Return to Chapter 1	Chapter 3

Chapter 2

I now have all the painted parts back and have unwrapped the frame and fuel tank, I find that I am standing there and thinking, “it’s very, very blue”. Everything is blue!

The finished colour looks nothing like the colour on the chart. I felt like phoning the sprayer and saying “it’s the wrong colour, change it”. I must admit I was hoping that the colour would be darker than it is, but of course that was the colour I chose and that is the colour it will be.

The colour that I picked was quite close to the original but it’s a slightly deeper but lighter blue. It was a difficult decision to make, the sprayer gave you one of those cards with small coloured squares on it. From this you are expected to see how the motorcycle will look when it’s finished, of course it is impossible and the best you can do is a good guess or pick a colour you fancy. 

I compared the original colour with the sample card and decided the original colour was too insipid, so my choice was two colours up, and call “Himmelblau”. To me it’s just blue but to a sprayer it’s one of 30 blues in one particular section. 

The paint has been applied in two ways; the frame and small parts have been power-coated. That means that paint is applied and then heated to a couple of hundred degrees, this should then produce a nice glossy finish. The other parts such as the fuel tank mudguards, etc. were all wet spayed in a normal spray booth. I must say that both finishes have come out very well.

I have started to get a few parts together ready to reassemble, such as the rear shock absorbers. Not owning a spring compressor, it can become a hazardous occupation trying to compress the spring enough to slot in the caps to keep it all in position. On the Dnepr rebuild I nailed a length of 2 x 1 to the side of the workbench, then using that as a lever compressed the spring. After several attempts at the “ducking the spring” procedure, I finally managed to get the caps in.

On the Ural I thought that another approach was called for, so off I went to the DIY store and acquired a 3 ft length of threaded rod. I had the great idea that this time I would compress the springs by winding down the nuts. This part of it was OK, but the top and bottom of the tool I made of ½ “ ply wood and used a jigsaw to cut out the holes in the middle.

The first shock absorber went together quite well, although I was watching the plywood top bow considerably, but it held and in went the caps. The second shock went almost as well, but just as the caps were about to be put in the plywood gave way. It gave way just as the first cap was half way in and went with a twang and grabbed the cap. I thought the cap was going to fly off, but it held by the tip of the corner. After I got off the garage floor I peered at the shock and pondered what I could do, it looked so precarious, one touch would send the cowling and the spring off up to the roof.

Carefully I placed the second cap in position, and with a large screwdriver on one cap, gave it a sharp whack with the hammer in the right place to push it into position. Surprise, surprise, it worked.  

Having assembled the shock absorbers it was quite nice to stand back and think, “that looks good”, and felt pleased to have started the reassembly.

The first thing I wanted to get back in was the engine, for this I had to visit Chris Smith of Speedway Motorcycles in the backwaters of Catford in South London. The main part of rebuilding the engine had been done sometime earlier; Crankshaft balanced, the main bearing removed and replaced with roller bearings, that sort of work.

I was expecting to find the engine sat on a box somewhere in the shop all shining and ready for me to take away, but no, I was politely told to get my arms into the bead blaster and start blasting those heads, “who’s heads are they” I asked, “yours yer fool” came back. My engine, which I thought would be sparkling, was still in bits on the bench. So off I went, spending the day helping Chris reassemble my engine, and just look at those heads, clean or what!

I must say that it is quite enjoyable using a bead blaster on dirty metal, you can see the dirt being shot away and leave a bright, clean surface.

It took all of the day to finish assembling the engine and get the timing right, but at 7.30 in the evening I drove away with the engine in the boot of the car.  

It will be interesting to see how the engine performs, as the chap who owned it before me not only polished the outside of the engine but also polished every surface on the crankshaft, inside the crankcase and everywhere he could get the polisher. The inside of the engine looks like a mirror, so we shall see if it makes a difference.

I had a hard enough job getting the engine out of the frame so I thought that it would be far easier to hang the engine in mid air on the hoist and fit the frame round the engine. I was of course assuming the frame was lighter than the engine, wrong, I think it is almost the same weight!  

By the time I moved the frame around a few times my arms felt like falling off, but after several times nearly dropping the frame, eventually the engine nicely dropped into place and was quickly secured by pushing the mounting bolts into place.

I have made a wooden structure to bring the bike up to an easy working level, the worst thing is having to kneel down and trying to work. When the bike is complete I can lift the whole thing off with the hoist.   

I think that fitting the engine was the hardest part about the reassembly, I had be very careful not to scratch the paintwork, to help this I placed water pipe lagging over the paintwork to protect it from knocks, etc. this worked very well and there was not a scratch anywhere.  

You get a great feeling of achievement when you know that the hardest part is done and finished without any accidents, I only hope the rest goes according to the same plan.  

The next part was of course to get the main drive in place; it is much easier to get the drive in when there is nothing else around to obstruct it.

After rebuilding the final drive, which is a task in itself, I managed to get it all in place very well. I have noticed though that the rubber coupling block or ‘doughnut’ was very close to the battery plate, within 3mm of it. I thought this strange but will leave it until everything else is in place.

I think the worst thing about replacing any parts with new ones is the thick brown Russian gunk that is plastered all over them and then covered with the brown greased paper. It takes ages to get it off with loads of petrol, those degreasing agents don’t seem to touch it very well. But underneath it all there is the usual gleaming Russian chrome, speckled with rust patches. Your next step is to get it all chromed before you can use it. Ah well – one day?

Now comes the time when the rear shock absorbers can be fitted. This being quite an easy task doesn’t take very long, except that I noticed two large chrome washers sitting in the box with the shocks. I just couldn’t figure out where they came from, it’s like anything you take apart and try to put back together, there is always something over. After several careful looks at the parts manual I suddenly realised where they came from, they sit under the bottom cowling on top of the adjuster. I now have to take apart the shock absorbers again and fit the washers. This I didn’t need, so off they came and I took them apart. 

Again I used my makeshift spring compressor, but this time I strengthened the wood so it wouldn’t break. One good thing about this is that you learn from your mistakes, and this time it all went together in no time.

Shocks sorted, now came the front forks. I had been dreading these from the beginning because when I got all the bits back I looked into the box with all the parts in it and thought “I’ve forgotten how it goes back together” HELP! I didn’t have a problem with the general assembly, but forgot how the oil seals fitted in the section that screws on the bottom part of the fork. I sat there and looked at it, walked away, came back and looked at it again, then thought I know, look at the parts catalogue that will tell me – wrong, that was more confusing than ever.

Time to swallow pride and phone someone, Chris Smith was the first to come to mind. I think it took Chris 15 minutes to try and talk me through it, we had a slight communications problem where he couldn’t describe it properly and I was being a pillock who couldn’t understand what he was trying to describe. In the end we got there and I managed to get the forks together. 

It will be interesting to see if the things will hold oil now. I don’t put oil in the Dnepr outfit’s forks because as soon as I put oil in, it leaks out again. The bolt seats at the bottom of each fork have been badly damaged sometime in its life and not matter what I try and do the oil always leaks out. Again I asked a ‘professional’ person for advice on it, and came up with a very simple idea. Don’t put oil in it, then it can’t leak out. Seems a bit daft, but I must say it hasn’t made a huge difference in handling or braking.

Disaster!!

Disaster has struck today, I was looking at the back section of the bike and thought that it would make a nice picture to see the back half almost completed. So, I placed the passenger saddle in place and stood back to admire the result, and great, it looked good. OK, place the driver’s saddle in place and then see what it looked like. Picked up saddle, went to position it then suddenly realised that there was nothing to put it on. The daft dick went and cut the driver’s seat support bracket out of the frame!

I just stood there for at least 2 minutes trying to understand why the hell had the seat mount been cut off, as you can see – its not there. I didn’t know what to feel, I think it was between anger, frustration, and my stupidity for not noticing it in the first place. It’s not the sort of thing you look for on the frame, you expect the bits to be there. 

After an hour or so kicking anything that came into range and several words to suit (next door had to shut their door as they didn’t think I used such language), I realised what has happened.

If you notice there are two additional lugs on either side of the frame, set on the outside of the mudguard support. They are not supposed to be there – what are they for??  

What I think has happened is that the chap who started the rebuild in the first place wanted to put a British seat in place of the Russian one, you know the type, with two springs at the back of the seat, hence the two lugs. Daft B - - - - - - -! ! !

Looking at it more closely, I can’t really understand what had happened, as there is now another thing I have noticed. Remember me saying in the section on spraying that I saw some rather big welds in the frame? Well have a look at the picture where the white ring is circled. That is one hell of a cut in the frame, I can’t figure out if there was anything there that isn’t now?  

This may also explain why the battery support is almost touching the drive coupling.

I have thought about what I can do and there are only a few ways I can correct the fault.  

• Get the bracket and weld it back on ("screw up" paintwork)
  

• Find a British seat and fit that.
  

• Get the bracket and engineer some clamps and clamp it in place.  

So far I think I will go with the 3rd option, as I would like to keep it as close to original as possible. I don’t want to weld the bracket back on, this would cost me lots of the hard cash spent in re-spraying.

My thoughts are to make four clamp-on brackets, weld one part of the clamp to the bracket, and bolt it up. Sounds easy but I think it will work; it only has to support my lightweight body???

It may not look brilliant, but when sprayed in blue it should look ok.  

WE SHALL SEE in Chapter Three!