Scarlett's 1000 Kilometer Service

Started this morning checking the valve clearances on Scarlett, the intake valve clearances were spot on, the exhaust ones were a tad loose so I tightened both sides up, no issues.

Then I spent the rest of the morning hunting down the "Generic" motorcycle oil filter that is now used by 2014 Ural Sidecar Rigs.  By "Generic" I had assumed, and read online, to mean readily available.  Not quite.  Tried two different auto parts places, called a Yamaha dealer, and finally a guy at a NAPA store said one of their branches had one.

The model is a WIX 57207 or Mann W75/3.  The one I found locally cost me $23 and since today was oil change day, I paid the price.  The Mann filters are available online from Amazon for a bit over $9 each, guess I'll be stocking up on those soon; to be used on future oil changes.

Fun Trivia fact, the guys at NAPA looked up what car would actually use the WIX 57207 and their database only reported one U.S.car:  The 2006-07 Nissan Micra.  Micra? Yeah, never heard of it either.

This supply issue aside, changing the oil filter proved to be oh so less messy that the old Russian Oil filter setup on the pre-2014 rigs!  No oil drips from the filter or it's mounting point whatsoever.  I changed out the engine/transmission and final drive oils as usual, no issues but there was the expected "swarf".

 Above is the engine oil drain plug, looks gnarly but it was all

soft swarf except for one thin filament.  I fully expect much

less swarf at the next oil change.

 This is the fill plug for the transmission, the drain plug didn't have much

swarf on it, again, it was all soft stuff.  Not totally unexpected as 

the engine was being broken in.

Still sporting a coating of Final Drive gear oil, this is the drain plug

for the final drive, again, all soft swarf, no large or hard bits.

Took Scarlett out for a short ride, no leaks, and she ran just fine.  I topped off the engine and FD oil when I got home.

I am happy to report no metallic shavings/flakes/dust particles on the inside of either valve cover or the rockers/rods and upper surfaces of the jugs.

Rest of the services are inspection only, air filter, spoke tightness, etc.  I'll finish those off today and tomorrow.

Further research revealed a list of compatible oil filters compiled fy fellow Uralista: Darrell S.:

Oil Filters

Mann W 75/3
Napa Gold 7207
Fram PH10959
Fleetguard HF7615
Baldwin B307
Carquest 84207
Wix 57207
Bosch 3300
Napa Gold 1365
Mobil1 M1-108

Air filters:

K&N 33-2022
AC Delco A974C
Buick 25095333
Fram CA3916
Motorcraft FA1085
Napa 6139
Purolator A33590
Spectre HPR3916
Ural 104015075
WIX 46139

SpeedBleeders

Front Caliper - SB8125..........M8 x 1.25mm x 27.99mm long
Rear Caliper - SB8125...........M8 x 1.25mm x 27.99mm long
Sidecar Caliper - SB1010S......M10 x 1.0mm x 31.35mm long

Uraling to Unique Rides' Ural Demo Day

Today was Unique Ride's turn to host the traveling URAL Demo Days's Dave and his demo URAL sidecar rigs.

I rode out around 9:00 AM and by 11:30 I had gotten there with Scarlett, we took a bit longer than usual as we stopped for pictures of Long Peak along the way.  Oh, and Scarlett went over 1000 Km today so I'll be performing her first service tomorrow.

 Long Peak from County Rd 32, near the I-25 Super Slab

Shot with 16X zoom

Photoshopped version

There was already several folks at Unique Rides, several of them being fellow Uralisti who'd come to check out the EFI rigs.  I saw some new folks as well and met with several of them over the course of the next few hours.

In particular, two gentlemen I met stood out in that one brought a spiffy KLR 650 Sidecar Rig with an old Jawa sidecar frame attached, very cool.  The first one was Jim K was his name and I'll be adding him to the Uralisti email list for future rides.  I am curious how this rig will do alongside the URALs:

Jim K's KLR650 Sidecar Rig

The second gentleman I met was Brad B, a fellow Army Veteran from the Infantry though he's much younger than I, having fought in the more recent conflicts.  My first view of Brad was of him astride one of the demo rigs with his service dog "Captain" in the sidecar:

Brad and Captain

Captain is a service dog, helping Brad deal with the PTSD he developed while serving  in combat.  We had some long conversations and Brad definitely has stories to tell.  I hope someday to help him tell the story of how he found remnants of several URAL motorcycles over in Iraq, and his mechanics pieced one together to ride about near his compound in Iraq:

 As a First Lieutenant of Infantry in Iraq

Another shot of two year old "Captain" A Combat PTSD Service K9.

A very friendly yet highly disciplined dog, I was very impressed.

I also met fellow Uralista Mike M but failed to get a picture of him with his gorgeous 2013 all red Tourist.  His rig was immaculate and of course, of the correct and fastest color choice!  Instead, I stole this picture from his Facebook page:

Mike's 2013 Tourist

Finally I met another Uralista named Paul who had a forest fog GearUP, he'd driven up with a buddy of his for parts and stuff and we chatted for a bit.  He and another lady remarked that they read this blog, it's always nice to run into folks who read one's stuff.

Here's some pictures of rigs that stood out to me out of the many motorcycles, sidecar rigs, trikes, and scooters at Unique Rides.

 Here's Tammy's custom painted sidecar rig, simply beautiful isn't it?

 Valencia, along with the other rigs that are for sale at Unique Rides

 Quite the eye-catches, a Royal Enfield with Sidecar Rig

I spent the day at Unique Rides, talking with folks and learning some new things about my rig from Dave, the URAL rep who is taking the demo bikes around the country to all the dealer demo days.  I'd met Dave before when I visited URAL Headquarters on my way north to Alaska last year.  Dave was a fount of knowledge and tips and both Randy and I learned new things today.

Randy, owner of Unique Rides and Dave of URAL  posing

by a "Sage Green" 2014 Gear UP

It was great to see fellow Uralisti, Darrell and his lovely wife Piper on their 2014 Patrol "Babe" as in Paul Bunyan's Blue Ox, Roy and Janet N., Tim L, Steffen and his son Nicholas, Mike Byers, Nick from Loveland, Dan K from Blackhawk who had to drive a cage since there was 15" of snow on the ground at his home in the mountains!  Apologies if I forgot anyone, there was just so much going on today!

Everyone who took one of the 2014's out for a demo ride came back impressed with the torque on the new rigs, I didn't hear anything negative and there were a lot of smiles on faces!

I didn't leave until close to 5:30 PM, arriving home two hours later tired and hungry but glad for the time I spent at the Ural Demo.  Good people, sidecar rigs, new friends and old friends.....truly a good day.

A Non-Moto Ride Report

I type this posting, which contains zero motorcycle content, saying to myself it's "ok", it shows Wyoming Scenery, the readers will forgive me.

I drove a rental truck to Riverton, Wyoming this week to do some work at two of the sites owned by Encana Natural Gas.  Encana, is the outfit I am doing contract network engineering for right now.

Wyoming gets a bum rap for being a state of very strong windy conditions, and not much else.  Here's some sights one sees along the way to and from Riverton, that just goes to show, beauty is where you see it.

And yes, I know, it's not the same with a truck in the picture.....

 It was sunny conditions on the way up to Riverton

 Near Split Rock, WY

 Foggy/Hazy conditions early in the morning as I drove back to Colorado today.

The above two shots were taken on Ty Basin Road near

Chugwater, WY.

That's it for this posting, the first and probably the last posting featuring a cage as the foreground subject.  It was just shy of 1000 miles driven for business; and no, taking the rig wasn't really an option as the scenery around Riverton isn't that "great", and there was equipment to schlep for work.

Oh No, an embargo on Russian Motorcycles?

Woke this morning to this headline on the Washington Post!

Washington Post: LINK

Then there's this from FoxNews:

Fox News: LINK

You know, there'd been rumors of such actions by the U.S. government as they deal with the ongoing crisis involving Russia and the Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula but I didn't think it would really affect the imports of URAL Sidecar rigs and such!   Click the links above for the full articles:

If the above links don't work, please click here:  LINK