The good and the bad

[elizilla]

Tonight I have been removing wheels from the Ural so I can put new tires on. The Ural turns out to be strangely painful to work on. Ural has obviously not figured out the whole idea of captive nuts, so you need two wrenches for everything. And it's like they selected the fasteners from the miscellaneous bucket at the hardware store. On a Honda you can pretty much assume that any smallish bolts are 10mm or 12mm, and if you have a fastener that you need to put a wrench on both ends of, you will use one of each - I'm sure they do this so the person working, can get by with one set of wrenches. Ural doesn't do that. And they seem fond of weird sizes like 9mm and 13mm, though they have the 10s and 12s too. I can't really guess what size things are, so I end up going back to the toolbox over and over for different sizes. The machining on these fasteners is not always so good, either - the wrenches sometimes fit loosely enough that I wonder if I've found an SAE bolt on this metric bike.

OTOH, they have definitely figured out that Nylock nuts are awesome. There are Nylocks all over the bike; I've never seen so many. And even when something is awkward, it's simple. Simple is good.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I remember the "simple" of my 73 Sporty. 1 fuse for the whole bike, so I used 1 spool of wire when rewiring it. Trouble shooting later became an issue because every wire on the bike was black.

-B

[elizilla]

I do use multicolored wire for my accessory harness, and have developed some habits for myself. Greens and blacks for ground. Reds and yellows for positive. White for relay triggers. I bought a good ratcheting crimper and a plentiful supply of the good crimps, the kind the have one set of fingers to wrap around the wire and a second set to wrap around the insulation for support. Plastic plugs to hold the spade connectors together, shrink wrap, rescue tape, and dielectric grease. My wiring is better quality than the stock wiring, in this bike.

[(Anonymous)]

As always, I bow before greatness!

-B