Running Around

On Tuesday, BruceW brought his Ural to town on a trailer as I had offered to see why it wouldn't start without a jumper from the battery to the positive terminal of the PowerArc coil. Since I had also installed a PowerArc ignition, I was pretty familiar with the wiring. After pulling the tank and tracing the wires, we found the problem pretty quickly. The original installer spliced into the positive lead for the original coil which came out of the original CD ignition module which is no longer needed with the PowerArc ignition system. If the unused module failed, the new ignition system no longer receives power and the bike will not start. A quick splice into the power lead between the cutoff switch to the alternator and the CDI, and the rig was up and running again.

This snapshot was taken in the Bentley Mall parking lot where we want for lunch to test the repair. About ¼ mile from the house, his bike died again. This time it was the vacuum line from the left carb to the vacuum operated petcock was loose. Moving the lever to "Prime" and putting the line back on resolved the problem. After a delicious lunch (thank you!), we put on the missing hose clamp.

This morning, I noticed that there were a ton (not literally) of birds at Creamer's Field. There were quite a few people there and the birds were pretty close to the parking area. This is not obvious with this iPhone photo. The nearest birds were only about 25' away on the other side of the fence. This is yet another reminder that Fall is just around the corner if not here already.

Much of yesterday was spent messing with the truck and a borrowed car hauling trailer. There have been a couple of cars parked next to our garage the last several years and it's finally time to get rid of them. We dropped off the first one on Monday at the landfill after checking with three of the local auto dismantlers in the area. None of them were interested in an old Infinity Q45. I guess that there is very little demand for parts. The other is my old Saab 900S which is going to a fellow Airhead. He said that he can always use another parts car to keep the rest of his old Saab fleet running.

The other task was picking up this hitch. (That's why I needed to disconnect the car hauling trailer) The boxes were loaded into the back of the truck with a forklift. A couple of years ago, I had installed an under-bed gooseneck hitch. This fifth wheel hitch plugs into the gooseneck socket mounted under the bed. I was originally going to order it online and take advantage of Amazon Prime "free shipping" but like many other things, no shipping to Alaska. On a whim, I inquired at a local shop and the markup was under 5%. That seemed reasonable so I went ahead and ordered it from them. Towing capacity for the hitch itself is 20,000 lbs. Kind of overkill but I like that the hitch can be completely removed from the truck bed leaving a completely unobstructed load floor. What we are planning to tow is reserved for a future post but it has nothing to do with riding...