Hi all,I'm not familiar the swaybar setups on sidecars.I'm guessing it's an antiroll bar.Some photos and explanations would be greatly appreciated. Cheers A2
I WILL SECOND THAT A2, I KNOW A LOT OF FRENCH BUILDERS USE AN ANTI ROLL TYPE BAR,AND I WOULD LOVE TO SEE PICS OR DIAGRAMS OF THIS. DID DAUNTLESS USE ONE ON THIER CONVERSION?
I have a 92GSPD/Dnepr set up with a sway bar attatched. It is exactly as you stated "anti roll". The bar will help any rig but, it is particularly helpful on long travel "dual sport rigs" such as mine. Before I built and installed the swaybar I could hardly run speed limit in the mountains...now I can run just fine without the huge "dip factor" that I would encounter on sharp turns. By the way CLAUDE gets the credit cause he planted the seed for me to build one...thanks, Claude
An anti swaybar (swaybar) is a torsional spring that connects the sidecar swingarm to the swingarm on the rear of the bike. It adds a ton of stability to the rig in turns both into the sidecar and away from it. We have mounted swaybars on a lot of different rigs with good results. Thanks for the kind words Tony. Note that on high sitting long travel suspension dual sport type rigs we will not do the build unless we do a swaybar as well. Some other manufacturers and riggers feel the same way and some do not but that is our policy. It is not the turns into the sidecar that are the concern so much as they can be controlled. The turns away from the sidecar,if run hard on pavement, can get you in trouble. A swaybar does make a lot of difference in that area. If the rig is to be taken off road into the really knarly stuff one end of the swaybar can be easily unhooked for more free suspension action. Hanniagn offers a quick disconnect for this which is pretty cool. Ours requires that a bolt be removed. Click on the link following and you will see what a swaybar does by example. Thanks To Bill Ballou for the video and Roger Symington for putting it up on his site. http://hometown.aol.com/sidebike00/Page37.html The picture below is an example of a reverse mounted swaybar we recently did. .
Photo of the motorcycle swingarm linkage of the swaybar. The motorcycle end of the swaybar is secured in a bearing block attached to one of my subframe mounts, which in turn is plugged into the centerstand mount. I charted my own course in swaybar fabrication, in using bearing blocks instead of delrin bushing type mounts as is more commonly used. This is the sidecar side of the swaybar, about mid-fabrication point in this photo. Again, the sidecar side of the swaybar is mounted in another bearing block mounted on the underside of the sidecar-swingarm boss. Some of the hardware used in version 1 of my swaybar setup - top was the motorcycle side of things, bottom was sidecar side of things. The sidecar side of things was revised in version 2 - but similar hardware was needed. The quality of my photo's is generally sucking, sorry.
Going the route of those, or Delrin bushings - there certainly nothing wrong with it - probably cheaper to do it that way, and just as effective. When i put my stuff together - i saw them bearing blocks, and built my swaybar around them - remember claude, i'm not mechanically trained - i'm in social work .. i tended to do things arse backwards on the project In retrospect, i'm glad i used them - everytime i go over the lip of my driveway too fast, i just hammer the bearing block against concrete .. inspected everything for cracks including the subframe - takes a lickin' keeps a ticken'. Try that with delrin bushings Mines mounted real low, though. Bill Ballou's swaybar page is real informative for those wanting to understand the principle behind swaybars on sidecars. Provided me with lots of inspiration.
Interesting, I only have an anti-sway-bar on my MZ ETZ 250 Superelastik sidecar. Factory-built. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o> Maybe not all the people here, have seen these moving images to show how it works. <o></o> <o></o> http://members.aol.com/scarsrfun/bike.html http://members.aol.com/scarsrfun/side.html <o></o> <o></o> <o></o> Richard-NL <o></o>
Bill, I see nothing at all wrong with using pillow blocks like you did. Probably better than most setups really. I did use some of them years ago. On a trip we somehow ended up in a construction area in the south side of Chicago about 2 in the morning. Talk about adventure touring..LOL. Anyhow I totaled out one of them on a raised man hole cover in an area where they were fixing to pave a street. Just kept going :eek1
Richard NL wrote: >>Interesting, I only have an anti-sway-bar on my MZ ETZ 250 Superelastik sidecar. Factory-built. << We have one of thoise sidecars in the shop now. Changing a lot of stuff on it to mount it on a XT600. I was surprized at the engineering that went into the stock sidecar though., Really different.
Ok, I see them now. Didn't know that was a ural. Looks pretty easy to do, would a small car swaybar work? I guess you could heat it and bend to fit and then just re-harden it by quenching in oil?
If you aren't sure what effect heating, bending and so forth will have on the metal you are taking a big chance. THE LAST thing you want to do is have a swaybar fail when you are leaning on it hard in a turn. Rig will go from 'yee haa' to 'uh oh' in about a half a second. Sheet time sucks.