TOPIC:

Hey Pete, Is that in the 3rd photo of the lower rear mount - bottom bolt? You might have to stop getting her off the ground

Yeh I "fly the chair" a bit too much , found another bolt, hi-tensile one, will get a couple of longer ones in hi-tensile so I can go right thru the frame mount sections and put a nut on the back, thank goodness I thought i'd post a photo of my mounts, would probably of never found it otherwise, teach me to do my checks more often and not just over the xmas holidays, cheers.

Yaegunp, love those clamps in your fourth and fifth pictures! Should give great grip around the tube with four points of contact! I really like those for simplification of construction! Will be doing that idea on one of mine.

kza13, not a fan at all of those clamps that use two tapered/stepped inserts that "bite" into the frame tubes. Is that on a 1300? I do like the framing arrangement on the sidecar, though! Good triangulation in two planes.

Thanks for the pics, guys! I have gathered a couple of ideas from them! making good progress on my system. Should get the lower mounts done in a week or so. Then comes the upper diagonals.

kza13 wrote: Yeh I "fly the chair" a bit too much , found another bolt, hi-tensile one, will get a couple of longer ones in hi-tensile so I can go right thru the frame mount sections and put a nut on the back, thank goodness I thought i'd post a photo of my mounts, would probably of never found it otherwise, teach me to do my checks more often and not just over the xmas holidays, cheers.

You should be able to fly that car as much as you want and not worry about the mounts. Worry more about your bike's wheel bearings and steering head bearings.

If possible, I would drill out the bolt holes and go one size larger and use grade 8 (SAE) bolts.

trikebldr wrote: Yaegunp, love those clamps in your fourth and fifth pictures! Should give great grip around the tube with four points of contact! I really like those for simplification of construction! Will be doing that idea on one of mine.

Thanks for the pics, guys! I have gathered a couple of ideas from them! making good progress on my system. Should get the lower mounts done in a week or so. Then comes the upper diagonals.

Glad it was helpful. I have no idea what is good or what is bad sidecar-wise.

Yaegunp wrote:
Glad it was helpful. I have no idea what is good or what is bad sidecar-wise.

Well, it's mostly a matter of understanding just what's going on with a sidecar rig compared to a solo rig.
A solo rig gets to lean into a turn, keeping all of it's weight pushing down on the wheels in a plane that the bike was designed for. Even the wheel bearings experience very little side loading, relatively.
With a sidecar rig you have eliminated that ability to lean, unless you are flying the car! Not being able to lean means you are placing serious side loading on wheel bearings that they were never meant to be subjected to, so they need frequent attention to keep them reliable. Also, only high-quality bearings should be used.
Since the bike can't lean, the majority of the bike's weight gets loaded onto the sidecar and it's mounts when the rig makes a turn away from the sidecar. With some bikes, like the ZN1300 Voyagers, that is a LOT of weight. Mounts need to be very robust to be able to support all of that weight, and the camps and attachment points to the bike need to be very solid and rigid.
Clamps must be carefully designed. Standard muffler clamps, with a u-bolt and a yoke apply too much pressure over a very narrow band, usually causing the tubing to crush, or crimp inward. No good! It's best to make up a wide-band clamp to spread all of that force over a larger area of the bike's frame. Those little tapered-stepped clamps apply all of their pressure on just two tiny points where those stepped ridges actually bite into the frames tubing. This causes stress risers that can actually cause frame cracking if the loading is too high over too many cycles. The camps in your pictures are made of two pieces of angle iron that are relatively long, so they apply pressure along four lines where they contact the frame tube. This prevents crushing the frame tube at just one point of contact.
Most commercially available clamps are a good compromise to be able to fit them into smaller areas of the frame. At least they usually have a band of contact between 1 inch and 1-1/2 inch wide. Those clamps are custom made and cost around $100/each, though. The ones in your pics are just as effective if you have the room to fit them, and should only cost pennies to make.