Air Temperature and Head Temperature

Another beautiful day in interior Alaska. I stopped at Creamer's Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge to see how many birds were there. A few weeks ago, they had cleared away much of the snow exposing the grass. There were a few birds though not as many as there are a little later in the Spring. Both of these pictures are HDR using the built in iPhone camera app.

I had a lot of errands to run this morning so this was a nice place to stop and enjoy the quiet. It's predicted to be over 50°F by mid-week so I may as while enjoy the cool weather while I can.

I have been curious about the accuracy of the CHT (cylinder head temperature) gauge. The one I have is not temperature compensated so it only reads "right" at +70°F. Today the outside air temperature was about 40°F so the CHT will be reading about 30°F high. Right after pulling into the garage, the left cylinder read 355°F (or 325°F after adjusting for ambient temperature) and the right was 375°F (or 345°F).

I picked up a relatively cheap IR thermometer on Amazon and it read; left 277°F, right 298°F. So both sides of the CHT are reading about 50°F too high. Like any IR thermometer, the surface temperature is estimated by measuring the thermal radiation received by the sensor.

At a distance of a foot, the spot size is a little over an inch in diameter. The temperature reading is affected by the emissivity of the surface which is a quantitative measure of the efficiency in radiating thermal radiation. The device assumed an emissivity of 0.95. A dark, non-reflective surface would have an emissivity near 1.0 and a reflective mirror would be 0. To get an accurate reading, the emissivity needs to be near 1. I'm guessing that the cylinder head isn't a perfect 1.0 but it's not far off. Not having access to a portable IR spectrometer, I could simply paint a section of the head with flat black paint and that would raise the emissivity to get a more accurate reading. But I'm thinking that this is close enough. And I can probably just assume that the temperature compensated temperature from the CHT thermocouples is a bit high.

Monday evening was the monthly Airhead.org get together at the Silver Gulch microbrewery in Fox, AK. Today was the first time that there was another bike there since October. There was a pretty good turnout and there was even a donated t-shirt for a give away. The roads were is great shape and I took the Ural over the hilly road with a lot of running in 2nd and 3rd to avoid lugging the engine. Even with the hills, CHT were around 280°F by the time I got home.

Yet Another Non-Moto Post

My truck has gotten minimal use the last couple of years as I had finally figured out a way to turn my commute into recreation. It is a great 1 ton truck with 4WD, 6-speed manual and the Cummins diesel. It is now over ten years old and doesn't even have 50k miles. Barely broken in as the mean time between overhaul of the 5.9 diesel is something like 350k miles. I've always thought that plowing is something that I could enjoy doing and though the truck isn't ideal (heavy engine, long bed, quad cab), I think that it would work fine. Just not as maneuverable as a smaller rig.

A lot of time yesterday was spent riding the borough bus after I had dropped the truck off at TrailerCraft, the local Western distributor, to have them do the installation. I had started to walk back towards town when I noticed the bus stop signs. There is a new (at least to me) bus line. It wasn't due for a bit so I just continued on following the signs until the bus arrived. I stopped at College Coffeehouse to meet with some of the regulars then headed to the other side of town to the credit union.

(Now some minimal moto content) I met with JedR, another Ural rider, at the Starbucks inside Fred Meyer. He generously gave me a bag with a container of tire lube saying that we used up what I had when we installed his K37s a couple of weeks ago. Also in the bag was a great selection of cotter pins and some small picks to help pull out things like spacers and washers. Thank you Jed!

He offered to give me a ride back to TrailerCraft but I had plenty of time to kill before they would be done and just took the bus. The university pays the borough a lump sum every year so anyone with a university id can ride the bus. A pretty nice benefit especially with all of the new routes.

The plow is a Western Midweight with a 7½' metal blade and is classified as light commercial duty. It weighs around 600 lbs or about 50% less than some of the commercial "V" plows. Since I have the Cummins engine, it limits the size of the plow due to the weight of the engine. All of the hydraulics are installed on the plow frame so there are only 2 electrical connectors to the truck. One for power and the other for control. I will be picking up sand bags to put into the rear of the bed for ballast to offset the weight of the plow. So if it never snows in Fairbanks again you can thank me...

Right now I'm sitting at the airport waiting for my flight to Barrow through Anchorage and Prudhoe Bay. Due to their new flights the 1½ hour flight now takes most of the day.

Finally, Balanced

Balanced carbs are a wonderful thing. I had relied on BobK, a fellow airhead, for balancing the carbs on the Beemer with his Hg sticks. The Ural seemed fine when I picked it up. Over the winter, I had raised the idle speed a little so that would have messed up the balance and I could feel the vibration. I was waiting for the Harmonizer, another electronic tool, to be built again but decided that I was tired of waiting. The TwinMax electronic balancing tool made in France and I believe that it's been around for a while, and though not quite as slick as the Harmonizer it is $25 cheaper. I picked it up from A&S BMW and the first one I received didn't work (doesn't sound promising) but the replacement arrived today and it worked like a charm. The needle essentially displays the difference in vacuum between the two hose connections.

The two vacuum hoses from the TwinMax are plugged into the vacuum ports on the two carbs. On the Ural, the left carb vacuum port is used to control the fuel petcock so after disconnecting the vacuum hose, the petcock needs to be turned to the "Pri" (prime) position. The TwinMax is powered up, sensitivity knob to max and the zero knob is adjusted to center the needle. The warmed up engine is started and after setting the idle speed to about where you want it, in the case of the Ural, right around 1000 rpm, the idle speed screw on the right carb is adjusted to center the needle. Before doing this, you want to make sure that the throttle cables are not tight. Then, using the throttle, you speed up the engine to around 2500 rpm and by adjusting the throttle cable on the right carb, you center the needle. If there is too much slack in the throttle cables, the slack can be taken up using the adjustment on the throttle. You can use either carb to make your adjustments but the adjustment points are easier to reach on the right carb.

Both idle and high speed adjustments were needed on the Ural. Afterwards, I took the rig on a short test ride and the difference is engine smoothness was pronounced. Now there is very little engine vibration at any speed. I was hoping that this tool would arrive this week so I could balance the carbs before my road trip to Anchorage on the 7th.

Tomorrow afternoon, I head back to Barrow to finish the installation of the new Ubiquity radios.

Rockets and Misc Reviews

The Geophysical Institute and constructed this rocket from salvaged pieces and parts from their rocket program. The University of Alaska Fairbanks is, I believe, the only university that has a rocket launch facility. It is about thirty miles north of Fairbanks. It is used to launch sub-orbital experiments in support of auroral and possibly atmospheric research. The display was under construction last summer but I hadn't stopped by and taken a photo of it yet.

This is the tail bag that I had selected to review from Motorcycle House back in the middle of November. I did an initial review at that time and said that I would do a followup after using it for a while.  I've used it every day that I've ridden since then and that has been just about every day. I am still using the bungee cords attached to the bottom of the bag to attach it to the pillion hand holds below the seat and that seems to be working out alright. Still not as convenient as a top box or some other fixed luggage. I still plan on replacing the bungee cords with some nylon webbing and quick release buckles for quicker and more secure attachment.

So far, I've only forgotten to attach the bungee cords once. Fortunately, the bag didn't fall off on the road.  It isn't quite as convenient as a tank bag but it makes up for that in storage space. I haven't needed the extra storage provided by expanding the sides out just on my commutes. After all, if it doesn't fit, it just gets thrown in the sidecar. When I get to my office, I just unhook the bungee hooks and carry it into my office. The handle makes it much easier to carry than my tank bag.

It holds quite a bit and the one thing that I would add would be a ring or clip to carry keys. For now, a carabiner on a zipper pull works well enough but I suspect that long term, the zipper pull will fall off. It holds my laptop in a padded case, the GoPro camera and all of it's assorted pieces in the blue neoprene bag, lunch and Micro-Start XP-3 battery which I'll cover in a bit. In the small side pockets I carry things like tire pressure gauge, multitools and paperwork. In the upper pockets are the Skidoo face mask filters and rubber tubes, and some other bits and pieces that would easily get lost in the Ural trunk. And, if I need to run an errand the bag comes off easily enough to lock in the Ural trunk if I didn't feel like carrying it around.

This is the Micro-Start XP-3 battery that I had mentioned. It's one of those "almost too good to be true" items. I had heard about these but had a hard time believing the claims until I read a post by some skeptical folks that I knew on AdvRider. This bag holds a small (10.2 oz) Li-ion battery that has enough current output and capacity to jump start a car. The case holds the battery, wall and car chargers, jumper cables and a USB dongle so you can use it to charge your electronic gadgets.

After charging it up using the small wall wart rated at only 1 amp @ 12v, I took it out to the garage, disconnected the battery from the BMW which is now conveniently in the sidecar. And connected this tiny battery up using the supplied cables. It started the bike repeatedly as in start the bike then immediately shut it down, repeat. After 10 times, it would still spin the starter easily and start the bike. Good enough to convince me. The unit is rated at 200 amps with a peak of 400 amps. Not too bad from a package that barely weighs over a pound. After this test it took quite a while to recharge. This is the second smallest of five models and has found a home in my tool bag.

How about that, a post with no videos!

Finally Some Snow

Monday Morning - It has finally started to cool off and it'll be a few days until the ice on the roads have a chance to clear off but it was a beautiful morning. This was Sunday at about 8:45am taken while walking down the road. The sun was just coming up over the horizon. Sunrise an hour earlier was wonderful. I wish they would just stop this whole "daylight savings time" foolishness. Especially since we now seem to be out of sync with other countries. I don't see the benefit.

This morning (Monday), it was in the low teens during my commute in. With the heated liner on low and the gloves a bit higher, I was toasty warm. It is probably cold enough to change to lighter weight engine oil and that may be a task for next weekend. This is the oil change interval so it is a bit more of a hassle especially with the sidecar mounted. The oil filter would be right next to the front subframe mount. I also still need to replace the positive battery cable. I didn't do it earlier since the hardware store only had two copper terminals of the proper gauge.

Tuesday Morning - On Monday evening, I rode out to the local microbrewery for the monthly Airheads.org get together and we had a very light turnout. It was a nice ride out and back though I don't think that I will ever be comfortable riding in the dark. The stock headlight is rather anemic and anything over about 35 mph feels like I'm overdriving the low beam. The LED fog lights do a great job illuminating the side of the road but until moose start having retroreflective markings, I'll just keep the speed down at night. This morning brought snow along with the cooler temperatures. I started carrying around a small tarp to cover the seat and handlebars and when it starts to get cold, I'll use it to sort of cover the heads to keep a little bit of heat trapped.

A few weeks ago, Bobskoot blogged about his new impact wrench and I suggested looking for some torque limiting extensions to simplify tire mounting. These are what I was referring to. From left to right, 80 ft-lbs to 110 ft-lbs in 10 ft-lb increments. And the most common sockets for wheel lug nuts. Consistent enough for installing wheels so you don't need to use a torque wrench. For my truck, the spec is 135 ft-lbs so the last bit still needs to be done by hand.

Update Tuesday Afternoon - We are now getting dumped on and the powers that be suggested that folks head home earlier rather than later. The road was pretty slick with some vehicles (those same arrogant AWD drivers I mentioned before) were sliding through intersections and spinning out on the highway as they gunned their unstoppable machines. On the heavier snow, the sidecar rig tended to steer wide as the front wheel floated on top of the heavy snow. By mid afternoon, it was already about 4" deep so I opted to head for home. Maybe time to see if the snowblower still starts and runs…

 

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