If it’s not one thing, it’s another…

I swear, as soon as you fix one thing on a Ural, something else breaks.

Last week it was our right-side carburetor deciding that it didn’t want to stay attached to the engine head (the flange/compliance fitting on that side is old and the rubber is stiff, making it difficult to crimp the pipe clamp down tight enough to hold the carb on securely), and now we have a hole in our fuel crossover line.

On Friday, Marc and I went out to install the new, louder horn we bought (the old one sounds like a sick goat), and were greeted by the sight of a thin stream of fuel spurting from the side of the bike.  Upon further inspection, it seems that the fuel crossover line (going between the tank and the reserve section of the tank) is made from rubberized cloth, and the pipe clamp holding it in place had rubbed and eventually cut a hole in the line!

Thankfully, the cut was a V-shaped cut, which meant it was just a matter of clamping the V back into place, which I did by lowering the pipe clamp a bit to be located over the cut.  We ordered a new fuel line and it should be here on Monday, along with new flanges.  So, both of those will be installed when we get them.

We have also found out that our carbs are idling too high, and that they need balancing.  If the new flanges/fittings seem to work well, we’ll keep our current carburetors and take the bike to the shop to get them balanced.  If they don’t seem much better than the old ones, then we may look into getting some Pekar K68 carbs, which bolt straight onto the engine head.  You can get a pair, plus all the cables, etc, for about $90, so it might be a worthwhile investment.