glenfiddich
TravelsWithBarley.com
We have a mated pair, with a few hiccups. First, you'll notice the bike leans slightly to the left and the sidecar subframe has a slight list to port. While I'm not sure that's correct, it was intentional. When I add weight to the sidecar shock tower approximating what the tub, Glenlivet, and all our gear weighs the rig straightens up. But I have a few concerns
The donor bike was a standard height GSA. The recipient bike is one inch lower than standard. The recipient also has 17" wheels on all three corners, so all that lowering means the bike's subframe and the tub's subframe didn't quite mate up. To make them meet I had to rotate the stubs coming off the sidecar subframe from 8 o'clock to 6 o'clock and use every bit of adjustability in the upper arms both front and rear. There is room to move the stubs coming off the bike subframe out an inch, which would give me some play in the upper arms, but doing so would move the swaybar torsion bar out so the heim connector fell at an awkward angle. I suspect the issue was rotating those stubs moved the sidecar subframe an inch forward from its previous position, so the torsion bar needs to be lengthened accordingly. That's way beyond my skillset but thankfully Claude Stanley offered his help when I get the rig to him.
Here's a better view of the torsion bar issue. First, the lower rig dropped the torsion bar even lower to the ground, seriously impacting my clearance. Secondly, that heim connector should drop nearly vertically from the FD pivot point to the torsion bar, but because the subframe shifted it now points back at an inefficient 45 degree angle.
Same assembly looking down. You can see how tightening up the fastener will make the angle of the heim connector even more problematic.
Since the swaybar isn't critical for normal handling, the plan is to continue with reassembly then drive down to Claude's shop in PA and have the torsion bar replaced and the rebuilt rig gone over by the experts.