doggy side car ideas.
 

First off , Merry Xmas to all China Riders, i must say you are a great bunch of guys and girls, and i , like many many others, have benefited from the vast knowledge that is shared freely .

Well , i want to build a cheap , simple , sidecar that i can attach and disconnect from my bike ( Tao tao TBR7 ) quickly and easily. It is for my older 85lb boxer dog.

I have had him up on the bike (he sits in front of me with his front paws on the handle bars). He really enjoys it but it is difficult to pick him up without hurting him or me for that matter.

As some of you know i dented the front rim ( 19 inch chrome on a TBR 7 ) a while back that i straightened with a dead blow hammer and a spoke adjustment . The wheel is working great but i was thinking of buying a new front wheel and using my existing wheel as the side car wheel.

The side car will be low enough , with a rear entry ,for my dog to walk into either with a ramp or steps. It dawned on me the other day that a shopping cart was about the right size ( especially the slightly smaller ones at the smaller grocery stores) they already have a rear flap or opening so that was an idea.

Next is how to mount it ( or something better ie a kids car or toy or ??? , my wife suggested a sleigh ( christmas and all ). I could build some thing from scratch but maybe i could save a lot of time by using something already available.

Next on the side car would be whether to try to make suspension for the sidecar or suspend the dog carrier part or simply put in a nice thick pad ?

The idea is to just bomb around the neighborhood (20- 25 mph ) or take him up into the mountains on some dirt roads probably about the same speeds.

I see side cars used on small displacement bikes in asian countries on you tube and i can always drop the front sprocket from the currant 17 to the stock 15 but i don't really see power or more correctly torque being a problem with the cg engine.

I wanted to see if anyone had done such a thing, and how, or if they had ideas on a side car design ???

Your thoughts and ideas would be much appreciated.

Me personally.. I would buy a small pipe bender and fab the entire thing complete with a windscreen. A shopping cart is gonna look like a shopping cart no matter what you do. You'll also have to factor in the amount of suspension travel a dualsport has. The little Asian side cars are bolted directly to the frame (step thru floor section) and tail section of a small scooter that has very little suspension travel. On your bike it would cause you to pitch side to side as your tail section travels up and down (which TBRs are known to be bouncy anyway).

I would connect it to the lower portion of both frame rails just forward of your shifter with slightly larger pipe that the sidecar frame could slide thru, and the end of your right side swingarm. Both points would pivot and the front mount would provide the needed lateral stability. and if both mounts were permanently mounted it would be relatively easy to put on the sidecar when needed. Also the rear mount would need to be slotted front to back about an inch to allow for swingarm arc.

You would still experience some pitch as the suspension travels, but much less than if it was attached to the tail section. As far as sidecar suspension you can buy some really small leaf springs for little trailers. And go with a memory foam wheelchair pad as well for his added comfort. Just my 2 cents.. ;)

I would just get the dog his own bike and be done with it .

if you do build something...
this is a must if you want it to turn...

the sidecar wheel should be no further forward of
the bikes rear axle than 15% of the bikes wheel base...
in line with the bike rear axle is the ultimate...but then
the unit is more lightly to forward tip under braking...


here is my ADV build.... but seems photobucket has stuffed around with the pics..
http://www.chinariders.net/showthrea...hlight=sidecar



..

So , as far as teaching my dog to ride himself and buying him his own bike thats not going well in the training side as my dogs impulsive side keeps kicking in. One minute he's doing fine with his throttle and clutch control and the next he sees a squirrel and all hell breaks loose as we go crashing off the road and into the woods :hehe::doh:

Well jokes aside it looks like i will probably do as one legged rider suggests and build my own frame and mount from scratch . Frank on that rear mount are you saying to mount it to the swing arm itself ? And the front tie in to the frame cradle under the engine ?

Pete , i did look at the Ural with side car for ideas and i noticed their outer rear wheel is inline with the bikes rear wheel but as you say it can be a bit tippy at times . I also assume that going forward more than 15% of wheelbase makes turns more and more difficult the further forward you go but more stable under braking ?

It seems if one of the rear mounts is on the swing arm then i would be much better off to put a suspension system on the third wheel ?

I must say i was thinking a bit of of square tubing or round tubing from the local hardware store and not a work of art like yours Pete , nice job:tup:

Look at Saferwholesale's site for sidecar ideas. They sell universal kits but seem pricey to me, but figure you can find ideas there.

the more forward the sidecar wheel is the more it gets pushed side ways when you turn..
on lose surfaces it is not so bad... but on the road it makes the steering heavy... can be totally unsteerable if it is to far forward... is why some units have a leading link front end
that gives zero trail to lighten the steering...but because there is no trail then there is no self centering
effect so a steering damper is required to stop head shake...

Both of the units I have built I used 100mm of lead on the side car wheel...


..

I have often toyed with the idea of a side car on my bike. My sons keep trying to talk me into it as they remember I built a bicycle with a shopping cart sidecar when they were little. Pete is correct, I built mine with the side car wheel centered between the bicycles wheels and it was next to impossible to turn. I had to move the sidecar wheel back a large amount to make it turn and handle correctly. As for the problems with suspension I can't say it was a rigid frame bike without any suspension. Good luck and I hope you bring this idea to life.

I would definitely follow Pete's advice being that he's built a couple. I'm a fabricator that's built everything you can think of, but I've never tackled a sidecar so I'm sure for me there would be some trial and error and cussing involved lol.

But to answer your question yes, welding a pipe with gussets to both frame rails side to side under the engine cradle. And attaching the rear to the right side of the swingarm with a long slotted gusset. But I wasn't factoring in what Pete said about turning, so maybe my idea wouldn't give you enough lateral stability with the wheel mounted further back. I'm sure you can find some diagrams of different mounting methods online.

I may have a few pics of some changes I made to a small sidecar which could help you. PM me an email. likely better to deliver it that way.

you really need 4 mount points for best service. two lower and two upper. they should be on the frame and not on the swingarm. you can buy a kit which has pinch-mounts and bars to connect the sidecar to the bike. I generally don't recommend the pinch type, but for a small light bike and sidecar, it should be fine.

I have some pics of sidecar suspension and swingarm ideas if you decide to make them yourself. I sourced a few parts from a guy at Motorvation sidecar company which helped me to build something strong enough for a larger bike.

wheel lead of the sidecar should be about 6 to 8 inches ahead of the rear hub. alignment of the sidecar to the bike should be considered too.

I'm a member of ADV Riders. on that forum, there is a section for hacks. much of what you would see there is overkill for what you want, but there's also some good info on frame design and construction. It's really a lot more simple than you would think. a few hours in a good shop and you could have it....as long as you have parts you'll need.

if you also look on the web for some of the smaller bikes/sidecars, you will find some off-the-shelf ones that may work for what you need. Depends on how much you want to spend on it. they are not really easy to come by on the used market.

Pete i am familiar with car suspension systems ( no expert though ) caster, camber , toe in/out , ackerman angle , bump steer and the like ( i built 3 fox body mustangs into auto-x / HPDE driving event cars and got them all to handle pretty decent ) but i'm not sure what a lead angle or lead length is ?

Also Pete , do you set the toe of the sidecar wheel at 0 degrees or toe it in or out ? ( on my auto x cars i ran toe in for the street , 0 degrees for road course and toe out on tight auto x events to get the car to turn in quick.)

I did answer your post but it must have gone to cyber neverland ?:doh:

The sidecars are, as you say , a bit pricey for what i want to do but i appreciate the link nonetheless. I did notice they use the 5 lug universal wheels you can buy at walmart or the tractor store etc. I could not see if they had a suspension or not ?
Thanks again.

I figured you could look and see what their kits look like as far as fabricating ideas.

lead is how far the sidecar wheel axle is forward of the bikes rear axle....




...