Up to you.

Chris, that is looking GREAT.

I ask you...what is not to like....WHAT IS NOT TO LIKE ?????

Question, do you clamp your project to the welding table, before and during welding ?

And, now that you have removed 95% of that .040 bow in the subframe, it is now down to a .002 bow, so....nothing to speak of.

Finally, do you put Honey into your Black Tea, or just drink it straight, no milk, no sugar, no honey....nuttin' ?

I confess, I put milk in my strong black tea.

Posted by: @miles-ladue

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Chris, that is looking GREAT.

I ask you...what is not to like....WHAT IS NOT TO LIKE ?????

Question, do you clamp your project to the welding table, before and during welding ?

And, now that you have removed 95% of that .040 bow in the subframe, it is now down to a .002 bow, so....nothing to speak of.

Finally, do you put Honey into your Black Tea, or just drink it straight, no milk, no sugar, no honey....nuttin' ?

Here are pics of the first chassis, and of the current one. I clamp the heck out of everything. One of the reasons I chose this particular table was to be able to use regular c-clamps and bar clamps on it, and not have to invest heavily in specialized clamps.

I've allowed myself to consume sugar again, so always with sugar, and once in a while a little milk.

For the first hack, I built the chassis first, then the bike side mounts were built to meet the chassis and fit the bike. When I built the upper struts, I started with the chassis mount location and built the struts to fit. I'll be using the same struts as a starting point here. This time I'll determine the lower strut mount location by pivoting the chassis on it's lower mounts, and adjusting the struts their maximum and minimum length to find the place that gives the lean adjustability I want.

So I did this to the lower strut mounts so they can simply be clamped to the chassis while their location is being found. A few tabs from Summit and a couple pieces of bar, all 3/16" thick, my setup hardware, and a few fusion welds.

Also a couple pics of the crude way the strut length was originally determined.

Moving right along.  😎  Nice attention to detail.  

So which build is more fun?  The first one, or this one? 

Posted by: @scott-h

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Moving right along.  😎  Nice attention to detail.  

So which build is more fun?  The first one, or this one? 

 

I built the first one in anger, kind of an FU to the guy who put me in the position of having to put a training wheel on my bike. So I purposely built it ugly. Plus I didn't know how to weld, so I was watching a lot of Jody Collier videos so I didn't end up with a yard ornament. All the while not knowing if the thing would even work.

This one is far more enjoyable to build.

Right On! 😎  Definitely more fun to build something you will enjoy.  

Big fan of Jody's YouTube channel.  10 or so years ago he offered a 4 CD disc set that encompassed his video series.  I bought it as a Christmas present for a buddy who had just started welding.  They were so good, I turned around a bought a set for myself.  lol 

He's a good person.  My latest welding setup was purchased from his online store.    👍 

Posted by: @scott-h

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Right On! 😎  Definitely more fun to build something you will enjoy.  

Big fan of Jody's YouTube channel.  10 or so years ago he offered a 4 CD disc set that encompassed his video series.  I bought it as a Christmas present for a buddy who had just started welding.  They were so good, I turned around a bought a set for myself.  lol 

He's a good person.  My latest welding setup was purchased from his online store.    👍 

 

I go to his channel a lot for guidance still. My torch setup is mostly parts from his store.

Back to the table for the chassis. More welding, and building the reinforcement plates for the underside. Had to plug the bike in, and found the rocker boxes leaking pretty well.

The last time the bike got to stretch its legs was a few months before I got hurt. It's no show bike, but I always put it in the show at work every year to build up my collection of 2nd place trophies, so that was like a 100 mile day with all the mandatory beverage stops. But work was abundant and I just wasn't riding it much. Then it sat while I was recovering, for sure the leaks were going to happen once I started riding it.

S&S did a good job shrinking this engine to fit old frames, but with two piece rocker boxes, well this is what I did 15 years ago the last time it leaked. Job security.

Plus, I saw mention of another sidecar forum here the other day. Found it, now I'm spending way too much time over there, reading old threads just like I did when I found this forum.

Some bikes are a labor of love.  😎 

Made progress on the chassis, all the vertical welds are done. I couldn't come up with a way to TIG weld them, so I used the MIG, and boy are they ugly. Lots of clean up to do on them. So bike side mounts today instead, lower front first.

I had the chassis mocked up, and set the ground clearance at 7.5 inches and then built the bike side mounts. I wanted all four mounts to bolt to the frame and also clear the parts of the bike I had just spent months making, like the foot controls and exhaust.

All four of the mounting points for the 5/8" rod ends started as 1/4" angle, drilled and cut to form a three sided mount. This mount sandwiches the right sidecar loop, bolted to it using the Paughco vibrator bar and is also tied to the upper mount with a 1/4" chunk of aluminum which keeps both from being able to move.

Nice and stout! 😎 

Like the castellated nuts. Will you use cotter pins, safety wire or a combination?  A buddy of mine used to build planes and went to a training course on correct safety wire processes.  He showed me some of his work.  It's like art.   

Posted by: @scott-h

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Nice and stout! 😎 

Like the castellated nuts. Will you use cotter pins, safety wire or a combination?  A buddy of mine used to build planes and went to a training course on correct safety wire processes.  He showed me some of his work.  It's like art.   

All the hardware you see is just setup stuff, things I had laying around. Before it got assembled to hit the road, all that hardware was replaced with grade 8 or better hardware, including grade 8 nyloc nuts. Although the Army taught me how to safety wire things long ago, no wire or cotter pins on this.

Here is the upper front mount. It uses the stock crash bar mount on the frame. Utilizing the bolt holes and the mount itself to lock it in place, along with being connected to the bottom mount. It also has a tab that the steering damper mounts to.

While the front mounts are crude, the rear mounts are barbaric. There was no way to make it look, even remotely, good. Again, using existing mounting points on the frame, and needing to clear the chopped in half V&H muffler. Since the two mounts are sort of hanging out there, that's 5/16 inch plate and 1/4 inch material for all else. The aluminum girdle ties to both mounts.