Long-term sidecar project for my Voyager

Kawboy's tail-section work inspired me to post what I am slowly working on. I didn't want to hijack his thread, but I did post a bit about it. Here is what I am working on.

I had a Motorvation Spyder sidecar on my '83 Voyager as seen in my profile pic. That was just a sweet rig and the hack was attached for most of the bike's 200k+ mile life. That sidecar in stock form looked good with that bike, but now I can't afford to buy a new Spyder, but I have lots of time, skills and equipment to build one. Starting from scratch allows me to match the profile outline to the bike's. Below are a pic of my bike in profile and the preliminary sketch of the car's profile outline. The goal is to make the nose match the bike's fairing nose and the tail to match the bike's trunk tail. The original Spyder's tail section had a flip-top for access to all that storage space behind the seat. Mine will have almost the same space with the same flip-top. Not sure if I will try to fit a duplicate headlight in the nose of the sidecar as on the bike, because that would make construction in that area quite complicated to seal up.

The basic technique for this build will be to use 3/4" diameter aluminum tubing welded up into the basic outlines, then a skin of aluminum laid over them. The skin would be tacked to the tubing, then gently hammered around the tube to butt up against the edge of the adjacent panel. A bead would close that gap and then will be ground smooth for a seamless appearance. The 3/4" tubing will determine the radius of all of the panel intersections. It should be a super-strong, but lightweight, monocoque structure. Some tubing structure will be applied inside for attachment of the suspension and for rigidity.

Motorvation uses fiberglass to form the body shell, with steel plates sandwiched inside multiple layers of glass. To these plates they attach the suspension and mounting framework. Even as heavy as this sounds, their whole rig weighs just 265lbs! Pretty lightweight as most sidecars go. The Spyder really is a very nice sidecar!

I plan to add a "model-T" styled removable top and a "Duvall" style windshield. I have an old Airheart disc brake from my go-karting days that will fit and work quite well on this 'car, as it did on my old 'car. I already have the heater core and fan to add heat and a 12 volt screw-jack for leveling. Not sure if I will add a gas tank to this 'car or not.

I would just like to say that almost anything can be done with a little imagination and a little bit of ingenuity. Even paper-mache(sp?) can be used as a starting point to fabricate sections. Fiberglass is quite easy to work if you can stand the odors and have lots of patience. Add some balsa wood, or even some cardboard, as a base material and almost anything can be made. Don't be shy! Kawboy isn't!

I've got a chair on mine, it's a DJP made in Australia in the mid 80's so sort of suits the bike, had the connections re-engineered a while ago as DJP used a lot of locking ball joints and they were always getting loose, it had a mini mag wheel on it and no brakes on the chair, used a VW steering damper on the front to steady the steering although it's not really needed, easy to disconnect from the bike, only a few bolts, connection clamps are left on the frame, I have to original manual that came with the sidecar explaining how to set it up with the lean and toe in, if you need a copy just for reference let me know. The DJP came either with a boot at the back with a lockable lid or one with a luggage rack on the back, mine is the latter, I only have the cover over the seat at present but also have the hoop and the higher cover with zip up windows, nice old chair, just thought i'd post a note, cheers Pete.

P.S. if you'd like some photos of the frame or connections I could lift it up and snap a couple

Oops forgot, your chair would be on the "wrong" side

I read your reply to the tailpiece before I got around to reading this thread. That front end looks Stealth like. You're not a speed demon are you??

Here's a challenging thought for you. I often wondered why no one has ever mounted a sidecar on a parallelogram mount between the cycle and the sidecar giving full freedom of movement vertically between the two and also the ability to lean in either direction and the sidecar would lean as well.

I had an opportunity to go for a ride on a Piaggio 3 wheel scooter and what a scream to ride and watch the front end doing it's thing.

Someone in Europe has already built a Yoyager with a sice-car:

picasaweb.google.com/1183691298426377263...m_4Uc-EzqA3lR233w6g#

I know ther eis an additional one with ane even bigger side-car, suitable for two adults, but I have no foto of it. Used to know that guys who owned it, but he died a while ago. No clue where his Voyager ended up.

regards

Holger

Kawboy wrote: I often wondered why no one has ever mounted a sidecar on a parallelogram mount between the cycle and the sidecar giving full freedom of movement vertically between the two and also the ability to lean in either direction and the sidecar would lean as well.

Hi KawBoy,

I've also been fascinated by a leaning sidecar. There's a couple of Yahoo groups that are focused on the topic:

groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/flexitsidecarclub/info

groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FlexitSidecarOwnersGroup/info

There used to be a fellow from Canada who engineered and sold Equilean side cars but he's long since gone out of business.

Regards
Bill

Kawboy wrote: I had an opportunity to go for a ride on a Piaggio 3 wheel scooter and what a scream to ride and watch the front end doing it's thing.

I found a pair of Piaggio 500s for sale here in Bend a couple of years ago but passed when I heard that some had been experiencing durability problems with the front suspension mechanism. The 500s sold for better than $9,000.00 each. The used ones that I was considering were asking $6,700.00 for bikes with about 3K mi. on them.

Bill