Hi everybody.
First thing - sorry for my poor english.
I was asked by some guy to do strange hack. He rides Suzuku Intruder VS1400 and wants to get a road rig (only for asphalt roads, not ground/macadam/offroad).
I own a Sputnk sidecar that i've attached to my 125cc Honda and it emerged slightly too heavy to ride with my dog, especially in mountains. So I decided to sell it instead of doing some curious rebuiild/weighdown, and then make my own dog-sidecar, but this is is topic for separate thread.
On my local bike forum I'm known as "MacGyver's father" and here is the point 🙂 Damian wants me to mount the flex-rig with his Intruder and my Sputnik. Struts and upper mounts are planned as "addon" to convert this flex into classic rig and back into flex.
As we observed, flex-mount requires some ground clearance because of swingarm geometry. Hinhe must be mounted directly below the motor (when looking from front), centrally below the bike. And swingarm must run down (not levelly or up as with normal sidecar's lower mounts) to enable the bike to balance right when taking a right-hand turn.
Questions are:
1.In flex-rig, sidecar frame's GC is always lower than bikes GC.
Is it possible to make flex-rig with a bike that has ~5" ground clearance? Is it worth any work?
We did some measurments and tests. Result is that we can increase GC to about 6.5-6.7" by lenghtening rear shock-absorbers (there are cheap lenghteners on our local market). Additionally it will slightly shorten the trail/lead.
2. What type of hinges should I use in this project? First thought was ball hinge from tractor's accesssory suspension. 1" in diameter and standard metric* screw-thread seems good, but I have zero experience with swing-sidecar.
There are no many info on this kind of rig and absolutely no literature available 🙁
Thanks in advance for any thoughts, links and ideas.
Igor
*I'm from Poland and we use metric/SI 🙂
You may want to look at a recent post I made on my leaner conversion
http://www.sidecar.com/mbbs22/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=9407&posts=2#M58685
A while back a guy named Tim something did a Valkyrie leaner with a Velorex 562. It would have very little ground clearance. I remember his front mount was a few inches up between the front down tubes to compensate for the changing wheel angle.
Lonnie, wasn't Tim one of your customers?
Excellent work, johnW. That's what I have to do 🙂 Found your thread about Honda+Velorex 5 mins after posting my thread.
What did you use as car's side od hinges? Will such rod end do their work? :
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I made a website on which i constanthly add photos, descriptions and drawings of my inventions and works. Some invited buddies from forums can add their own arts. Recently I've added ability to post each article in many languages. I would gladly post your flex with description if you could write one. Many of people that I know from polish forums don't know english enough to read sidecar.com
SidecarMike
I could make front hinge with adjustable height if it makes sense to adjust it exerimentally.
The great formula to determine rig's geometry is available on AdvRider forum in GetBack's thread but there's no word about flex rigs and angle change compensation.
Is there any formula to determine how much the front hinge must be over the back one?
Yes that is the type of pivot connector I used. I purchased the 18mm version, which is the same thread as the Velorex conector arms.
The clearance on my unit is around 5 in (125mm), less when hard braking and I have had the front brace scrape on rough roads. That is one of the reasons I added the triangular braces, which I made sure did not protrude under the lowest point of the arm.
I could write up a description in English and French for your forum if you wish. Give me an address to see your site.
The ADVforum suggests having the pivots on the centerline, but I believe that Mr Kramer demonstrated that having the front support around 2 inches (50mm) higher helped the sidecar steer slightly, although I am not sure if that is significant. I have installed mine that way and believe it helps but I have found that it is more important to offset the rear pivot inboards towards the sidecar (1.25-2 " 30-50 mm) to help get an "automatic lean compensation" from the bike.
You will find that when taking the bike off of the sidestand when stopped, you may have to turn the front wheel off to the side if there is a passenger in the car to allow for the side movement of the flex rig as the sidecar tire will not move sideways while at a standstill.
Unfortunately flex mounting was impossible. This Intruder is too much modified. It's a real lowrider/bobber, and returning it to original ground clearance is too difficult to me (and for my workshop). So we decided to mount classic rigid.
Two days of work. Last friday and today. About a hour ago I have finished making the rig. I'm in big shock (my first rig mounted with almost zero experience) and very happy 🙂
Geometry:
-Wheelbase 65"
-lead in 10"
-track 43"
-toe in ca. 2/3"
-motorcycle's tires - radial 170/70 x16"
-sidecar's tire - radial 3x18"
-ground clearance - 2" under front lower mount.
That were starting parameters that I have chosen - "if someting go wrong, then we will correct". No corrections needed. No steering damper needed - thanks to 35"(wow!) steering bar. My first rig and works flawlessly. Driving this outfit is a dream-easy. The guy just sat on his Intruder, run the motor and did some crazy slalom-ride on full parkplace. I was affraid that he will crash a bunch of cars, but nothing such happened. Then I sat on the rig (first >1000cc machine in my life), guy sat in a siecar and we did some ride on local roads. No pulling left, no pulling right, veeery difficult to raise sidecar's wheel. I recommend such rig for first rides. Easy and funny and very intiutive to drive. 🙂 🙂 🙂 Only disadvantage (as it's a lowrider) is that it has scratched the ground on a ground lane from my workshop to local hardened road. And the sidecar's shock absorber is slightly too "bouncy" comparing to bike's rear absorbers. But it only bounces and doesn't lift sidecar's wheel. It required few trials to lift it, thanks to wide track.
I will post some pix as soon as I find my card reader.
Guy who bought my Sputnik and deputed mounting this rig to me, just started his first(!) sidecar run from my house to his family, ca. 150 miles. He's more crazy than me. I wish him mush of luch and now i'm waiting for another SMS or call from him.
The Sputnik stock wheel is kind of light duty for this bike, If the wheel still has the Russian wheel bearings, Change them out. The bike you have mounted the sidecar to will be traveling a lot faster then your 125. The stock wheel bearings do not handle speed all that well.
Jay G
DMC sidecars
Thanks for advice, Jay. As I know Intruder's owner, he doesn't drive faster than 50-55 mph solo. Yesterday with sidecar he did these 150 miles in 4 hours.
The wheel isn't stock Sputnik Wheel. It's some heavy aluminium alloy wheel, that Sputnik's previous owner bought because of lack of original wheel. But I will recommend him changing of the bearings if something go wrong.
If he has changed the wheel then he should not need to worry about the wheel bearings. Sputnik wheels were not all that high quality, I imported several thousand of these sidecars to the USA and would still be importing them if I could find the factory. I suspect that the factory is gone as they have not replied to any attempt to contact them in about 10 years.
Jay
AFAIK Izhevsk motorcycle factory has gone in early 90s, just after crash of Soviet Union, that's what I know from IZH users.
I have heard of last sputnik model with slideable front cover (instead of hinges) and aluminium wheel, but there was different wheel than mine was.
Do you know this last model?
The model before the Sputnik was the Jupiter, the nose on it slid. The trunk did not open from the out side on this sidecar, you had to remove the seat back. IZH did not build the Sputnik sidecar, it was built for them. The last ones we received the serial number showed that they were made in 2000. When we were ordering these even though they were suppose to be "new" some had been made as far back as 1993.
Jay
Here is a later model Jupiter with cockpit closed and open. Just finished working on it.
Lonnie
Northwest Sidecars
Nice work. Is it original wheel? I've heard something about aluminium wheels in last models.
Thanks Jay. Now my knowledge matches. Until today I thought that Izhevsk Motorcycle Factory made sidecars too
Beautiful Lonnie!
Is that one for sale or does it already have a lucky owner?
1974 R90/6 is one of my favorites.
Don in Nipomo
5" clearance rig is possible but naturally will be limited. No off-roading and maybe slowing down on some tight turns.
Most lower mounts here are using 5/8" SAE heim joints (rod ends). Some have used 3/4" SAE heims so anything metric between these sizes should be sufficient.
L.
