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Crazy idea? Intruder VS1400 and sputnik - swing/flex mount

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(@c64club)
Posts: 200
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I have taken very few photos of this rig because we had small amount of time to finish the rig. So we decided to mount it "mechanically" without any cosmetic works.
As soon as Damian paint and finish the rig, I will post his photos of "polished" details.
Front lower mount will be replaced by ball joint with 14 or 16mm thread as soon as we find a good one. Now it works fine. Damian drove ca 400 miles without any problems.
In september I will add turn lights to his Intruder.
I know that everything looks strange. But Intruder's owner wanted me to do whole work without modifying any element of bike. Everything had to be fully detachable. There was small battle when I decided to weld lower front mount beam onto the bike.The next work will be adding a hook for trailer and building a trailer using Goldwing's trailer body. But this time I will have absolutely free will on how to do and mount everything (sigh of relief 😛 ) and it should look and work much better. Another crazy idea - addint a 2-wheel trailer to bobber-style chopper 😀

Driver's footrests set looked like that:

So I had to think how to mount front lower point and not make it "groundcrapper".

Front lower mount:
1

 Rear upper mount - replaces 37mm spacer on absorbers mount.

View from rear. Lower rear mount visible - two clamps handling subrfame's tube and two clamps handling smaller tube that ends with ball handler.

Setting the toe-in:

Rig is ready for its first journey. Me in my worksuit.


 
Posted : August 16, 2011 12:36 am
(@Hack__n)
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From the appearance of the cobblestone lines it seems you have a lot of toe-out in the shot with the straightedge tubes. The bikeside tube should be against the rear tire only. You are working with two different wheel and tire widths. Blocking up the tubes will give a more constant reading of the desired toe-in of about 10 to 20 centimeters (for good tire wear). Further tracking adjustment is easily done by adding bike leanout with upper struts adjustment.

Lonnie


 
Posted : August 16, 2011 5:57 am
(@c64club)
Posts: 200
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Lonnie Thanks for reply. Yes, it looked like it had big toe-out but it's optical illusion. We were very confused with first look at these long tubes. Sidewalls ot the tubes are high enough to give the same position every time we put the tube next to bike's tires. Rear and front tire were the same size 170/70x17, so I did measurements with tube set against both tires. Tube used to measure sidecar's wheel had to be aided with wooden board. After setting up toe-in we pulled the rig few in other place on the parkplace and measured again. Result was the same.
How to "block" the tubes?

I don't have more photos but can explain something. Lower front mount has constant width. Lower rear mount is a ball screwed to frame and a ball socket with short (ca. 12") tube (original mount from Sputnik). Ball socket's tube is mounted perpendicularly to the yellow tube using 12mm steel plate and 8 clamps. 4 of them holding yellow tube over the plate and 4 clamps holding ball socket's tube below the plate. Sliding the plate along the yellow tube allows to adjust front/rear lean of sidecar. Sliding along socket's tube gives more or less toe-in.
Upper struts are original Sputnik's struts. Rear one is mounted to bike with this strange, welded clamp that replaces spacer on shock absorber's mount. Front one is screwed to frame (it's possible easily because of Suzuki frame construction - lower right tube is removable to allow removing the motor. I replaced one of original screws with longer and stronger one - 12mm in diameter and 9.6 mechanical rating (original had 8.8 rating).

10 to 20 centimeters of toe-in? Did you want to say "milimeters" or my toe-in is 10 times too small 😀 ? Now it's about 15 milimeters and doesn't pull left/right.


 
Posted : August 16, 2011 9:08 pm
(@Hack__n)
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Wow! Millimeters was what I intended to say. I work back and forth with SAE and metric sizing here in the shop since most all bikes seem to be using both standards these days (brain fart).

When setting toe-in I try to use the rear tire only since many bikes have the front and rear offset. Some front wheels are offset for brake caliper clearance and some just don't have the rear wheel aligned correctly. In any case the rear wheel is the one that will determine sidecar toe-in. If both are in line, no problem in getting a true reading.
I set the straightedge tubes up on short 4"x4" blocks when checking to-in and measure from just in front of and just in back of the bikes tires. Some use bricks and different methods (lasers, string, boards, fluorescent light tubes) but for many years this has worked for me.
A magnetic angle gauge (protractor) placed on the brake rotor is great for measuring lean-out of the bike.

I see the lower clamp nuts now. I was wondering why the plate was so large. A shot of black paint and it all blends in.
The Suzuki is problematical due to the very short lower frame section.

Lonnie


 
Posted : August 17, 2011 6:14 am
(@c64club)
Posts: 200
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Bricks... That's what I needed 😀 Especially for sidecar's wheel (I used a wooden board to get the right angle).
My father has such angle gauge. Good idea, thanks

Yes, Suzuki frame is short in lower part. But the lower part is screwed to main frame. I user rear screws to mount the ball (lower rear mount). Front lower mount is welded to these strange plates visible on first photo. In result the distance between front and rear lower mount is ca. 10" greater than length of lower part of frame.

I think that (almost) none of modern bikes are designed with third wheel in mind, so the problems will appear with each rig.


 
Posted : August 18, 2011 1:09 am
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