Stick figures of Chloe, Andrew and Henderson with their camper parked in front of Blue Mountain beside the Susquehanna River. Playful Curiosity.


1984 BMW R100RT, Ural Sidecar

Work done: (Me)
- Install Leading Link front end
- Install heavy duty progressive shocks
- Valve cover gaskets
- Replace steering damper
- Lube, adjust steering head
- Stainless steel brake lines
- Install Centech fuse box
- Install heated grips
- Hardwire GPS mount
- Repacked sidecar hub
- True sidecar wheel
- Polish sidecar paint
- Install sidecar windshield
- Replace sidecar seat hardware
Work done: (Chuck) - Build Leading Link front end
Work done: (shop)
- Build mounting frame
- Weld mounts onto sidecar frame
- Initial alignment (2x)


BMW R100RT w Ural sidecar


Comments:

I live an hour aways from one of the sidecar gurus and everyone kept telling me to take it to them. For weeks they wouldn't return my call. I was about to give up and order a mounting kit from across the country when they answered. I rode up to see them and decided to take it to them because I wanted the sidecar to be setup/aligned professionally.

3 1/2 months, two trips to see them, and several phone calls later and they started work. When I went up to pick it up, they had me test drive it. I said, "It's not right. It's constantly pulling to the right." They said, "No, no. It's fine. It's the road camber." and "You just don't know how a sidecar feels." They test rode it in front of me and came back claiming everything was fine. I insisted that it wasn't and they eventually agreed that they did feel a little pull and would try to adjust it.

Two days later I get a call. Some locknuts were forgotten "Human error" and the sidecar had slipped out of adjustment. It took another three weeks (I already paid the balance) before they would finish it and that was only because I called them every day the last week.

They also bent a passenger foot peg, broke the luggage rack, and killed not just the battery that was in it, but the replacement one. And I was the one that had to drive two hours to the shop where they bought the battery to do the warranty exchange.

Centech AP-2, AP-130R Install instructions. I had trouble finding a legible set of install intructions on the web so I scanned them. Centech AP-2 fuse panel and AP-130R wiring kit with relay installation instructions. Note: if there are parts you can't read, hit reload on your browser (F5). Sometimes the pdf doesn't load right.

I bought a set of Custom Triple Trees to make the steering easier (sidecars steer heavy) by raking the forks and reducing the trail. This turned into an eight month ordeal which is spelled out at the end of the ADV build thread. As I was asking for a refund (which took 2 months of nagging and was still $25 short) some guy I never met, Chuck, offered to build me a set of leading link forks - the gold standard. Awesome guy.



Click for full size pic

Hendy concerned
BMW R100RT subframe
BMW R100RT rear view
BMW R100RT Shocks
BMW R100RT heads
BMW R100RT sidecar wiring
Ural sidecar as found
Ural sidecar wheel truing
BMW R100RT subframe build
Stainless Steel Brake lines
Centech Fuse Box
Heated Grips, GPS mount
Leading Links in Chucks shop
Leading links featured
2 Finger salute