Hack'in Brian's GoldWing

A buddy of mine picked up a hell of a deal on this old sidecar a couple weeks ago. Very nice rig and a high quality built chair. Nice interior and pretty heavy frame. He got it very cheap by being the first in line on a Craigslist ad. He got lucky!


The seller included some good quality attachment goodies and a hydraulic steering damper and mounts. Brian contacted Jay @ DMC sidecars and bought some Vetter lower mounts and two generic upper frame mounts.

The lower rear mount went on easily and bolted right into place....the upper rear mount was attached low at first, but I didn't feel the attachment was good due to the proximity of the fuel tank....if the mount was to rotate it would contact the tank. We moved the mount up, just below the seat on the main frame. This location also gave it a better geometry.
The front upper mount went on in the only place it could go, due to the fairing mounts, etc.
The front lower mount gave us some grief. Vetter's intention was to install a longer engine mounting bolt and attach to that. We ran into a totally rusted solid bolt in place since the bike's birth no doubt. Heating, beating, cussing did no good.....reanalyzing theat attachment showed that the mount would also hit the exhaust header and would have required denting in the header for clearance....not a good option....we ended up modifying the lower mounting plate and cutting sections off for clearance. Also drilled additional holes for an additional clamp. With some tweaking and enginuity we got it into place.

The steering damper mounting plate had to be moved to clear the upper front strut but all went together well. The steering damper is a nice unit and looks as new.
Getting the geometry set took a few hours. The cylinder heads position limited the amount of rotation for the front lower mount but we finally got it into an acceptable location.
The wiring caused me a little grief but we got everything wired in and working. tomorrow we'll install a pair of turn signals on the hack fender.



The bike seems to track well and the DMC supplied mounts gave us nearly everything we needed....with a little creativity. Brian's passenger needs to figure out which way is which?

I love the "boat tail" configuration of the side car. This side car is a perfect mate for the goldwing with its' wide stance.