the damper. It may just be a personal opinion but I don't like to depend on the damper to cure errors in the setup. Tw2 more comments that may or may not be relevant to this discussion. I had no one in the car but did carry a sandbag with 80 lbs of sand behind the car seat. Second, I have the wheelbase at 54 inches and the car has a 11 inch lead. Will try the toe-in change and another ride today. (typing this at 5:30 am) plan to be in the chat tonight so will look for comments from all the pros there.
Keith
Keith,
Your final toe-in and leanout are dependent on your roads traveled and loads carried. At best the optimum settings are a compromise.
I got my best with my '87 FXLR with a 235# steel car using 3/4" toe and 1 degree leanout. Mostly secondary road travel, sometimes with a monkey.
Lonnie
Thanks Lonnie, good to hear from someone who has experience with the same bike and a similar car. about the only difference in our settings is you had 3/4 inch toe-in and I have it at 1/2 now.. I plan to change it yet this afternoon. Only question that I can think of now. Did you have a steering damper on your rig?
here is a link to a couple pics of my rig.
87FXLR and Dnepr car
one thing I did notice this morning was that my sidecar tire was low... only 12 lbs pressure.. I pumped it to 34 and will give it another test ride before I move anything. That may make a big difference in the handling.
have the tire at 34 lbs, moved the rear of the car out so it now has 1 inch toe-in. handles a lot better, put about 15 miles on it. still some wobble but not hard to handle. when I am sure I have it the way I want it I will put the steering damper on it.
kieth, get the SC tire back down to around 24/25. no need for anything higher, unless you are planning a lot of off-road riding.
seems like your on the right track!
Check that Dnepr tire pressure every time you ride, they don't hold the air pressure all that well.
I ran mine (starting) at 35# so I wouldn't have to fill it so often.
Rigs with car tires can run a lot lower pressure since they have a much larger footprint.
Some of the Russian cars that have come into the shop had no air in them and the casings are so hard you can hardly tell without checking them with a gauge.
Lonnie
Originally written by HDKeith on 12/20/2006 6:16 PM
have the tire at 34 lbs, moved the rear of the car out so it now has 1 inch toe-in. handles a lot better, put about 15 miles on it. still some wobble but not hard to handle. when I am sure I have it the way I want it I will put the steering damper on it.
I never got too caught up in air pressure differences in the sidecar tire although too little can be an issue. Going up like you did was the right thing to do. As far as th ewobble goes we see many newbies feel that and run out right away to install a damper. Many time, if it is just that small annoyng head shake at a given spped range, if you ride it a while you may learn to ride through it and just not run at that speed where the wobbel coems in at. If Keeping your hands on the bars makes it okay it is a lot better than spending dollars on a device (damper)that may make steering harder across the board. Some will advise differetly, some want to sell a damper and of course if that makes steering too hard you can then purchase a means to reduce the trail to maybe make it steer easier with the damper you just bought. We have even seen some have laid out good dollars for a leading link and then installed a damper which made th ething steer almost as hard as it did when it still had the stock front end on it. Duh! Give it, and you, some time and make a decision then.
