Hello all
Has anyone any experience of improving the ride in a watsonian palma as it’s choppy to say the least. The suspension is working ok and I’ve put a new hagon shock on it and it’s not really improved matters. The chaps at hagon built me 3 new shocks and I put them on in the car park and the ride home was an improvement but the ride IN the chair was the same for my passanger.
Anyone played about with larger wheels or suspending the body or do I just bite the bullet and track down that Steib I’ve always wanted.
All the best wishes of the season
George
Originally written by thirdwheel on 12/17/2007 1:40 PM
Hello all
Has anyone any experience of improving the ride in a watsonian palma as it’s choppy to say the least. The suspension is working ok and I’ve put a new hagon shock on it and it’s not really improved matters. The chaps at hagon built me 3 new shocks and I put them on in the car park and the ride home was an improvement but the ride IN the chair was the same for my passanger.
Anyone played about with larger wheels or suspending the body or do I just bite the bullet and track down that Steib I’ve always wanted.All the best wishes of the season
George
Well George I suppose I will take a stab at this.
First off we had a Palma for a long time and the actual ride in it was not the complaint. The only issue my much better half had was that it was kinda narrow and she coudl not put her elbows out the side of the cockpit due to the design of it. Just sold it last summer and really wish we hadn't.
Anyhow...yes, you can convert to a 12" wheel. If you have the old style metal fender a few mods wil need to be made but you can retain it. Not sure about the newere models. We never changed it from the 10" but if we woudl have kept it probably would have. The 12" trailer tires are very resonable where as the 10" tires are not.
Suspending the body is doable on these. Hal Kendal did it on a GP model with wrap around frame and I have seen a Monaco done up too. The body can be made to pivot at it's fron tmounts. The rear of the body can be supported in a sling made from rubber bungee chords (Don't laugh they are inexpesive and avaible in various lengths. Also look at the rear of a steib body or a cozy sometime). Use your imagination.
Another option woudl be to pivot it at the front mount area and then attach a coil over shock to each side of the body in the rear. You would need to fabricate some metal support structure for the shock to body mounts but it can be done. I think Hal's system was like that.
Have fun with it.
George,
Just thought of something else. How is the suspension on the back of your bike? If it is soft compared to the sidecar hitting cross joints in the road or potholes, even small ones, with the sidecar wheel can set up a rocking or hobby horse motion in a rig. The sidecar wheel hits whatever and load is transferred to the rear of the bike. If the bike is especially underdampened it will want to spring back as the shocks cannot do their job. JUST A THOUGHT TO PONDER.
Claude
Many thanks for your reply and advice. Yes I do have the old steel mud guard and a 12” wheel sounds interesting as those 10” mini wheels are so small and fall down every hole in the road. I had thought of pivoting it at the front and using shocks at the rear but your idea of using bungee elastic is so simple and sounds fine to me. The body is such a snug fit in the frame I may need to widen the frame by an inch to allow it to swing past the fibreglass join. I take the point of elbow room my wife is small and she makes faces to me about it. The whole rig is very tight and handles well and I like the palma it’s just the ride in the chair I now wish to work on.
I take the point about the rear suspension. Before I went to hagons I had the original shocks wound right up to maximum preload to stop it bump steering and I got the motion you describe.
Many thanks again for your thoughts
George
George,
Please share with us what your finding are. Note that if you go th ebungee route be sure to keep a check on them and you probably shoudl have a limiting device. I do agree about your concerns with lateral movements being an issue. Look at some Steibs close and you may see rub marks on the body.
I suppose widening the frame, like you mentioned, is a solution and probably not a major deal if you have the fabrication skills to pull it off. I would suggest cutting all cross memebrs and the frame and then slugging the ID of the tubing. The slugs can be plug welded into place initially. Then to reassemble have pieces cut to length(1"?) to put over the slugs. Leave a slight gap by either spacing theses pieces out of by grinding the ends of them in an irreglar fashion to get a good weld on them, the slug and the frame irself. The only slight challenge will be the rounded front portion of the frame. You can grind the ends of th eslug to fit th eradius of th ebend and then insert the outside piece over it. You will end up with a slight flat spot in that area. If the flat is an objection and you wish to maintain a curved section you can use heavier walled material for the outside piece. Work th eID of it out to fit the slug as good as possible. Then once assembled grind the curvature to the OD of it. We're only talking about a inch long peice or there abouts. If you pull it off well you will have some folks doing double takes when they look over your rig and that can b efun...lol..
Caveats? (Is that the right word? Never used it before and wanted to try it) Anyhow...Problems? I have cut a few sidecar frames and had them going 'boing' from the stresses already in them. Velorex frames are notorius for this. I suppose they bend the shape of the tubing to get it close and then use pressure somehow to get it into it's final shape in a jig? Not sure. Anyhow if you were to contact Watsonian or maybe Doug Bingham you may get some insight into what may happen or not. There are pictures on the net of widened Palmas and Monacos so it can be done no doubt. These are ones that were widened more than an inch of course.Here is alink to apicture of a rat bike palma that has been widened and also has had a larger wheel put on it.
http://www.ratbike.org/docs/500.php
Keep us posted.
Claude
Again thank you for your thoughts. Yes the lateral movement will need to be controlled by mecanical means as well as limiting the movement up and down. The method of plug welding is the method I would use. The warning about it going boing is very useful and will be acted upon by heating up all bends to let them bend and get rid of the stresses before I get my grinder out. There are quite a few chassis that come up as scrap for very little cash so I will do all the modifications to one of these. Then fit my body to it. I’m thinking of doing it as a design projects with hand picked pupils that I teach. To enable them to do something meaningful rather than the normal workshop design and make projects. - Here is a real problem now solve it for me.
Thanks again for your thoughts and I will let you know how things progress.
George
gEORGE,
I am sure you know this but I would feel guilty to not bring it up.
All the conections on these sidecars are brazed and not conventionally welded. Be careful.
Or you 'could' maybe form new frame members and insert them into the casings instead of sectioning all of the old ones.
Claude
Thank you very much for that information – I had realised some were brazed but it did not occur to me they all might be. Opens up an interesting option of brazing all my new joints as well, as the kids understand quite well how to do this and we could get the front and rear joint onto the forge quite easily. The others could be bricked up and heated with a couple of gas torches. If they were to be mig welded I would have to weld it myself as they have little practice and their gas welding is unreliable, but girls seem to learn this very fast! Oh my, what fun we could have and learn more interesting things if we did not have to follow the national curriculum.
Many thanks again Claude and a fun Holiday to you.
George
Could you perhap's rubber mount the sidecar body onto the frame?, similar to what I have on the Squire ST. Just a thought.I have also put a 15" wheel on that's made a big differance (more stable).
Safe riding Karl
Karl
The squire is already rubber mounted into the frame - my one was or have you improved it? Also there is so much more room arround the body to play - that sounds a bit er strange but hey it's christmas - almost.
How are the windy isles and how is big tree (they only have one tree).
George
George
I did'nt know the Palma was rubber mounted, I stand corrected.
We have lot's of tree's at the moment, sent over from Norway. We adorn them with fairy light's. That is untill they blown down!
Windy? not for the last 4 day's, must be globle warming having an effect.
Safe riding Karl
