Champion IRS mod

[Road Runner]

I have a 09 Champion IRS on 09 GL 1800. The rear wheels cock in at top, so tread is not parallel to road, causing unusual wear. I have ordered and received the modified knuckle for both sides from Champion trike. (had to pay for them). Has anyone on here installed the modified knuckles? If so, how difficult is the installation.

[CadtoChrome]

How come they were not covered by warranty?

[kj5ix]

How come they were not covered by warranty?

Yea what he said,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

[tfdeputydawg]

Who made you pay for them?????
Should have been no charge!

[wingking51]

My trike had to have the new knuckles too. everything was covered by Champion and the work was done by the Champion dealer that built my trike.

Builder also told me that Champion was sending out the yellow heavy duty coil springs if the trike did not already have the yellow springs on the shocks as part of the repair to correct the problem. It is my understanding that all new kits coming from the factory have the zero degree knuckles and the yellow springs as standard equipment now.

As far as making the change, installer told me if he has to change the springs and knuckles it is about a 6 hour job, 3 or 4 hours if he only needs to change knuckles. There is a download on the Champion website showing the step by step procedure to change the knuckles and springs.

As far as your having to pay for the new knuckles, did you build the trike yourself or did a dealer/installer do it for you? Did you fill out and send in the warranty card to Champion? They needed info from the installer, kit serial no., when I took delivery of trike, etc.
Everything was handled smoothly by both Champion and installer. I even had a call from factory telling me that the parts had been shipped to installer.

Champion told me that I could use any approved dealer to do the work. In fact the Honda dealer that services my trike is also a Champion dealer and the service mgr there told me about the problem, how Champion was correcting it, and that they would be more than willing to do the repairs for me if the builder I used could not or would not do the repair.

The change that was done appears to have corrected the issue with tire wear and I think that the ride and handling is better too.

[Road Runner]

My kit was 1st sold Jun 09, not sure, but probably 1 yr warranty. I am 2nd owner, bought it with 3,000 miles in Nov 09. Installing dealer is 300 miles away, having mod knuckes installed by nearby Honda/Champion dealer on Thurs. Yeah, I was hoping warranty would cover it, but apparently not so, according to warranty dept at factory.
Anyhow, just want to get it done.
Thanks for the replies.

[Biwing]

Gentlemen,

In keeping the board police happy ..............

I'm not a dealer in anything but just a good mechanic who loves Goldwings and especially triked ones.

Anyway, I was approached to do the Champion upgrade/repair for the camber problem. The wings owner had approached Champion about the repair parts and was told that they would ship them to him if he would upfront a credit card payment with the card being credited when the old parts were returned. He does not have a credit card (he's a smart fellow) so they said that his other option would be to have a dealer install them and the parts wouldn't be charged. In other words, the repair would be at a no-charge to him.

He had the parts shipped to the nearest dealer, 170 miles, from him and called the dealer about the deal. (This dealer is not the one that the trike was bought from but the closest. The selling dealer is not one to be dealing with as we both found out after the purchase! What a incomplete incorrect install.)

The repair dealer was not happy because he was not a customer but went out of state to get his Champion trike. Any way, this dealer agreed to do the repair/upgrade. This was in May/June. The parts were in within two weeks, according to the dealer.

Long story short, the first week in October, the dealer had still not set a date for the repair after several requests, stating that if he left the wing, it would be done when they got the time. My client was furrious and asked if he could do the repair with the parts that had been shipped to the dealer. The dealer agreed but said couldn't use his shop. Hense the approach to me.

We picked up the parts and by the next night had him on the road. Here is what we did.

The parts shipped consisted of two new yellow springs and a new set of backer plates for the wheels along with two replacement hex head bolts to attach the new backer plates.

The wheel must be removed, the brake caliper, (watch where the caliper shims are located and don't loose them during removal) as well as the wheel hub bearing and nut. The stock shock with the blue spring must be removed. I'll say at this point that the stock shock was supposed to be adjustable (according to Champion's litature) but with the smooth black anodized adjuster and no spanner wrench holes, was just not adjustable as a strap wrench nor a pipe wrench would hold on the adjuster. Only after the spring tension was released, could it be adjusted. Definately not a road side setup.

A Progressive shock tool is required to disassemble the stock shock by removing the original blue spring and replace it with the new yellow colored one. While the shock was apart, we took the anodized adjuster nut from the botom of the shock and drilled 8 - 9/32" holes 1/4" deep evenly around the side at approximately 5/16" oc from the top edge. This now matches the pictures in the installation instructions as Champion has posted but not the original shock used. We now can adjust the assembled shock using a spanner wrench with a 32.5 mm radius.

We assembled the shock and set the preload to 1/2 of the total adjustment area.

The stock backer plate needs to be removed to allow the install of the corrected one. The actual correction that Champion made was to move the lower control arm (A-frame) mount outward closer to the backer plate, at least as close as they could and still allow the installation of the plate. This effectively moves the bottom of the wheel inward partialy reducing the negative camber. (I would have moved the top mount farther away from the backer plate as needed to actually correct the camber as much as is needed. The finished product still has a 1/4" negative chamber at the top of the wheels. This is a vast improvement of the 3/4" negative chamber before the correction! But not perfect.)

The new plate installs perfectly except that the correction has necessated the replacement of one of the mounting hex head cap screw with a hex head bolt, due to clearance issues.

With the shock corrected, and the backer plate mounted to the wheel hub, installation is in reverse of the removal. Please NOTE: the brake caliper mounts to the replaced backer plate and the new one is tapped with a COURSE thread metric! The original is threaded with a FINE thread metric. New course threaded bolts must be bought or serious damage will result in a caliper failure!!! The downloadable instructions give the correct torque values to be used. Care needs to be used in the removal of the shock to keep the spacer used on the mounting bolts in order as if installed incorrectly will not allow parts to fit properly.

With the two of us and the extra work in drilling the adjustment holes, it was a 6 hour job from start to finish. Next tiime would be shorter as we now know what to do without the learning curve and some parts of the job could be done simultainously with two working at it.

The preload setting at 1/2 is working out just fine with the wing's owner and co-rider, at this time.

If anyone is buying a used or a new Champion trike, there are two things to look for to validate that the upgrade has been done. First the easiest is that the shock springs should be yellow and secondly the rear bottom bolt of the backer plate is a hex head bolt not the socket head cap screw as the other three are. Formost, you should look at the trike from the rear at some distance and observe the rear wheels. They should be verticaly 90 deg from the ground. After the correction they will be nearly so, but niot perfect.

Post script: His rear tires with 6000 miles on them this summer, had the inside edge (1-1/2") well into the wear bars, the center and outside edges were nearly new in tread depth.

We were not planning well and didn't take pictures of this project. Sorry.
__________________
In GOD I trust.

Keep your fork, for the best is to come.

GWRRA - 137150
AMA - 604485
TRI - 013057

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[Road Runner]

BiWing, Great post with good info. I had the modified knuckles installed yesterday at Georgetown Honda, (a Champion dealer). Took 1.2 hrs for labor. Wheels are much more vertical, although not perfect.

I am in contact with Champion to pursue reimbursement for the parts and labor totaling $372.
Thanks to Randy (Bazooka) for guiding me in this process.
Will post the results as they occur.

[Road Runner]

Bazooka (Randy)

Am in contact with Mike Miller at Champion, looks favorable for parts and labor reimbursement for the mod. knuckles. A major task was finding trike serial #. Needed that for warranty. I could not find it, even with several calls to Mr Miller while under the trike. Finally took it to a Honda/Champion dealer, they could not find it either, even after removing both wheels. They concluded that the serial # plate was not there. After all that, got the original owner name, etc, called Champion warranty dept, and they easily came up with Serial #. Things looking up, at this point. Will post final results later.

[Road Runner]

Champion has now refunded the charge for parts( mod knuckes), but not for installition labor. Thanks to Randy for helping with this issue.

[Papa Zook]

Glad to help RR. Kudos to Champion for taking care of the parts.