Saturday, February 11, 2017

Scarlett Update and Fiona Maintenance Notes

Got an update from Jason, the VP of Operations/Support for URAL in Redmond, WA this week:

Sergey, the master URAL mechanic/guru had diagnosed the issue as a bad/failed connecting rod bearing which had locked up on the right side.   Ilya, the president of URAL, also piped in on FaceBook that they'd changed to updated standard roller bearing used in the crankshafts for 2015 URAL engines and that he didn't recall any issues reported yet on those.

From URAL's online parts catalog:

 Above items highlighted in green are the parts replaced.
The black arrow points to the connecting rod and the red
arrow points to the big bearing for the connecting rod which failed.

Both cylinders and heads, the left one shown above,
will be replaced.  Only item not replaced in above picture
are the #7 push rods and associated camshaft, lifters and gears.

The above items are based on this from Jason:  Sergey did a complete rebuild on the engine including new crankshaft, pistons, cylinders, heads, clutch w/flywheel, and all misc. gaskets, seals and bearings.

I'll have to ask Jason if he meant the entire clutch pack was replaced.

The rebuilt engine was supposed to have been shipped on Friday, February 10th and should be at Fort Collins, Colorado by the 17th, hopefully.

Kudos again to URAL for standing behind their product.  I wish it would have lasted longer but then again, I am glad it happened while the engine was under warranty!

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Fiona, my '99 Bural with the '87 R80 Beemer Engine got her gearbox and final drive oils changed out today, about 200 km late.  Switching to the new speedometer with its new odometer readings had thrown my calculated service intervals off a bit you see.

The engine oil was changed a little over 1100 km ago and really wasn't due till the 22,000 km mark on the old odometer but it had been looking dirty.  In order to sync things up, I'll be doing the gearbox/FD oil changes at the 2500 km mark on the new odometer (early) and proceed onwards from that point.

The beauty of the Beemer engine is that oil changes aren't due every 2500 km like on the older URAL engines, or even 5000 km like on the newer EFI engines but every 4500 miles or 7200km!  Still, I'll probably use the 5000 km interval for the engine oil as well, cheap insurance eh?


7 comments:

RichardM said...

So, did you change the filter? I'd be looking at modding the frame to simplify that task. Since I got my crankshaft in March 2016, can I assume that I have the new bearings? And the new ones are roller bearings instead of ball bearings?

Learning to Golf said...

Great news on Scarlett with Ural standing behind their product! Hopefully she will be home before the end of the month.

redlegsrides said...

I think that'd be a good assumption re the crankshaft bearings RichardM but I'd confirm with Mickey to be sure. As to type of bearings...I only have what the imz-ural site says: standard roller bearing.

I don't think the bearings are visible when one looks at the crankshaft are they? It does beg the question though, as Van Le's recent video showed roller bearings with tapered ends but now I don't recall what he was saying about them. All I remember is him saying the new roller bearings had rounded edges at the ends enabling them to bear loads better? I wish he had not taken the video down. Oh well. It is what it is.

I didn't change the oil on the engine today. Just the gearbox and FD. I'll be changing out the engine oil at the 2500km mark on the new odometer....whether I change the filter at that point or the next cycle is something I am mulling over.

redlegsrides said...

AZ AD, I hope it'll be sooner than the end of February before I get Scarlett back! And yes, once again Ural came through on their warranty. That extended warranty they put on their 2014s automatically sure paid off.

Trobairitz said...

Wow, Scarlett has been down and out quite a while now. Good thing you've got Fiona.

I wonder how long before she is race ready again. Hopefully by the end of the month like you mentioned above.

redlegsrides said...

Funny girl Trobairitz....race ready and URAL in the same posting. :)

BeemerGirl said...

Wow!! Incredible work being done. I'm very glad it didn't occur while you were on the road! Wait, or would it have been completed faster if it were? :)