The XS Triple Sidecar - winter prep

Even though the sidecar had been running great since I swapped out the alternator and did a little bit of fine-tuning on the carbs, the old girl was by no means ready for Winter. (And she isn't now either...)

Step one, the front mudguard has worked itself loose again, not exclusively down to me using way too thin washers and them getting bent into funny shapes as the front forks on a sidecar are quite heavily loaded when cornering.  (There's a reason, why I am still running this rather substantial steel front mudguard as it doubles as a fork brace!)

The new washers are both bigger in diameter and about twice the thickness, so they should not get bent out of the way again.

Step two was to swap out the tach, for one with a high-beam warning light, as that's mandatory overhere to pass the annual safety inspection. But first, as it was very cheap, hook it up and try it out.

Then add a second hole for the instrument light. No idea which model this one was off, not an XS850, I think as the redline on those would have been 8500rpm.

Step three  (a.k.a. the vanity fix), I had an old XT or SR one piece steering stem bolt instead of the original two piece item. Not entirely sure, why I wanted to do that swap, but the original one bugged me. And honestly: that's a good enough reason for me to do it.

And lastly (thanks mum in law): Handlebar-muffs. I am pretty sure, I somewhere own a set of good Winter-motorcycle-gloves, but I haven't used them in ages. They look a bit odd, but my fingers stay warm (and dry), so that's good enough in my book.

Oh and thanks to all wishing me a speedy man-flu-recovery... couldn't sit at home anymore, so that's got to be a good sign. The only big things missing for Winter usage: 1) fit a new rear tyre as the current one is bald and 2) spray the whole bike with anti-corrosion wax/spray/oil to protect it from the salt.