Fiona gets new oil filter

02May2016

One of the minuses of converting a Ural rig to use a Beemer engine is that the oil filter cover on the engine is blocked by the frame of the Ural rig.  One has to drop the engine enough to clear the frame and access the oil filter cover.

Yep, you have to drop the front end of the engine to get at the cover.  Though it turns out in the case of Fiona, drop is not the right word.

Today was the first time I did it, seemed a pretty straightforward proposition and I'd talked it over with Richard Winter aka Bural on the phone before.

First, you remove the exhaust pipes from the cylinder heads and the mufflers.  This was easy, the finned nuts came off easy and I was able to tap lightly on the header pipes to remove them.  Oh, I also had to remove the horn to get it out of the way.

 The weird looking tool is called a pin wrench I believe, 

used in this case to loosen the clamps on the exhaust muffler pipes.

Spent some time positioning a stack of wood blocks and the hydraulic jack because I thought that once I removed the front support rod for the engine, the engine would plummet downwards.  That turned out to be not the case.

I removed the 19 mm nut from the right side of the front support rod and used it to double-nut the left side of the support rod so I could use a wrench to remove it from the engine case.

 This is as far as it would come out using the socket wrench, I then used

vise grips to pull the rod out from the engine case.  No big deal.

The next hour or so was spent trying to figure out why the engine would not lower on its own.  Much head scratching but no cussing ensued, tried loosening the lower bolts on the rear shocks thinking there was something binding things there, nope.  Finally, I noticed that the right cylinder fins were resting on the front lower attachment arm linking the sidecar to the tug!  Arrggh.

Glad I noticed that before I removed the swing arm pins, that would have been another PITA*.

So, I loosened the ball clamp holding the lower support arm to the tug, removed the lower mounting screw on the clevis joint for the front upper support arm and lifted/pushed the sidecar's nose away from the tug.  Now the cylinder had room.  Still no movement of the engine.  Hmmmm.

I left the wood blocks in place and removed the jack.  Due to what is a tight, tight, tight fit, I had to use a crowbar as a lever and carefully nudge the engine downwards. I inserted the crowbar from the front of the tug's frame, using the crossbar on which the horn is mounted as the fulcrum.   Finally got movement, I was then stopped by the raised rim on the right side push rod tube.  Still, it proved enough.

Now I was able to see the engine serial number on the left front side of the engine:

You can see below, the max amount I was able to lower the engine.  Looks like a tight fit for that top bolt eh?

Yes, very dirty, you'd think this rig had been riding in Moab or something.

Some judicious use of a large flat tip screwdriver enable enough space between the frame and that upper front bolt on the engine oil filter cover to be turned and removed.  

 Success!

Note: I found the gasket and rubber o-ring but not the metal washer.

The washer that was missing is #6 below.

source: realoem

The replacement oil filter I'd bought came with the complete set of gasket, o-ring and washer so no problem.

When I went to reinstall the oil filter cover, I realized you have to be a bit crafty when putting the engine oil filter cover back on, the top edge has to go in first then you gently nudge the cover in to place on the new oil filter and align the paper gasket properly.

Yep, had to use the large screwdriver again to ease the top nut into place and screw it in, the other two were easy.

I used the hydraulic jack to raise the engine back up and spent perhaps a good thirty minutes getting the holes aligned correctly.  This aligning was a medium sized PITA* by the way.  Finally got things lined up and I used a weighted mallet to hammer the rod in once I got it about 3/4's of the way into the engine case. Secured both sides with their respective 19 mm nuts.

Next I remounted the ball clamp mount onto the frame, tightened it and reinstalled the bolt holding the lower clevis mounting point for the front upper support arm.  This required some wrestling with the sidecar but no muscles were pulled that I can feel anyways.

Reinstalled the header pipes onto the cylinders and mufflers.  I applied anti-seize on the cylinder threads and muffler seal on the exhaust pipes to hopefully stop the backfiring I'd heard from the pipes.  No major drama with this part of the job, though I did have to loosen the rear bracket on the left muffler to get it to mate up correctly.

Now cleaned up, you can see what a tight fit it is between the frame

and the engine oil filter cover!

It's a very tight fit overall for the engine within this particular Ural frame.  Now I know there's no need to fear it dropping too far when removing the front support rod!  Next time I do the oil filter change, it should go much smoother, I hope.

Filter change done at 16,374 Km.  OAK, of the Airheads forums said its OK to change out the oil filter every 10K miles instead of every 5K miles, so next time I need to swap the filter is at 32k Km!  :)

Note to self, wash the rig first before working on it.

Took Fiona for a test ride in the evening, she ran great though there's still a bit of backfiring going on when slowing down to a stop.

24.8 MPG this last tank.

PITA* - Pain In The Arse