Supa5 Sidecar Outfit alternative front end

[ScotBob]

Hi all,

A 76 Supa 5 Combination has just come into my possession, it has had the engine recently rebuilt and runs reasonably well, however handling and brakes are woeful. First change will be wider handlebars to help control it but the major issue is brakes.

Is anyone aware of a front end from another bike, pref with a disc brake that will fit a TS? I'm also led to believe that a rear TS wheel will also fit the front, the current rear brake is just about passable but the front brake does next to nothing and I am reluctant to put anyone in the side car until the brakes can be improved.

Any suggestions to upgrade braking would be appreciated.

[Blurredman]

You can fit the ETZ disc brake but I believe you may actually need wider yokes to accomodate the different wheel and the disc. There are threads on this forum of rear brake plates have been fitted to the front and apparently work well. Are your shoes making full contact? I have an ES250 and I actually think the brake isn't half bad, perhaps because I know the whole and complete shoe is being used. Of course, new shoes likely don't make full contact at all and require a lot of 'running in' to accomodate this.


Not quite sure what your concerns are with the handling? What characteristics are you feeling? I've not ridden a TS250 for any considerable time so I really can't answer how they're supposed to feel, but the tyres are round?

[Andy_C]

Bob, couple of things I did to my TS that seemed to make the front brake a lot better:

1. Get a heavy duty cable - think I got mine from Venhill.
2. Bin the torque arm and make a new one with rose joints at each end - this allows the back plate to move a little under braking.
3. Remove around 0.2mm from the bore of the backplate - this will allow the brake plate a bit of movement to help centralise the shoes.
4. When you fit the front wheel apply the front brake before tightening up the wheel nuts, it helps centralise the brake shoes.

Seemed to work very well with mine.

Also worth replacing the shoes with some made from softer material - are the existing ones glazed, or very old, if so it will not help things.

Other alternative to a disc from an ETZ is a twin leading brake from a Honda (cant remember the model) laced to your wheel, also as has been mentioned some people have fitted the brake plate from the rear to the front, but it looks a bit unsightly in my opinion.

Finally, there is a company down my way in Somserset, that will machine your brake shoes to your hub, I am told this works very well.

[ScotBob]

You can fit the ETZ disc brake but I believe you may actually need wider yokes to accommodate the different wheel and the disc. There are threads on this forum of rear brake plates have been fitted to the front and apparently work well. Are your shoes making full contact? I have an ES250 and I actually think the brake isn't half bad, perhaps because I know the whole and complete shoe is being used. Of course, new shoes likely don't make full contact at all and require a lot of 'running in' to accommodate this.


Not quite sure what your concerns are with the handling? What characteristics are you feeling? I've not ridden a TS250 for any considerable time so I really can't answer how they're supposed to feel, but the tyres are round?

Ref handling, bear in mind this is not a solo bike it is sidecar combination, so you cannot compare it with a solo, round tyres or not.

Despite a steering damper being fitted it has a tendency to shake its head at low speed or under braking, this is not helped by the ridiculously narrow bars fitted that give no leverage and make it a real effort to steer. The plan is to fit higher wider bars to address this, no doubt different tyres may help, i.e. with a squarer profile. I've owned several combinations over the years of various sizes, Jawa 350 and a Kawazaki Z1100 with a huge fully enclosed double adult chair fitted were the most notable so I know how they should handle. The set up seems seems ok in terms of the geometry, I am of course aware it is a small lightweight bike so i'm not expecting too much of it, just looking to tweak it a bit to make it less effort to ride.

But worst of all, I bought it to take the dog in and he absolutely refuses to get in it

[Puffs]

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[DAVID THOMPSON]

find a bike with big motor and heavy frame
sidecars overload the motor there a good way to kill the motor on a bike
you do not like

[mr_luke]

I had a Squire chair on my ETZ 250 and David's right, it was a good way of wearing bits out more quickly. With that said, it was a fantastic little machine and, being so narrow and light, was easily the most fun to ride of all the outfits I've owned.

What kind of sidecar is fitted to yours, Bob?

ref. the head-shake, I wouldn't fancy riding an outfit with the original narrow bars on my Supa 5. If you fit longer ones, the damping abilities of your arms will be multiplied!

Assuming your steering damper is a friction one, I would suggest checking there is absolutely no free play where it's anchored to the frame and to the bottom yoke. Any movement here caused by wear or just poor fit will mean the initial movement of the 'wobble' is undamped and you'll have to tighten the damper tighter than is ideal to counteract it.

As has been said, you can fit an ETZ front end to gain a disc brake. I think you might need to cut the lug for the steering lock off the TS frame in order to fit it, but otherwise I think it's pretty straightforward.

I managed to get hold of a Honda CB350 wheel with a TLS brake earlier this year, and have recently got around to fitting it to my Supa 5, with new Honda brake shoes and cable. I had to make a simple spacer, a new cable adjuster , and swap the fork sliders left-to-right. It's pretty good and I think it would be up to stopping a chair.

[breakwellmz]

I think i would look up at firming up the front suspension with thicker fork oil and some fork preload spacers in addition to the above suggestions.
Good luck with it and how about a photo?

[Puffs]

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[breakwellmz]

The standard forks are soft anyway and with the additional weight of a sidecar they will be more compressed to start with.

[Puffs]

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[Blurredman]

Is there any weight on the rear end?

My 251 in particular likes to wobble at the front end slightly even with my hands on the bars. Though I do carry a rack and a top box full of a certain amount of tools and stuff. Still, obviously much less than a pillion but alas- a pillion would be over the rear wheel, not behind it.

Anyway, wider bars I would say are a quite a requirement perhaps. Also notice, esspecially on the earlier 250's, they all have a knob on the steering stem which I gather is to loosen/tighten as your requirements need be the steering. Is this not also for damping the potential wobbling from the front end?

[Puffs]

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[mr_luke]

My (solo) Supa 5 with very similar frame geometry to the 251 was also prone to wobbling. Tyre choice seemed to make a difference but it was always there. It wasn't a huge problem but I got fed up with it and made a friction damper along similar lines to the MZ one Puffs linked to. The main difference was that it cost about £0.25!

Anyway, I'm not sure solo wobbles are really relevant to those experienced with a sidecar outfit, which IMO are more to do with the effect of having the chair alternately pushing and pulling from one side to the other. Leading link forks would be a great upgrade but I think you'd be looking at making your own. Firstly, I think we need to know what kind of sidecar and what kind of damper Bob has fitted before we can offer much more advice!

[Puffs]

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