will trya gain- New to sidecar

make sure you get a flip nose FII; it is a lot easier for your wife to get in and out. the solid body one is hard to get up and over the wide fender, onto the seat, then crawl in and sit down. harder getting out!
lot easier packing it also. for camping, and daily trips.
Unless your wife is very tall and has strong arms.
We have a flip nose and love it!!

Welcome to the madness Chuck!

The XS110 will make a strong tug for your Formula II.
You will need decent rear shocks for it as the Yamaha rear shocks were pretty flimsy when new.
I have used Harley Sportster shocks with the Yamaha bushings (metric) inserted in the past for an inexpensive changeover. Picked up the shocks for $20. from a cycle salvage yard. New Progressive shocks would be nicer but it will depend on your sidecar budget.
You will probably need a steering damper with the XS due to excessive trail to keep it from wiggling it's nose at low speed but that is something you will have to deal with later. Some are easily controllable without one while others are not.
If your's is a higher mileage XS I would also change out the steering head ball bearings and install new clutch plates for insurance.

Lonnie
Northwest Sidecars
nwsidecars@aol.com
Boise, ID

Wellcome. Our backgrounds are similar, I started riding when I was 14 (Arizona) and will turn 60 next summer. Got into sidecars a couple years ago due to medical issues with Connie. We both love it, best theng we could have done. Went to Alaska this summer on the hack.Sidecaring is quite a bit different, but you should take to easily. There were no sidecar classes in SoCal, but if there had been one I would have taken one. I think there are many in your area (?). good luck! greg

Hi and welcome to the sidecar world. My first rig was an XS1100 Special and the Auburn Gemini 2 seater (There's pics in the albums section). This should be similar to what you are setting up. Hack'n is right, there was a low speed wobble. I gripped the handlebars tight at start and after 25 or 30 mph all was okay. The steering was a little hard but not too bad unless you plan to do more than a 100 mile trip. Maybe you should consider raked trees or leading link forks. Good luck and take it easy until you learn the ropes.

Regards, Les

I have had two rig sbased on an XS1100 and we enjoyed both of them. One was a Motorvation Formula II (non flip nose).
The wobble is nothing to worry about once you get used to it. It may copme at a given slower speed and soon you can learn to accerate through it while keeping your hands on th ebars and after a while it will not even be noticed.
Rear stock shocks are pretty soft as Lonnie mentioned so expect to beef up the rear somehow and you will be happier.
We Utilized wider motocross bars and steering was okay.Note that if you have a standard XS1100 and can swap out the forks for some off of the 'Special' and you will get a reduction of trail and easier steering using all stock parts.
Main troubles we have had with the older yamahas were that th emaster cylinders seems to go bad in time. They woudlk not allow th efront calipers to relaese properly. Had this happen on both XS11s and our XS650.
We ran a avon triple duty sidecar tire on the front most of the time and a dunlop 491 on the rear. No fork brace was run.
We did not run a subframe on these bikes but really should have.
Excellent tug. Had done a 750 mile day on it and a lot of 500 or so milers.
One bad thing is that fuel milage REALLY goes down as speed goes up. Dunno if all of them are as bad as ours were though.

I just put a Motorvation Roadster Royal on my Suzuki 1500 Intruder...Gary at Motorvation was very helpful with mounting and parts needed to make it work on my Zuki as it is my first car also...I have a few spare parts for mounting onto a bike if your missinf any I assume they will be very simular for your car too....new arms/parts are very $$$ from Motorvation....Steve