Well you don't want the pusher to be MORE worn on the side towards the sidecar (indicating inadequate lean-out), but on the other hand your front tire looks like it's a little more worn on the left side (indicating good lean-out), so maybe your lean out is OK and the excess wear on the inside edge of the rear tire is caused by aggressive left-handers? Just thinking out loud.
What about the sidecar tire? Kinda looks again like not enough lean-out. If you do your set-up with the sidecar perfectly level, then it's gonna lean towards the bike when you load up the bike and get on board. Sag, of course. Unless your loaded sidecar sags exactly as much as your bike, which is unlikely.
Cupping is an issue with most 80/20 type tires. I had a K60 Scout on my 1150GSA that did not cup I don't know why, but it was vibey as hell on pavement (lovely on dirt). To avoid cupping you're better off with a tire that has no tread blocks -- a touring (street) tire. I tried a TKC70 with the center rib but it cupped just as bad as your tire there.
Well you don't want the pusher to be MORE worn on the side towards the sidecar (indicating inadequate lean-out), but on the other hand your front tire looks like it's a little more worn on the left side (indicating good lean-out), so maybe your lean out is OK and the excess wear on the inside edge of the rear tire is caused by aggressive left-handers? Just thinking out loud.
What about the sidecar tire? Kinda looks again like not enough lean-out. If you do your set-up with the sidecar perfectly level, then it's gonna lean towards the bike when you load up the bike and get on board. Sag, of course. Unless your loaded sidecar sags exactly as much as your bike, which is unlikely.
Cupping is an issue with most 80/20 type tires. I had a K60 Scout on my 1150GSA that did not cup I don't know why, but it was vibey as hell on pavement (lovely on dirt). To avoid cupping you're better off with a tire that has no tread blocks -- a touring (street) tire. I tried a TKC70 with the center rib but it cupped just as bad as your tire there.
Good input Ned. Thanks!
Pusher tire has slightly more wear on the edge towards the sidecar. Not dramatic, but enough to make me think better overall "driveability" can be had. 😎
Sidecar wheel has noticeable negative camber (top leans in towards tub), in comparison to the chassis attitude. The feathering wear is indicative of significant toe-in. The rig rolls easily on flat surfaces, so it probably isn't too far out of spec, if at all.
Front tire wear is bit tricky. This specific tire doesn't have the best grip on tarmac to begin with (would not be my choice for a replacement). I've tried some different tire pressures over the past 7K miles, and it seems the best result is about 32 psi. The last 1,300-ish miles was done with severe cross winds from the left of the bike on interstate (traveling between 65 & 70 mph). Severe enough that when the front tire hit an expansion joint or pothole, the front end would jump to the right a few inches. Because of the torque held on the bars to keep the bike traveling straight in the lane, the bars would immediately twist to the left. So as the tire made contact with the ground again it would slide until the bars were reoriented, and the bike brought back to straight ahead travel. In areas where the tarmac was slippery the front tire would slide sideways, until the speed was reduced enough to regain traction. To help somewhat mitigate that I sat as far up on the tank as possible to weigh the front end. This is most likely where the slightly off-set tire wear came from. Winds were severe from Illinois all the way through Utah. If the TPMS is correct the front tire averaged about 95 degrees F in comparison to the sidecar tire at about 91 degrees F, and the pusher at about 104 degrees F throughout that part of the trip. Earlier travels without the winds saw pretty consistent temps between the front tire and sidecar tire.
Before putting the new tires on, the goal is to check and manipulate the rig setup as needed. Hoping to find some room for improvement. I'm going to start with comparing the static curb weight alignment specs to an "all-up rider with load weight" alignment specs. My gut feeling is there will be a difference significant enough to find a balance in setup. At that point I can work with tire pressures, and monitor handling/tire wear going forward.
Hold my keyboard and watch this! 🙃
Scott, two things here:
If you ever get a chance, make every effort to visit Chuck, in Eugene, Oregon. He is 54vintage on the ADVRider forums, and the man that currently builds Leading Link front ends, subframes, and Sidecar frames.
Chuck is extremely knowledgeable about alignment of your Sidecar rig. It's worth the visit.
Secondly.... install a Mitas e-07 Dakar tire on the front wheel of your bike.
NOT the e-07 plus ....... but the e-07 Dakar tire
It's the very best front tire you will ever own.... period !
Run it at 32 psi.
Two Million Mile Rider...All 7 Continents
Exploring the World in Comfort
If I ever get to complete the trail of The Corps Of Discovery it would be fun to visit a few of you Pacific North Wet folks. 👍
That trip is high in the "bucket list". Lewis & Clark were exceptional leaders. Currently reading The Journals of Lewis and Clark by Anthony Brandt. Pretty epic adventure for sure!
Sidenote: added to the Fridge Door of Past Travels. 😎
Hold my keyboard and watch this! 🙃
@scott-h Hey Scott, great trip, thanks for sharing pics!
To build a little on the good advice from Ned:
1. I find if I start my setup process with the bike sag, loaded, set correctly, then:
2. Loosen up mounting stuff ("A" arms in my DMC case) and get the hack set level both front to back and side to side with me on the bike, and most of the junk I plan to carry in the car. I use a digital angle finder, check on the frame, for front to back and the front luggage rack for side to side, then check once more on the hack disk brake rotor for 90 degrees vertical. I then block this in place with a floor jack. I do all this with the "tilt adjust" set at about the mid point of it's range of movement.
3. Next check pusher lean out with a digital angle finder on the rear disk rotor, adjust to taste. I am currently kind of happy with a little less than 1/2 degree lean out, under load.
4. Set Toe-in to taste. I am currently running about 5/8" toe in; may increase that a little. Hack tire is getting pretty bald at 28,000 miles or so, but not really wearing all that fast. No right pull up to about 75 mph; might like to move that up to 85 mph.
5. Recheck leanout after adjusting toe (mine changed a little each time I made an adjustment, and required a little tweaking.)
Funny footnote: I was down to the cords (again) on the pusher tire, towards the hack side of the tire tread, while out away from home. Decided to adjust the tilt up significantly to lean the bike out further, which shifted the bulk of the wear over to the other side of center of tire tread. Yeah, pretty silly, but got home without showing the air in the tire to anyone.
FM's advice on the Mitas tires is good. I still like the E07+ Dakar with the bigger blocks and softer compound for the dirt portion of my rides, but they do wear considerably faster than the E07 Dakar version with the smaller blocks and center ridge. 32 lbs works pretty well for me; I have experimented from 28 on up to 36.
I've now broken and fixed the hack frame and pusher sub-frame enough times to get this down to a mostly routine activity that only needs to happen with major frame surgery.
@scott-h Hey Scott, great trip, thanks for sharing pics!
To build a little on the good advice from Ned:
1. I find if I start my setup process with the bike sag, loaded, set correctly, then:
2. Loosen up mounting stuff ("A" arms in my DMC case) and get the hack set level both front to back and side to side with me on the bike, and most of the junk I plan to carry in the car. I use a digital angle finder, check on the frame, for front to back and the front luggage rack for side to side, then check once more on the hack disk brake rotor for 90 degrees vertical. I then block this in place with a floor jack. I do all this with the "tilt adjust" set at about the mid point of it's range of movement.
3. Next check pusher lean out with a digital angle finder on the rear disk rotor, adjust to taste. I am currently kind of happy with a little less than 1/2 degree lean out, under load.
4. Set Toe-in to taste. I am currently running about 5/8" toe in; may increase that a little. Hack tire is getting pretty bald at 28,000 miles or so, but not really wearing all that fast. No right pull up to about 75 mph; might like to move that up to 85 mph.
5. Recheck leanout after adjusting toe (mine changed a little each time I made an adjustment, and required a little tweaking.)
Funny footnote: I was down to the cords (again) on the pusher tire, towards the hack side of the tire tread, while out away from home. Decided to adjust the tilt up significantly to lean the bike out further, which shifted the bulk of the wear over to the other side of center of tire tread. Yeah, pretty silly, but got home without showing the air in the tire to anyone.
FM's advice on the Mitas tires is good. I still like the E07+ Dakar with the bigger blocks and softer compound for the dirt portion of my rides, but they do wear considerably faster then the E07 Dakar version with the smaller blocks and center ridge. 32 lbs works pretty well for me; I have experimented from 28 on up to 36.
I've now broken and fixed the hack frame and pusher sub-frame enough times to get this down to a mostly routine activity that only needs to happen with major frame surgery.
Thanks Dane. Great input, and sincerely appreciated. Your thought on setup at all-up weight is akin to my experience for ADV bikes, and extreme 4x4 rigs.
Something else that seems ambiguous is where folks are taking the Toe measurement at. Even Ural is ambiguous in this regard. The further forward the measurement is taken, the less actual toe the sidecar wheel has. Other than reading a few posts, and watching a few videos I haven't researched this much. I'd forget the info by the time I actually took measurements, so am waiting to suss this out until it is time to take the actual measurements. Realistically the proper points for Toe measurement should be front and rear of the sidecar tire at equal height from the floor. But I haven't seen anyone do that.
I just made a thread in the tech section regarding tires that have not been tried yet. So many new tires have come out in the past 10 years, it would be cool to get some good insight on the new-ish generation.
Hold my keyboard and watch this! 🙃
@scott-h Just as a reference on toe-in measuring:
I clamp (lightly) two 1" x 1" box sections of aluminum square tube, about 8 ft long, to the outside of the pusher tire (way from car) and outside of the hack wheel (away from bike.) I have them marked for which side goes up and end goes forward to take some of the gauge error out of the equation. Many have told me not to clamp them, I still persist in the belief that lightly clamped with the free ends supported by blocks gives me consistent readings from one time to the next.
I measure from the outside of the pusher tire beam, through the spokes, under the rear axel, accross to the outside of the hack wheel beam outside, and record the measurement.
I then take the same measurement through the front wheel, under the axel, to the outside of the hack wheel beam, and record.
Subtract front from back and get toe-in reading (or toe out in the case of a friend's K1600 rig that came back from a Ural Dealer, here locally.)
The measurement itself is pretty irrelevant from bike to bike. I think it's relevance is useful on the same bike, if something has changed, and you are looking for a starting point to get back to "normal."
The feel of the bike at whatever cruising speed you like most seems to be the important measurement, with "toe-in" being a number that might indicate what has loosened up or broken, if you check it the same way, consistently and keep it written down on your bench, somewhere, maybe on a picture of a top view of the rig...
I'm certainly no expert on this, but have been forced to learn a little by the stuff I have had to fix over the past couple of years.
Scott, the measurement you describe to get to toe in at the exact front of the hackwheel, compared to the exact rear of the hack wheel would be fine, just different when comparing to how some measure it.
Ned showed me how he measures it early on, when I stopped by his house. I think he is pretty close to how the Ural setup videos show measuring it. I probably took a little poetic license with clamps vs. bungee cords, but it works for me.
This Ural setup video isn't too bad... HERE
Ordered some maintenance items that just arrived from Beemer Boneyard. Ended up with 6,720 miles on this oil change. Thankfully the oil is full synthetic, and for the most part the rig wasn't pushed hard (sans the head winds through the mountains in Utah). Ordered up a Blackstone oil test kit just to be safe. Will post results (probably about a month or so, since the kit hasn't arrived yet). On a cool note; In that 6,720 miles the bike only used a cup of oil, and still looks pretty good in the sight glass. 🙂
Had a bit of alt belt squeal at start up on a hot engine show up in the heat of the S.E.. Could probably just adjust it, but the belt is about six years old. With 73k miles on the bike I'll inspect the pulleys for wear, and replace if needed.
Was having a bit of glitchy throttle in different parts of throttle opening. Tested the Throttle Position Sensor (BMW calls it a Throttle Valve Switch). Both pots have some decent drop-outs. Ordered a new one. Woah! $422! I ended up ordering from a dealer in EU. With $53 dollars of shipping it was still over $100 less than I could do anywhere in the states. Part just shipped via DHL today. Pretty crazy cost for a wear item part.
Hold my keyboard and watch this! 🙃
Pretty thoughtful of the BMW engine engineering group to put the alternator belt through the oil pipe.
This way BMW parts can sell two crush washers and an O-Ring with each new belt. 👍
Pulleys are still in serviceable condition. Alt bearings are excellent. Somewhere down the line a non-OEM belt was put on. Tensioner was at full extension and the belt was still loose.
Replacing the belt on the road would be an interesting proposition, as the tensioning bolt requires a specific torque and is difficult to get at.
Otherwise it was a very easy job in the garage.
Oil change in process, and will be finished after this brief intermission for lunch. 🤩
Since the oil test kit hasn't shown up, I saved some oil in a Brandy Snifter. At the price of oil it seemed appropriate. It will be sealed in a virgin plastic wrap christened by Bob The Oil Guy.
Hold my keyboard and watch this! 🙃
During the trip I managed to lose one of the rubber straps that hold the pannier lid down. Called and left a message with the company that assembles and sells them to see if I could get a new one. Boomer from Big Boom Moto called back and said, yeah no problem I'll send you one and a new pin. No charge. He took over when the original owner retired. He also makes and sells sheep skin seat covers, so i ordered one. Looking forward to trying it out. Super cool dude, and I appreciate entrepreneurs who go out of their way to treat customers well. He has two R1150 GS bikes, one in the world's greatest color... Yellow. Here is his web site:
I ordered the "Medium Kiester" Mister! lol Never tried a sheep skin cover before so looking forward to see how it works out. Two things I'm interested to find out; Most important is comfort when dry and when it is soaked by the rain. I might call the estate of Phyllis Diller to see I I can borrow a shower cap to cover it during rain events. Next is to find out if the bike will be guarded by Anatolian Shepherds when the cover is on. If so I might get a sheepskin cover for the sidecar seat to hedge my bets. 😎
Hold my keyboard and watch this! 🙃
I have one on each bike from Alaska Leather. If they get wet, you'll have a wet backside for a while, but unlike any synthetic material or cotton, moisture wicks away and it reduces Monkey Butt (not to be confused with Flyin Monkey Butt). They really shine after four hours in the saddle. Makes the next couple more tolerable, but after 8, there is nothing aside from a custom made seat (RDL) that will make an 8 hour day anything less than torture during the last two.
Illegitemi non carborundum est!
I beg your pardon....I never promised you a rose garden, or a non-monkey butt, unless you have a RDL seat.
Frankly, I was pleasantly surprised that the stock original seat on my newest sidecar rig, the 2015 Goldwing seat, is actually comfortable for up to 10 hours a day, or 635 miles, whichever comes first.
Scott, if that sheepskin seat cover is the real deal, you can do one of two things if it is raining out.
Turn the sheepskin seat cover over, so the hide part is up, which keeps the wooly part dry. Or.... just sitting on it keeps most of the wooly side dry.
I have been quite pleased that the velour covering of my RDL seat stays relatively dry in the worst of rains, because my butt is covering it, and protecting it.
Two Million Mile Rider...All 7 Continents
Exploring the World in Comfort
I beg your pardon....I never promised you a rose garden, or a non-monkey butt, unless you have a RDL seat.
Frankly, I was pleasantly surprised that the stock original seat on my newest sidecar rig, the 2015 Goldwing seat, is actually comfortable for up to 10 hours a day, or 635 miles, whichever comes first.
Scott, if that sheepskin seat cover is the real deal, you can do one of two things if it is raining out.
Turn the sheepskin seat cover over, so the hide part is up, which keeps the wooly part dry. Or.... just sitting on it keeps most of the wooly side dry.
I have been quite pleased that the velour covering of my RDL seat stays relatively dry in the worst of rains, because my butt is covering it, and protecting it.
After you wrote about the RDL seat I went to their website to see what it was all about. Pretty darned cool. Something I'd definitely entertain for a road rig.
Good points on how to handle the wet. Thank you Sir! 🍻
I keep the left pannier open for riding gear (pants jacket, extra gloves, etc.). It would be pretty easy to toss the woolly bugger in there on the few rainy ride days. When off the bike it could be worn like a toupee, and kill three birds with one stone.
Hold my keyboard and watch this! 🙃
I have one on each bike from Alaska Leather. If they get wet, you'll have a wet backside for a while, but unlike any synthetic material or cotton, moisture wicks away and it reduces Monkey Butt (not to be confused with Flyin Monkey Butt). They really shine after four hours in the saddle. Makes the next couple more tolerable, but after 8, there is nothing aside from a custom made seat (RDL) that will make an 8 hour day anything less than torture during the last two.
I found after 8 or so hours in the saddle, the pain keeps me awake. 🤣
Coming from the dirt bike world "sitting down" is a whole new experience. Sitting on a dirt bike is used to help control the bike to go faster, a harder seat is better for precise control. I've always maintained that KTM and Husky dirt bikes come with a grippy seat cover stretched over Norwegian Hardwood. George Harrison would be proud.
Imagine sitting down to enjoy the comfort. What a concept!
Hold my keyboard and watch this! 🙃
