Post by rickrs on Sept 27, 2020 21:09:36 GMT 10
I noticed the other day that the rear chair mount was just kissing / touching the top of the LHS muffler, which I don't recall as being the case previously. So whilst checking that I decided to check the toe-in of the sidecar wheel and general sidecar alignment to see what had changed from when I last checked toe-in, etc as when I l did that check I white paint marked the adjustment points, which had indicated no movement.
Down the rabbit hole we went .....
As soon as i looked at the sidecar wheel from the front it was giving a fairly good indication of pointing outward - so out with the straight edges and preliminary indications were a 10mm toe-out. The other thing that became apparent was that the straight edges against the bike wheels indicated that the rear wheel was offset to the front wheel by about 20mm and was showing up by the straight edge was parallel to the front but a 20mm gap front & rear to the edge of the tyre.
A bit of research and Googling found the Ural USA & Russian videos on side car alignment using their rectangular straight edges with spring loaded hooks to latch on the the spokes and touch both front and rear wheels on front & back edges of each tyre, something that didn't happen on my bike. After thinking about things I decided to chalk line the tyres by marking a chalk line on the floor of the shed and pull the outfit by the front wheel up the chalk line ( see photo) and see what the rear wheel was doing. Sure enough the rear wheel was offset to the right by approx 20mm but at least it was in the same line to the front. What to do... ? What is the true centre line to set the sidecar wheel toe-in to ?
Doing a bit of reading on the Soviet Steeds forum there was a general opinion that the front wheel is just generally there to point in the direction you want to go and that true centre line for refencing the side wheel is the 'pusher' wheel as the people in the USA call it. If the bike was a solo it would turn easier to the left than the right and slightly crabbing up the road.
I spoke to Matt at Ural AUS about this and there has been occurrences of jigs being out in the factory so this is not unheard of and at least the rear wheel is parallel to the front . My rear axle is also tight to remove, although I have unbolted the diff and attempted to find an aligned point for the rear axle without success. Either the rear swingarm is twisted or more likely the mount holes for the diff are slightly out of whack. I am yet to check the offset of the rear wheel rim to the hub, on the off chance its been laced up offset for some reason
An afternoon of checking, adjusting, re-checking and re-adjusting, etc got the rear sidecar mount up off the muffler and the rear crossmember of the sidecar level (about 6 mm adjustment up). Toe-in of 10mm was achieved by sliding the rear mount out by about 6mm, and lean out adjusted to about 1~2 deg by adjusting the struts at the top clevis joints, so all should be good.
Its been a howling wind here for the last few days so I'm not taking the outfit out until the wind drops and I can get a real feel for what the outfit is doing. Strangely enough it felt OK before, but perhaps I had just gotten used to it over time.
Photos below are what i found.
Down the rabbit hole we went .....
As soon as i looked at the sidecar wheel from the front it was giving a fairly good indication of pointing outward - so out with the straight edges and preliminary indications were a 10mm toe-out. The other thing that became apparent was that the straight edges against the bike wheels indicated that the rear wheel was offset to the front wheel by about 20mm and was showing up by the straight edge was parallel to the front but a 20mm gap front & rear to the edge of the tyre.
A bit of research and Googling found the Ural USA & Russian videos on side car alignment using their rectangular straight edges with spring loaded hooks to latch on the the spokes and touch both front and rear wheels on front & back edges of each tyre, something that didn't happen on my bike. After thinking about things I decided to chalk line the tyres by marking a chalk line on the floor of the shed and pull the outfit by the front wheel up the chalk line ( see photo) and see what the rear wheel was doing. Sure enough the rear wheel was offset to the right by approx 20mm but at least it was in the same line to the front. What to do... ? What is the true centre line to set the sidecar wheel toe-in to ?
Doing a bit of reading on the Soviet Steeds forum there was a general opinion that the front wheel is just generally there to point in the direction you want to go and that true centre line for refencing the side wheel is the 'pusher' wheel as the people in the USA call it. If the bike was a solo it would turn easier to the left than the right and slightly crabbing up the road.
I spoke to Matt at Ural AUS about this and there has been occurrences of jigs being out in the factory so this is not unheard of and at least the rear wheel is parallel to the front . My rear axle is also tight to remove, although I have unbolted the diff and attempted to find an aligned point for the rear axle without success. Either the rear swingarm is twisted or more likely the mount holes for the diff are slightly out of whack. I am yet to check the offset of the rear wheel rim to the hub, on the off chance its been laced up offset for some reason
An afternoon of checking, adjusting, re-checking and re-adjusting, etc got the rear sidecar mount up off the muffler and the rear crossmember of the sidecar level (about 6 mm adjustment up). Toe-in of 10mm was achieved by sliding the rear mount out by about 6mm, and lean out adjusted to about 1~2 deg by adjusting the struts at the top clevis joints, so all should be good.
Its been a howling wind here for the last few days so I'm not taking the outfit out until the wind drops and I can get a real feel for what the outfit is doing. Strangely enough it felt OK before, but perhaps I had just gotten used to it over time.
Photos below are what i found.
