A couple of posts ago I said I had a problem with the R80/2 sidecar outfit and I decided to get this sorted out before I started on the R12.

The problem I had was with the sidecar’s mudguard (fender).

On a Steib this is a big, Art Deco affair. Originally it would have been a pair of steel pressings spot-welded together but this was replaced with a fibre-glass (GRP if you prefer the term) replica about 40 years ago.

At the rear of the guard a chassis tube goes through it from side to side and the guard is held in place between a pair of conical mounts (there is a reinforcing cross tube goes here, between the two sides of the guard).

What has happened was that over the years the fibre-glass guard had gradually worn at the conical mounts until the inboard one pulled through. The guard then could move/bounce on the cross tube and by the time I got back home, I was some 150 miles from home when it went, the hole in the guard was not only oversize but oval. On further examination I found that the outboard mount was also “somewhat under par!.

Normally a repair on a fibre item is a simple matter, just clag on a bit more mat and resin! but here I needed to reform the seats for the conical mounts so I needed a former.

As I only needed to make up two mounts I just made up a temporary former using MDF board.

The maximum diameter of the conical mount was 50mm so I cut a round of inch thick MDF that size. The diameter of the cross tube is 32mm but as there needs to be a clearance on that I worked with 35mm as the minimum and I carved it down to a cone of those dimensions and 15mm high so I had a 35mm cylinder an inch high with a 15mm high conical base.

Next step was to make up a female piece to match this, as there was only space on the inside of the guard to take a 100mm square block this determined the outer dimension of the female mould.

When you are working with fibre-glass you normally have only a short “time window” to work in before the resin starts to gel and owing to the nature of my intended repair this was a problem.

However there is an alternative resin available, “Epoxy Resin” rather than the more usual “Polyester Resin” and this has a longer pot life, of around 6 hours plus rather than only 15 minutes and so I opted to use this.

Rather than just try to patch the guard I used the mould to make up a light support moulding for the main repair.

I took a 150mm square of MDF and drilled an 8mm hole in the centre, there was already a similar hole in the round male block so I fixed them together with a length of 8mm studding (allthread) and gave the resulting plug a good coating of mould parting compound, and I similarly dosed the female block.

Then I laid up the mould, using a layer of fine glass cloth and a single layer of chopped strand mat. I then put the female part over the centre piece and used the studding to force it against the lower part and left it overnight to cure.

When I extracted the “casting” from the mould I had what was to become the outer surface of the repair just needing trimming to size.

I then re-assembled the casting onto the mould plug, but this time sandwiched a sheet of polythene between them, the resin will not stick to this and it meant it would be easier to remove the plug.

A single layer of the chopped mat was now laid up onto the back of the casting and another onto the guard itself, being generous with the resin, the moulding put onto the prepared guard and the whole turned over to let me work on the inside of the guard.

The casting was adjusted for position to correct for the wear to the guard and the wear gap made good with mat and resin and then another two layers of mat and resin laid up on the inside of the guard.

I’d bored some 10mm holes through the guard so that the resin would bond through them to combine both sides of the repair together.

Once I had the inside laid up I put a sheet of polythene over it, put the female part of the mould over the plug and again squeezed the wet resin/glass layers together and again left it overnight.

Next day I removed the mould, a fairly easy job thanks to the polythene.

I then had to set to and repeat the whole process for the other side of the guard but once that was done all that was left to do was clean up the surface, fill the blebs with bondo, rub it down and get out the rattle cans to repaint.

It’s not a perfect job but you have to look to see it and as a new guard is around 250 quid plus carriage from Germany I’m willing to live with it for use on the road hack.

If I’d been willing to cut back with a sander on the outside of the guard after the repair it could probably have made to look as original but this is the main mount point for the guard and I’d rather a bit of strength over cosmetic perfection.

After the run out to the Corbridge Show on the R12 the next outing was to the VMCC’s Scarborough Touring Week.

As this meant a week away under canvas I opted to take the old girl down there on a trailer behind the car. Reason for this was simply that I would have been unable to carry all the gear for a weeks camping for myself and the two dogs on the outfit.

On this event there is a road run each day and there is the social side each evening so it makes for an enjoyable week away.

Day One was the Friday with the run down the A19 towards York and then across to Scarborough. I chose this longer route because there are severe hill climbs with tight bends on both of the shorter routes, one being up Sutton Bank and that’s bad enough without a drag behind you!.

Anyway I got to the campsite in good time, offloaded the outfit and set up camp in time for the first evenings socialising.

The Saturday was a short run out, only some 60 miles around the area and everything seemed ok but when out on the Sunday problems arose.

The R12 has a separate Magneto/dynamo unit sitting on top of the engine. This necessitates a seal between the two and this blew. There is a carrier plate with a felt seal against the magneto end plate with a cork ring gasket sealing the plate to the engine housing and this is what blew, covering the left side of the motor in oil.

The oil got onto the plug lead and gave the spark on that side a pathway to track to ground and short out the plug.

Just to be awkward it would only track when the motor was under load, as when on a steepish climb, but when light loaded she ran OK! Typical!!.

I limped back to the main road on about one and a half cylinders and once on the main road it was a level run back to the camp-site so, of course she ran sweet as you like under the light load.

Monday was a run out to the aircraft museum at Elvington, near York, and rather than risk things I went over there with the two dogs in the car and had a good look round but I’d have preferred to be on the bike.

Tuesday was the “Extreme Hill Run”. I’ve done this run before using my R80/2 convert rig and it had tried the brakes on that lady so I had opted not to go on that run when I booked for the event.

This gave me a day “on site” when I could have a go at fixing the bike.

I tried various options at the “roadside get you home bodge” level but without success, it seemed the inner felt seal had gone and I was going to have to take the magneto unit off the bike to fix things.

This would have meant losing the magneto timing and this was not a job I wanted to undertake on a camp site, it’s not all that difficult but it is rather involved with an R12 outfit, meaning taking the sidecar off for access and then removing the gearbox to access the timing marks.

Wednesday I opted to stay on site again as the weather was rather inclement, i.e. it was p—ing down and while I could have gone in the car, I don’t see the pleasure in driving in rain any more than in riding in it!

Thursday dawned a nice day, but owing to other commitments at home I needed to back by Friday so it was a case of see the Thursday run out off, then pack up and drive home.

So, to fix the R12 I’ll need to get new seals and some other bits for her. These will have to be ordered up, probably from Germany, so it looks as if she’ll be off the road for the rest of the month, I’ve the R80/2 combo off the road with a repair to the sidecar so I’ve only a solo on the road at the moment.

Means I’m restricted in what I can do because of the two dogs, Looks like I’m just having to go to local events till I get an outfit back on the road.

Went out for a decent run on the R12 combo on Sunday, around 70 miles all told.

The sidecar chassis I’m using on her is the same one I took off her some 5 years ago when I started working on the Panther and needed the space in the garage.

When I put it back on I just bolted everything up “as was”, assuming the fittings had not been moved so, although Steib fittings are reputed to be good for this trick, I was a bit apprehensive first time out.

I’d taken her out first for a couple of miles to make sure there was nothing drastically wrong but this was to be the first real test of things.

So it was a case of load up, dogs in the sidecar, fire the bike up and away we go!.

All outfits tend to flutter their bars as you pull away, once you are used to driving an outfit you only notice this if it is excessive.

Use of a steering damper limits this but where your damper is the old-fashioned friction type it can stiffen up the steering generally.

I had my damper set at 3 clicks from off (one click gives JUST enough rub to keep the damper plates clear of rust when running as a solo) and did not notice any flutter worth commenting on so that was a good sign to start with.

Next was how stable the steering was. The R12 has a hand operated gear-change so you need to remove your right hand from the bars to change gear. If there’s any instability in the steering this is where it will show up and it didn’t, no wobble detected.

Now an outfit is a peculiar vehicle, it is a twin-track machine but is driven and braked on one track only. This means that, when the outfit is properly set up, on acceleration the bike tends to pull towards the sidecar and on braking the sidecar tends to pull towards the bike so that when on the open road much of your steering is done with your throttle. Much of the “Black Art” of sidecar riding is in getting to know how to use this.

If the set-up is incorrect then the outfit will tend to always pull to one side or the other. So, how was the R12?.

Answer is “Just about right!”. She steered nicely on the throttle and also ran straight when on a steady gas, it only needing one finger on the bars to hold her straight, always a good rule of thumb!.

After some 20 miles I took stock a bit, the R12 is lower built than the Panther, this results in the bars being lower than I’m used to with the Pussy and a feeling that I’d prefer them to come about a inch and a half further back and the same higher. I don’t remember this feeling when I was riding her before so it’s just going to be use.

The R12 has footboards whereas the Pussy has footrests, in theory there is greater choice of position on the R12, but it’s a boxer twin, you’ve a cylinder complete with carburetter in front of your foot so in fact there’s very little difference.

Another difference is that the R12 has telescopic forks in comparison to the Webb girder fork on the Puss.

Telescopic forks are at a disadvantage for sidecar work compared with either a good girder fork or a link fork, they have an inherent flexibility which does not affect handling as a solo machine but does affect a sidecar outfit, however those on the R12 have only a limited range of movement available, and given the limited performamce of the old lady this is acceptable in this case.

How did she perform?. Well remember the old girl is 80 years old and what was considered good back then is slow now. I have a Sigma electronic speedo fitted to her which has been set up on a measured half-mile nearby. On a major road along the level I was comfortably holding an indicated 41 to 44 mph. On hills this was dropping back to around 38 to 39 mph.

I was seldom over about half-throttle so there was power in hand, and one thing you rapidly learn with an outfit is to always have that “bit in reserve”.

Performance is comparable to that of the Pussy on chair, a difference being however that while the R12 is pulling sidecar gearing the Pussy was left to pull her normal solo gearing.

This means that under ideal conditions the Pussy will be faster on sidecar, she will tend to “bog down” more, requiring more frequent use of the gearbox and dependance on the intermediate ratios.

Conclusions are that I’ll soon get used to the R12 outfit again, that what is said about Steib fittings not loosing their alignment when the sidecar is taken off the bike is true, and that as I discovered when manhandling the two different chassis around off the bikes that the Steib chassis is considerably lighter then the Watsonian!.

Reason for this will be that the Steib is welded construction while the Watsonian is a hearth brazed fabrication with heavy forged lugs and straight tubes giving the Steib the same advantage the Featherbed Norton frame had over its rivals.

Looking back on the last few posts I can see that I’ve been talking about the BMW R12 but there have been no pictures to show what that is, so this is her ladyship :-

This is showing the sidecar side view :-

Front Quarter view is :-

And the view most likely to be seen by other traffic (as they come up to overtake 🙂 )

And as they pass:-

I’ve had the R12 out a couple of times now and so it’s time to think of the sidecar. As I’ve said before this is a composite of a Steib S350 body on a Steib LS200 chassis

Steib S350 Sidecar

First thing is lights!.

I can’t just swap the mudguard from the Panther’s chassis over, although this would be the simplest way, because the guard mounting systems are totally different, and anyway the LS 200 chassis is a Steib and so has the “art deco” flared guard rather than the old style half-circle guard.

The guard I have for it is a fibre-glass reproduction so the lamps on it need to be independently eatrthed, and then I’ve to fit indicators as well.

On a Steib the sidecar lights are built into the grab handle on the mudguard.

Steib Grab Handle

There is a tunnel cast into this handle that normally only carries a single wire forward to connect between the front and rear lights, power being fed into the handle by a hole through the guard at the rear mount.

This tunnel now carries the power leads for both the front light and the indicator as well as an earth lead, the leads to the indicator carrying on through the guard at the front mount of the grab handle.

For the indicators I’ve used a smaller version of the mounts I made for the Panther chassis, 2 inch diameter tube rather than 2½ inch and fitted with amber LED units sourced from the Internet.

New Indicator Units

I’ve changed to using LED bulbs in the grab handle as well and I’m using a stop/tail in the rear light.

Also, since the standard Steib rear light is rather small I’ve fitted an LED light into the rear reflector unit, so converting it into another rear light.

Steib Rear Reflector

This all means that now there is now a 4 wire loom leaving the mudguard to connect to the bike rather than the original single wire.

I’m also fitting a spotlight onto the chassis in front of the mudguard. This is also fitted with an LED bulb and is meant to act as both a DRL and as a running light.

Spotlight cum DRL

I’ve had to be a bit crafty here.

My R12 was built back in 1940 and her generator is of rather limited output, nominally of 6 Volts and all of 36 Watts!.

As standard on 6 volt electrics it would balance the lighting load of a solo machine and still have a little in hand to keep up the battery, but with a sidecar fitted there’s no leeway at all.

While I have converted the dynamo to give 12 volts output using a modern electronic regulator, which does help a lot, full lights on all the time are not really feasible, although the use of LED lights does help a bit.

So what I’ve done is to wire the spotlamp and the pilot bulb to work separately from the main lights, worked with a separate switch on the ‘bars, and I’ve fitted a 10 watt Halogen bulb in the pilot position as well.

The crafty is that there is also a feed from the sidecar running lights to the spotlight so that it will come on with the normal lights as well, I’m running with a right-hand sidecar in UK where the Rule of the Road is to drive on the left so I want a large front light on the sidecar side.

Problem is that doing this has power back-feeding both ways so with the lights switched off but the DRLs on the other lights come on as well so to counter this both feeds to the spotlight now go through diodes, as does the feed to the pilot light.

This means that I can now have two bright white lights showing to the front in daylight hours with only a small load on the generator but this extra load is not there when the main lights are on – so now, with the spotlight, there are 5 wires to connect between the bike and sidecar.

Traditionally this would be done using a nest of bullet connectors but I’ve opted for the neater way of using a 6-way “mini-connector”, as is used in a modern bike’s cable loom, with a feed for the other indicator in the 6^th position.

This is because the R12 will comfortably be able to tow my lightweight box trailer and of course that means I need to feed all the trailers lights and indicators.

6-Way Connector

The trailer will make life easier when going on a camping event, my two dogs travelling in the sidecar and the gear in the trailer.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = == = = = = = = = = =

For any of you who want to tell me that LED lights are not legal to use on the roads I’ll point out that this bike was built in 1940 and so comes under the old regs.

These only ask for “A white light to the front and a red light to the rear” and do not ask for a kitemark or “E” numbers on the lights. After all people were still using acetylene gas lights on vehicles back then :^)}.

Following from the last post the top coating repair on the front mudguard has been completed.

When I had a look at things the next day I was very happy as to the finish, the “Craftsman” paint I was trying out as a replacement for my old favourite “Tekaloid” came through with flying colours.

Only trouble was the contrast with the old paint, this had weathered over time so the new paint stood out like the proverbial on a barn door!.

So I broke out the “T-Cut” and gave the guard a good rub down and that did the trick, you no longer noticed the repair unless you looked closely, snag is I now have to do the rest of the bike to get it to match the front mudguard!.

The pressed-steel framed BMW’s, such as the R12, are quite heavily pinstriped so this repair has left a gap in the lining on the front guard that I’ll need to patch, so I now need to break out the lining brushes.

Lining is properly done free-hand and the difficult bit is getting a tight curve without smearing. My way round this is to mask out the line so that any smear goes onto the masking tape, problem is that with the BMW double line I’ll need to do one line and let it harden off before I can mask off to do the other.

I’ve also had the old girl out on the road for a run to see how things were.

I found that while she was willing to start and run, the start-up from cold was not as willing as it used to be and she was very reluctant to start from hot.

What I’ve done today is to treat her to a pair of new plugs, the old ones had been in for a long time now. I’ve also had the carburetters off and stripped and cleaned them, they have been standing for a couple of years and what fuel had been left in them had dried out and left a “varnish” of crud inside the passages and jets.

Fortunately she’s running on a pair Amal 276’s and these are an easy carb to strip down and clean.

I’ll need to synchronise the slides opening before I take her out again and while that’s a fiddly job it’s not that difficult.

I’ve also offered up the sidecar chassis to the bike. Before I actually fit it I’m wanting to rig a sidecar brake. I had a sidecar brake on the Panther outfit and found it useful, after all the bikes brakes are from the 1930’s and brake technology has come a fair way since then so every little helps.

The rear brake on the R12 is operated with a heel operated pedal on the right-hand side. What I’m doing is to mount another pedal onto the sidecar chassis with a lever coming straight across to the bike and level with the bike’s rear brake pedal, so that its pad lies alongside the bike’s one. This means that when I apply the bike’s brake I’ll also apply the sidecar brake as well, and by rocking my foot I can vary their relative pressures.

However I’ll also be able to apply either brake on its own to give differential braking which can be useful to assist in cornering.

Only thing now is that while I’ve the brake pedal set up I’ve still to arrange the cable fitment at the drum end of the system, as a “By The Way” the chassis I’m using is from an LS200 Steib. The wheel is from a Ural/Dneiper, a half width hub that looks in keeping with the R12 and the brake itself is an Enfield type from a rigid-framed Panther.