I am posting this message as a WARNING to anyone running a Cozy sidecar with the spring-over-shock suspension system. I have a new (250 mi) Royal Enfield with a dealer installed Cozy Bullet. The lower shock mount on my sidecar failed while I was riding on a rough patch of road at ~35 mph. It was like having someone "broom-stick" my wheel. Thankfully I was able to "control" the bike as I was pulled off the road into someone's front yard. I was insanely lucky… yes, lucky. If this had happened at highway speed, I would probably be dead.
Here is the issue. If/when the shock mount breaks, the full weight of the sidecar frame, bucket and fender drop onto the tire. There is nothing in the mounting design to stop this from happening and it has the effect of locking up the sidecar wheel as it is pressed against the underside of the fender by the weight of the hack and it’s cargo. I'll try to post pictures of the broken weld that caused my failure. The problem here is two-fold. 1. There is no way to predict the failure. My rig was new with no external evidence of corrosion. 2. There is nothing in the design to prevent the hack from falling against the tire if this mounting point breaks.
Please spread the word to anyone you know rolling with a Cozy sidecar. My advice is if you have the spring over shock suspension system, pull the bracket and have it re-welded by a master welder. Better safe than sorry. Ride safe.
Looks like rust on the inside of the broken weld. Must have had a hair line crack for some time before failure.
I am looking at this and am asking myself why the shock was even mounted this way....
What is the point of the miinimally elongated slots...they seems useless to me.
Why couldn't the hack frame be beefed up and a hole drilled and then a long thru bolt used ?
Eastern Indian Engineering! Want a 3/8" metal piece? Weld three 1/8" chunks of steel together. Need a bearing? Use a bushing. They work with whatever they have at the time. I noticed this with the first Cozy I ordered. Haven't ordered another one since.
Lonnie
Our Cozy Rocket is made that way, supposed to be a Canadian Version. However the plate is much heavier and the previous owner of our rig drilled 2 additional holes in the frame to raise the car up. In my experience there is a difference between the Canadian version and USA version I found when I went to buy a fender and fender bumper after my accident. The USA one uses a 19" wheel and is 26 or so inches between the fender/bumper bracket bolts, while the Canadian version uses a 16" wheel and is 24" between mounting points. Also some pictures I've seen have the shock tilted rearward on the USA version rather than like the picture in this post. Mine held up just fine when I hit that side so the welder must have a good day on it. Max
I'm with sturgis1982 on this. Even with a good weld, that's a sketchy looking set-up. That mount is in single shear and all the force is transmitted to that skinny weld with the shock mount bolt acting acting as a small lever. A bolt through the frame (with some reinforcement) would be so much better. A proper double shear mount for bolt would be better still.
