Information on building sidecar for old Goldwing

Have you rode a bike with side car? Having done so myself, I'm having hard time making sense of your talk about leaning with the bike. Riding with side car is totally unlike without. I get the sense that a leaning into a leaning side car to turn the side car away could be very risky. Please clarify. You might be considering something there is no need for.

Thanks for the information. Yes, I have ridden many sidecars and even have owned several in the 60's when they were available in the 60's from the dealer in San Francisco. I was buying them then from the Harley dealer for $500 as the police were trading them in each year. Loved them. Now I wish to build one like I saw that was made in the 30's. I have seen a picture of one that my grandfather rode that had an articulating mount that also made the wheel lean with the cycle. Always thought this was interesting and would make for deeper leaning in the turns. I would settle for one that the wheel was stable, but, allowed the bike to lean. The sidewinder is a compromise, but, one that I could live with, unfortunately they will only make theirs to fit a BMW or Guzzi. So I have to go back to the drawing board and come up with my own model.

Some of my findings to help you on your way.

Aerostyle rose joints with teflon coating and a rubber gaitor are the best. M21 fine is plenty big enough. Fine thread for proper adjustments. Use flat nuts for locking.

Allow the pivot point to be as close as you can to the centre of the bike under the engine. If not you will find that humps in the road are going to affect handling in a bad way.

Allow for the front pivot to be approximately 100 to 140 mm HIGHER than the rear. In thsi set up the sidecar wheel wil help steer into the direction you want to go. As the bike leans, the hight difference makes it so that the sidecar wheel points slightly into the correct direction.

When setting up you have no "lean" into the bike for compensation of the sideways drag of the weight of the sidecar. On normal rigs you lean the bike slightly away from the outfit to compensate for this. Obviously doen with riders weight on the bike. Now you cannot do this so you need to compensate entirely with "toe in" of the sidecar wheel. Make the front link, the one that is higher, 25 to 35 mm shorter than the rear. This needs to be emperically tested by going down the road at various speeds and feel the pull of the car. If it pulls to the sidecar too much at your most chosen speed, shorten the front even more. If it is pushing into the bike too much, lengthen the front one. If the front is on its extreme adjustment I advise you to redesign the rear one to make both roughly in the middle of there adjestment. Mine are bolted with M21 fine bolts of 90mm length and both are almost completely in.

Ground clearance is low at 4 inches only. This will present you with suspension problems. I fitted mine inverted, meaning on top of the frame, and linked to the small swing arm for the wheel in reverse way. It now encrouches slightly into the body of the sidecar but that cannot be helped.

Hope you get along ok and please let us know how you are doing.

Case491

Thanks for the reply; to know you have side car hands-on experience clears up much of what you must have meant by "leaning the bike." My experience is that its not so much the bike itself that is leaned, but the bike rider's body--sometimes quite a lot and rather forcefully, depending on speed. For example, turning the bike to the direction (usually leftward) away from the car...one leans (not left as with two wheel riding but) right. (This is the idea behind my allusion to an analogy to snow skiing in a post further down.) Now may I ask for one more clarification? I'll start with a quote about your grandfather's bike...

"I have seen a picture of one that my grandfather rode that had an articulating mount that also made the [car's] wheel lean with the cycle."

Reading this I got the picture of a kind of steering geometry: where the top of the side car wheel will lean (say) to the right (away from the side of the car) when the combination is attempting to turn right...like camber of car's steered wheels. Is this what you meant? Where the side cars wheels lean (tilt over) into a turn to reduce resistance to turning? If not for that (augmentative?) articulation you spoke of, a simple pivot articulation should make the side car wheel tend to tilt towards the side car (and bike) as the bike turned towards the car...because the dynamic "weight" of the bike is pressing down on the left (the attached) side of the car--tilting the car (and its wheel) towards the bike. Do I have the right "picture" or is it something else?

There are 3 types of leaning sidecars.

Bike leans but sidecar stays upright. this is the most use principle and is the easiest to build as it needs very little mod to the bike. See my example and armec. There are others but you can google.

Bike leans and the wheel of the sidecar leans as well but the body stays upright. This principle is not used on the road and was only used for a short time in sidecar motocross. It was banned as it was deemed to give un unfair advantage in cornering.

Bike leans and the whole sidecar leans as well. This type requires the sidecar to be centrally over the sidecar wheel which makes it very high even though they use small 8" wheels. It does also require a vast amount of bike rebuilding with enormously complicated chain links and tilting levers. You could not switch between solo and car ever again. I could take mine off in 10 minutes flat.

Sorry but I did not get your "skiing" analogy at all.

I was just thinking that I saw you refer to the winter and wanted a sidecar so you could keep on riding!

Not sure if it was you but one little remark. If you go for a leaner, you will not have the stability you would normally get from the third wheel. You cannot ride these leaners on ice! The stability for these leaners are from the tyre friction to the tarmac and the centrifugal force of the wheels just like solo bikes.

Also the leaning angle into the chair would always be impeded by the body of the sidecar. You can lean a solo flat until your frame is scraping the floor but with the leaner on it I could not do that towards the car itself. To the other side it would theoretically possible but it is too unnerving to really do it.

In modern sidecar outfits, the bike can lean, worries the hell out of older folks!!!

I have recently spoken with a person that works on sidecars and used to ride them. I was interested in obtining one myself, but was told that they tend to be very unstable and dangerous, so I decided against it.

Find yourself another good friend with a sidecar and make up your own mind. It is barrels of fun and not dangerous as long as you know what you have and what you are doing. Like anything in life it has risks but you can manage those risks. Sidcar riding can be just as not-dangerous as normal bike riding and stability is not an issue. Just find out for yourself and learn instead of just following others endorsements.

If you want your family to share your fun with you you might have no option

They can be disquieting at first, especially (and this might seem dis-intuitive) to someone accustomed to riding on two wheels. But that's not because they are unstable or dangerous any more than without side car. The concept of "leaning" is different, but once you get the hang of it you realize the bike is quite stable, even more so with passenger in the side car--car less likely to come up off its wheel. One analogy--of the difference between riding of two wheels and riding with the third wheel--I can think of is the difference between skiing on water skis and on alpine skis. Turning on snow skis is in many respects just the opposite of turning on water skis. Steering with a side car is much the same; if two wheel "steering" is like water skiing, then side car steering is like snow skiing...you don't always just lean (shift your upper body out ) in the direction of the turn. Side car riding also requires a stronger handling of the handle bars, especially for going faster. The main disadvantage I found to side cars was the comparatively high price of motorcycle tires--because riding with side car can wear the mc tires fairly quickly.

In modern sidecar technology you should not need arms like popeye. The proper set up will ensure that at your average chosen cruising speed, the rig is neutral and stable. I have ridden sidecars on and off all my life and can testify that most rigs are not set up correctly and you should always do it yourself again even if a so called "expert" has done it for you.

The tyres is a problem as , in my case, you want to be able to switch between solo and rig, you cannot change your tyres for flat radials or you need to swap the wheel out every time. You will wear some tyres out and most likely faster as well. Also you need to consider that the tyres will wear unevenly especially the rear. If you then switch, you are actually going to feel the uneven wear which can be disconcerting.

With my leaning rig, I was neutral between 20 to 80 Mph. Under that speed it was very wobbly and over that speed it starts to pull. Also the wind makes a difference.

As I was leaning my tyres stayed reasonable well in shape but they do wear faster.

To elaborate on the steering, I have not got a clue what you are talking about with all that skiing business. Like comparing apples and pears.

On a solo bike you steer with the counter steering principle. You steer slightly left and the bike will "fall" to the right thus you have to follow the line of the bike in order not to fall. You stop steering by steering slightly further which gets you upright again.

On a sidecar you steer where you want to go like you would on any trike or quad.

Although I am just a "bystander" on this subject (which I find extremely interesting from an Engineering point of view, especially your excellent explanations Case), I feel that he was using a good metaphor to try and explain the differences and the samenesses of riding solo and not solo, with regard to skiing (water & snow).....it came across for me anyway.....more of a feeling than a direct comparison!

He meant well too......

Its a great Blog as well, keep it up Guys.

I did not mean to sound off on it, I just did not get the comparison. It sounded to me he compared the phisical actions of steering with skiing to steering bikes and I was lost on that one. If guest is reading this, please accept my appology if it sounded harsher than it should have.

The more I talk anbout it, The more I MUST have another little sporty as I have decided that my ride, which I am rebuilding this winter, will not see the chair attached again. I also MUST build that caferacer one day. It just has to happen

You wrote:-

I did not mean to sound off on it, I just did not get the comparison.

We ALL get in a small rut sometimes (hopefully NOT with the sidecar attached!) and miss some small point, you are not alone in this matter.

I am sure that nobody is still "slighted" after what you just wrote!!

Maybe you should have used Kris's Bath as a sidecar.......!

What was the weight again?

Nah I dont think so

........I think ..case491......should help better.......

Hi all, I heard my name.

Please visit http://www.armec.com/default.html and if you don't like their price tag e-mail me and I will help you further.

I build my own as they did not do one for Harley at the time. Maybe you should buy it of me and convert the subframe to fit your goldwing?

Oh darn, posting is out of the question then

Visit the new hobby thread for bike builders and you can see my sidecar.

I may be able to help you with specific information on how to do this. One example of this kind of homebuild was done by a guy San Francisco for $1100 not inclding the cost of the motorcycle. An impressive demostration of ingenuity and cost containment. And he was not a welder and had to sub out the required metal fab. With 21st Century sidecars going for $6000 to $12,000+ new, that really is impressive.

Please feel fre to contact me.

John Goff jg@teleport.com