Steering problems

R.E.
the first you tell is absolutly understandable. The beemer has a long distance between the steering axle line hitting the ground and the point where the tire rests on the ground. (the RT is trimed this way for high stability) Means in every bend you have to overcome a long lever. That is the reason for the stearing modifications in rigs like earles fork or leading links or tripple tree.
That a rig follows every gradient is absolutely normal and becomes part of the learning curve.
After a while you will appreciate this behaviour, because in mud, on snow or gravel you have an inmediate back feed of traction and can react at time. While with other vehicles it is too late when you notice that traction is lost.
Read and practice accourding the manuals in the download section.

That your assembly falls apart does worry me. Therefore safety pins on crown nuts are used.
Locktite or safety nuts with plastic inlet work normaly more or less, but when there is gib in bolt and eye, then they tend to fail.
Have somebody with knowledge review your setup and check the allignments.
Those few bucks are well invested as well as a s/tep course.

Wellcome in the comunity and enjoy life.
Riding a rig is highly adictive and its a sane sport.
The nicest and unique guys you find under the rig pushers.
Sven

Thanks, Peter
Greatly appreciate your input, and advice.

Skysarge - 3/14/2012 7:22 PM

I put a Velorex 562 with my '78 R100RT BMW....

Hi Skysarge, and welcome to the fray. There are folks with much more experience than me, but here's a couple of thoughts from my experience:

I found that right hand turns required considerable effort, far more than I would expect....

Generally, left turns take more effort than right. I suspect you may have too much sidecar wheel lead -- that is, the sidecar is mounted too far forward. The more forward the more stable but harder to turn. I don't recall the actual recommendations, but there a several members here that do, and you can find 'em in Hal Kendall's Sidecar Manual available on this site here: http://www.sidecar.com/Files/SC%20Manual.pdf

... the bike seems to want to follow every nuance of road contour....

I've had similar experience with either too much toe-in or too low air pressure. I've driven a rig where excessive toe-in would tend to push the rig to the left "when it had an opportunity."

To ease steering and the inherent wobble, I followed Lonnie's advice to: 1) tighten steering head bearings a little more than recommended and 2) run 10%-15% more air pressure than "stock" in the front tire.

Also, be careful with the bricks as ballast -- you don't want 'em bouncing/flying around. I use bolted/tied down weights behind the seat, but sand/lead/birdseed bags work well. Be sure the ballast is in/under/behind the seat, not in the floorboard.

Best of luck as you get your rig sorted out. Also: I recommend you contact Marcus at Pineywoods Motorcycle Academy in Lufkin for a sidecar training class -- his email is: marcuscycleshop@aol.com He also has an independent cycle shop and might could help with your set-up/ alignment.

And finally, come join us at the Sam Rayburn KOA for the East Texas Sidecar Muster on May 4-6. Details are here: http://www.sidecar.com/mbbs22/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=9884&posts=26&start=1

Lee
MB5+TW200+CRF250L+GTV300+INT650
XL883R w/Texas Ranger Sidecar
Zuma 50F + Burgman w/Texas Sidecar<Mrs. SwampFox

 

Lee,
Thank you. Appreciate you taking the time to respond.
Ideas will be looked into.
Will look into feasibility of making rally.
Skysarge

Skysarge -- welcome to the site --- now that you bought the sidecar, you have now made the down-payment to get into sidecars - lol

I, too am new to sidecaring -- started in late Oct -- I read alot of stuff here and get much information - so keep reading -- like today I learned about increasing front tire pressure to inprove tracking....

Surprised no one said any about changing your tripe tree to rake out your front wheel and make steering easier --- My bike will get a raked triple tree whenever the heavier springs come in.

anyways, find a shop you can trust

Good luck

forgot -- steering dampers help and the more you ride, the easier it gets

Txart - 3/14/2012 11:28 PM
... Surprised no one said any about changing your tripe tree to rake out your front wheel and make steering easier...

 Perry's up in Ft. Worth has developed a really nice steering mod for Airheads.

 FYI:  I ran 39psi in my front Sportster tire before installing an appropriate triple tree.  And the tree eliminated essentially all the wobble on my rig; no damper required now.

Hi Skysarge and welcome aboard. You didn't mention how the rig tracks on a straight run? If it pulls to the left, which I assume due to the hard to steer right you talk about, you need to adjust the lean of the bike. I had about a half dozen test rides and kept adjusting the lean till I got the rig to track straight. Also, as the others have said, read the information available on this site and you will get a real good understanding of the adjustments and handling of the rig. Best of luck to you with your new rig. 🙂

I'll second Boatzo on leanout.

When I first set up my rig, I had a hard pull to the right which I corrected.. er.. over corrected by leaning the bike away from the car further. She rolled down the road nice and straight after that. Then I tried a right turn and discovered just how "thrilling" a right turn can be! In thinking about it, when riding a bike on 2 wheels, you turn left by leaning left. The left leanout made the bike want to go left, thus compensate for the right pull on straight and level flight. I soon found out that a bike wanting to turn left makes poor RIGHT turns!

Welcome to the site and to sidecars!

Art, I did mention it.
Sven

@PP --- went back and reread your post and yes you did mention the TT --- must have had a little senior moment

First, your sidecar coming off worries me, The BMW frames tubes are much thinner then other bikes and as such you must use a sub frame to attach the sidecar. A good sub frame will not only spread the load to the frame of the bike but it will also allow for better placment of the mounts. We make such a sub frame as to other companies.
If you can take a sidecar class www.esc.org or at least buy, read and follow the instructions in the book "Driving a sidecar outfit" which we sell for $34.95 you can also buy it many other places.
Once your sidecar is attached with a proper sub frame either weld down or cross bolt the clamp that holds the lower rear mount to the frame of the sidecar as it is at best a poor design and will slip.
When ever you add a sidecar you end up with heavy steering some people will make it even heavyier by adding a steering damper to try and hide other problems, On the BMW air head bikes about 1/2 the time with good mounts you can do away with the damper. For light steering you need to reduce trail. To reduce trail the front wheel needs to move forward by about 2 inches. The steering est up the Perry's sidecars makes works well however I do not know if it will work with the RT fairing, you will need to ask them. We build a leading link front end for these bikes which works very well also however it is a lot more money then what Perry offers.
Other things that will make steering heavy, to much wheel lead and a wide track on the sidecar. The Velorex mount design does not allow for proper adjustment for wheel lead as wheel lead is pretty much set by where the lower front mount is placed. When we mount Velorex sidecars we start by welding in new stronger pinch tube type mounts both front and rear that allow for wheel lead adjustment. The Velorex sidecar is very light, mounting it wider will make it tend to lift less on right hand turns however, it also makes it steer heavier. It also sounds like your lean out is not set correct for roads in your area.
Jay G
DMC sidecars
www.dmcsidecars.com
866-638-1793
jay@dmcsidecars.com

One other thing I seldom see when people install Velorex sidecars is having the sidecar brake working. Sidecar brakes are a good thing and all sidecars should have them. Some states inspect bikes and if you have a sidecar brake and it is not hooked up you will fail the inspection. In the case of your R100RT you have a drum brake on the rear of the bike which makes hooking up the Velorex brake fairly easy. The way we often do it, not the best way but quick, easy and cheap is to make a bracket to ancor the calble housing to the bolts that hold the final drive of the bike to the swing arm. We normaly pick up the outter two studs for this bracket. Then you need some thing to hold the brake cable to the rod that pulls on the rear brake. We do this by using a thread coupler. A thread coupler looks like a really deep nut. Drill a hole in the side of the coulper large enough to allow you to slide the coupler over the brake rod. Then when you put a bolt into the coupler and tigthen it the bolt will pinch on the brake rod clamping the coupler in place. Now take 3 links of a very small chian. One is hooked to the brake cable from the sidecar. The other end you run the bolt for the tread coupler through the link. By having the chain if there is ever a problem with the sidecar brake the bikes brake will still work normal. You then adjust the brakes to stop straight by loosening or tightening both the sidecar and the bikes brakes until it feel proper to you.
By using the sidecar brake on right turns it will ease steering effort. Throtle on left truns helps. As covered in the book "Driving a sidecar outfit" on right turns you can stay on the throtle which keeps the bike up on its suspension and "yaws" the bike into the turns, you then control your speed by applying front brake.
Jay G
DMC sidecars
www.dmcsidecars.com
866-638-1793
jay@dmcsidecars.com

I don't know of any States in the US that have a sidecar brake inspection. Please enlighten me on this regulation. Which States have this ruling?

L.

Germany does have that rule Jay mentions. If the s/c does have a break, it has to be hooked on. If it does not have a break (only models prior to 1974 or so) they do not bother you. Newer ones I guess are obligated to have one and have it hooked on.
In Costa Rica they do not bother me, but at the technical inspection (1/year) they do me the favour to test it anyhow. But mostly I have to ask somebody to make weight, because without extra load the testing rolls have not enough traction and the tire blocks instantly.
Sven