So, Marc and I finally threw in the towel and sent Smutyanka off to the mechanic’s. We found out that the other Ural owners in this area use a very small shop called Brooks Cycles. It’s only a two man outfit, but they’re really nice, they offer free towing, they have experience working on Urals, and they don’t charge for diagnostics if you end up using their shop for your repairs.
It was a hard decision to make to send her to a shop, but really, it will be a good financial move in the end. There are a lot of small and easy to fix things wrong with her, but we don’t currently have the know-how to find them or know where to begin. There are also some major things wrong (her throttle cable is seriously screwed up and her front brake disintegrated), and we’d rather have a professional do the work than end up with the side effects of the hack-job we’d do. The other factor was weather. It’s too cold right now to be spending large amounts of time outside working on the bike, and it’s bad for the bike to just sit outside in the parking lot all winter. The shop will not only fix her, but will also help to keep her out of the weather during the bike’s non-working downtime.
The other thing is that really, once we get her completely fixed and running, it will be much easier to find and deal with problems as they arise. Right now there are so many small problems that they end up masking eachother, making it difficult to really tell what’s actually wrong with the bike. Once we get her “zeroed out”, so to speak, it will be easier for us to do the repairs ourselves. We’ve gotten some flak from the Ural community for trying to “save” a 1992 bike, but really, we both feel that there’s no point in condemning a bike to the parts pile just because it’s old, if all that it needs is a little TLC.
We’ll let you know what the results of her visit to the motorcycle doctor are. Hopefully by spring she will be in good enough condition to be a daily rider.
[...] This was originally published over at Travels with Smutka, the blog for our sidecar [...]
Dear Kelsey:
I think you and your husband made the right decision. Working out in the winter elements would only add extra frustration to challenge, plus wear you down as you tackled one problem after another. There is nothing more aggravating than having to deal with tiny parts, frozen parts, and hard to see parts, while laying on the cold ground or in the dampness.
And this will guarantee your machine will be ready to go as son as the weather breaks. Best of luck to you both.
Fondest regards,
Jack • reep • Toad
Twisted Roads
Dear Kelsey:
How are things going with your bike in the shop? Has the mechanic found anything interesting that would have saved you getting stuck someplace else? I had a situation where the brake fluid in my front reservoir seemed to be dropping, without a leak. The mechanic explained to me that the level in reservoir dropped as the wear on the brake pads increased. Sure enough, a look at the pads indicated my front brakes would have worn through in the middle of a long ride I had planned. The mechanic’s vigilance saved me a breakdown enroute.
Fondest regards,
Jack • reep • Toad
Twisted Roads
New blog postings every Mondaty and Thursday
The bike’s been in the shop for almost a month now. He found out that the engine was having compression problems, among other things, and to remove the heads you often have to remove the whole sidecar. At best we need new gaskets, at worst new pistons. Still haven’t heard about our brakes and the clutch cable.
Dear Kelsey:
The best place to hear abojt compression problems are in the shop. The worst place is 140 miles into a 600-mile ride. You are going t have a great riding season.
Fondest regards,
Jack • reep • Toad
Twisted Roads
New blog posts every Monday and Thursday