Two unexpected, but very pleasant events greatly ate into the amount of time I had lately to make progress on the SR500 sidecar. First the new to me Matra lathe on the one hand and on the other hand the fact that "ye olde XS Triple Sidecar" was sold rather unexpectedly, which again meant going through all the usual work involved with that of getting it to the buyer, deregistering it and so on...
First things first was to primer (and later paint) the modified sidecar frame and then throw a decent amount of paint onto the actual sidecar body.
A lick of filler to cover the worst spots on the sidecar. Which was sort of the point, where I realised that the gel coat had cracked in so many cases that this was a noble yet entirely futile attempt.
So on with primer and paint. But isn't that snow I hear you say? Absolutely it is. But if you heat the inside of a grp sidecar with a bathroom heater or a hot air gun and it's a windy day, so the fumes are extracted quickly enough one can do an a lot nicer job than even I anticipated.
With the scope of the project so hopelessly out of the window, I decided to go ahead and make my own swingarm for a long-stroke shock. I did this for two reasons: first the stock velorex shock is somewhere between garbage and junk and I have plenty of 320-330mm shocks (stock shocks of SR500s and XS750ies) and finding a decent replacement down the line shouldn't be too hard. Spoiler alert: already been given a very nice Koni 7610-1303 so the old girl will roll in style like it's no one's business. Initially I had this idea of taking the stock swingarm apart, but as it twisted when undoing one of the bolts, I realised starting from scratch might be the MUCH smarter idea.
One of the neat side effects of making my own swingarm was that it allowed me to lower the sidecar wheel spindle by 40mm. This meant that the sidecar would now sit level and have an extra 40mm of ground clearance, which undoubtedly will come in handy at some point when playing in the snow.
With a wheel attached to the sidecar swingarm, I mean it would be rude not to roll it out I guess?
A quick test fit of the stock Velorex mudguard indicated that with a bit of tweaking the position and arch should still work fine. At least for a start.
I totally had the plan to fit a 4.00x18 onto the XS400 wheel shown above, but due to a lucky coincidence a friendly fella on the German SR500 forum promised me two SR500 rear wheel for shipping, so my (currently only) spare SR500 rear wheel went onto the sidecar, which also meant redoing the axle as the SR500 wheel is a quite a bit narrower on the hub.
Originally I had planned to make my own (emergency) seat from some builder's wood plate, but after looking at the matter more closely, I am not a wood guy and it most likely would have caused some issues, when getting the sidecar approved, so I bit the bullet and got a new seat and also a tarp.
It is a very good seat as I would like to point out. The sidecar is a bit tight for a full grown European about half a century later than the Velorex 562 was designed. Honestly I think I wouldn't be able to get my feet in there with the stock handrail installed.
Well she's a roller, everything is snugged up. First start and a little testride to let the neighbours know that there's a new thumper in town. After a quick warm up checked the battery voltage: charges nicely both with the light off and then with the lights on.
Uh oh... but she might be a bit on the lean side, if I may say so.
One of the few actual problems that surfaced during the testride was that I had forgotten to fully tighten the rear lower sidecar mount. Milled in a pair of flats and this will certainly NOT happen again.
Best way to fight a lean condition? Fit the bigger airbox of a later model SR500. Downside: rearwheel and inner mudguard have to come off.
With the rear wheel out, the time had come to do finally tackle a job I had postponed more than once. Fitting tyres isn't too bad with normal tubed stuff, but if you deliberately fit a set of "weal seasoned" Avon Sidecar Triple Duty Mk. IIs, named this way because of their extra thick sidewalls...
Admittedly the TKC80ies looked a lot cooler, but these are really durable and I plan to use the sidecar and clock up some miles on it. Also passing inspection on worn tyres is rather unlikely.
So what's the next steps: Not that much left anymore to be honest. The rear upper mount needs reinforcement to prevent it from twisting under load. Then the sidecar mudguard has to be put back into shape and installed. Once the frame has got some reinforcements the whole lot needs to be dialed in correctly and then I am at the engineer's mercy.
No comments:
Post a Comment