Repairs/Maintenance on Scarlett's Final Drive - the prep work

About two days ago I got the word from Randy F. (retired Ural dealer) that he was willing to do the work involved with replacing leaking seals and the worn driven gear hub on the final drive.

To prepare the final drive for transport to Randy's shop, I removed it (carefully slow due to my still recovering back) and cleaned it up.

The final drive is the component which takes rotating input from the primary drive shaft coming out of the motorcycle's transmission; converting it to rotating motion and "driving" the pusher wheel when in 1WD and also the sidecar wheel when in 2WD.

Here's the final drive, sort of cleaned up:

the arrow points to the driven gear

hub's teeth, onto which the rear wheel is

mated onto....

The worn out teeth of the driven gear hub are seen below.  Quite pointy.

Below pic shows the replacement driven gear hub, note what the gear teeth should look like when compared to the above pic:

Here's the mostly cleaned up final drive, along with the new driven gear hub that Randy will install.  The rubber boot goes on the sidecar drive shaft, I just zip tied it to hub to remind me to get a new one from Randy.

Next, I replaced the pusher wheel's splined flange, which mates the wheel to the final drive's driven gear hub.  Here's what it looked like before I removed it from the wheel: Yep, quite filthy.

again, very pointy

gear teeth

Why are both items' gear teeth so pointy you ask?  As they're "mated" or "coupled" together for operation, they induce wear on each other's teeth I believe.  Eventually wearing down the teeth in spite of periodic applications of grease by me. (usually during oil changes of the engine).

Here's the new splined flange before I reinstalled the mounting bolts and inside wheel cover:

mounting hardware installed.

To show you the wear, I coupled the old splined flange onto the old driven gear hub's teeth.  You can see how the gaps between the two sets of gear teeth were quite large.  

Next, I put the old splined flange onto the new driven gear hub's teeth.  I think I could have gotten away with not replacing the flange on the wheel but it would have induced wear sooner I think.  Not to mention, it wasn't a hard task.

All this work below has been long over due I'm almost sad to say.  I'd been thinking about replacing the driven gear hub on my 2014 Ural Patrol's final drive for quite a while now, but had put it off at any excuse.

For those of you who've been reading this blog for a while, you know that's quite unlike me.  I use to rush to repair or service, now, not so much.

There's an upcoming fork in my riding life's road ahead I believe.  Brigitta, my '87 R80 is gone to a new owner who'll ride it more than I had been.  Yagi, the 2006 TW200 is proving a bit unreliable with a sporadic charging issue.  Scarlett, my 2014 Ural Patrol has become a local riding only machine.

Part of me suspects that getting all this work done is to prepare for their eventual sale.  Who knows?  I'm coming up on 20 years of writing this blog, and loyal readers have seen it change ... 

Repeat Lesson on Motorcycle Starting Issues

Last month I had learned that the starting issues on Yagi, my TW200, boiled down to a bad battery not providing enough power to start the motorcycle.  I had wasted too much time thinking it was a starter relay, or starter switch issue when I should have checked the battery first along with its connections. 

Today, June 6th, I relearned this lesson. 

I had cleaned out and sprayed graphite lube into the starter on my 2014 Ural Patrol, and it was still having sporadic issues starting the engine. 

This morning, I took apart the ignition switch, to clean it out and while doing so one of the wires going to the kill switch broke off.  Hmmmm, possible culprit I thought.

I managed to resolder the wire onto the kill switch assembly and tested it to make sure it worked before putting it all back together. 

Once assembled, I now had consistent starter issues in that it would not crank the engine on despite many efforts! 

Instead, I learned a new diagnostic procedure, at least when it comes to my motorcycles. 

I hooked up my old battery charger / starter to the battery on Scarlet and she cranked right up! Multiple attempts were made and all were successful. 

I disconnected the old battery charger and the problems returned, pretty conclusive I thought. So there's a new AGM battery on order via Amazon, should be here in a few days. 

The testing had basically drained the old battery enough that it would not provide enough juice to crank the the starter and thereby the engine! 

Last Snowy Ride of the Year for Scarlett

We finally got some snow today!  Not much but enough to ride out with Scarlett, my 2014 Ural Patrol sidecar rig.

I went back to the Rocking Horse Neighborhood that I had ridden to on Thursday to show you the difference a little snow makes.

As you can see, very little snow in my area and it was mostly gone by Noon.  I headed out in 18° F temperatures which soared to 24° by the time I made it back home.

Almost didn't make it back home, I had been finding it hard to shift gears on Scarlett during the latter half of the ride.  Didn't want to stop and check out in the cold so I rode home thinking I'd have to adjust the clutch cable.

Well, it was a bit more than that...

There was but one strand left intact on the end that goes into the clutch lever!

No problem I said to myself, I've got a spare cable!  Well, it turned out to be not the right cable.  It was close, damn close, but the protective sheathing/ housing for the wire was 1.5" too long and wouldn't fit.  Tried for hours till I realized this and gave up.

Monday, December 29

I went to Golden Colorado to have lunch with fellow Uralisti Dan K. And John (spat) S.  Dan had a spare clutch cable from a 2003 Ural Solo that he bought a while ago in the hopes of rebuilding the engine. He said now that he's retired he might actually have time to do it! 

John S. was the only one who rode in the brisk temperatures we had today.

Lunch was at Woody's Pizza and the food and conversation went great.  A neighbor friend of John, Guy, joined us as well.

Once I got back from Golden, it was less than an hour before I had the correct clutch cable installed and all was good after a short test ride!  Though I doubt there will be any before the end of the year, Scarlett will be ready.

Presently toying with the idea of buying a clutch cable repair kit to fix the old cable, we'll see.  If anyone can recommend one, I'm open to suggestions!  A new cable is around $55 before shipping!

In the meantime, I found this on Amazon....might try it on the old cable And carry it for emergency use when on the road :

https://amzn.to/4b90cYS

Chores, Learning Correct Ways with Connectors and Small Repairs

Amidst rather nice weather, I've been catching up on household chores.  

I also realized finally and youtube'd some lessons on the correct way to use butt and crimp connectors for low voltage wires.  I'd been doing it with the wrong tools and methodology you see; now I have new wire crimpers which should lead to better repairs in the future.

Changed the oil on both the Onan 4KW generator on the VRRV and also the Predator 2K Generator.  I've lost track of the hours on the Predator so I just change its oil when I do the Onan generator, which is at least every 50 hours of operation.

Changed the engine oil and filter on the VRRV, she's now over 119K miles.  I bought her with 22,240 miles on the odometer back in 2016.  That works out to an average of about 12,095 per year.

Received a replacement for the Chicology Blinds that broke in the VRRV.  Gotta like a company that stands behind their product!  It's installed and hopefully will last a while.

Paused briefly to shoot a pic of my neighbor's tree as it steadily begins to lose its leaves:

The trees in the neighborhood are also in the final stages of Fall Colors but not finding the motivation to go get those pics.  It's not the same with houses in the background.

Fixed the Aluma trailer's wire connection to the VRRV, again.  Though I'd done a good enough job last time but a bare wire on the right rear light had grounded and caused lots of current to flow and generated enough heat to burn things up!

Scarlett, my 2014 Ural Patrol Sidecar Rig's front brakes had felt "mushy" when I last rode her.  Today I checked the pads (close but still good) and then discovered a failed speed-bleeder valve.  The rubber cap had come off a while ago it seems, dirt got into the opening and air got in.

Luckily I had a spare in stock, installed it, bled the brakes and all good now.

Normally, you'd see a small ball bearing sealing

the opening above

I keep rotating through the motorcycles as I run chores and such, no riding for pleasure since I got back from camping.  Mostly though, working on regaining trust in Yagi, my recently repaired TW200.

A neighborhood friend, Chip C., who's a pretty good handyman/mechanic has agreed to swap the wiring harness on the stators so that I have a good "spare" for Yagi.  My soldering skills remain crappy but I bought a "helping hands" tool based on Chip's suggestion for the next time I try soldering wires:

It's been a series of nice and warm afternoons with cool mornings in the 40s-50s.  Snow is rumored for the latter half of this coming week, we shall see.

Load Exercise: Getting a "Deadlined" Ural Sidecar Rig onto a Trailer by Myself

Lately, self-recovery has become a topic of much interest to me, due mostly to the problems I had with my TW200: Yagi, a couple of weeks ago.  LINK.

This morning, I decided to actually try and use the "Come Along Tool" or Cable Winch Puller Tool that I've been carrying in the VRRV for years.  Simple tool, lots of finger pinching potential and I'd never used it till today.  In fact, had to Youtube the procedure to get it to "lock" and be ready to winch!

It took me some time to figure out how to lay out and adjust the two ratchet straps and one cam buckle strap used in conjunction with the come along tool.  

As this was practice (The Ural is working just fine for a change), the straps I used were the ones I normally tie down the rig onto the trailer.  I think I need to use heavy duty locking carabiners for safer operations in the future.  Open hooks aren't safe if they fail!

As I was by myself, there wasn't someone holding the front tire pointing straight, so the third cam-buckled strap was used.  First on the left side of the handle bar to keep the front tire from turning right as it negotiates the ramp hinge; then on the left side of the handle bar to keep it from drifting right.   (you'll see in the video)

All in all, the first attempt took a bit of time, the second and third attempts went much faster.  Practice makes perfect right?

The come along required little effort to winch the rig along, up the ramp and onto the trailer.  Way less effort than using the z-drag system I'd recently bought for use with Yagi, my TW200.  (more on this z-drag system in future post).

The z-drag system actually worked to drag the Ural up onto the trailer as well though, just requires more muscle and time.

The video is run at 4x normal speed to hopefully prevent boredom on your part.

Now I feel more confident in being able to load a non-functioning Ural sidecar rig (estimated weight 800 lbs +) onto a trailer by myself.  Sure, a powered winch would make it even easier of course but it's what I have for now.  

A manual boat trailer winch would work as well but would have to be anchored permanently, as is a powered winch.  The come along tool allows some flexibility in other scenarios.  Not to mention, I've been spending too much money lately on stuff.

And, as you probably noted in the video, I need new tires for the sidecar rig!

July has not been a good month for me so far.

First there was the ignition system wiring issue with Yagi, my Yamaha TW200.  (See previous post)

Monday of this week, on day one of a camping trip near Vail, CO, my cell phone died. I thought it had been my fault for carrying it in the trunk of the sidecar but it turned out to be a swollen battery which caused the screen to bow out from the inside!  

I canceled the trip and returned home:

I have device protection on all the phones in the family so replacing it, though somewhat an arduous ordeal, resulted in an exact replacement and I am back online.  

Truly amazing how one's phone has become such an important thing in proving you are who you say you are to anyone out on the internet.

Then on Wednesday of this week, as I was tying down Scarlett, my Ural Patrol sidecar rig onto the trailer, I found the front tire flat!  I re-inflated it before I departed the house but yeah, there's a slow leak in the inner tube.

Of course, I left the spare inner tubes at the house.  So I'll be limiting my rides to short ones with frequent checks on the air pressure of the front tire during the current camping trip.  

The nearby motorcycle shop in Woodland Park isn't licensed to work on "street" tires so while they had the inner tube, they couldn't swap it in for me.  Yeah, I could do it, even have the tools but the fact I've several spares at home make the cheapskate in me wait.  After all, it isn't like I haven't explored the surrounding area quite extensively both on Scarlett and Yagi during previous stays.

I'm back near the site I occupied in the last post near Rampart Range Road a few miles north of Woodland Park, CO.

The vrrv had been hard to start this morning so I stopped at an Advanced Auto Parts Store to have them check the chassis battery. Their tester declared the battery bad so I had to spend some money to buy a new one right then.  I guess 8 years is a good run for a truck battery.

One last thing, the left side light on the front cargo rack on the VRRV broke off again, luckily it stayed with the RV via it's wire connections.  It happened as I drove down to the campsite apparently.  I've applied JB Weld for plastic and it should be OK by Saturday.

Here's sunset on Wednesday night:

The next thing to go wrong was something I'd fixed two camping trips ago.  The accumulator for the water pump started cycling on/off when no water was being used at a faucet.  The last time, charging the accumulator's air reservoir to 30 PSI did the trick.  This time, that is not working.  I've ordered a replacement.

So why Rampart Range again you might ask?  There's a "tentative" plan to have Thing Two and friend meet up at my campsite, and we'll do some target shooting in the Pike National Forest sites nearby.

One thing that has gone right, the side shade panels for the VRRV's awning are working quite nicely:

Side panels is temporary storage mode

when awning is stowed

It's like having an enclosed patio....

So, I guess I'll just have to relax in the warm temperatures and sunny conditions.  It's warm but not as hot as back home where it's about 10-15 degrees hotter!

More Snow is "Mo Better"

Hope everyone had a great Christmas Day yesterday!

I recall the weather forecast calling for little to no snow overnight.  So of course, we got like 4-5 inches of the white stuff and woke to snow-covered conditions.

Of course, this led to Scarlett and I motoring out after clearing off the driveway and the neighborhood sidewalk.

At Eaglecrest High School:

At the Plains Conservation Center:

Near the Saddle Rock Golf Course:

Back to the ranching neighborhood near Blackstone Country Club:

Almost got stuck turning Scarlett around at the bottom of the hill pictured below:

In the Travois neighborhood:

Zoom in to see the peak on Mount Blue Sky

formerly Mount Evans

Scarlett had pretty good traction throughout though some spots were deep enough with snow to cause me to engage 2WD.  

I did experience a possible serious issue with the throttle not lowering on left hand turns; this turned out to be a mis-routed throttle cable when I mounted the windshield back on this morning.  Easy fix by the roadside.

A few times, Scarlett's rear end swung to the right when coming to a stop on slick spots or accelerating from such.  No big deal and easily dealt with through steering and throttle inputs.

The lower right mounting point I'd "fixed" with some JBWeld for plastics seems to be holding, hopefully a long term solution for Scarlett's big windshield.

Though I had a set of tire chains with me for Scarlett, no need to use them in the conditions encountered.

Scarlett has a New Clutch and Swing Arm

During most of the past two days or so:

Well, it took way, way, way longer than I expected but Scarlett now has a new clutch pack and is once again drivable.

I'd received some time ago, a replacement swing arm from IMWA (Ural).  It had been sent to me after I reported that mine had broken apart while in Utah.  Link.

I'd taken such a long time to replace the swing arm since the welded version did work, though it was slightly misaligned.  It necessitated more work to change out the pusher wheel for instance, to allow for the misalignment but it was something I got used to.

Now, since I had to push the swing arm to the rear to remove Scarlett's gearbox to access the clutch, I thought I might as well change out the swing arm.  No, I didn't want to remove the engine from the frame to work on it.  Looking back, it probably would have been easier but since I had the replacement swing arm....

Things were taken apart without any major issues.  The swing arm took a bit of creative maneuvering but nothing too complicated.

I was presented with lots of clutch material in the form of black dust all over the clutch components and flywheel:

The flywheel, where the clutch disks reside,

prior to cleanup.

The clutch pad disk closest to engine.

Of the two clutch pad disks that comprise the Ural's clutch pack; the front one was basically destroyed.  As you can see above, it had broken apart.  I could lift the thin sheet of remaining material off the disk backing, easily.  The second disk, closer to gearbox, seemed in OK shape.  I'll be keeping that one but not the other metal plates/rings as they were heat damaged at the very least.

Here's the flywheel after I cleaned it up:

Took me a few tries at least to get the new clutch components lined up and screwed down.  Before I could even start, one trip to the hardware store was required to get two 60mm long M8 x 1.25 bolts and nuts to uncompress the old components and compress the new ones into place.  The ones I'd used before over the years?  Burnt up/lost during the fire that caused me the loss of Fiona, my BMW engine Ural.

After the second attempt, I had to take it all apart because I had placed the cover plate backwards!  Doh.

An old transmission input spline gear is used to line up the two new clutch plates center hub gears:

Next two pics show the clutch pack in place, and you can see the center hub gear teeth are aligned.  Note the square hole onto which the clutch actuating rod is inserted.

I used red Loctite on the six screws

The next day, I started work on re-assembling all the components.  Took me quite a bit of time and some calls to RichardM and Darrel S. to talk over ways to fit the clutch actuating rod through the rear of the mated to engine gear box, and onto the little square hole shown above.

There's at least three methods now known to me, but it was RichardM's method that ended up working for me after many attempts with forceps.  I didn't even try the small rubber tube method!  

It took me many attempts because the square hole in the new pressure plate was tight.  In frustration, I took the gearbox off the engine again and checked to make sure the rod would even go in!  In fact, the first attempt to do so directly failed!  The square was very tight.  I got the rod in and out several times until it was easier to slide the square end of the clutch actuating rod into the pressure plate!

Note: you can tell when you've successfully inserted the rod, the thrust washer assembly goes into the gearbox deeper than when the rod isn't in the right spot on the pressure plate in the clutch!  Trust me, I thought I had it in the right spot, twice, and after fiddling with clutch cable found it too tight both times.

I hung the gearbox on the two mounting screws coming out of the engine case, leaving enough of a gap to be able to see the rod as I once again tried to push it in through the gearbox.  Success!  

Following RichardM's advice, I used a thin flat tip screwdriver to hold/put tension on the rod visible between the clutch pack and the input spline on the gearbox to prevent it from moving backwards when I withdrew the small nut drive on a magnetic extension that I used per RichardM's suggestion.

Next major issue was installing the new swingarm.  Took me a bit of time to figure out the way to twist the sucker onto the frame.  Lost a lot of time trying to thread it through the wrong part of the frame mind you!  Sigh.

I had to enlist my next door neighbor's assistance to remount the two shock absorbers onto the new swing arm as one has to fight the shock's compressing springs, so that took a bit of time as well.

That joyful task done with, the rest of the components went on without too many tears and cursing on my part.

The new major issue was the rear wheel's brake calipers.  Though I wasn't replacing the pads, I couldn't put them back onto the caliper when mounting it to the rear disc!  The brake piston you see, I couldn't compress it to allow room for the old brake pads!

At least two joyful hours and extreme exhaustion on my part, I gave up and just hung the caliper out of the way for another day.

Finally got most everything installed and after some adjustment of the clutch cable to prevent Scarlett from creeping forward with clutch engaged, I went for a short test drive.

I'm happy to report the new clutch works fine!

Today, I rested and did other chores about the house.  In the late afternoon, I used a brake pad separator tool and damn if the piston didn't start moving inwards finally!  Of course, in my efforts previously, all brake fluid had been leaked out so I must get more DOT4 fluid to fill then bleed the brake caliper.  Perhaps Wednesday after I get the new speed bleeders for Scarlett's brake calipers to make thigs easier.

Yep, I'd installed speed bleeders before according to my maintenance spreadsheet but the one on the stubborn bake caliper sure seemed to be sucking air back in!

Such are the vicissitudes of a Uralista's life, that and I really shouldn't be allowed near tools some days.

Still, the job is done, soon Scarlett will be close to 100% and we can move on to other things.

Update: June 27 - Got the piston to retract using a different tool, remounted the caliper and oriented it so the bleed valve was pointing up and tried to bleed the air out of the system.  Over an hour of pumping later, realized something wasn't right.  A quick call to RichardM provided the answer, when one is refilling a caliper, the caliper itself must be the highest point from the brake cylinder!  Doh.

So I raised the pusher wheel above the cylinder, a few more pumps and no more bubbles!  Sigh and Yay.  Got Scarlett buttoned up, went for a successful test drive and cleaned her up.  Must rest.

Scarlett needs a new clutch

June 19, Monday

A very windy day today!

Here's yesterday's sunset:

We set off on Scarlet after breakfast, to go find the Flaming Gorge Rock formation.

Once we got on Utah 44 the winds got really strong, to the point where a couple of times I was barely in control of the rig it seemed. Martha reports at one time the sidecar seemed to be in the air!

To top it all off, there was a series of steep uphill climbs which eventually forced me to go into second gear in order to maintain any kind of momentum forward!  I rarely have to go into second gear so this was confirming to me the clutch needed replacing soon.

After a rather rough downshift into second at one hill, I pulled over to take a look at stuff. It was at that point that we agreed that perhaps it was too windy to be riding today as well.

I had to adjust the clutch cable in order to get some working performance from the clutch. I think the clutch pads are now worn to the point where shifting requires more effort than usual.

Still, got Scarlett turned around and back down the hills, through the town of Manila and back to the campsite with no issues.  Both Martha and I complimented Scarlett on being a good girl and getting us home safe.  I got Scarlett loaded up on the trailer and secured with only minor issues.

Clutch pack has been ordered, it should be close to home by the time we are home later this week.

To calm my nerves down afterwards, I rode Yagi, my TW200 around the State Line Cove Campground area...once again checking out the rock formations.  Temperatures were in the mid-70s but it felt much warmer under the sun!

The first pic is of a couple of hilltops visible from the swim beach, it looks like a flat grassy patch of grass between the rocky hill tops.  Weird.

A very much more sedate version of the Vermillion Cliffs:

Edge on, the same rock formation as previous pic

We hung out at the VRRV the rest of the day; the strong wind gusts occasionally shaking the VRRV.

As I chipped away at a large clump of mud under the camper's left rear corner, I realized the extension rod for the gray water tank valve was gone!

A little stub of the valve's control rod remains so I can use vise grips to open the valve when dumping tanks.

All in all, we got of lucky so far from our mudfest incident.