So the rain finally came and I got a chance to get into the Bahn (Maine term, means Barn, garage, carriage house... )
Yes indeed the rear clamp on the Velorex was not as tight as it should be allowing the frame to sag and erase the lean out that I had dialed into the rig... answers a bunch of questions about what has been going on with the outfit... thought I was loosing me 'ead.... ! !
Of course with that one being answered come a few more...
Should there be any tilt to the sidecar wheel or should it be absolutely vertical...?
I am not going to address the lead being so far ahead of recommended figures, I want to see what keeping the frame level does and go check the steering
As always, Thanks much.
Rob
The sidecar wheel should be verticle. Any tilt or camber will act like leanout or leanin, effecting tracking.
You are correct, the lead should be the last thing you worry about. You may find it is fine after you get the rig dialed in. Or you can change it later.
Great, Thanks for the sanity check Vernon...
Rob
Some of the velorex sidecars do not have the shock tower perpendicular to the sidecar frame. If so you can make the wheel vertical as Vernion suggested but will have the sidecar frame not level. If you want to do anything else along these lines you could have the sidecar wheel leaning in slightly with no real drastic bad efects. Note that this is better than leaning it out. You will see more wear on the left side of th esidecar wheel if you do this though. Any advantages? Only one is that you may not have to run as much leanout on the bike which can make it a little more stabel on right handers.
Have fun... Your questions and trial and error reports are excellent and can be helping others as well. Keep up the good work.
My friend, Mike, swears by using what he terms "negative camber" on the sidecar wheel when setting up a sidecar. He puts the bike verticle and adjusts tracking by leaning the sidecar wheel in. Looks like a speedway rig to me 🙂
Remember too, that depending on your suspension travel and stiffness, it may look a little cockeyed with no one aboard as opposed to laden. My KLR rigs actually have some lean in empty but settle down with a little leanout when the driver climbs aboard and the sidecar chassis levels when the passenger hops on.
That is why I reccommend you compress the suspension with your normal expected load on the bike and sidecar before adjusting leanout and toe in. You can use cargo straps to hold it compressed so you can get off and make your adjustments.
Check your toe in before and after changing your leanout. If you are very lucky it won't change much if any and you can change your leanout easily to suit the road camber, speeds and loads. Otherwise, changes will be fussy and you need to aim for a sweet spot, where it handles well at the speed, load and roads you most often encounter and acceptably under other varying conditions.
VW
Vernon wrote:" Check your toe in before and after changing your leanout. If you are very lucky it won't change much if any and you can change your leanout easily to suit the road camber, speeds and loads."
This is important and often overlooked until the frustration factor becomes huge..lol. One more advantage to a PROPERLY DESIGNED subframe is that it can negate the hassle associated with this. The position of th ebottom mounts are directly related to whether a rig's toe in will change when lean out is adjusted or not. A subframe if designed with some thought in mind can make lean out adjustments a breeze. Good design can make the idea of being lucky a non issue 🙂
Originally written by claude #3563 on 7/23/2006 1:16 PM
Have fun... Your questions and trial and error reports are excellent and can be helping others as well. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for that Claude...
I was beginning to think that I was the only one out there with sidecar set-up issues and feeling guilty about taking up all the bandwidth to ask my silly questions...
This outfit (Pun intened) is great...! !
Rob
I noticed the lower / front strut clevis bolt was bent as a result of the clamp being allowed to slip and rotate down. I sent an email to the Velorex folks via the website looking for a replacement bolt and got a call today from Mark...
He will have the part in the mail today and I'll rip it apart tomorrow. He also gave me some pointers as how to keep the clamp in the correct position and which way to turn the rear clevis to help keep that component rigid...
This whole thing makes sense when you think about what was going on.. the clamp slipping... I'm glad that it was brought to my attention...
More tomorrow...
Thanks,
Rob
