Originally written by vs1100star2002 on 10/29/2006 9:11 PM<BR><BR>as i recall,Bandit Bill had some shots on his website of a swaybar on his old Hannigan comet.it was also a leading link suspension,although it didn't have the ecc feature. on my next project i am thinking of trying to incorperate one with the ecc.if all goes well i am planning on doing a Warrior with an astro sport as my next rig
Howdy:
Yes, the first version of my swaybar setup was based on a leading link sidecar suspension, as was stock for the Hannigan (Comet? - is this the TRUE name of the sidecar? I've got a '74 Mercury Comet scripted name plate JUST waiting for confirmation to go on the sidecar 🙂 ) suspension design as originally designed. There is NOT a lot of room to work with, with either older or newer Hannigan sidecars that use a leading link sidecar suspension. It's doable, but you have to be real careful in paying attention to wheel and frame clearances in the arc of the linkages, and the linkage is always the first thing to touch terra-firma first.
In previous conversations regarding swaybars, I had remarked that a leading link sidecar suspension and trailing link motorcycle swingarm setup was a less than perfect setup as is.. it worked, but with limitations. Claude's suggestion of a bell-crank linkage to equalise the leverage on the differing designed ends was never implimented - instead, i redesigned the Hannigan's suspension entirely to be a trailing type suspension arm - the end result of a sidecar suspension accident which necessitated total replacement - incidently, once redesigned, the swaybar fit right back on unmodified, and it worked as it should, 110% better.
I've still got photo's up on my site .. http://www.chairintheair.ca/ and the old website at http://www.chairintheair.ca/oldsite .. it should give you a reasonable idea on how it all works, in addition to Bill Ballou's excellent info and videos. I apologize that my site isn't as complete as it should be - last winters' suspension redesign isn't up there yet to reflect the true changes to the Hannigan suspension and the way the swaybar interacts - hopefully that'll be my project for this winter 🙂
For the leading link suspension on the Hannigan (first version) this was my answer to the recessed frame tube/body design issue.
What this did, was extend the swaybar mount out beyond the frame tube where any mount located directly on the frame would have been either too low, or would have interfered with the body shell, and suspended it from a subframe welded/grafted onto the original Hannigan frame. When the body is on, this subframe is entirely hidden from view on the Hannigan. This design necessitated a change from the usual norm of swaybar construction, in that the swaybar mount points are out-board of the swaybar arms, rather than as is the norm of being in-board. This mount point was recycled/retained for the swaybar mount and was built up upon to serve as the swinging arm pivot point for the newer trailing link suspension.
This is what the swaybar setup on the 'new' Hannigan suspension now looks like.
This is the business end of things on the motorcycle side. Note the bearing block (blue) suspending the swaybar end on a built up submount on the center-stand mount.
Dave took some photos of the swaybar mounts on my bmw r100/modified sputnick rig.
They are in the photo albums at this site under dave 2003 national.
