Sidecar Installations: You, Your Shop or Us?

The majority of our customers install the sidecar themselves. We have included a copy of an Installation Guide to give you an idea of what is involved in mounting your own sidecar. Click here to see the Guide. Following is an assortment of installation parts and pieces to give you an idea of what’s involved. We are always happy to review the installation procedure with you or your dealer to help you determine whether you want to tackle the process or not. It also helps your dealer work up a reasonable estimate for the installation time.

Honda Shadow 1100 mounting pieces. These go on the motorcycle itself. The “block and plate” in the lower front fits on the frame split for the upper front mount. The long piece on the left bolts under the bike to existing holes and provides the lower rear mount. The other two pieces are the upper rear and lower front mounts.

Here is a picture of a Kawasaki Vulcan 750 rear mount: You can see the mounting arms coming out of the frame. The tape is around the “slider” or “clamp” arm and the other is the “boss.” It has a heim joint, or spherical750 mounts 005_small rod end, screwed into it. The heim joint fits into the clevis mounted on the bike.

At left is a Kawasaki Vulcan Nomad 1500 Upper Rear mount. This consists of an eye nut bolted from the back to a plate which fits between the crash bar mounts. It is bolted at two points onto the bike frame.

To the right is a Harley FLH Lower Rear Mount: This is a modified version of the HD stock part that we produce.

Sidecar Installation is one of the services we offer at our shop. We have a bay in our new building specifically for sidecar installations. Installations are done by appointment and we can recommend local motels and restaurants for your convenience. We are located 5 miles north of Leonard, a small town with no public transportation, so if you plan to ride your motorcycle in and new sidecar rig out, you will need to plan ahead. The average installation takes about two days and our installation charge is $600 for most bikes, with some of the more complicated installations (Goldwing 1500s and Valkyries, for example) costing more.

If you visited this page in the past, you know that we’ve listed the installations we’ve done in the previous year or two. That list is now too long to itemize. In the last 5 years, we’ve done over 50 installations in our shop. The sidecars we’ve installed include our Rangers, Standards, and Scooters. We’ve installed sidecars manufactured by Champion, California, Motorvation, Ural, Dnepr, Velorex and a Dusting reproduction body from Australia on a custom-built chassis. We’ve mounted these sidecars on BMWs, Guzzis, Harley Sportsters and big twins, Hondas, Kawasakis, Suzukis, Triumphs, Yamahas and a Velux, to name a few.

We will be happy to discuss your project with you and will assist you in any way we can. However, we do not work on Velorexes nor do we have any parts for them, mounting or otherwise.

Below are a number of shots of a custom installation done in our shop. We converted a Ural sidecar’s mounting arms to our standard mounting system and then used our “off-the-shelf” pieces to install the sidecar on the motorcycle.

Finally, a newly-installed Texas Sidecar chassis installed on a new Honda Silver Wing. The barbell weights mounted on the front simulate the sidecar body and passenger weight during the final alignment process.

Please give us a call to schedule a safe and professional installation of your new sidecar at The Texas Sidecar Company, 833-897-4332.