Return to Chapter 3	Chapter 5

Chapter 4

Starting the ENGINE!

February 2003 sees me starting work on the bike again, by now I was hoping that it would be well on the way to being run-in. Wrong!, during the months of October to February I have been incredibly busy with events such as Guy Fawkes night, Christmas, New Year, weekends and week days that all seem to roll into one and disappear before you wake up, all of which has left me with no time at all to do vital work on the bike - or on the other hand I have been too bone idle to get on with it. Not that the latter has any truth in it of course.

Anyway, here I am. I started to do a bit of work in February; this was in the form of trying to start the beast. I have not as yet completed the wiring so I can’t see if the lights are working, but I could short-cut the wiring by connecting the battery directly to the coil. I’ve done this because I am at the stage where anticipation has taken over from patience and I want to hear what it sounds like and to see if the engine is OK after the rebuild.

Now the bike is at the stage where I can start it, I need to make sure the engine is run-in properly; failure in this will mean the engine may not last very long and also have problems during its working life.

With today’s technology there is an enormous bank of information and products designed to make the task easier. I have spent some time researching the subject of “Recommended Oils” for running in a new engine. I have received emails, surfed the net, asked dealers, asked clubs, individuals, friends, neighbours, and even grabbed a couple of bikers filling up at the local garage, that was a mistake, they were the type of bikers that eat nails for breakfast and did not appreciate me asking such impertinent questions. A hasty retreat was called for after quickly saying “Have a Nice Day”, mistake number 2, the look I received left me feeling like I had just been de-evolved 25.000 years and should be swinging through the trees. 

I can now reveal to you, and you alone, the results of this secret consultation with different experts in the field of oils for a top of the line, sophisticated, sleek, balanced tarmac searing mean machine, my Ural.

Below are listed the latest technological oils I have used, I do ask you not to reveal this list to any unauthorised persons as this may contravene the rules of several secret organisations.

Engine oil:         Halfords or any other manufacturer’s standard 20w/50

Gearbox oil:       Rock Oil ST 90 Gear Oil

Differential:       Rock Oil EP140 Gear Oil

Having filled the engine, etc. with oil to the required levels, connected the now fully charged power plant (battery), placed some fuel in the tank I was ready to give it a whirl, so-to-speak. Unlike Amal carburettors which I fitted to my MT9, the Jikov carbs do not have the priming button where you fill and overflow the float chamber with fuel.

All you have is a cold start lever, I haven’t really worked out what this lever does apart from click into place, and no change seems to take place at all.

When starting any engine using a kick start, you usually follow a starting procedure that has been carefully prepared and proven over several years. I have had my own starting procedure which started in the 1960’s.

I always placed the bike on the stand in an area where it can’t damage anything, momentary lapses in concentration can end up with the bike leaping across the lawn rider-less as you forget to put it in neutral.

Grovel in your pockets to find the ignition key, only to find that you have a hole in the pocket and the key has dropped into the lining of the jacket. Retrieving it can be costly, not only to the jacket that you have now torn apart to get the key, but your once relaxed demeanour has now turned into stress which has shortened your lifespan by at least 2 hours.

Make sure there’s petrol in the tank, it’s the one thing that modern motor vehicles have and the older ones don’t, and that’s a petrol gauge. Our normal way is to take off the cap, look inside and shake the bike about a bit. If there is sloshing in the tank but you can’t see it, you know you have at least enough to get to the garage. Of course in the process of sloshing the fuel about in the tank, you have now disturbed all the bits of dirt and rust which now makes its way to the very soon blocked jets. Good tip: make sure you have a filter on the tank valve or an inline filter before it gets to the carburettors. Blowing out the jets on the side of the road is no fun, is it chaps. Hands up, who’s been there?

Using the kick start you slowly move the engine around until the compression is at its highest. Here now lies a dilemma, which thankfully the brain does automatically. If you had to do the next calculation manually, the choices would be much more frightening. I always remember my old AJS 500cc single, the most important thing to do when starting was make sure there was nothing sharp within 5 feet. The second most important thing was to hold open the half compression valve, and then kick the bike over. The bike would normally start very well, but if you were distracted by anything, your mates talking to you or you did a little macho starting in front of the girls, the brain went to mush and I found on a few occasions that before I knew what had happened I was flat on my back. The bike kicked back where I forgot the valve and threw me over the handlebars. Cool, it was not, painful, it was for several days. There were two ways of starting, either straddled across the bike or stood on one side, across the bike you ended up on your back and stood to one side, your knee came up and tried to break your jaw. Thank God for our Russian friends who came up with the idea of a reasonably low compression engine and attempted to place the kick start operation where it could not be fatal if all went wrong. (I wonder why they went down that road, maybe they too had several dislocated knees at one point and thought “sod this, lets think of an easierski way”, in Russian of course).

In these latter days I tend to make sure the truss is pulled up to another notch, just in case. Anyway, once the compression is right, you open the throttle slightly to allow the engine to get enough fuel through to ignite.

Place your foot on the kick start lever and push down with all the weight that your body and leg muscles can muster.

Having done this, the engine fires and then bursts into life. Your heart races as you listen to the roar of the exhaust gasses escaping through the silencers; (once you remove the baffles of course)

You open the throttle slightly listening to the engine pulsating with power. Now comes a rush of excitement knowing that you have a finely tuned machine that can outrun the flash of a speed camera.

Sorry, I was getting carried away there, Lets go back to the part where you push down with your leg, the kick start lever reaches the bottom of its stroke and--- nothing happens, so without worrying too much I try again - nothing again. One thinks, oh well it’s the first time trying to start the engine and its bit stiff.

I kick again, still nothing, again, again and again, nothing not even a sign of starting. After five minutes of this the old leg muscles are starting to feel like they are running a marathon, and bordering on ‘old fart’ syndrome, I rest for a while with the excuse of thinking why it won’t start, and after five minutes or so the leg is starting to come back to life I try it again, still nothing. This carries on for some time and now desperation starts, what can I do, check that everything is correct, fuel, battery, take out the plugs and move the engine around, yes - there’s a spark there, not incredibly bright, as I am using the 6 volt system, but its there. I reset everything and try again, nothing.

An hour passes trying several adjustments and the legs are now very close to collapse, I decide to squirt fuel straight through the carburettors and into the valve area, not too much mind you just enough to give it some encouragement.

The day I tried to start the engine was nice and sunny and quite warm for a winters day, the garage door was open and my neighbours were out inspecting there gardens after some weeks without any attention. I live in one of those sleepy little Wiltshire villages where the sound of squabbling geese 5 doors down evokes conversation at the Sunday church meeting where vital information on the ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ scheme is passed around to the relevant parties. Anyway, old Mr Guy across the road was carefully brushing the leaves from his borders on this peaceful Sunday morning, and there was I with my bike, now primed for one final attempt at starting. I pushed the kick start lever with all the effort my leg could muster, at the same time I opened the throttle as wide as it could go. There was one almighty BANG! as a sheet of flame shot out from one of the silencers. I think the sound was like a 25lb field gun and the poor old chap across the road who I knew sufferers with heart problems promptly jumped at least a foot off the ground, dropped his broom and placed his hands over his ears and chest at the same time. 

I couldn’t hear the expletives that came from him as my ears were not in a fit state to hear anything clearly for the next hour or so, there was just this whistle, that’s all I could hear. For the next few days people would walk past the gates and look in, then turn to each other and start whispering, I had the distinct feeling I was the centre of conversation for a while. All I could do was to smile and get on with what I was doing at the time.

After that I thought to myself, “I think there’s a problem somewhere”. There next came a period of scratching the head, drinking coffee, and going to do something else while the brain has time to think of a possible solution. I tried several things such as change spark plugs, check timing, re-charge the battery, check the coil, etc. all to no avail, the engine would not even fire again. At least before the engine sparked once, but now absolutely nothing.

Drastic actions were required and I changed the Jikov carburettors with some old Amal carbs that were originally on my MT9, not brilliant but I knew they worked. I spent quite a time in changing them over, then tried to start the engine again - nothing.

I think I’ll start advertising on the television a new keep fit exercise to get the legs into shape, kick start my bike, guaranteed leg muscles that could climb mountains with ease. After a couple of hours of this I gave up and thought of a new strategy, so I went to the phone and called Sir Smith of Catford. Sadly not called Speedway Motorcycles any more, but I could still get through to Chris as I have been very fortunate to have been given the secret phone number and password which allowed me to talk to him. Of course I can’t now give you his phone number as it doesn’t exist anymore, but I rang him and uttered the password: “Hi yer Chris, how’re doing, fancy a drink?” or as I put it “Hi Chris, HELP”

After I stopped sobbing down the phone Chris suggested that I wait for a few weeks until he was due to be in Southampton, then he could have a look and try and see what the problem was. The one thing that we were worried about was that the timing could be 180 degrees out, not really a problem if it was, Chris rebuilt the engine, I would just break his fingers. So, I left the bike and went onto other vital work, such as checking the inside of my eyelids for holes, you know, important stuff.

I had a phone call from Chris one evening to say that he was at a friend’s house near Southampton and if I could get the bike to him he could have a look. So I loaded up the bike on the trailer and borrowed 6 ratchet straps to secure the bike on the trailer and off I went. As you have seen in the previous sections of this rebuild I have taken great care on the paintwork, and now I have to put it on the trailer and drive it 25 miles. Of course

I was a bit apprehensive about it so I took great care in strapping it down. I was doing fine until I got close to the bottom end of the UK; I was rapidly running out of road and would soon be driving over water, so I phoned Chris for the final directions. What I didn’t realise was that the road I have to go down was one of the type of roads that has been repaired 500 times. The bumps had bumps on top and ruts had ruts. I carefully drove down the road and in the car all seemed OK as the suspension took out most of the movement. I looked in the rear view mirror to see the poor bike leaping up and down. I slowed, so did all the traffic behind me. You could almost hear what they were thinking and calling me!!! All of a sudden I saw the bike lean to one side and a strap fly over the top. This had an immediate reaction from both myself and the other drivers following me. I stood on the brakes 100th of a second after all the other drivers did. I think they could see this very blue bike sitting on their bonnet and the look of sheer terror or the face of the driver directly behind me was something to see.

Of course, there was no danger of that happening as I had made sure there was no way the bike could fall off. What I was worried about was that the strap ratchet might have hit the paintwork. Fortunately it didn’t but it made me and other drivers give a great deal of attention to the now long forgotten ‘Highway Code’ distances from each other. Fortunately I only had to go a few hundred yards, so no damage had been done.

After various deliberations on why the bike would not start I left the bike with Chris and went home. After a few days Chris rang me and said he had found the problem. It was the back-plate on the points, it was bent, enough to touch the front plate as it turned. Consequently the points were shorting out on every turn. Easy problem to solve once you’ve found it.

Remedy:

Solution 1 (emergency)

Take out the points and dismantle. Place back plate on flat steel surface, hit with (Russian essential tool No. 1) - large heavy hammer. Once plate is flat reassemble and refit, problem solved.

Solution 2 (Best)

Replace entire point’s assembly.

Its always embarrassing when someone else finds out what’s wrong with your bike, I looked for days checking all the usual known faults, and I think that is the problem, you only think of the normal things and not anything that could be out of the ordinary. I was almost convinced it was the timing that was wrong, I had checked the points earlier and made sure the gap was correct, the contacts were in good condition, the springs were all attached and the condenser was all right. Those done the points were now out of the equation in my mind. But I must admit I’m not the sharpest tool in the box when it comes to engines.

I now had to go and collect the bike, so once again I set off to the bottom end of the UK, I was getting a bit worried while driving as I realised I was again getting closer to the Isle of Wight chapter, and there are some very strange Russian bike owners there, but we try not to talk about them very much.

Loading up the bike again on the trailer I made sure that it couldn’t move on the return journey. I used all the straps and a few lengths of good ole rope, that bike was going nowhere. I was doing quite well most of the way back, I kept looking in the rear view mirror to make sure all was well.

I was on the approach to the M27 flyover when all of a sudden there were blue flashes and that ‘O Shit’ sound of the Police siren. I quickly looked at the speedo and saw that I was not speeding, only 40mph in a 60 limit, the lights looked alright, I was driving on the correct side of the road. I thought of the trailer lights, but there were no indicators on the dashboard to say the lights were not working. I looked at the bike and thought it had moved slightly but I wasn’t sure.

I pulled over and the police car stopped behind me, I hate the part where you stop and sit in the car, they don’t get out either and just sit there, (I reckon they’re waiting for you to panic and make a dash for it). The wait can seem forever, anyway they got out their car and I got out of mine, I stepped from a nice warm car into 2 degrees below in shirt sleeves. I was shaking from cold and anticipation I tried to say calmly, “Good evening Officers, what’s the problem”, but the word ‘Officers’ was replaced by ‘Oscifirs’ for some unknown reason, they either didn’t hear me or decided to ignore it, so I blamed that bit on the cold.

Walking to the back of the trailer my heart sunk as I saw the remains of a ratchet strap that was broken in half, I had obviously lost one. One policeman looked round the trailer, car and finally the bike while the other spoke to me with all the usual questions like; where have I been, where am I going, is that your bike? At this point I would have loved to have said “well I be blowed, where did that come from” but I stopped myself just in time.

“Why have you stopped me” I asked holding my breath, and he told me that one of the ratchet straps had broken and the bike moved slightly. Unfortunately when the strap broke, the ratchet was on the outside of the trailer, under tension, it flew backwards right onto the front bumper of the police car - ouch!

It turned out they weren’t too worried, as both of them looked at the bike and one said to the other “there, I told you it was a Ural”. This produced very low mutterings from me, they were more worried about the bike than their car, and it was only a small dent in the front anyway, and didn’t really look out of place with the other dozen or so. I thought they may be in competition with other police cars to see who could collect the greatest number of dents in one shift. The interest point was definitely the bike as they were asking the normal questions. In the end I had to say to them, “can I go now, I’m freezing”. Their closing suggestion was that I get some new straps, and they said goodnight.

The rest of the journey was uneventful. The bike is now back in the garage and work will be starting again in the next week or so.