Synopsis of the Cafe crowd so far

Hell, we can do her!  Jack the fender up, bend her open some wid a pair of 2x4's, do a chain drive conversion and make up any remaining distance with a beltsander on the tire.

(might piss off the wie-shung guardian spirit cat-thing a might on that last one.  Pissing off things that keep razor blades on their toes and that shoot yellow fire out of their eyes might not be such a good idea.  Maybe if we give it a bowl of cream and politely explain we are respectfully increasing the cornering radius to save the lives of small dragons everywhere it might be merciful to us.  I sure don't want it riding around on my pillion seat all pissed off at me!)



Oldfeller

PS -- this was really 'way too easy, you didn't even have to think about it very much to tell me how to go about doing it.  Now that somebody said "chain drive conversion" there is apparently a lot of extra room to play with as the chain takes up a lot less room than the belt and pullies did.  

Now I gotta go find a bigger tire to keep things interesting.  Sluggo and the bobber crew deserve nothing less than the very best efforts out of you guys.

Hey, I got told off-line that I was an idjit and didn't know much about the history of VW tires.  Original VW tire fit on a wire spoked rim that they got from (get a load of this) the BMW sidecar works.  Man said he could prove it -- just go look at the bead structure of a motorcycle tire and a VW tire.

Now I don't know nuthin about internal bead structures but I sure can measure with a tape measure, cut paper templates and take out of focus pictures.

Motorcycle tire (Dunlop)



VW tire (Nankang)


The tape says 15 inches right at the start of the bead curve on both tires.  I can't vouch for the origin story, but I can say there isn't any apparent or significant difference in the bead distance or bead shape between a motorcycle tire and a VW tire.  They smell very much the same-same.

Oldfeller

Darksiders "say" they use the bottom flat surface of the tire when going around a turn, that the sidewall of the tire flexes to allow the majority of the flat part of the tire to still remain engaged to the road.  

They also claim to run air pressures in the range of 17-25 pounds of pressure as the weight of the back half of the bike is so very very low compared to the load and pressure ratings that the wider car tire was intended to carry.

Me and the bike's weight, divided by two tires is about 300 pounds total load per tire.  The Nankung is rated for 1,201 lbs load at 35 pounds of MAX PRESSURE.  Playing the math factor game, the tire would carry the needed 300 lb. load all the way down to 10 pounds of air pressure, so I guess what the darksiders are doing is kosher as far as being well inside the air pressure / load rating range.  

Remember, it's the air pressure that carries the load, not the rubber itself.  The rubber just contains the air pressure and gives a friction surface for the drive and braking forces to act through.

Dunlop's rounded half circle (sideways oval) contact patch is small compared to the contact area available on the VW tire.  (1-2" wide vs 5" wide)   Even if only half the VW tire's width remained engaged on a real steep turn it would still have more contact patch area than a motorcycle tire would.  Since the VW tire will be running softer (lower pressure) the length of the car tire's contact patch would likely be longer too.

Dunlop has a very hard tire carcass, you can't make it give any with hand pressure at all.  On the VW car tire your hand and arm pressure applied to the tire at a 45% angle makes a "conformed" contact patch that is 4" long and about 3.5 inches wide.   The Dunlop's "conformed" contact patch is like 1-2 inches either direction no matter how hard you push with your hands and arms.  This small contact patch is why the Dunlop rubber must be so bubble gum soft -- to get the needed grip in such a small contact area.

It's nearly 4:00 Sunday afternoon -- time to start drinking again.

Oldfeller

Ah, don't be silly.  Us motorcycle riders are the most conservative people on the planet -- we believe in tradition and doing things the right way.  

Nobody is ever going to convince us that that darksider stuff can work, them thangs is FLAT on the bottom and righteous motorcycle tires are properly rounded, just like 'ol Mother Earth.

This here is just for a funny, not for serious.  Besides, we done been tolt them different shaped beads would pop off in the middle of a turn and KILL us daid.  Me, I don't wanna be daid.

Besides, it's too big -- ain't a gonna fit in the fenderwell any nohow.

Besides, it's work changing motorcycle tires -- I'd rather be drinking than sweating.

Oldfeller

Just think of all the sweat you'd be saving if you went to the darkside... got a flat? any gas station can fix you up with a new Vdub tire.  You could probably get on of them solid mag's from a junk yard with big dent in it.  Part off the rim and bolt on a car rim.

Phelonius wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:05:

Oh, but you just gotta imagine how the handling works when you get the bike up on that "square" edge when you lean even a little bit.  Yeehaw.

It's the weekend.  

I just ordered a Sigma bike computer from LL Bean for a whopping big $18.95 shipped to my door (just so I won't be fooled by any rear wheel size changes that might take place).

I'm going to shift this thing over into a tech section post on "Using oversized tires" and point it simply at how to clear the obstructions to larger tires inside the fender well itself.

This way the information works for those who want to put 190 or bigger size bike tires on their scooter as well as the nameless crazy idiots who might get tempted to do something stupid -- not that they ever should be so silly.  

And no, I've got a bagger style stock bike that covers up my rear tire almost completely and I will NEVER admit to what's under there (assuming it actually fits in there and actually stays there more than an hour or so).



Oldfeller

I only got two rear Dunlops to fall back on, but I got me a pair of Chen Shin fronts to lay over the top of them to make it all cushion-like and cuddly.

I likes to have my replacement parts all on deck when the time comes.  Saves all them separate shipping costs and long downtime waiting for parts to get here.

<grin>