I've had my 2018 Ural for 10 days and I'm almost ready to sell it! It pulls heavily to the right. It's dangerous to take my left hand off the handlebar because it immediately darts to the right. Even going in the opposite lane it will climb back over the crown of the road to the right.
I've increased toe-in in several steps, disconnected the sidecar brake,and put maximum pre-load on sidecar shock. I've kept lean-out at 1 1/2 - 2 degrees.
Nothing has made any difference.
The only thing that I have noticed is that the rear wheel points slightly right if I place a straight edge along the front and rear wheels. The front of the rear wheel has about 3/16" space to the straight edge, which is in contact with the rear of the rear wheel and both front and rear of front tire.
Help!!!
Welcome to the slightly off-center world of sidecars Paul!
Thought is sounds like yours is slightly more off-center then it’s supposed to be. Section 2 of this PDF has a great discussion on sidecar setup, including alignment. Run through that section and see if any issues bubble to the surface.
https://sidecar.com/sidecar/sidecars!/hal-kendall-operators-manual/
The alignment of the rear tire is interesting. Someone with more Ural knowledge may be able to shed some light on whether or not that’s correct.
Where are you at, Paul? There's a pretty new Ural dealer near me that has been doing motorcycles and some sidecars since before they were a dealer. I know they could deal with your issue, and pretty sure it's under warranty no matter which dealer you go to.
I would check the alignment your self. Here is a link to our instructions. http://www.dmcsidecars.com/basic-sidecar-installation-instructions/
As your bike has the same sized wheels, they should be in alignment with each other. If they are not, then you should take it back to the dealer to fix.
Another thing that can cause this, is the sidecar brake dragging? Does it have air in it?
Jay G
DMC sidecars
866-638-1793
www.dmcsidecars.com
Hello Paul,
2WD Ural may not get too much toe in 3/8" at most! The decent tracking is achieved by leaning the sidecar wheel to the left more then leaning the bike outside. Bike should be leaning 0-1º to the left not much more. (perhaps it is visible on the linked photo that the sidecar wheel is more inclined to the left then the bike)
In my case the final drive base on the rear swing had been twisted and made even the installation of the rear axle difficult. I got rid of that by loosening the mounting nuts of the final drive and aligning only with the axle. Then took measurements of the gaps on each of the 4 studs. Made 3 exact washers and glued them in place with epoxi putty. (which at the same time took care of the whedge like gaps.) Axle fits in straight now and tracking is back to normal.
By the way before I first took off the sidecar, which tracked from the first day well straight, I marked the position of the lower ball clamp fists with a center point. It never needed additional adjustment after that. So once you sorted out yours, mark the settings. And do not change the upper struts's lenght when you take off the sidecar.
On the Ural you should check for the brakes too. The modern disc brakes need to be well bleeded in order to not produce drag. The old ones needed their free lever travel on the shoe cams.
If new, the agency is responsible to adjust to spects.
Good luck.
Sven
If you lean the sidecar wheel in, doesn't that mean that the sidecar is no longer level? I don't care if that works, haven't tried anything other than perfectly level side-to-side.
I may try leaning the sidecar wheel in as you suggest.
Sidecar brake fluid reservoir was filled to the top, above the full mark. Sidecar brake was dragging as fluid could not let pads back off of the rotor. Removed some fluid and brake now works perfectly.
