Total Loss Ignition System installed.

Took me about an hour or so once I collected all the stuff and tools. Easy.

I bought yesterday a 125 Amp Hour Marine Deep Cycle Battery at Walmart, a pair of battery cables and a plastic storage box; got out of there for less than $120. Not too bad.

Assuming the figure I've read online of a Ural normally using 8 amps/hr, I should have with a fully charged battery about 15 hrs of riding time in terms of range before I have to recharge. Since I plan to run with the headlight on (it's the law here), we'll see what actual ranges come out to.

Cleaned up trunk, ready for install

Here's the marine battery in the plastic box I bought for it, all wired up

A closeup of the exit point of the battery cables to the motorcycle's small battery

View of motorcycle's regular battery, hooked up inline with the marine battery

Here's what you'll see when in traveling mode

Battery box with cover on, note the vents for battery gases

Yeah, it takes up some room in the trunk but the peace of mind I am hoping it'll give me in terms of not having to deal with another failed alternator should make it worth it. The battery weights 68lbs so it's ballast with a useful function!

The box is anchored to the bottom of the sidecar with a couple of steel bolts with locknuts and washers to help spread the load.

Now, to wait for the new timing gears to get here so I can put them on and reassemble the engine parts I took out.

Update: Researching the matter still, but have decided for now to isolate the smaller battery to prevent it from being "deep cycled" along with the large battery. It'll be the onboard "spare" which gets me perhaps 20 Amp/Hrs or maybe 2 hrs of riding time w/ headlight, probably 1 with headlight on.

Shopping for voltmeter to monitor the battery as well. Thinking also of wiring a switch into headlight circuit so I can cut off headlight when running low on juice.

Update: Small Battery isolated. It'll be the onboard spare. Just have to rig up some quick disconnects so I can isolate either battery easily.

Update: A very informative link to an article written by Ed Paynter who has been running a TLES system for over two years and over 35,000 Km! LINK

Update: 22FEB10:  Today I bought a second 125 amp/hr battery, same as the first one and hooked it up in parallel to the first battery.  Why you ask?  Because I've learned a few things using my TLES system.  Yeah, the 125 amp/hr will do what I want but to get the range I want, I have to drain it down to 10.5 which is full discharge.  This is bad even for a deep cycle battery, which turns out you're not supposed to discharge below 20% which correlates to 11.6 volts!  See chart below:

I ran my power usage requirements and desired range/operating hrs by the folks at a couple of places who sell deep cycle batteries and the consensus was I should be running a 255 amp/hr battery based on these requirements:

8 amps/hr usage (headlight on), and run it for a max of 12 hours run time.  I did not factor in amps consumed by the electric starter since it's hard to quantify without an ammeter.  Suffice to say, I use kickstart whenever possible (which means after the fifth kick or if I am in a hurry).

By hooking up a second 125 amp/hr battery in parallel, I retain 12 volts for the system and about 250 amp/hr of capacity.  I've tracked usage with the headlamp on and gotten about 200 miles range and drained the battery down to 10.8 volts.  I am hoping for about 400 miles and still be at 11.6 volts or above with two batteries.  We shall see.

My new TLES setup, yep, lost a lot of space in the trunk.  But can still fit all my tools!  I foresee a large ammo can bolted onto the side of the sidecar in my future though, for more lockable storage if the above arrangement works out as I hope.

Readying Natasha for the new Timing Gears

I ordered a new set of #5 Timing Gears from Wagner's Cycle yesterday. I spent most of today cleaning up the engine front cover area mainly. Removing the metallic shavings from the damaged gears, cleaning components, draining the oil and disposing of the oil filter. Lots and lots of metal shavings to be found throughout the process!

Went out and bought a deep cycle battery and cables for the upcoming install of the Total Loss Ignition System. Also picked up a three jaw gear puller from Checker Auto Parts.

The clumps of metal shavings that I washed off the timing gears tower.

The magnetic oil drain plug before I cleaned the metal shavings from it

Clean oil drain plug

This is the oil filter cap which holds the oil filter in the cylinder which is part of the front cover, yeah, more clumps of metal shavings mixed in with the oil.

The oil filter cap after I cleaned it up

Timing Gear Tower aka front end of the engine, all cleaned out

Note the damage at top of timing gear tower, hope it holds!

Now for the removal of the crank shaft gear!

The back of the engine front cover, nice and clean, note damaged areas at top hole where the alternator gear spun amuck before it finally sheared off.

The front of the front engine cover, the tubelike portion in the lower half contains the oil filter, the circular disk holds the ignition control module, the cam gear shaft will use the hole in the center.

After lunch, I undertook the removal of the crank shaft gear. The hardest part? Figuring out to how to assemble the gear puller with the right jaws in place. Once I did that, the rest was just grunt work.

I ended up using a 13/16 Socket, placed against the inner ring surrounding the crank gear bolt hole. That inner ring is part of the crank shaft itself.

Almost in its final position, here's the three jaw gear puller in place gripping the gear, the center screw pushing against the 13/16 socket which in turn pushes against the shaft itself.

You have to use a large screwdriver to block the gear puller jaws from allowing rotation by the crank shaft gear as you rotate the puller's screw inwards.

Voila! The gear is off, and you can see the bearings. Note, I had to use a breaker bar with a 17mm socket to turn the screw on the bearing puller's screw.

Natasha is now ready for the new timing gears.

Note: I'll be dropping the oil pan tomorrow to clean that out as well.

I'd like to thank the work of Bill Glaser and his Unofficial Ural Service Manual Website, and the postings of such Ural Gurus as JohnBG. Here's a couple of JohnBG's many informative postings on russianiron.com and sovietsteeds.com which relate directly to the repairs I am doing on Natasha.

Timing Gear Removal

Timing Gear Installation

I'd like to also mention Chris, of affordablebeemerservices.com, he suggested using a torch and Mapp Gas to heat up the crank shaft gear and at the last second hitting the shaft itself with a quick freezing "Freeze Spray from Wurth. The heated up gear should then slide right off. If the puller had not worked as easily as it did, I would have tried this method. In fact, it's probably the method I will try first the next time, if ever, I have to remove the cam shaft gear (the large one in the middle of the timing gear tower).

His method precludes the need to do all the engine disassembly that I did this past week, and when successful you remove the cam gear without removing the cam shaft. Assuming of course all you wanted to do was take the gear off.

Update 11OCT09: Took off and cleaned out the deep oil sump on Natasha. Glad I did and thanks to all who reminded me as well. There was plenty of metal shavings in the pan:

Yes, plenty of metal shavings, they were stuck onto the pan and took some scrubbing to remove

Ready for new oil

Once I put the oil pan back on, I put in new oil for both the engine (2.25L) and the transmission (1.0L) of Castrol 20W50 Motor Oil The old stuff in the gear box looked pretty clean. The stuff that came out of the final drive, came out black. I put in 135ml of 80/90 Gear Oil. So now I've a baseline of clean fluids for Natasha.

Thinking about going with a Total Loss Ignition System

No, I'm not making another crack about yet another crappy component on Urals!

My previous postings detailed the "issues" the crappy 35amp Russian alternator had caused me when its gear sheared off. This alternator is almost universally reviled in the online Ural forums. However, there's also people who say they've no issues with them. You have to understand, people don't log onto the forums to report all is hunky dory with their rigs, just the ones like me who are experiencing "challenges".

I ordered the new timing gears for my 750cc engine today, they should be here by midweek next week. They're also putting together a rebuilt 35amp alternator but will call before sending it to me to see if I still want it.

Why would they do this? Because after some research and talking with folks who've actually done it, I'm going to try and run the motorcycle without an alternator!

Huh? You say.... or in Mr Riepe's case, WTF?

First, a little background on why there's an alternator in the first place. The alternator is a small generator of sorts which generates electricity as its shaft-mounted magnets spin around within coils of brass wiring. The electricity goes to recharge the motorcycle's battery. The motorcycle's battery powers all the electrical systems on the bike such as the ignition coil which sends spark to the plugs which fire the air/fuel mixture in the valve compression chambers which turn the crank which drives the transmission. Hence, no electricity, no lights and no engine.

OK, so now you know why the alternator is there. Once the battery is dead, you're stuck by the side of the road like I was this past Monday. LINK.

To try and avoid another repetition of the Russian Grenade alternator, and the newer and costlier Denso alternators have had issues with the russian gear adapters too by the way, I am thinking of going with a Total Loss Ignition system.

What the hell does that mean? It involves getting a deep cycle trolling/RV battery with lots of amps and mounting it in a storage box within the sidecar's trunk. You wire it up inline with the motorcycle's regular battery. You cover the hole where the alternator mounts with a cover or in my case with the failed alternator since the gear is gone, otherwise you get oil all over the place!

Chris, of affordablebeemerservices.com, has been running the above setup on his rig

Why a deep cycle battery and not a regular car battery? Deep cycle batteries are designed to be drained of their charge before being charged back up. Car battery's are meant to be topped off steadily from an alternator. Deep cycling or discharging a car battery will eventually kill it.

The deep cycle battery, I am thinking of something in the 110-140 amp range, provides power for lights, ignition and start ups. The Urals draw about 8 amps per hour of riding apparently so a 140 amp battery should give me 17 hrs of power (probably closer to 12-14 since I'll be using the electric starter). That'll get me to the mountains and back with plenty of safety margin and using the headlight. Plug it in at night for 8 hrs and it should be ready in the morning. It'll damn sure last for regular work commuting on those bad weather/cold days as my commute now is less than 30 minutes of riding.

Benefits? The engine is much quieter as reported by Ural riders who've been doing this for years. There's no dreading the replacement alternator failing and taking out the timing gears again. The deep cycle battery will also act as ballast in the sidecar trunk! The 140 amp version from Sportsman Marine weighs 68lbs!

Cons? Heated gear will definitely lower the range. Not sure by how much as it depends on the power draw of the gear. It's something I am going to have to experiment with to see what my particular usage patterns tell me. I'll probably carry the battery charger with me just in case. I may even carry my spare motorcycle battery.

A voltmeter will be a definite must as I have to recharge before I get to below 10.5 volts or so, that's when the ignition will start to sputter and we know what'll happen next, right?

One guy has even rigged a solar power panel on the spare tire of his rig! Charge from the sun as you go!

More on this later, I'll assemble the components this weekend and install them. Then when the timing gears arrive, and I get them put on and the engine re-assembled, with a bit of luck I should be riding Natasha again by next weekend!

Rescued by a Russian

As I wrote last night, discouraged, I had decided today to have Natasha; my 1996 Ural Sportsman, trailered to Linden Engineering so they could remove the front cover and replace the timing gears and alternator.

We had bad weather today (I still rode to/from work though) with freezing fog and occasional snow that didn't stick to the roads. Linden had arranged for a tow truck company to get my Ural. They called me and asked if they could do it tomorrow since the weather was crap and their truck was undergoing some clutch work. I asked what the cost would be, was told $130.

Being the cheap guy that I am, this cost gave me pause and motivated me to try and remove the dang rpoc screws again tonight. Phil, the previous owner, had mentioned that perhaps an impact driver would do the trick. I mentioned this to Andre, my russian friend from my contract work at DIA for UAL, and he surprised me when he showed up at my house with an impact driver that he picked up at the auto parts store! I had just been expecting Andre to show up with screw extractors, you see. The cost was $14 and I am here to tell you, worth many times that amount!

Here's what an impact driver looks like, this one is from Sears. A wonderful tool, thanks for the tip, Phil!

Yep, the impact driver did the trick, we got the dang rpoc screws out with very little problems. The cover came off easily enough and this is what we saw:

Success! The cover is off!

Check out all the metal shavings at the bottom edge!

We had a heck of a time removing the cam gear and shaft. We thought all we had to do is clear the push rods from applying pressure on the cam gear's lobes. So we removed the rocker arm assemblies and removed the push rods on the left side and extended out the ones on the right as shown below:


This however did not do the trick. There was still something hanging up the cam shaft lobes.

Then, by using the great instructions and photos on Bill Glaser's Unofficial Ural Motorcycle Service Manual website, Andre and I were able to figure out the next steps in order to remove the cam gear. This is the large gear in the picture above. Had I been smart, I would have looked at the link beforehand and done it in the order shown, saved us a bunch of time!

We ended up having to, in order: (note, I am probably not using the right names, refer to the pictures)

• Loosen the rocker arm assemblies on both sides of the motorcycle and remove them.
• Once the rocker arm assemblies were removed, we removed the push rods on the left and extended them on the right. (See above picture)
• Remove the left side exhaust pipe from the left jug, which freed up the jug. You need the special pin wrench from the Ural toolkit to do this. Once loose, just tap the u-shaped exhaust pipe with a hammer till it comes off the jug. (Must buy myself a rubber mallet for such jobs)
• Pull the left jug enough so that its base cleared the engine case and the tappets were exposed behind the cylinder and cylinder heads (within which the push rods travel).

The left jug, once freed from the exhaust pipe, slid outward easily, note the tappets which were now free to move out of the way of the cam gear's lobes.

This freed up enough space so that when I pulled the motorcycle forward while in gear, the cam gear rotated more freely and I lucked out and stopped the motorcycle in the right position. By this I mean the cam shaft had rotated so that it's lobes were clear of the tappets inside the engine case. I was then able to just pull and it came out easily. We had been beating on it before....when we should have done the above steps beforehand. Now we know. I am very glad I did not have to loosen the right side jug, the sidecar being there makes it a pain in the butt to work on.

Now, I've just got to figure out if the cam gear comes off the shaft or does it come like that in the new set. I am hoping I can take it to a machine shop if it has to be pulled off and pay them to do that properly and easily.

Now to order the replacement timing gears and a rebuilt alternator. I know, I know, I should get the Herzog gears and the Denso alternator, I know! But the damn Densos are on backorder and I am unwilling to wait. I need to get Natasha road-worthy as it looks like an early winter for us. I truly believe if I am zealous about checking the clearance of the gear on the alternator, that it will last longer in spite of being a rebuilt version of the one that failed so thoroughly.

All that remains to be pulled is the crank gear, shown in place above. It's seemingly undamaged but will compare against the new one to make sure.

Here's a closeup view of the tappets (small metal tube within the round openings), the cylinders and cylinder heads mate up to them and the push rods are the actual contact on the tappets.

Here's the removed cam gear and shaft, to the left and right of it are the rocker arm assemblies, the small gear to the right is the oil pump gear that came off the opening on top of the engine, the cover for the oil pump gear is the big round cover at the base and to the right of the end of the cam gear shaft.

Just look at how the alternator's gear wore down the cam gear's teeth!

Another view of the left jug, pulled clear of the engine case, that round opening on top is where the oil pump gear goes into.

Just before I succeeded in pulling the cam gear and shaft out, I was visited by Mike, a fellow Ural owner who'd emailed me from my postings on russianiron.com. He's got a 2005 Ural Troyka and was interested in the work I was doing. I would have been too in his place. So now, I know a local fellow Ural rider, we can compare notes, go riding together and be support for the other in case one of us breaks down. It's all good!

My grateful appreciation to Andre for all his help so far and his steady confidence throughout this trying process. He's told me he'll be here for me as we put it all back together again.

Update:

I'd like to mention a tip from Chris, of affordablebeemerservices.com. He suggested using a torch to heat up the crank shaft gear and at the last second hitting the shaft itself with a quick freezing spray, both available from auto parts stores. The hot gear should then slide right off. It's probably the method I will try first the next time, if ever, I have to remove the cam shaft gear (the large one in the middle of the timing gear tower).

His method precludes the need to do all the engine disassembly that I did this past week, and when successful you remove the cam gear without removing the cam shaft. Assuming of course all you wanted to do was take the gear off.