Unofficial Royal Enfield Community Forum

General Discussion => Sidecar Talk => Topic started by: Raconteur on June 03, 2013, 05:31:54 pm

Title: Replacing the rubber bands on a cozy sidecar
Post by: Raconteur on June 03, 2013, 05:31:54 pm
God forbid you get anything from India with instructions! And of course it took forever to get the replacement rubber bands in the mail. Just wanted to share the easiest way my friend Robert and I figured out how to replace all the rubber bands on the Cozy sidecar. Here is the short version: What we did is disconnect all the bolts under the three cross pieces (the ones that have the big rubber bands). You need to make sure you keep them in order because they are NOT interchangeable. Then you jack up the sidecar and take them off. Put the rubber bands on the cross pieces. Spray the tubes down with silicone so the bands will slide on easier. Then you take a pipe or a big screwdriver and stretch the rubber band so it will slide back on the tube. Then slide the whole cross piece with the rubber band on the tube. We had to use a rubber mallet to move the cross piece with the rubber bands to get everything lined up. Then bolt everything back together. It sounds easy, but trust me, it is defiantly an exercise in frustration. It would be really hard for anyone to do it by themselves. Before we replaced the rubber bands I had been using a nylon strap sort of like one you use to tie down a bike. It worked pretty well. Hope this helps people who need to replace their rubber bands on their Cozy. If there is an easier way please let me know the trick. I’ve had the Enfield with the side car for two years and this was the first issue with the side car.               
Title: Re: Replacing the rubber bands on a cozy sidecar
Post by: Kevin Mahoney on July 12, 2013, 07:38:42 pm
WE normally keep the bands in stock here at NField Gear or call your RE dealer. You can get in touch at 800-201-7472
Title: Re: Replacing the rubber bands on a cozy sidecar
Post by: bigjonk on May 15, 2016, 04:18:37 am
The rubber band mounts on our Cozy sidecar needed replacement, so googled it up and found this posted on the Classic Motorworks forum: Replacing the rubber bands on a cozy sidecar (https://forum.classicmotorworks.com/index.php?topic=16577.0)
Tried to follow their method, but after removing the old bands and installing new ones on the one side, couldn't get any aligned on the other. As luck would have my neighbor stopped by, took one look and said "that ain't gonna work, ya need to remove the sidecar body." Well that didn't sound too good to me, but six bolts later, he had the back of the body loose. The front pivots on a cross piece, so didn't need to be disturbed. We tied a ratchet strap to the luggage rack, then to the garage door mechanism and lifted it up. It's real light so could've just as easily lifted it by hand and tied it up with a rope.
With the brackets exposed, it was easy to take a second ratchet strap and pull the bracket over to mount the other side rubber bands. Then just use two screwdrivers to align everything and slide the bolts into the brackets. It's a lot easier with two people, the third hand fits the bolt while the other two hold positioning with the screwdrivers.
So all in all it wasn't terribly hard once we figured it out, but I still think it's the stupidest suspension system I've ever seen. And then came the best part: after we were finished, I noticed one of the new bands was starting to split, it hadn't lasted more than a few minutes. Fortunately two of the old ones were still good, so replaced it with one of those. Makes you feel real confident in the new parts.
Pictures and text posted at: http://smilesfromnowherre.blogspot.com/2016/05/rubber-buggy-bumpers.html
Title: Re: Replacing the rubber bands on a cozy sidecar
Post by: sjbiat on June 18, 2016, 07:26:20 pm
One might try heating the rubber with boiling water first.  That's the only way I found, for example, to get the rubber strip onto a Ural gas tank.