New to sidecars - need advise

Bob,
owners use all different types of weight in the SC, but make sure it is as far out towards the wheel as possible. and preferably in the trunk. in other words right rear corner.
lead shot from a sporting goods store or old, used wheel weights from an tire shop work great, as long as you use good strong bags that wont rip.
some have also put in a lead sheet on the floor under the seat and trunk area, or in pieces behind it. steel plate also works, but lead is more dense and compact.
leave the weight in the SC permanently, weather your riding solo, with a passenger, or with gear. dont be switching it in/out. get used to how the rig handles with the weight in it and keep it that way.
it is a plus , so leave it!

Hi Bob,
Thanks for the quick responce, I had thought of lead just not where to get it & put it the car, great ideas. Glad to hear I do not need to remove weight when adding things or dog to the car, that would be a big pain.
Thanks Bob

There are several approaches to ballasting a sidecar. I disagree that permenant ballast is the best way to go. Some sidecars will respond poorly to too much weight in the hack. Suspension can become over loaded and stability in left turns can become compromised.

If you draw a triangle between the contact patches of your tires, the weight should be placed with in that triangle or just behind the line between the rear wheels, as low and as near the sidecar wheel as is practicle.

I suggest you try water jugs or sand bags in the trunk area, until you get familiar with how your rig handles. You can decide later if permenant ballast is a good idea and something like lead, a steel plate or concrete might be a good investment. I would not invest time and money into a permenant ballast set up until you have some saddle time with this rig, know how it handles with and without a passenger and have experimented with the amount and placement of the weight.

Just my opinion and what I would do if it were my rig.

The permanent ballast is a must, on lighter SC's, but as Vernon said, go easy with it in the beginning, how much and where to place it. try around 50 pounds first, drive it around turns to see if the SC stays down at REASONABLE speed, increase the weight slowly until the rig is stable on city turns and highway curves at speed.
you dont want it too light that you have to lean over with butt off the seat to keep the SC wheel on the ground....... that is for specialized riding. you want it heavy enough so you can just sit upright normally , and cruise around the curves, [maybe just lean your top body left or right a little into the turns, a normal reaction] with no worries about the SC wheel lifting. Of course, this all takes in the fact that you need to drive slower, and sensibly. go into turns slow, and accel out, once you know what is around it.
get to the 1/3 balance weight.

If you decide to go with permenant ballast talk with someone like Doug Bingham or Jay at Dauntless about suspension and axle upgrades for your Velorex. It is something you may wish to invest in. Again, I would try it for a bit first and see how it goes.

A good alternative to permenant ballast might be mounting some sort of partial ballast permanently-a steel plate welded or strapped to the sidecar chassis for instance, and some sort of easily removable ballast to make up the weight when you are driving with an empty or lightly laden hack.

I had a 5 qt canteen which snapped to the side of the right rear trunk on my Tiger. It's primary function was for camping, but I found it worked well as ballast, as did a long tow chain in the trunk.

If you can set your rig up a little wider, you may find you need less weight. Generally it isn't real smart to build a rig you need to weigh down to make drivable. You do what you need to do to make it handle safely, but personally I hate spending my gas money and using up my horsepower and suspension travel to haul around a bunch of lead. If you can find a way to minimize the ballast you need, I think you will be ahead of the game.

I saw a post at another sidecar site. The guy was looking for a sizable stuffed toy monkey so that he could put lead shot in it and have a temporary ballast and a humerous "passenger" at the same time. The passenger in a racing sidecar is often refered to as a "Monkey" because of all the gyrations they perform while helping the driver get throught the turns as fast as possible. I think I'd recomend a large water jug so you could tinker with the weight and placement. Once you figure out the divine weight and placement, you could consider a permanent solution. My permanent solution with my Dneper is my tool box behind the seat.

Thanks to all for all the ideas & advise, it will come in very handy. I really like the idea of the Monkey :o). Any other help or advise you would like to throw this way I'll gladly take.
Thanks again.
Bob

For a bike as light as the Marauder. Unless you are a heavyweight, about 3 one gallon milk jugs filled with wet sand behind the seat should work for cheap disposable (non hazardous waste) ballast that is soft so it won't damage the body if it shifts around is a good start.
The 2000 562 models were lightly sprung and had a 15mm axle. The axles haven't given problems even when mounted on heavy bikes but the swing-arms are poorly leveraged and allow a lot of roll or wallowing in the turns.
We have a bolt on conversion availble that uses a 1" axle, heavy duty swing-arm and modular automotive wheel/tire that solves this problem and gives a lot more mileage than the rounded stock (expensive) cycle style tire.

Lonnie
Northwest Sidecar

Sorry, Lonny, I forgot you had conversion kits too. Off topic, I am looking for some adjustable struts +/- 20" eye to eye. Are the Velorex struts about that? Do you have any for sale?