As I'm in travel mode, it was simpler to go to Richard (the main welder and owner)'s place of business which is adjoining his father's home. He was trained by his Dad and trained well, in my opinion.
The place was a bit messy but it all became a moot point when Richard started working his magic.
It didn't take me very long to dismount the swing arm, and I handed the two parts over for Richard to start work on:
Richard had been concerned he'd seen rust in the pictures I'd sent ahead of my arrival but it was all just Utah red dust.
both ends were cleaned up prior to the welding
spot welds to hold the two parts together
Richard working his magic
The initial weld, Richard said it'd probably was enough,
but he added another layer AND a reinforcing steel band
After the piece cooled down enough, I started working on putting things back together. The swing arm actually went in pretty easily, as well as the shock absorbers, drive shaft, and Final Drive. The hard part turned out to be inserting the axle into the wheel!
Usually this is pretty easy for me, with rarely a hammer required. Now though, there was a bit of a clearance issue between the thicker portion of the axle and the hole secure by a pinch bolt on the left side of the tug! Couldn't have been more than .5mm but it stopped things pretty good.
Spent way too much time trying to figure out a way to do it without damaging anything and finally got the right angles and pressures to enable to get past the "obstruction" and hammer the axle all the way in.
Yep, it'll probably be a bear to remove, but I plan to possible enlarge the hole when I get the rig home later this month.
One theory is that I had removed the passenger foot pegs which have a small rubber donut to cushion vibrations; this donut is what the swing arm rests on.....perhaps the lack of the donut on the left side was causing the clearance issue?
Unfortunately, the donut got lost in the shuffle of the last two days. So I have to find me another one to prove that theory.
Anyways, I did get everything together, the wheel spun free and no clearance problems with the welded swing arm. I was very relieved and impressed with Richard's work!
It was approaching 3PM by this point and I just buttoned things up, strapped Scarlett back down and headed out to find a campsite at Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area, to the west of Las Vegas.
Here's a view of the welded/reinforced area of the swing arm.
Here's what it looked like before:
I have high hopes for this fix. I'll find out for sure tomorrow when I can get going at higher speeds. I did some slow riding around the campsite and everything held together just fine. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
9 comments:
The alignment of the axle holes was why I suggested that you may need to have the final drive and axle installed while welding the swingarm. But it sounds like it’s pretty close...
Yep I did the checks to the point of ensuring clearance for the swingarm, wheel....it’s dam close on the axle holes.....I think grinding off less than .5mm on the Inner Diameter of the pinch hole will do the trick. I look forward to meeting up with you guys so you can check it out.
Hopefully you will replace the swing arm when you get back home. I wouldnt trust that repaired part, even at Ural speeds!
The welding should last long enough till Ural replaces it, as they’ve agreed to do. No other outfit stands by their product like Ural! Just wish sometimes I didn’t have to have them prove it so often.
clearly they are not designed for the abuse you give them! :-)
Diamond Dave, me? abuse my rigs? surely not.
I got an email response from Ural HQ, and they've seen this particular breakage in other rigs as well; looks like a design weak point.
A good welder is a godsend. The riding gods smiled on you with this one. Glad to hear you are back in the saddle and the trip was not terminated.
Indeed CCjon, it would have been quite boring and inconvenient to continue with the rig down, still got about two more weeks of travel....perhaps a bit less
Follow Up re re-assembly difficulties: I have to loosen the four nuts securing the FD to the swingarm to allow enough “play” for the insertion of the axle into pusher wheel hub.....some light hammering still needed but at least it’s doable now.
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