New Battery

Marc and I have hopefully figured out what was plaguing Smut’ka: a dead battery.

When she was delivered last Tuesday, she started up fine in the morning.  But, when we tried to start her that evening, it was just a lot of fruitless kicking, and she wouldn’t turn over.  We checked Soviet Steeds, and most folks said that it was likely a spark plug problem.  We wanted to see if it was possible to get the bike to run at all, and we bump started her by pushing her up the hill in our parking lot, then rolling her down it with me aboard, working the clutch.  It worked, and the next 2-3 times we tried to start her, she worked.

Then, things started to go downhill.  She would start on the first or second kick, but then once she was turned off, she wouldn’t start again.  We were stumped, though the Soviet Steeds folks said that it was likely something very simple that was the problem.  At this point, Smut’ka was only starting up for me, which frustrated Marc.  Ironically, it was his epiphany that helped us figure out what might be wrong.

He was riding Smut’ka around the parking lot, and since it was night, we noticed that the headlight and turn signals were getting dimmer and dimmer, and eventually they turned off altogether.  Then, 3 minutes later, the bike died and wouldn’t start again, no matter how many times we kicked the starter.  After a lot of frustrating attempts to bump start the bike again, we gave up and went back inside.

Friday morning, Marc realized that the dimming headlights pointed to an electrical problem, likely a battery problem.  Some inquiries into the forums yielded similar responses.  We checked the battery with a voltmeter and the already low numbers were decreasing before our eyes.  So, we removed the battery and took it to Crossroads Cycles to have it charged.  We sat at the shop for an hour while the battery charged (while we waited, Marc poked around in the tobacco shop next door and I scrutinized the original BMW R-71 they’re working on in the shop), and the mechanic there was not optimistic about the battery.  Most batteries charge in 45 minutes or less, and by the time we left, we had been there almost half an hour longer, and it was still going.  Thankfully, the guys at that shop are awesome (and get props for actually knowing about Urals), and agreed to let the battery just continue charging, so we went home.  The guys called back yesterday to say that the battery did eventually charge and has shown no signs of degrading, but we felt it was best to buy a new battery anyway and keep that one as a backup.

Today we went down to Batteries Plus and picked up a new battery (dry cell this time since wet cell batteries don’t do well with the vibration of a motorcycle), and after a little bit of frustration surrounding the fact that the engineers who designed this bike seemed to forget that people have fingers (there is so little room around the battery terminals it isn’t even funny), we got it installed.  Sure enough, it starts up pretty reliably now.  Sometimes on the first kick, sometimes on the 15th, but for a Ural, that’s pretty much normal behavior.  Ironically, Smut’ka now seems like like Marc better than me, as she is now starting for him more often than me.

We’re hoping that the dead battery was the source of our starting problems, and that we can have at least a couple decent rides before something else goes wrong.  We need a new air intake tube on the left side, which we will have to order online, but thankfully we can install it ourselves as it’s just pressure fitted with the metal equivalent of zip ties.  The current tube works, but is very tenuously attached (though even when un-attached, it still vaguely makes a seal), and since a gunky engine is way more trouble than replacing a rubber hose, we’ll be doing that sooner rather than later.

The next step is to buy helmets.  Marc isn’t sure what he wants yet, but I’m looking at the Nolan Trilogy.  It is modular and thus can be worn as a full face helmet for riding in traffic, etc, or you can wear it as a 3/4 helmet if you’re just puttering around the countryside.  It seems like the best of several worlds, really.  I’ll be writing more about helmets later.