I have a R100GSPD that I am hooking to a Dnepr sidecar to. I would like to have the wheels interchangeable. Is that possible? I assume I could mount a R100GS rear wheel to the side car so one wheel could replace a flat on the car or the rear of the bike.
Good Day,
I've modified several many sidecars including Dneprs to accept other brakes and wheels. It often takes a bit of machining, a complete wheel and brake from the donor bike, some bearings that will mate from your wheel to the Dnepr axle and a fabricatd brake torque arm and mount. Installing a drum brake, which is what I believe your BMW has, is generally easier than adapting a disc brake. For starters you could check to see if by some fluke your BMW brake drum matches the diameter of a Dnepr brake drum. More likely you will have to put a BMW backing plate onto your Dnepr. That's a simple matter of matching the backing plate center hole to the stock Dnepr axle, then fabricate a torque arm ( about a 1 inch by 1/4 inch piece of steel maybe a foot long or less) and mig weld a stud for the torque arm onto the Dnepr swing arm. Matching the wheel to the axle may require machining out the bearing seat to take a different size bearing unless your BMW wheel has the same size axle as a Dnepr. Make sure that if you modify your wheel that it remains centered on the bearings or you will wonder where that nasty head shake came from among other things but you shouldn't have a problem there if your careful.
Regards,
Norm
Tony,
As you and I had discussed on the phone the wheel can be done. If you want a brake on the sidecar it will complicate things somewhat with the BMW drum setup being the way it is. (no 'normal' backing plate). I did source a wheel for you previously. I had planned to machine a new hub that would either fit the Dnper spindle or possibly another larger spindle and allow the BMW wheel to bolt on with it's four normal lug bolts. If this was done the hub could be made in such a way to also carry a brake disc. There are options regarding brakes from normal motorcycles units to smaller units to even soem aftermarket automotive setups. The most straightforward setup is a seperate brake pedal which woudl activate it's own master Cylinder. Personally I woudl nto bother with a sidecar brake on it. But...If you want brakes Going to a disc in this case may be the simplier route to appraoch. Otherwise I agree with Norm.
Thanks, Norm...Claude...I thought a sidecar needed to have a brake. I do remember you mentioning that wheel Claude. Could I use the front wheel on the sidecar with it's disk brake? My whole idea is to be able to have a wheel to replace a flat on either of the three wheels. Don't mind carrying two wheels but either the front or the back would need to match the sidecar wheel right?
We would use a front wheel off of a BMW similar to yours and go with a disk brake. The BMW wheel will either run on a 17 or 25mm axle. You can change the bearings to run the wheel on either but not on the 20mm axle that the Dnepr runs.
If you machine down a trailer axle from 1 inch to 25mm you can then use the axle on the sidecar.
There are photo' of this convertion on our site.
Jay Giese
Dauntless Motors Corporation
www.dauntlessmotors.com
866-638-1793
866-638-1793
Originally written by asg on 10/24/2006 8:49 AM
Thanks, Norm...Claude...I thought a sidecar needed to have a brake. I do remember you mentioning that wheel Claude. Could I use the front wheel on the sidecar with it's disk brake? My whole idea is to be able to have a wheel to replace a flat on either of the three wheels. Don't mind carrying two wheels but either the front or the back would need to match the sidecar wheel right?
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You could use front or rear. I prefer rear as it can be a bolt on deal like the bike and use a decent sized axle (overkill probably) I would not really want to use a front wheel like is on your GS if you have a 21" one.It could be done though. Could create a need for the fender to be mounted differently...I am not sure.
Note that machining of trailer axles must be done with caution. Some have said that they may be heat treated on the surface but once you cut down through it they may lose strngth. Dunno if this is true with all of them, some of them, none of them or not but I don't do it. I would think Jay has details on that figured out or verified.
