Dragging Front Caliper

[sidecarKev]

I've only put about 5 miles on the XS11/sicdecar combo so far and I've noticed a problem. The front left caliper is dragging on the rotor. Its not just the brakes pads dragging it the actual holder. The right side is fine but the left side isn't. Driving with the sidecar in the air may have caused this. I noticed that when doing this the front end would whine a little. My guess is that I need a fork brace. Will that take care of my rubbing?

[Ken Talbot]

A forkbrace sure wouldn't hurt, but you may be able to solve your problem with just a bit of minor wrenching. You're going to need to loosen the pinch bolts at the bottom of the forks, and maybe the axle nut so you can adjust the alignment of both calipers. You can squeeze the bottom of the forks in or out a bit to make this happen. Watch very carefully as you tighten things back up to see that each caliper ends up centred on its rotor.

[pathfinder]

draging caliper

See this post: http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread...&threadid=4013

[rockjok]

Hi Kev,

I had a similar problem when I first mounted my sidecar, rubbing rotors when cornering. I aligned the forks which helped a little bit but I think the main solution was adding a Tkat fork brace.

I also installed progressive fork springs and heavier rear shocks which helped considerably on rough roads. I'm finally to the point where I can move ballast around in the hack and gear etc in the saddle bags to get rid of any major right pull.

Luck,

Rob

[sidecarKev]

I'll give the fork alignment a try tonight hopefully. A fork brace is also in the near future.

[sidecarKev]

Alignment went good, no more rubbing. I'm still thinking about fork brace to help prevent this from happening again.

[sidecarKev]

The more I thought about it the more it bothered me. After I aligned the forks and recentered the rotors in the calipers it seemed like there was an awful big gap, maybe a 1/4". Alot more than the 1/16" mentioned in the alignment post. If I went with 1/16" the calipers would not end up centered on the rotors, actually I think they would still hit. Is 1/4" ok?

[pathfinder]

Hi Sidecar, you may be right. My calipers are lined up with 1/16" spacing in the center but do to tolerances in manufacture and slight bend/warp of forks or steering head on different bikes, that may be why you have to set yours at a 1/4". Does your Speedo still contact the left fork to stop rotation? Do the cotter key holes still line up with castle nut? Is the hole in big end of axel (used for pulling axel out) still completely outside of left fork?
I went for a 200 mile ride last weekend thru allot of twistees. My bike rode better than it has in years. I had the steering head bearing & fork springs changed professionally about 5 years ago and took it back to them for this problem. They of coarse told me I was crazy and that nothing they had done could have could caused this problem. Before I took it in I could remove my hands from bars and ride forever (I know I should not do that) they told me to keep both hands on the bars and bike would steer correctly.
Always had to push very slightly on the left side at speed to go straight. Bike would not track correctly, grooves in pavement would take bike with them, cornering was terrible, hard to push or backup bike. I'm only 5'6" and backing up made it Xtreamly difficult for me to move, even on level surface.
Since the fix all the above problems have been eliminated.

[sidecarKev]

Yep, speedo still contacts fork, coter key hole lines up with castle nut, and hole in axle is still showing. We will see how this works out for me. I never really thought about it much on my other sidecar rig, the bike is a CX500, single disk out front. Probably not as much of a problem. I got that rig already setup, I'm setting up the XS rig myself and I'm seeing what a sidecar can do to a bike. When you get the sidecar in the air or take tight corners alot more force is being put on your wheels than when solo. That's why mag wheels like the XS has are good for sidecars. Hopefully movement won't continue to happen in the forks. I've gotten mixed feedback on whether or not a sidecar rig needs a fork brace. Many run without one, my other rig doesn't have one. I'm going to run without one for a while to see what happens but still plan to put one on in the near future. By the way I'm lovin' the power these bikes have. Its really easy to smoke the tire. Seems to have way more power than the oldwings.