KLR and sidecar rebuild/refurbishment

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stevo

Pack Dog
Joined
Dec 25, 2011
Messages
301
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Location
Vanderbijlpark
Bike
Triumph 800 XC
This is what I started with:

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This is what I ended up with after I had finished:

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This refurbishment actually started off as a strip down and clean. It was always planned to either paint the sidecar to match the KLR or visa versa. There were a lot of things that I was not happy with on the original build. The sidecar had a lot of flex and movement due to the subframe and top front mount mounting points being very flexible. The further I stripped the bike down, more horrors were revealed. The basic problems were expected, I was expecting to see crappy work because on my 2nd rig, they had welded the top front mount to my fucking crashbar..The subframe on my black rig was rubbing on the bikes rear swingarm and gouging marks into it, so I was expecting to find problems with this one as well.

This is part of the main subframe welding:

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Its absolute crap and frankly extremely dangerous. I am an Engineer that specializes in pressure vessel repairs, and believe me this is just crap. Both of my rigs were built by the same people, I am not knocking them down but.!!!!!!!! I paid for this.

I scrapped the subframe and started from scratch again. I used chrome moly tubes for the subframe, fit up and tacking was done in situ on the bike so there is very little tension when it is installed. Gussets were cut and welded in place to limit movement. The end result:
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The front top mount was basically a piece of 40mm wide 4mm thick flat bar that runs from the main frame engine mounts up to under the tank where it was secured with two 6mm bolts. A welded nut about halfway up secured the top mount. It twisted everytime any load was put on it and frankly scared the hell out of me. I scrapped this as well and designed and profile cut a piece of 300WA plate, 6mm thick. This is now secured on the frame main engine mounts and two 8mm thick U-bolts are used to clamp it to the bike frame. There is now no movement on the top mounting. When I do the 2nd rig, I will replace the U-bolts with machined clamps.
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With the mountings sorted out so that I at least trusted them not to break, I started with the painting of the sidecar. My original idea was to keep the bike as is and add red and silver to the black of the sidecar.
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I started with this but wasn't really happy with the way it looked so decided to do something completely different.

I stripped all the panels off the bike again and decided to have everything hydro-dipped,,,,, including the sidecar. If any of you don't know what hydro-dipping is, google is your friend. I decided on a green smoke theme, the green keeps with the Kawasaki colours and the Hydro-dipping guys really did a pretty good job. You are welcome to PM me if you want details.

The start of the fit up and fitting the car to bike again
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The end result, after lights, indicators and luggage fitted
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After all of this, loaded the rig on the trailer and is currently at Doc KLR for progressive suspension in the front and a heavier spring in the rear. Will do the final set-up when it is back and take it for a ride.

NEXT: Have already started to strip the 2nd rig and remake the subframe and mountings, but no paint work to be done on this one.
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