Back in the day the boys used to cut the neck and do what they had to do.....now I understand that is highly frowned upon....lol
Does anyone have experience with just changing the neck cups as opposed to a set of new triple trees? It is much cheaper with the neck cups but just wondering about the safety issue.....guess you do think about things differently as you get older. Still running with the same lunatic fringe, just thinking about running a little bit longer.
Shanda
The neck rake and the fork rake have different effects upon steering geometry. I'd go with the raked trees.
Lonnie
Changing the triple tree's does not "rake" the front end. Cutting the frame and welding it does change the rake. For sidecar use you want to reduce trail not "rake" the front end. This can be done at the triple tree's or the cups the effect is the same.
To messure trail, you would run a line through the steering head all the way to the ground. You then take a line from the axle vertical to the gound. Messure between these to points on the ground and you have trail. As the line from the steering head is ahead of the line from the axle to reduce trail you need to move the axle closer to where the like from the steering head.
When we reduce trail with triple tree's or cups people will often call it "rake" but it really is not it just looks the same as rake if you do not look close.
As you can see cups or tree's both will move the axle forward with out changing the line in the frame so both will reduce trail. Cups however change the angle of the stem it all pivots on so it does have a slightly different feel to it.
If you were to move the front wheel forward by changing the rake on the bike which is done by cutting the frame and welding the steering head back at a different angle while it would look the same as what we are doing with tree's its effect is different as you are not only moving the line on the ground forward you are also moving the line from the axle forward by a similar amount and so the relationship between the two marks is pretty close to the same.
Jay G
DMC sidecars
www.dmcsidecars.com
866-638-1793
Pardon my ignorance, but what are the "CUPS"
TIA,
Outer bearing races.
Thank you all for the information. I try to learn as much about my bike, what is available and what will work for me as much as I can.
Shanda
If shopping for trees or whatever to reduce trail it is a good idea to make sure the product is okay by the maker for sidecar usage. There are trees out there that are designed soley to create the proper trail for various front fork lengths and so on that may not be good for th eside loades that sidecars and or trikes put on them.
Back in the day when we built choppers we had no idea about rake and trail Guys would cut the neck and move it until the front end looked right, plate it and weld it back up. Then run the pipes on the same angle as the forks to look cool, tilt the bars back and go. Some of them worked great and some were down right scary...lol.
Anyone rememebr those days? Lonnie?
Waaaay before my time Claude!
I just replaced my triple trees with a modified set from Side Effects, this one is made for sidecars, instead of trikes. It has 4 1/2 degrees of caster, plus 1 degree of camber. I took it out for a short ride for the first time today, and am very happy with way the rig handles, before the change if I hit a bump the handle bars would jerk to the side, never knew which way it would jerk, I had to tweak the lean a little, and I don't know how much that effected the way it handled, but I am a happy guy now. Side Effects seem to be good people, they even loaned my the special socket to torque the stem bearings. 🙂
