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rockers

Posted: Sun Jul 19, 2015 11:47 pm
by jbfrmca
so i got this beast on the road and was not satisfied with the ride quality. the way the front rockers are angled it wouldn't push on the springs. the whole front end just bounces and that is not a good feeling.
here are my specs.
8 up on my frame.
54 degree on my neck.
6 degrees on my fork stem.
21 front wheel.
40 over front end.
so my question is what type of rockers am i going to have to make to make this thing work and handle good?
well as good as a long ass chopper can.

Re: rockers

Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2015 2:42 am
by jbfrmca
forgot my pic.
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Re: rockers

Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2015 5:01 am
by gearhead1951
Extend the spring fork legs out so that the rockers you have are parallel to the ground ! What you have now allows NO vertical movement of the wheel that don't come from the flex of the rigid fork legs !!

Re: rockers

Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:15 am
by Customize IT
What he said^

What is your trail numbers now?

Re: rockers

Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:56 am
by gww25
For a quick fix you can just make some rockers that look kind of like what Freddie and Mondo build. That'll move the axle out slightly and down a few inches so that the springs actually work. It's hard to tell from the snapshot but it looks like there might be some rakd cups going on with the neck or raked stem in the forks? Is that the case?

Re: rockers

Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2015 5:52 pm
by jbfrmca
well i thought the same thing the other day so i made these up. the springs now work but it still don't feel right.it seems to want to turn waaay to fast and it even feels loose on the freeway. like the front end is way to light. do you think that if i raised up the axle about a inch that it wold be better or worse? i'm just guessing here but i think my trail is around 8 to 12 inches.
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so looking at this chart and seeing that my rake on the rear leg is around 55 degrees it would look like i have to make a set of rockers that look similar to sugarbears no?
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Re: rockers

Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2015 7:24 pm
by Customize IT
You can not build a sugar bear your legs are not long enough to drop under the spindle without seriously dropping the front of the frame and not have ride height. Your bike looks level now. take a string wrap it around the top of your neck shaft and pull along the side of neck by eye making it centered thru the full shaft to the ground. At the ground put a heavy block of something to hold it there. The use a square and put that at your front axle on the ground. Measure the distance to know your trail.

Then tell us how long those rockers you made would have to be for 3 in trail like the way you made them.

See the string in this pic.

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Then framing square and place on floor center of axle. Measure trail.

Re: rockers

Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 7:13 am
by krymis
john yyou can do a sugarbear style but it will have a completely different shape. As Nate pointed out it changes the stance of the bike. So use the holes in the original rockers for the legs. give me a buzz and i can walk you through setting it up

Re: rockers

Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 11:38 am
by gww25
You're on the right track with those new rockers you made now just some fine tuning should get you going. If it seems to quick with the steering then you need even more tail, not less but the overall shape and geometry of what you've done is excellent.

Re: rockers

Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:35 am
by jbfrmca
well i finally checked my trail. i was surprised by the numbers.
so it would seem that i'm right where i want to be. as you can see i made some stands to replace my wheel. that allowed me to see exactly where the laser was hitting the tape. btw i got this gun sight laser on flea bay for about twelve dollars.
i also made up some plates to bolt to the rockers that i have just to see where my numbers would be by lowering it a inch and a quarter. my numbers went down to a inch and a half of trail. that is too low of a number for me so i'm going to keep the rockers that i have now and just learn to ride this looong mofo.
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Re: rockers

Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 1:03 pm
by Dusty-Dave
When it's at ride height what is the rake angle?
Dusty

Re: rockers

Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 2:41 pm
by jbfrmca
54 degrees on the neck and 6 degrees on the neck stem.

Re: rockers

Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 7:51 pm
by Customize IT
With that much rake you are not turrning the wheel on the axis any more. There is going to be a large amount of flop. It is laying the wheel over not turning on the steerring axis to turn. Riding the outside edge of tire.

The best thing to do large rake bikes push the trail out to 0 or almost 0 and it will turn better because you are allowing the wheel to lay on the side of tire to turn like it wants to do to turn.

Try a set 0 trail rockers as long as they are not over 6 in long from the rocker piviot.

It will turn better and have less flop that way if you can make rockers not too long.

[url=http://s86.photobucket.com/user/jbfrmca ... x.jpg.html]Image[/url

The square should be at the axle pependicular to ground.

The laser point should land in front of the square to have positive trail. If the pointer little red dot is not in front of where the axle is you have a negative 3 in of trail now and that would ride bad.

It is hard for me to see from this picture? The steering axis with the pointer is landing in front of the axle on the floor right?

Re: rockers

Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2015 2:19 pm
by jbfrmca
well i've been riding this for a minute now and it still squrley as hell so i made some changes. as you can see i made some hokey ass adapters to weld to my rockers.doing this helped the tracking alot. i ended up using the horizontal rule and it seems to work. the only problem i'm having now is it is a rougher ride. the forks are flexing before the springs are compressing. i took out the lower inner springs to see if it sotens up the ride. we'll see.
again i want to thank everyone that contributes to this board. without all of you i wouldn't of thought in a thousand years that i would be be doing what i'm doing.


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Re: rockers

Posted: Sat Dec 12, 2015 5:32 am
by gearhead1951
Very interesting watching this worked out ! Please keep this updated !