Velorex 700 pulling to the Right on 1976 GL1000, Toe-In or Lean-In??

More lean-out will bring it back to neutral steering. Also check sidecar tire wear for toe-in problems. There is a center groove in the Mitas (OEM) tire. See if there is a rounding of one edge of this and a feathering on the other side. That will show which way the car is being pulled if these are present. If all is wearing even your toe-in is OK and you just need to tweak the lean-out till you have neutral steering at road speeds.

Lonnie

You might also want to check the sidecar wheel bearing, I had a pull to the right once, kept rechecking tow in and lean, finally got around to checking the wheel bearing and found it dry, over tight, and causing drag at highway speeds. Good luck with it.

Just thinking in loud:
1. universal clamps slipped?
2.Had been dismantled and sacked in while reassembled. My Jawa will not bolt on and return each time into the same position. I have to jack her s/c frame up in the center for to get her to the right point. There are too many gibs in all conections and she would never fall into the same spot. The 700 is practically the same main frame as the 562 and not a very stiff foolsafe connection as in Johnny Sweets sidecars.
3. Myself I am not very good at alligning. I leave it to my friend Fernando the importer with his year old tools and a perfectly flatt and leveled shop floor.

As what I have seen once and again are. first thing he levels out the frame with a water bubble level in both dimentions before he even attatches the upper arms.
second the has his straight edges trued (square tubes often come pretty badly twisted) and are resting about 4" 10cm above the ground.
third he doesn't trust the protactor, but measures the leaning angle against a sturdy granite scuare (His floor is smooth ground terrasso nearly as neat as my measuring granite)
If I remember right he uses ballast in sidecar and saddle while he does the lean out adjustment.
Anyhow the time he spends and charges is well spent, in 9 years each time I come back from him I never had any pull, wobble or tire wear...(except when again he did run out of my favourite Mitas tires)
Hpe it gives a hint.
Sven

Thanks everyone!

I checked the tire, no unusual wear.

I turned out the top attachments 3 turns and it did seem to get better. I don't have a good level surface but I used a large square I had and it appears the bike has no noticeable lean in or out at this point.

I will give it a few more turns and try again tomorrow.

First, The GL1000 is way to large of a bike for the Velorex sidecar. The Velorex sidecar was designed for a 350cc two stroke Jawa. The sidecar is to light, the frame is to light duty, the axle on it is only 15mm and the suspension is way to soft not leaving much of a safety margin. Also the drum brake more then likely was not hooked up as it is not easy to tie it into a disk brake bike.
Next issue is more then likely how is it mounted. Chances are your alignment has slipped, if it has not chances are it will. The Velorex "universal" frame clamps seldom work well and never can work well on a GL1000. The upper front may work ok, The upper rear could stand to be up higher then the frame tubes allow. The lower front ends up sitting on a part of the frame that is curving in two different directions both up and in and as this clamp also sets your wheel lead, more then likely your wheel lead is in correct. Wheel lead is how far the sidecar wheel is ahead of the rear wheel of the bike, It should be 10-15% of the wheel base of the bike. Your lower rear mount will be sitting higher then the lower front mount. This makes it very hard to find the "sweet" spot where all works well as when you lean the bike out 3 turns this causes the toe in setting to move out so while it now is not pulling chances are tire wear will suffer. The clamp on the lower rear on the sidecar frame is at best a poor design as it almost always slips unless welded down.

My first choice to fix all of this would be to change sidecars to one designed for a large heavy bike such as yours. As chances are you are not going to do this, my next choice would be to fix the mounts on the bike and up grade the shock/axle/wheel on the sidecar and weld down the clamp to the frame of the sidecar for the lower rear mount. While we do make a mounting kit for this bike, we will not sell it for use with the Velorex sidecar due to our safety first policy. If you were to make your own mount, the only tricky one is the lower rear. We remove the center stand and use its mounts as a pick up point, the mount moves aft about 6 inches more and also ties to the side of the bike. This places the lower rear mount on the same plane as the lower front mount so that when you adjust lean out you are not changing toe in.

You state that the bike appears to have not lean in or lean out. How would you know? When setting up a bike it must be done with your weight on the bike as this is how it is when you are riding the bike. We put lean out as you are in theory setting this up on a level floor. We want the bike to be straight up and down out on the road. Roads have a crown to them so we lean the bike out such that when it is out on the road it is straight up and down.

Also chances are that this bike still has stock steering. Steering effort can be lowered by reducing trail on the front of the bike. This can be done many different ways, in general the front wheel needs to move forward a couple of inches.

If there is any chance you can make it by our shop we have a GL1000, GL1100, GL1200 in the shop right now all with sidecars. And of course there are about 10 other non Goldwings in the shop at this time. From your photo it looks like you fly. There is a grass strip 1 mile from our shop and a 5000 foot paved strip 15 miles.

Jay G
DMC sidecars
www.dmcsidecars.com
866-638-1793
Enumclaw WA

Thanks!

I checked the mounts, none of them have slipped (yet). You should know that this is for my dog, not human riders.

Yes, but is a dog also going to be riding the bike? The entire rig must be safe.
Jay G
DMC sidecars
866-638-1793

jaydmc - 5/30/2013 12:50 PM

Yes, but is a dog also going to be riding the bike? The entire rig must be safe.
Jay G
DMC sidecars
866-638-1793

Oh, I agree completely.

I have a hard time seeing a 350cc bike pulling this 700 at 65mph, even the GL breaks a sweat, but I could see the 5XX sidecars on a 350.

I have a FT500 Ascot but I am not convinced it would be a good highway mule for the 700 as I rode an acquaintances FT500 with a very small side car and it struggled at highway speeds.

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