As you are eyeballing how to mount the sidecar to the bike, try to keep wheel stagger in mind. On motorcycle sidecar rigs, the rear wheel of the bike (called the tug) cannot be directly across from the sidecar (called the hack) wheel. The sidecar wheel needs to be between 10 and 12 inches ahead of the rear wheel of the bike.

1. Mindful Modifications For Safety Building your own sidecar is more than just adding a piece of metal, fiberglass or plastic to the side of your motorcycle. In order to carefully and successfully pull off this build, you must swap out some other key ingredients in your bike's makeup.

The bike is leaned out a few degrees as a counter to the sidecar’s mass. The front also toes in a few degrees more than the rear, to reduce wear on the rear tire. Most factory combos come pre-aligned, to reduce the headache. Know how to align your motorcycle sidecar the right way.

Bodywork The sidecar bodywork was to have an octagonal nose section merging to a square section at the back. To make manufacture simpler, only 2D curves were used so that no panel beating would be needed. The plan was to produce drawings for the parts that would be laser cut and folded to make assembly easier and with less welding required.