Oh I am riding as much as I can testing my mods etc. Its been a case of lots of work and ride a bit but the ride is getting more And the work is going down. The only thing left is to cut the neck and alter the rake angle and I really do not want to go there unless it becomes very necessary. I am running 0 deg. trees and short fork tubes leaving the bike with about 5" clearance and pretty much level front to back. Later Chuck
Quote from Neville L Te Brugge on March 31, 2021, 12:05 pmOh I am riding as much as I can testing my mods etc. Its been a case of lots of work and ride a bit but the ride is getting more And the work is going down. The only thing left is to cut the neck and alter the rake angle and I really do not want to go there unless it becomes very necessary. I am running 0 deg. trees and short fork tubes leaving the bike with about 5" clearance and pretty much level front to back. Later Chuck
Please do not cut the neck. You can get raked tress that work so much better and easier. Once you cut the neck bike is trashed and no going back.
I spent a few days down in Columbia with my son and we worked on the front wheel etc.
I put in a set of progressive front springs. and put a little preload as well to handle the extra loads when braking and "lemmetellya" it works.
Then we went to work on the front wheel itself. First we took the calipers off and using spacers centered the front wheel up in the forks then we worked on fitting the calipers to the front lowers so its a natural alignment and its very normal looking. Now we are looking for a way to fit the speedo drive in. We have some options but its a matter of deciding which way we will go with it its very crowded at the left side on the axle. Then we did a bit of programming on the Ultima digital programable ignition single fire ignition system and now the bike is getting 36mpg @70 on the interstate. It is geared like a long legged camel but has boocoo passing power etc and will come out the hole like a scalded cat if you get on it. At about 2700 rpms its right in the power band which starts to come in at about 1500 rpms.
I have noticed that as the speed goes up the tendency to go right goes up too from the higher wind drag on the car. so my question is should i set the toe in for about 70 mph and use my electric lean to trim it to my running speed for lower speeds etc???. My left elbow starts to feel it after about an hour on the slab. I have enough stick time to have a subconcious push/pull on the handle bars and I am getting more comfortable with getting into sharp turns like in city driving
I am now at the point to where I have time to start on some of the cosmetics where I just fitted temporary expedients like my headlight trim at the front of the batwing etc. I have other things as well and hope to have them all done by the end of the summer when i am going to get all the sheetmetal like tanks fenders and the tub done with black Imron and I will do an undercoat job on the sidecar frame. I have a HD black spoke back wheel mag that I am going to fit into the sidecar. I am wondering if I should put an auto tire (175-60-16) just like I have on the back wheel of my bike or just put a stock tire on there. ??????????. the actual conversion is not too difficult the Ural axle is 20mm and HD is 19mm so I will just buy a Ural axle or use a gr8 bolt for the axle material. I may or may not move the wheel back an inch or 2 at that time, I need some advice on that. My understanding is that the relationship of the car wheel to the tug wheel is a major factor with regards getting the steering easier to set up for tighter turning as well as making decreasing radius turns easier when you get to the hook. At my age this has become very important because I am starting to loose muscle mass and strength.
By and large I am very glad I decided to go sidecar and not to a trike because I have reached the point where I just cannot pick that heavy SOB up any more at all and I am too broke up anyhow Later Chuck
Like I said previously i have no previous experience to fall back on with side car driving so I may have some very optimistic ideas of what would be normal when it comes to steering resistance of a rig.
It seems that most of the stuff I see comes down to somewhere around 15% of measured wheelbase would be a ballpark for lead and that sounds reasonable to me. Mine is about 11' vs a 62"wheelbasewhich is mas amenos 18% . I find my hand bumping the fairing mounted mirror some times when doing a sharp low speed turn like when I take off on a tight left hander. I do not think this is quite right, it should need less effort. My handle bars are using polymer vibration dampers at the top tree so they are not yielding over much. My bars are 32" wide with 10" pull back risers. I know my bike is quick but I try not to do much power at that time and really use the power to flatten out hills and for passing/lane changes etc.
I am wondering what would be the minimum safe lead for a bike like mine the rig has a 50" track so its almost Square and it is very stable in reducing radius right handers tho like I said hard to steer. I cannot ever recollect flying the chair. which is a Ural about 250 lbs. I do not want to end up with a flighty back wheel in left handers at speed. My travel speeds always reflect the traffic speed and I like using the Interstates when I am travelling and I am not a twisty adrenalin junkie. I like long distance and generally only make gas stops about 140 miles apart. I used to ride an ST11oo and I used to go from Greenville SC to ST Augustine Fl with 1 stop at Savanna GA. That scooter was a real roadrunner
Later Chuck
Is there anybody who has a Ural car on a Harley and has normal for a side car rig steering so I can find me a ball park to work in. I can take my front attachment to an extension of the back engine mount and move the points on the sidecar frame forward to move the car back. this is a lot of work and I would like to have something to go on before I do that. so that is why I keep asking to find something that works and I can use that for my guide. Its vitally necessary to have sufficient lead to keep the tug back wheel down solidly on the road when in a maximum braking situation. when that back wheel comes off the road like in a stoppie with 2 wheels its ok but with a car you are going to twist and that is going to be a very hairy situation. Right now I can go to my traction limits without lifting that wheel so I know I can move the car backwards but I do not want to cure a problem and make a really big problem to bite me when things go to hell and I need to stop Mucho Pronto. Unpredictable motorcycles will kill you and good handling makes predictability
Anybody with a Ural car on an American motorcycle or any other big inch ride that does slow turns well and handles well in a braking situation you have the Data that I am looking for. Please Chuck
Most of the time when we work with Ural sidecars it is by sending out "kits" for people to install on their own. The way we do this as the front lower mount on the Ural is not adjustable and the rear lower mount is to far aft we convert the sidecar over to "boss and clamp" type mounts. This does involve welding on the sidecar frame. Once this is done you can now adjust wheel lead where ever you want it. Toe adjustment is easy as you get it in close with the clamps then fine tune with the hiem joints. You can also make sure that the sidecar sits level side to side and fore and aft. This also allows us to use any of the 100% bolt on mounting kits we offer. And we often also lower the sidecar, on many bikes a Ural sidecar just looks a bit wrong as it sits to high. The way we lower the sidecar is to cut the frame in half at the main frame cross tubes between the body and the wheel. Then we put in off set plates, usually in the 4-5 inch range. This lowers the body while not changing the suspension at all and it also gets the mounts coming off of the sidecar more in line with the frame of the bike as most bikes sit lower then a Ural does. With fully adjustable mounts if you want to see how wheel lead changes things you can adjust it, if you do not like it you can move it back. Normally on a street only bike we set wheel lead at about 10-15% of the wheel base of the bike. For most people this works out well.
We also like to run a brake on the sidecar. We have found that Ural disk brake wheels do not work well as there is enough flex that when you corner hard the rotor pushes the pistons in the caliper back in such that the next time you go to use the brake you have to pump it up. This can be helped by adjusting the wheel bearings but only to a point. So what we do is cut off the Ural axle and weld in a new one we make. This allows us to use a different wheel. This can include a wheel that matches the bikes wheels. We then make our own brake rotors out of cast iron that are much smaller diameter then a front brake rotor. This balances the brake mechanically, yes it is seldom ideal. Empty you wish you had less brake, full a bit more. We run a Brembo caliper that has 34mm pistons on a bracket we make with our CNC equipment. The brake is hooked up to the rear master on the bike with a quick disconnect coupler. On our video page www.dmcsidecars.com/video you can see how we hook the brake up to an Indian, the Harley uses the same parts and is done the same way.
Before we started building our own sidecars we were the Ural sidecar importer as such we were doing a lot of modifications to these sidecars and we were having the factory build our sidecars with the front mount fully adjustable. We were also adding electric trim to the Ural sidecars. It got to a point where we were making so many changes that it just made more sense to start from scratch. We no longer are set up to be able to supply an electric trim kit for Ural like we once could.
Jay G
DMC sidecars
Monday - Thursday 6-4:30
866-638-1793
Thanks Jay for all that info its really appreciated as I am still green as a cucumber when it comes to side cars. Not knowing what is acceptable and what can be improved is a lot of my problem. So I have my rig somewhere in the ballpark on the long side when its lead. That gives me a good estimate of the cost benefit of doing a mod to move the car back on the bike and also where to prioritize the job. Right now my rig is pretty stable and I am definitely going to put a Harley black spoke back wheel on the car I am going to use a trailer brake modulator to be able to program the brake pressure to match the load. I will try with a stock disc and if I cannot get the pressure down enough I will reduce the disc and move the caliper till its right. That is going to happen this coming winter when I do the final paint job. I like my electric trim very much and it really helps when running on the slab for a few hrs at a stretch. When I do the sidecar wheel swop I am going to a car tire there too as I am still pondering how to tow this thing as my wife is not a good traveler. Me personally I have still got a pretty hard butt and my mods to the Ural saddle makes it ride like a really good post solo so, I just float along like I am sitting on a cloud.
I have looked at all kinds of trailer designs and found them too awkward and cumbersome. So this is where I am thinking . With a car tire on the car I can make me a bolt on trailer wheel that would go on the left side of the bike frame to carry the bike with suitable reinforcement to the hard points to spread the load on the bike frame. By running the 570X8 load D wheel right behind the bikes CG and putting it out about 13" from the center of the bike I will be well within the load rating using the car wheel as the other trailer wheel. I will just need a bolt on tow bar/hitch to make a trailer. I would put the bike side axle on and jack the bike up enough to mount the wheel. When we get to our destination Just take it off and put it in the car trunk during the vacation and run the rig. The entire contraption will fit within the mirrors of a midsize car. I would make the new axle from a 3/4" gr 8 bolt. With Timken bearings the wheel will not float so the caliper would act normally.
Like I have said before this is my last build and its going to be done right, and you can put that in the bank, then write checks on it
Later Chuck
PS I am not computer savvy so when one of my grandkids visits I will ask "it" to do the honors and post lots of pics for you all. I am very proud of what I have and its pretty much homegrown. Its genuwine Appalachian Hillbilly Engineering The area I live in was called Dark Corners and was famous for the shine that came out of the Hollers of the Blue Ridge Mountains
I am thinking of using a m/cycle front brake master cylinder mounted somewhere that I can link it with a tension spring to the rear brake pedal and set the spring to have it pull a little right when braking with an empty car. That I hope will make the left pull more manageable when heavy braking with a passenger. This I think is as simple as it can get if I use a m/cyle front wheel with a disc like I plan on doing. I think I will be able to cut most of the handle away and still not have the need for a heavy spring to operate the brake. I think this is a very elegant solution that leaves the existing foot brake hydraulics untouched. Later Chuck
