Some of today’s post is stolen from http://www.disciplescmc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4867 where I wrote about it shortly after the event:
Last Friday night (6th July 2012) was a race against time to get my engine running. After fitting a new coil, condenser and points the previous Friday, the engine had started with great difficulty and would’t keep running smoothly at all.
For a week I hadn’t gotten near my shed.
But this Friday I gapped the points and plugs (both were miles from the mark) and timed the ignition. She started first kick and ran beautifully.
Today (8th July 2012) was the day for our annual Sidecar Circus conducted by the Pine Rivers branch of the Historical Motor Cycle Club of Queensland. I was due to be at Petrie by 8am so got up at 6am and got everything prepared. The weather forecast said “Showers”. But the sun was shining beautifully as I fired her up and hit the road.
As the outfit crossed a shallow gutter, even though it isn’t much of a bump, I heard this dreadful sounding “bang” and the bike was suddenly leaning in towards the chair. The steering was awfully heavy. I thought either the sidecar suspension had collapsed or I had broken a sidecar mount.
I checked the top rear mount: it was fine; I checked to bottom rear mount: it was fine; I checked the top forward mount: it was fine. That left the bottom forward mount: when I checked it, I found that the cups that should have been clamped over the ball were about an inch away from the ball.
Oh well, three mounts will get me to Petrie if I drive slowly and carefully.
I arrived at the marshalling area for the Sidecar Circus with about half an hour to spare. Several guys came to help but Chris did most of the work, and it was soon apparent when we pulled the mount apart that one of the two half-cups which grips the ball was badly sheared apart: this was not a fix-it-on-the-side-of-the-road repair at all! My outfit wasn’t about to be going anywhere!
We swapped the half-cups so the good one was on top to bear the weight and fitted it back together again. But I felt it wouldn’t be good enough for the run so I got into Chris’s chair and travelled the Circus route on his CJ.
It was a great run: beautiful weather, a great route through the hills, and tremendous to see so many sidecars on the road at once.
One Panther outfit sheared the lower rear girder fork pin and belly-flopped onto the road, so it was picked up by one of the emergency trailers. A solo Panther broke a clutch cable so the good one was raided off the broken outfit to fix it.
When we arrived back at Petrie, Chris loaned me a length of nylon rope which we used to lash the sidecar chassis to the bike frame at the lower mount. He mounted his bike as a trailer behind his car, and then followed me all the way home to make sure I made it safely.
So now it’s off the road until I can get a new lower front mount.
Now for a few pictures:
To be continued tomorrow.