dose anybody have a manual for a taraplane ,i would like to know about the upper 3rd mount which also adjust lean thanks
The terraplane was built by Vetter here in the USA. In its day it was one of the best sidecars on the market. Velorex on the other hand is / was an entry level sidecar made depending on the political map at the time in the chek republic.
Vetter had a different aproch to mounting sidecars. They ran a 3 point mount where the upper mount they called the trim grip, was adjustable as you could adjust the lean out of the bike while riding. They were able to do this for a number of different reasons, one as they have what is essentaly a roll bar they were able to attach the mount up high rather then from down on the frame. Another interesting thing Vetter did with the mounts was to make the lower mounts bike specific. Most sidecars the lower mounts have lots of adjustment, on the Vetter the lower mounts are only adjustable for toe setting. As a result even a minor change in the bike required different mounting parts for instance the 1980-81 Honda GL1100 Goldwing takes different "pilons" then the 1982-83 as Honda changed wheel size for these years. The entire system worked really well but it does make it difficult to change the sidecar to a different bike and as Vetter stopped building sidecars around 1983 they never designed mounts for any newer bikes. Studabaker manifacturing put these sidecars back into production for a while in the 1990's but as far as I know they also did not design newer mounts. We have all of the NOS mounts for these sidecars and sell them for $150. They will be missing bolts and instructions and look like they have not been stored as well as they should have and as such may have some surface rust but at least we have them. We also make a bolt on kit for the sidecar to convert them over to a standard 4 point mount with all 4 mounts being adjustable so that they will now work with all of our mounts, Champion sidecars mounts, California sidecars mounts and with some minor changes will also work with Motovation and Hannigan mounts. These is an on line club in Yahoo groups just for these sidecars.
Jay G
DMC sidecars
www.dmcsidecars.com
Here is a view of a Vetter car showing the trim grip mount which incorporates the hand operated screw jack for adjusting trim.
The other shot shows the mounting side that accomodates shorter framed bikes like Harley and an exrended mount pad for the Goldwings and other long lower frame bikes.
The bracket between the bike mounts (with a series of holes) is used for mounting their propriatory disc brake setup and compensating valve (if used).
L.
