Need to pick some brains regarding forks

[hawkeyefxr]

My trike has normal telescopic forks from a F650gs BMW the spindle is slightly forward of the fork leg.
My steering has a very slightly nervous feel to it and sometime gets in to a wobble if both hands are not on the bars. Now i dont understand to full aspect of Rake and Trail, i obviously know that a rake front end is like on a stretched chopper, with the spindle in front of the fork leg with rake to my mind should be stable.

I have ridden a couple of raked choppers and their steering was perfect, i know there are other forces involved in trikes.

I have played with front tyre pressures and found that a higher pressure is better (25psi). I had drum brakes fitted when i got the trike and one had an oval drum, this caused real problems with the steering. I fitted a disc conversion and it stopped straight away, i am now left with a very slight the front end shake.

I have had a few outfits and i know they can cause really bad front end shakes it the sidecar is setup wrong ( i actually went through a farmers five barred gate once, smashed it pieces lol).

So guys get them brains out for picking.

[DeathBySnuSnu]

Rake is not the limiting factor.
The main thing to pay attention to is the trail.
A trike needs much less trail than a 2 wheeler.
That is why a bought *conversion has raked trees, to reduce trail.
Most rear engine vw trikes get away with crazy huge amounts of trail just because there is little weight on the front end.
So just like a proper side car set up reduce the trail.
Leading link
Girder
Springer
Raked trees or a tree with different offset.

[Rickety]

Hawk,

let me first say I have not driven mine yet, I did a lot or research on the matter, what I came up with is this, I shoot for 0 ( zero ) trail, I'm actually at about 1" trail right now, and like the guy above this post says, their is so little weight on the front its not as critical,

I found this webpage really helpful, but remember their talking about motorcycles here not trikes.

http://trikerdon.50megs.com/fork__geometry_1.htm

the last picture on this page should clear things up for you.

hope this helps

Rick