Sidecar Frame

I got the sidecar axle threaded the other day. The axle is stainless but I couldn't come up with a stainless nut so I need to see if I can find one and then I'll weld it on the one end. That's a piece of 3/4" thinwall between the plates to hold the proper spacing for when I weld things together. I've got most of the frame tacked but I need to fine tune the tube that runs along the outside of the wheel.

It has a 45 degree bend in it on the front end. When I made the cope I didn't have a real exact layout or the rest of the tubes tacked together so I was trying to fit it up to a moving target. Now that the other tubes are tacked into the position where they need to be, I can get my length dialed in properly. The cope fits real well but it's a bit too long. Because it does fit so well, I decided to use a trick I picked up from the Auto Shop teacher way back when. Wrap the coped tube with a heavy paper and then wrap that with a couple of turns of masking tape, then slice around the tube with a razor blade and you've got a real nice pattern. In my case I'll slide it back the proper amount, mark it and then grind/file to the line. If I was going to make a bunch of these, I would slide the pattern off and then use it to mark any other tubes I might have to make at the same angle. Pretty slick, actually. If you ever use this trick, the props go to Skip.

Obviously it worked. The frame is tack welded together and the wheel appears to be about at the height I was looking for. I've got the bike supported by a couple of pipe stands under the handlebars so it's nice and stabile but the stand on the side where the sidecar is going to be is in the way of getting things lined up. I think I'm going to make a stiff leg that bolts to the front motor mount on that side. I'll make it adjustable in height and then I can work on making the mounts. I need to order some Heim joints also. As you can see from the photo, I've got the bike boxed in on the sidecar side. I've got the VW jacked up right now so I'll finish the front brake, take it down off the jack and when I get the support leg made and the Heims in house, I'll roll the VW out side, move the bike close to the welder and spend a day making all the mounts and getting them tacked on. 

Pretty happy with what I've got so far.