Four Urals

Last night, BruceW, the Ural rider from Ketchikan that rode to Fairbanks last January, called and mentioned that he was back in town to pick up his rig. We made arrangements to meet at College Coffeehouse this morning and RickS, shown here on the left, came by in his new 2013 Patrol that he just picked up and drove to Alaska from Illinois. I had purchased my 2012 Patrol from RickS last summer.

Later in the morning, JedR brought his new 2015 fuel injected Ural by as well. I think that this must be a record for Fairbanks. Four rigs at one time. Ironically, I had just talked to RickS yesterday at the Napa store while I was shopping around for a gas cap.

I forgot to mention that I had lost the Ural gas cap somewhere in Cantwell. I had stopped at a gas station and removed the cap. Their card machine wasn't working so I hopped back on and rode about ½ mile to the other gas station. Upon arriving, I noted that I had forgotten to replace the gas cap before taking off. Couldn't find it along the side of the road. For the rest of the trip a piece of duct tape served as the gas cap.

I had stopped at several auto parts stores once I hit Wasilla but since they don't have caps hanging on the rack anymore it was hard to find a match. They kept asking what kind of car. I had stopped to see Mickey but he only had the older non-screw on caps lying around. I did find on Soviet Steeds, a Ural online forum, that a Stant 11871 gas cap will work. It took a bit of digging on the Internet until I found a website that mentioned all of the cars and trucks that used a Stant 11871 gas cap. One of those listed was a mid-80s Saab. I just happened to have one of those sitting in our yard. And just like it said on the Internet, the old, faded gas cap really does fit.

While in Anchorage, I did order a replacement from Crawford Sales in Michigan. They had the aftermarket non-locking gas cap instead of the expensive stock locking version listed on their web site. Mickey is in the process of moving his Ural business from Anchorage to Delta. A better location for me as it would only be 100 miles down the road. Most of his motorcycle stuff was packed into ten shipping containers.