Uraling back to Colorado - Day 61: Covered Bridges with Bluekat and Ron

Great day for motorcycle riding today here in Willamette Valley, Oregon!  Temperatures ranged from low 60s to low 70s, sunny, mildly windy.  Traffic was light for the most part and I had a knowledgeable guide this time guiding myself and Ron to several covered bridges for which this area is known.

Kari, aka Bluekat, who has not been on a motorcycle since December of last year due to taking care of her daughter; who is now a cancer survivor, led the way and we enjoyed county two lane roads all morning long as we rode our way through several covered bridges:

 Larwood Bridge over Crabtree Creek

1939

 Shimanek Bridge over Thomas Creek

1966

 Hannah Bridge also built over Thomas Creek

1936

 Valencia is running well....

 Gilkey Bridge

1939

A truck damaged it and it was "reconditioned" in 1998

Hoffman Bridge

1936

Crabtree Creek

Kari, aka Bluekat, left us shortly before noon somewhere near the town of Sweet Home.  Ron and I rode a short distance to the town, had a quick lunch at the Subways Shop.

After lunch it was a few more miles of riding which included going over Foster Dam, the towns of Brownsville and Crawfordville before we finally arrived back at Ron's house in Lebanon, OR.

I'd reached 500 KM since the engine was rebuilt, so it was time to do an oil change.  The oil itself didn't look too bad, and it was missing that creamy bronze color which has indicated metal contamination due to the self-destructed races on the control rod bearing.

There was however, more swarf and some large metal flakes stuck to the magnetic plug used on the oil drain hole.

 Looks bad doesn't it, but in the end, most of it was the usual swarf, the 

large metal bits were probably lodged in some cranny of the engine and remained

even after Robert of Raceway Services cleaned out the engine casing.

Valencia's odometer is at 36,852 KM, I will be doing another oil change at 37,500 and probably one 1500 km later, much earlier than required, to ensure no further large metal shavings keep showing up.  I changed out the oil in the engine along with the oil filter.

I take Valencia back to Raceway Services tomorrow to have them check and probably re-torque the heads on Valencia.  Then, all being declared OK, will start once again heading home along I-84 and the Columbia Gorge.  Wish me luck!

Here's my planned route, lot of slab time I know, especially moving at URAL speed.

At this time, thinking my overnight locations will be Pendleton, OR, Twin Falls, ID, Price, UT and finally.....home!

Uraling back to Colorado - Day 60: Willamette Valley Riding

Willamette Valley is a rather large valley in which the cities of Salem, Corvallis and Lebanon reside along with many other smaller towns.  It reminds me of Wisconsin in that its quite bucolic, agrarian and has lots of nice two lane roads with farms and ranches alongside.

This morning, the idea was to ride as much as possible in order to have racked up 500 or so kilometers since the engine rebuild yesterday, for the upcoming visit to the dealer on Monday for a final check.

I got about half the required mileage accumulated, more riding tomorrow.  I spent the whole riding time staying close to Salem, just in case something went wrong so that I was within reasonable cost towing distance.  Can you tell I am having some trust issues with my Valencia right about now?  :)

But first, I went to Corvallis to the regular Saturday coffee meet of local motorcyclists.  Two fellow moto-bloggers were going to be in attendance:  Trobadour and Trobairitz.  Troubadour aka Brad, teaches MSF motorcycle courses on the weekends when not working his fulltime job at the Lowes Distribution Center.  Trobairitz aka Brandy is his lovely wife, I forgot to ask her what she does for work.  Sorry.

There was a pretty good turnout of riders and we all sat around the largest coffee table to talk about motorcycles and riding.  Quite an enjoyable time.  After a couple of hours though, it was time to get some riding in.  Brandy and Brad led me out of town and I took off to wander, at slower than normal URAL speed, through the country lanes of Willamette Valley.

Trobairitz and Troubadour with yours truly

This part of Oregon is apparently known for its old covered bridges.  I would end up finding two of them just by wandering around, both of them on Kings Valley Road:

 The Harris Bridge

1929

 The Ritner Creek Bridge

1926

 I believe this was in Independence, OR

A Grain Silo perhaps?

 A nice mural in the town of Independence (I think)

 Railroad Trestle

Despite the claim, I didn't find any covered bridges in/near this town.

I covered 320 km today, another 180 more needed for tomorrow's riding.  It might be more, have to check the manual to see if its 500 or 600 KM one must ride to break in a new engine.

Valencia did great, her engine sounds fine, and I might range further afield tomorrow.

Uraling back to Colorado - Day 59: Valencia gets her Heart Surgery.

First off, my grateful thanks to Robert, one of the ace mechanics at Raceway Services who accomplished great things today with elan and calm, thorough expertise and care.  All the folks that were there at Raceway Services today ensured that all my needs were taken care of, I know I've said it before but Jim Petitti runs a great shop and Frank, the new owner is a lucky man to have such a crew.

Second, my thanks to URAL for their continued outstanding warranty work support for this rider on a trip of a lifetime.  They sent the parts overnight and they showed up, all complete as requested, by 11:00 AM via UPS and Robert was able to get started on Valencia's heart surgery.

I call it heart surgery because the heart of a motorcycle is its engine.  Robert basically rebuilt it from the inside out by replacing the crank assembly, both pistons, the right side head assembly, all associated bearings and seals, and despite a couple of snags did it all in eight hours!  

 Above is the freshly cleaned out engine casing's front view

Below is the engine casing's rear view

 The new crankshaft, nice and shiny.  Sadly, the oil catcher still had to 

be cleaned out by Robert, it came from the factory with greasy crud in it, along with 

some metal fillings!

 I thought it was a bit tricky but Robert got the new crankshaft into the tight

space of the engine casing with no issues.

 The crankshaft's front bearing is pulled through with a special

tool, and readied for the installing of the timing gears.

Ready for the timing gears

Timing gears installed, 515 sealant (the grape colored stuff on the gasket) 

ready to be smeared prior to mating the front of the engine to the main portion.

 Flywheel now installed, Robert proceeds to install the right side jug's base,

easing the new piston in carefully.

The right side piston, nice and shiny

Here's a view of the scoring on the left cylinder's barrel.  Robert

didn't like the looks of it, and Jim had him hook it up to the  large

honing tool to smooth things out a bit.  I am to order a new barrel for later installation

once I get back home, under warranty of course.

To get me back on the road, Robert used the above honing tool to smooth out

the surface of the cylinder's barrel.  Quite the neat tool.  This way I didn't 

have to wait for a new barrel to be ordered from URAL.

A view of the honing tool, it basically rotates around the barrel's 

surface, removing imperfections such as the scoring, leaving shiny 

surface behind.  Care must be taken to not remove more than 1/1000ths

of an inch of material....for then the piston rigs won't seal against

the cylinder walls.

Robert removed about 95% of the striations, had Jim verify his work and Jim declared that it would hold piston rings just fine!

Once the engine was assembled, it was quick work by Robert to reinstall the clutch assembly, mate the transmission to the engine, reinstall the PowerArc ignition sensor, set the timing and together we manhandled the engine onto the motorcycle frame.  Man, that's one heavy sucker.  Through the judicious use of a motorcycle jack though, and Robert's expertise, we managed to get the engine secured without anyone getting hurt.

Then it was just a matter of hooking up all the wiring, bolts, screws and assorted connectors back onto the engine, reconnecting the exhaust pipes, gas tank, starter and air box.  Oil was next, carburetors were mounted and related cabling was sorted out.  

A compression test revealed 130 psi on the left jug (which had to be honed) and 140 psi on the right jug which has the new head.  So, within required spec of being within 10 psi of each other.  The psi figures should climb as the engine gets broken in by the way.

I left the shop at 7:00 PM, and taking it easy on the engine, rode along I-5 towards Lebanon, OR and Bluekat and Ron's home therein.  They've graciously invited to stay with them over the weekend.  

I am spending the weekend riding Valencia around the Salem/Corvallis/Lebanon area.....doing the 600 km engine break-in procedure of riding under 55 mph, using varying speeds, in order for the new engine components to "bed in" properly.  Wish me luck, I am making sure I am staying within easy towing range but I believe things will go just fine.

Then, a final checkout by Raceway Services on Monday and I should be cleared to go back to riding towards Colorado and home.

Uraling back to Colorado - Day 58: Valencia's Engine is Kaput

Woke up early and started heading back towards Salem, OR....back to Raceway Services for them to diagnose the annoyingly loud and nerve-wracking noises coming from my engine.  I checked the oil before I left the motel 6, and two more times until the worst possible thing happened.

About 75.25 miles from Raceway's location, Valencia's engine suddenly lost power and I heard a loud bang!  I immediately pulled in the clutch lever and coasted over to the side of the road.  I looked at her engine, found no holes in the engine case, and I'd been fully expecting to see a piston sized hole based on the noise I heard.

No evident damage but the engine was not usable.  Pushed her further off the road, as the truckers apparently like to see how close they can get to a vehicle parked on the side of the road without actually hitting it.  Stupid bastards.

Called for a tow truck, it failed its ETA and then failed to show at all.  This proved to be a good thing as they wanted $270 to tow me to Salem!  The second outfit only wanted $150 and they actually showed up pretty much on time.

As the tow truck approached, I elected to push Valencia a 1/4 mile further to the west so that he wouldn't have to go past exit 25 so he could then turn around and get on the westbound side of I-84.  Good exercise that, pushing a fully loaded sidecar rig on flat ground while trucks and cars whiz closely by at high speed.

 I look so happy.....not!

We got Valencia back to Raceway just before Noon.  Jim was kind enough to arrange food for me.  I ate lunch with Jim and we chatted for a bit while Robert started tearing into Valencia's engine once he returned from lunch.  I'd alerted Jim beforehand as to my troubles and he advised he had the guys standing by for my arrival.

Robert found massive metal particle contamination inside the engine.  He also found a partially frozen control rod on the right side piston.  It is believed that the races belonging to the bearing used by the right side control ride had disintegrated.  The resulting metal flakes/particles floated about, contaminated the needle bearings and caused the bearing to fail.

Once the bearing failed, the control rod no longer rotated as designed, which meant the piston it controlled was no longer on its designed path/stroke within its bore/cylinder.  The piston attached to the control rod went further than expected,and impacted the right side head.  I believe this is the load bang I heard.

This "disintegration" of the control rod bearing races is rare but the guys at Raceways have seen it before apparently.  The theory is, I think, is that when the crankshaft parts are pressed together into the complete assembly at the factory, some of the assemblies are pressed too hard and damage the races slight.  Use and wear and tear do the rest.  Again, it's a theory, no one is really certain.

All of Valencia's damaged parts will be going back to URAL for analysis, hopefully they'll figure out what happened so that it doesn't happen to some other Uralista again.

View of the right side head

Red arrow above shows where the piston hit the head, not good

Both pistons' sides were scored. both pistons will be replaced as

well as the crankshaft.

Its out of focus, yes, but you can see the massive amount of 

metal flakes/shavings from the disintegrated bearing races

 Above is Valencia's oil sump, lots and lots of metal particles

The ruined crankshaft, which will be replaced.  On the right side control

rod, one is able to pull it in/out slightly.  There's not supposed to be ANY lateral movement!

In sum, crankshaft assembly, right head, both pistons, all engine bearings (old ones are contaminated with metal particles), related seals and gaskets are to be replaced.  As I left for the day, Robert was finishing cleaning out the engine case and parts that are still usable; the left head for example.

The parts were ordered and were shipped overnight by URAL (they're covering the whole repair job under warranty) and will be here tomorrow.  Robert will hopefully then be able to put all the new components in, reassemble Valencia and turn her over to me for me to break the engine in over the weekend.

The plan is, do the engine break-in procedure (600 km) over the weekend, do a break-in oil change and examine the oil filter and oil thoroughly.  If all goes well, I take Valencia back to Raceway on Monday to have them do an inspection/re-torque things and just check things out.  So I'll be spending some more time in Oregon.  

I will be staying with fellow moto-blogger Bluekat at their home in nearby Lebanon, OR.  No room at the inn but I am quite happy to have a spot on their lawn to camp!  :)

Quite the day, full of lows and highs, but in the end, it's all good.  Raceway and URAL are once again providing the outstanding customer service/support I've come to expect.  So glad I listened to Martha, who "counseled" me to head for Salem instead of trying to push onto Boise and the new URAL dealer there.