The XS Triple Sidecar - Sidecar brake (part 4)

So we left off in the last post with the swingarm with being almost done. There really were only a few minor things to do and if phrases like that put a devilish little grin on your face, you're totally right: Another full day in the end.

There was a bit of the insert poking out of the back of the swingarm and even though it didn't do any harm, I quickly milled it down.

A slightly bigger task was to knock up a mount for the brake torque arm and quite a bit of headscratching I came up with this design

While the fresh paint was drying, I chucked the swingarm pin into the lathe and polished it up with some scotchbrite. Came out really nice and slid home like... (insert dirty comment here)

Assembling a Dnepr swingarm isn't too difficult if you follow one golden rule: If you want to push pins in holes: Plenty of lube. I was slightly worried, because the rubber bushings are at least 40 years old and it was a cozy three to four degrees above freezing in the workshop, but the job almost did itself.

I admit, I double and triple checked every thing, but that moment, when you spin the wheel and it does just do that...

Quite a bit of new bolts and hardware had to be installed as the original stuff was a) weird fine-thread stuff, b) rusty as hell and c) quite a lot of the bolts were pretty mangled.

Now the current Koni 7610-1303's are intended for usage on light bikes, e.g. like a SR500, so they do tend to sag a bit. I still had some 7610-1343's on a shelf from my old Kawasaki RatZ 1000. Even though they are too long by quite a bit, the springs are spot on, so I guess I am on the hunt for a good set of the correct Koni 7610-1407s.