I pulled my bike out of a barn and it had not been touched since the mid 70's. To make a long story short, my present front end was only slapped into
the frame to move it. It had never been ridden like this. The steering neck was the wrong diameter so I fixed that but my trail is about 8 inches. My steering
is very heavy and flops to the side. Anyone have experience making their own rockers like Sugar Bear makes? He doesnt sell just the rockers, he only sells the
entire springer. Anyway, looking for a pair of long sickle style rockers to get this thing on the road.
I do have a 17 inch wheel and it looks like it will drop the front end down about 2 inches but I would rather use my 19 inch wheel since I bought a new tire
and fabricated an axle for it. Also, what about putting spacers on the bottom springs of the springer? Would that jack up my suspension and pivots on the
bottom of the tubes?
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Too much rake
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 CrazyRoy |
Too much rake |
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Posts: 120 (04/30/08 4:15 AM) |
CrazyRoy from Iowa
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Javahut |
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Posts: 3182 (04/30/08 5:14 AM) |
Hey Roy, I have a thought on this, keeping in mind that I have not actually done it, BUT,
If you block your bike up so the frame is level, use a length of straight something,( pipe, tubing, lumber, straight edge) and run it down the NECK , parallel with the centerline, that should give you a spot on the floor, then drop a line from your axle straight down to the floor, that will give you another spot on the floor, difference between the 2 is your trail. Keeping the same line thru the bolt holes as your current rockers, you can move the axle hole away from the bike, keeping height alighed, in its current line and create a rocker around those holes, should change your trail so there is no flop. The closer you get to 2 inches, the closer to a neutral steering you will have, eliminating all flop. If you look at SugarBears, his curly rockers are still a simple axis line on the holes, everything else is decoration.
H.C.C.M.F. Local 6978
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CrazyRoy |
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Posts: 121 (04/30/08 6:59 AM) |
Thanks Java, My mistake, I should have said "Too much Trail". I measure about 8 inches from the steering axis to the radius of the wheel (straight
down from the axle). There are many opinions on what the correct trail should be, but the consensus seems to be 2 to 4 inches of trail should work good. Of
course this all depends on the frame, weight, springer and everything else. A safe ride is my ultimate goal. I dont want to hit a pothole on the freeway and
ride a tank slapper into the ditch.
CrazyRoy from Iowa
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Turbogrimace |
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Posts: 93 (04/30/08 9:02 AM) |
Roy,
Im in the same situation, I have over 8 inches of trail, but I got stock tubes so there isn't much adjustment. Especially since I'm already at 46 degrees of rake, anymore and the lowers wont ever move haha. Sucks raked trees are out of the question. Thus continues the quest for a springer. Good luck bud. P.S. For now, I've just gotten used to the heavy flop, so much to it's a little weird to ride my Dad's stocker. ~Grim
Last Edited By: Turbogrimace
04/30/08 10:13 AM.
Edited 1 times.
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CrazyRoy |
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Posts: 122 (04/30/08 1:15 PM) |
Grim,
Im about 40-45 degrees of rake also. Looks like Im going to make my own rockers. I cant live with it the way it is so we'll see how it turns out. My wife works at a machine shop, how can you beat that? Thanks for the reply.
CrazyRoy from Iowa
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Javahut |
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Posts: 3184 (04/30/08 1:23 PM) |
40-45 deg with a springer is just fine, if you take a piece of anything to make a pattern of where your rockers are now, and move that wheel forward straight
enough to reduce the trail to what you are comfortable with, ( I'd start at 4 inches) then design the outer design around the holes in your pattern board.
Then fire up the laser cutter and away you go! I was eyeballin a set of sugarbear's and you may notis that the ends of his springer, where they mount to
the rocker is lower than the axle hole in some versions? Hmmmm wonder what that does?
H.C.C.M.F. Local 6978
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CrazyRoy |
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Posts: 123 (04/30/08 2:26 PM) |
Java,
It looks to me that it drops the front end lower, which slightly changes the rake angle, also reducing his trail. Most of his front ends have zero trail. I dont know how the hell that works, but he drives around one handed all the time. He must know something we dont.
CrazyRoy from Iowa
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Javahut |
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Posts: 3188 (04/30/08 5:26 PM) |
It's all math, that's all, and he has had years of R&D!! Study the pictures, it isn't tough to figure out what he has done, he just sets them
up on a jig that took a few trial and errors to figure out. but if you take one side of your rockers off and cut the rear two holes of the tracing and then
move it around, use 1/4 in luan wood so you can adjust your pattern, make a few different rockers, you can get the same results, just take you more work than
it would him.
H.C.C.M.F. Local 6978
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kiki licker |
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Posts: 9834 (04/30/08 5:33 PM) G.O.T.F. Member |
sugarbear designs his springers to reach 0 trail...
"Save a tree, eat a beaver." --kiki_licker
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hellbilly1932 |
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Posts: 3020 (04/30/08 5:39 PM) Senior Member |
you're gonna need to run inner springs in the lower springer springs to deal with the increase in leverage.
"Done? Yeah it's
done!"
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CrazyRoy |
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Posts: 124 (04/30/08 6:13 PM) |
Hellbilly,
Are they going to bottom out? Where do you get the inner springs?
CrazyRoy from Iowa
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