What else from trikebldr but another sidecar?!

[trikebldr]

Saw this on FaceBook today and just had to share with all of you. This is such a cool way to honor a fellow biker and vet. Sure, there have been even fancier versions of this, but I like the relative simplicity of this rig. Easy to connect up and remove when the need arises, too. Gives me something to think about. Might need to go around to the local "homes" soon to talk to them. Something similar could be done using a trailer, too. I've seen several biker clubs do that.

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[Lucasind]

"What else from trikebldr" but yet another great thought !




Have been in discussion with Bruce.....bouncing ideas off of each other about the "since conception" of the running hot issues with the 1300 . We realize that this is a concern, to very few folks these days ,as the 1300 is not exactly a very popular item these days ! .....but those of us that own them , still like to dwell over things left un-addressed ,... As a young mechanic, fresh out of high school auto shop, then off to daytona FL. for bike school,then immediately employed at our local Kawasaki dealership, I remember the first KZ 1300 at our shop, in the crate ,ready for assembly !
Soon to follow were the "Kawasaki service bulletins" regarding the running hot issues.(I won't go into details, about those ineffective service bulletins)....anyway, my first thoughts were, that this is a 6 cylinder hyper car engine ,IN a BIKE ! ....and so how did this get thru "research and development" stages with this overheating issue,and undersized radiator on it ? of course, a car has greater mass , and somewhere, the math was incorrect,causing the issues ! I also realize that the guys living/riding in the south/southwest, where day to day temperatures are much greater on a day to day basis ,as opposed to guys living in the north, that some barely ever rode their bike anyway,and never much complained.

Bruce is thinking that the "wasted space" where Maw Kaw hung that set of horns,might be better used
space, taken up by .......HELLO !....a radiator ! The radiator design in discussion ., is still in discussion stages,but it will be built to go all the way down,to occupy that otherwise wasted space ! and what ever we come up with , I will say that the " silly sounding" (my words)
horns ,won't be there anymore !.............................more on this later. Tony

[trikebldr]

To me, this is a no-brainer, but to most, this will be complicated. First, the lower mounts are part of the lower tank, so new adapters will have to be mad to connect the lower tank of the extended radiator to what used to be the air horn mounts. Second, when that lower tank gets moved down, so does the lower radiator hose nipple! No big deal! Just make up an extension adapter to join the nipple to the water pump. Two short pieces of radiator hose will be needed to connect this adapter. All problems solved.
Horns? Just a small pair of electric horns will easily fit almost anywhere and be just as loud and obnoxious as the huge original air-horn assembly from the factory. Or, a nice big set of brass truck air horns could be mounted alongside the sidecar with the compressor and tank in the trunk. Actually, the sidecar's frame could be used as the air-supply tank since it is full perimeter and 2" O.D. with a roll bar.
Another addition while this radiator is being built will be two 1/2" NPT bungs. One on the bottom tank and one on the top tank. These will feed hot water to the heater system in the sidecar. A small electric water pump will move the water from the bottom tank over to the sidecar's heater system, then it will flow back into the top tank, just like the flow from the engine.
FWIW to other 1300 owners, this water diversion method could also be used to route water to an auxilliary radiator for extra cooling if yours tends to overheat easily. Adding these bungs would be a really easy job for a radiator shop, too. And, connection to them wouldn't be all that hard even on a stock radiator.
Small, round pumps can be found on Amazon for about $34. Thy are about 2" diameter and 4" long with an inlet at one end and the outlet at the other so they fit almost inline.
The admin of the KZ1300.com forum has a 1300 Voyager and he completely moved his radiator from the front to the side near the rear, using long pipes under the bike to route the water. IIRC he also used a fork lift radiator, which is bigger.
LOTS of ways to lick the overheating problems on our 1300's if one will just try! My '83 1300 pulled a sidecar and a 400lb trailer all across these states for several years and 112,000 miles and never overheated because I had wrapped my pipes with heat tape all the way down to the bottom of the air horn cover so the tape couldn't be seen, but the heat was kept out from behind the radiator and away from the water pump and hoses and also not adding more heat to the font of the engine block. It seems that all of those little bits of heat control really worked by just carefully wrapping those pipes.

[Me Again]

I like the idea of wrapping the pipes ,but , I love my air horns .
The only time I have had a 1300 overheat was just sitting in traffic.
I guess if you don't like the airhorns you could put an air dam (something like the XII has ) in their place to drive more air up across the engine .But that would not help much in traffic . I think that would be better than putting an ugly oversized radiator in .
Bill in cooler Wisconsin