Day 10 - McBride, BC

A relatively short day today. I am about 100 km from Jasper Natl Park and since the weekend here, I decided not to try and find a campsite within the park today or tomorrow. I stopped in McBride for gas, went through the local visitors center and wandered through the local market. I needed to get some groceries, do laundry, etc. so I may stay here for the next couple of nights. Very quiet location between two mountain ranges.

This has been a very relaxing trip though I was concerned about the integrity of the rig while on the Cassiar. Maybe it was the remoteness that contributed to my concern.

RickS, the Ural rider in Fairbanks whom I bought this rig from, wisely suggested that I move the thermocouples for the CHT (cylinder head temperature) from one side to the other as these gauges aren't known to be very reliable. I had swapped them before but only for a short time as I didn't want to bother re-running the cables and tying everything down. Last night, I did just that and, lo and behold, on todays ride it was now claiming that the right cylinder was running really hot. The left cylinder was registering "expected" temperatures and nothing wierd like it was showing before. By "expected", up to 400°F while cruising at 55 mph and climbing to 425°F when climbing grades. Both plugs were a nice shade of darkish tan indicating that the mixture was not too lean. So thank you RickS for having me check the validity of the tool.

So I'm not going to worry about the mixture again. The gas mileage has dropped a bit probably due to the higher speeds along the Yellowhead Hwy and riding through the rain. GPS corrected gas mileage is still above 31 mpg. I'm not complaining about that. And I haven't had to check the valves again. The valve clatter on both sides are sounding the same. The higher speeds does mean that oil consumption is a bit higher but not excessive. So far I've added about 0.7 quart since leaving Fairbanks.

 

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