csdexter

Which is exactly why I want access to the port and data :-) I have the knowledge and the resources to build whatever kind of gauge or status monitor I want, I do not want to be the slave of Dakota Digital or others in the same industry. Knowing how to do something and being blocked by somebody keeping documentation secret has always been a turn-down for me.

Maybe I was too hasty, so I'd like to put these two here just for the record: Ural staff, as you mention, has been awesome so far and that's something I appreciate both as a single event AND when thinking about buying a bike from them (i.e. long term). Having who to ask about stuff and knowing they will answer and help you fix your issue is a rare situation nowadays and I'll appreciate and cherish that. Regarding type-approval -style laws and regulations, I have no intention of MODIFYING anything in the way the EFI operates, be that the curves or the parameters thereof. But I DO want read-only access to ALL the status and monitoring data there is. I've put extra gauges on every bike I had and, should I get an Ural, I sure would like to "listen" to the EFI's log and display that nicely in the cockpit :-) That's all. Will have a look on the forum you mentioned (thanks for the pointer).

UPDATES: I've been exchanging emails with the European HQ and they're much nicer guys than the locals. At the time of the last exchange, the expected arrival time for the EU was April 2014. In the mean time, the owner's manual for the 2014 model showed up on the US site and, guess what: "diagnostic connector for the EFI, intended use: DEALER DIAGNOSTIC ONLY". That's a show stopper for me, if I wanted to lock myself out of my own property, I'd buy some Windows licences Also, April 2014 is about one month later than the prospective launch date for Honda's CTX1300 which is a very VERY attractive choice for me as a post-RSV bike. We'll see how times unfold ...

If they were physically DVDs but logically contain movie files (such as .AVI or .MPG) as opposed to being a Video-DVD and you tried them in a stand-alone DVD-player (the kind you would connect to your TV to watch movies etc.), then they wouldn't have worked. If you tried them in a PC, however, it should have worked either way (Video- or Data- DVD). Maybe scratched? Missing codecs? Just sayin' ...

(starting up with some common sense stuff) - plenty of zip-lock bags and a marker to write on them, you'll thank yourself later for being tidy ;-) - something to hold the bike and something to hold the engine. This may be jack and small crane (as used for car engine installation) or any other arrangement that allows for the procedure to be carried in a safe way - the frame is mostly round pipe while the engine has many sharp edges. I would wear heavy duty gloves and never ever put any fingers under the engine, unless I intend losing them - a photocopy of the OEM service manual or the Clymer, specifically the chapter about engine removal will come handy. Why photocopy? So that you can handle it with dirty hands and not care about it ;-)

The service manual for the RSV mentions Yamabond 4 for the crankcase halves (as the only gasket) and for the cylinder head cover gasket (to keep it in place during assembly, most likely). Nothing for the clutch, alternator and middle gear cover.

For completeness' sake, people may want to note the OEM shock comes in two versions which are interchangeable (they switched from 4XY-22210-00-00 to 4XY-22210-10-00 in model year 2005). The later one (presumably better since the design and part got changed) sells for $442.78 (with free lower-48 delivery) at Partzilla or same price with $23.5 lower-48 delivery at PartShark. Disclaimer: I do not work for either of the two companies above, nor do I receive any benefits of any kind for any sale they make. I only wrote this because the total amount was lower than the $600 quoted by previous posters and I thought some people might want to know there's alternatives. Also, the last time I checked, the Hagon shock absorber did not have air-adjustment like the OEM one.

This probably doesn't apply to today's motorcycles and technology, but "back in the day", I would just lay the crankcase cover (or part that needed a gasket) on top of a thin sheet of cardboard and tap it a couple times with a soft-faced mallet. A nice impression of the mating surface would thus remain on the card which I could then clip along the contour with scissors and there you have it: new gasket. Back in the day, the "default paper company" (remember, this was during communist times so we only got one "company" per industry vertical) made A4 student notebooks whose covers were made from the perfect kind of thin card for this application

I second tx2sturgis's proposal. I made the harnesses myself (because I wanted to plug into the OEM connectors on the bike as opposed to wiring directly to battery) but I got all the parts (connectors, relays, fuses etc.) from the same site and they're very good quality. Bonus, when switching beams I can hear the relays clicking and it's awesome

They appear to be located in AZ and the company's name is "Verde Powersports". Looking that up reveals about 50/50 good/bad reviews so I guess a decent amount of common sense is advised before committing to buy from them. On the other hand, this may well be subjective (it's far easier to complain about custom products than it is about standard ones, especially where the art/aesthetics factor is involved). I say that comparing my experience with a certain online parts store (which is awesome so far) with that of other members of this forum who say they were often sent the wrong parts etc.

Glad to see this happening :-)

The bad news is that F2 Motorcycles is the "suspicious old man" I was talking about :-) The good news is that I e-mailed the EU HQ and they managed to wake up our Irish dealer so I'm writing to them right now, hoping for the best. Thanks for all the good suggestions!

Indeed you have! Ireland and Europe are like Hawaii and the US (or Alaska, if you like): everybody finds an excuse not to ship/sell there, thus leaving the local dealers/service providers (not only in the motorcycling realm) without any competition. We all know what happens where there's no competition, I don't have to tell that story over again, right? Also, Europe (as in "the huge landmass east of the UK mainland" ) contains Austria, a nice country which appears to contain the equivalent of Ural Europe, from an organizational point of view. Most if not all of Europe deals with those guys when it comes to Urals and things work smoothly because, well, they mean business and they do business. For some unfathomable reason, the one UK dealer I was mentioning earlier deals directly with the Russians (and over a very slow and bad link, possibly messenger pigeons, I would guess) and posts strange things such as "the first EFI models will ship in March, but we're taking deposits now" and "all bikes are 'carefully' inspected when they arrive, then have the timing and jetting 'adjusted' to our (i.e. the dealer's -- my note) exacting specifications and finally are 'test ridden' by the business owner himself before being handed over to our customers" (my quotes).So, yes, Europe has a lot of Urals (and Ventures too, by the way). Ireland is different, I think there are only about 7 Ventures in the whole country and it kind of makes sense when you go to a dealer and they quote 250% the MSRP for a bolt! That is a good idea indeed, it's awesome to have somebody with a cool head around to put you back on track -- thanks for that As for HD (and, yes, I know most of the jokes), I used to ride a Sporster for two years here and the local dealer (despite being just two in Ireland, so close to no competition) was absolutely awesome. All questions answered and anything that seemed it may become an issue was proactively fixed under warranty. There are exceptions to the rule, but they're rare. Thanks for the wise words!

Too bad the logistics are, as pure-bred Irish people would put it, "****e". It appears it's easier and faster to get an Ural in the US than in Ireland -- but they all come from Russia and no, the US-bound ones didn't take the shortcut over Japan There is no dealer in Ireland (well, officially there is one but has no website, doesn't read mail, doesn't answer phone -- you know the kind -- and if you show up to their gate and ask they go "What? Motorcycles? No, we've always manufactured bolts, ain't heard nothin' of no motorcycles here!"). There are two dealers in the UK: one of them will say they heard nothing of such a motorcycle called "Ural" as they only sell Royal Enfields. The other one looks and acts the part (at least when they get up their arse and update their website) , but is an old guy (no offence intended to anyone else here) that still thinks the world extends only to the UK mainland's shores and got all scared and suspicious when I told him I'm from Ireland and would like to do the paperwork the right way around so that I don't end up paying taxes twice. So then I did his job and homework and gathered all the relevant laws and regulations (most of which were links from hmrc.gov.uk, you can't get more legit than that) and sent him the exact quote where it explains how and why you should file which papers where to get exactly what I proposed first: pay taxes only once. He read through it and remained scared and suspicious. Oh well, some people just don't understand business (i.e. that in order to have a successful business, you must do business first) ... and I'll leave it at that as I'm too mad to be polite anymore. The cash is on the table, if there were a Ural dealership next block, I'd go out right now and ride the bike back home. But it would appear Ural (the company) is fine without my cash

The fuel pump is controlled by a relay that, in turn, is controlled by the TCI (ignition) box. The power for all those (and everything else on the bike but the radio) comes from the main key switch, so offloading that one to a relay is always welcome. The points on the fuel pump will eventually fail just like points in ignitions used to fail back when bikes used them. Passing more current through a point-style contact will indeed make it fail sooner, but that has nothing to do with where that current is coming from, only where it's going. In plain English: if you were to connect your fuel pump directly to the battery, the points wouldn't fail sooner than in the factory configuration. However, if your fuel pump gets dirty and clogged with time and use and the solenoid in it has to draw more and more power to move the plunger up and down then, sure, your points will eventually fail. So, offloading the current from the key switch to the relay won't make your fuel pump fail sooner. Hope this helps.

SVG is a pretty standard format for vector images and the file in question came from the Wikipedia article on switches. You must be using a very old browser because even Internet Explorer understands SVG nowadays :-) Sorry for the inconvenience. Anyway, working on your photo and assuming the natural placement of terminals: - RED on top left - RED/BLUE on bottom left - BLUE/YELLOW on top right - BLUE/BLACK on bottom right

The explanation you found on that other site is correct. A dual-pole single-throw (DPST) switch has a diagram like this one: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/DPST-symbol.svg It's like two SPST switches glued together so that they move at the same time, opening or closing both circuits at the same time. So, getting back to "how do I connect stuff", things should be like this (with reference to the diagram above): - RED wire to top right terminal - RED/BLUE wire to top left terminal - BLUE/YELLOW wire to bottom right terminal - BLUE/BLACK wire to bottom left terminal Hope this helps.

I used to have a '97 XV535 (wonderful bike, BTW, they don't make them like that nowadays) and it was more or less the same: starting from cold was a two hand job. I should also mention it was getting worse as the weather improved. Ok, rephrasing: - cold engine, cold outside (like winter cold): starts on the button with choke to full on - cold engine, cool to warm outside (like a spring night): starts on second attempt with 1/8 ~ 1/4 throttle and choke fiddling - cold engine, warm to hot outside (like a summer day): starts only with 1/4 throttle and no choke I didn't mind, got used to it and thought it was part of its "character". One day, I took it in for a full service and when I came back to pick it up, the guy there (awesome mechanic) looked at me and went "You messed with the mixture screws, didn't ya?". I said, no, I don't even know where they are on this bike! (back then I actually didn't). So he showed me and told me they were set to way richer than factory setting, probably because the bike has been restricted before. He also explained me he re-set them to factory and synchronized the carbs. Of course, after that, the bike started on the button every time, except very cold winter nights when it would need full choke that you could move to 1/2 after the first 20 seconds or so and close completely after the first 2 minutes. I don't know if that's your issue, but that fixed it for me.

The physical key switch contains two (US) or three (EU) electrical switches. One of the latter is the one going to the thick wires on the two-position connector, the one that you use the relay for. The other one is going to the other, much smaller, connector. Look at the schematic and notice that, in order to start the bike, both must be closed (on) -- the second one enables the ignition while the first one powers the bike. The reason for which people only mount one relay is because the switch fails due to electrical overload and NOT due to mechanical reasons. So the section failing is the high power one and not the smaller one. By using a relay to take the load off the power section, the switch will virtually live forever :-) If you really intended to have a complete bypass "for those cases when everything breaks", then you should install a second manual switch to close the second circuit as well. Or, if you happen to have a DPST switch, you can use that for both circuits. Hope this brings some light on the issue.

One awesome summer day back home, in Romania, I misjudged a left turn and laid my Virago 535 nicely down the middle of the junction. I only had my licence for a month and the bike for two weeks, was new and stupid . I was OK (credit goes to the leathers) but the bike was too heavy for me to lift (and in the heat of the moment I didn't remember the proper lift trick) and there was glass and polycarbonate shards all over the place from the windshield and headlight. I went to the sidewalk, some 5 meters from the bike, to take my helmet off and cool down a bit when this white car comes to a screeching stop and the driver jumps out and runs at me asking "are you OK?". I took a couple seconds to get a grip on myself and then answer that I'm OK, but can't get the bike off the road. We went back, lifted it and pushed it on the sidewalk (which wasn't easy as it was stuck in 2nd and the clutch cable was too kinked to work). I extended the sidestand, let the bike on it carefully and then checked for gas or battery acid leaks. When I turned around to thank the guy, he was there no more. I am forever grateful. A year later, we were a group of 5 (IIRC) Viragos including a beginner (that is, "more" beginner than us as we were all pretty much newbies). That guy did well, but he lacked the endurance training to pull off a 300km trip in one day, over twisty roads and such, so about 80km from home it became obvious he got so tired he was beginning to be a danger to himself. I split the gang (the others were becoming nervous with the pace) and pulled off with the noob. He was still in denial: claimed his headlight was misaligned and that's why he can't see right. Had one sidebag full of tools and was bent on fixing it :-) Spent about 45 minutes talking him out of it and making him realize he was actually dead tired. We limped along in first gear until the first gas station, refilled and had a hot drink. By this time he was pretty aware of the situation and started excusing himself for keeping me behind -- I told him it's OK, others have done it for me when I was a noob myself and that I'll get him home. We went out of the gas stop and made the last ~70km or so in about one and a half hours. That guy now has a travel blog and has done Russia on an Ural Fast forward three years and I was stopped on the shoulder of M7 in Ireland, changing the batteries of the Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx, on my way to the Killarney Bike Fest. I did the change as fast as I could (because I loved the weather and I wanted to resume riding ASAP) and yet about 3 different bikers stopped to ask if I was OK :-) Fast forward a year later and me and my then-girlfriend were stopped on the shoulder of N7 for her to put the rain pants on. It was late evening and was getting too chilly for her. A van stopped behind us to ask if we were OK. So there are still good people in the world. I also usually stop (or at least slow down to ask for a thumbs up) when I see a bike on the side looking in distress. Whenever I ride in a group I wait for the slow ones, effectively becoming "the Charlie", even if noone usually waits for me. Paying it forward is the way.

Well, I'm happy you got it working (or shining) the way you wanted, then :-)

The greenish-gold you're mentioning may have been selective yellow, a few years ago I would have killed to get my hands on such a bulb but now I don't own the bike I needed it for anymore. Oh well, such is life.

Unfortunately, my "local muffler shop" looked at the bike with disgust and then went: "ya' pipes are small, ain't they?" "Yes, what you see is a shield, the inner pipe a bit over an inch in diameter" "Well, the smallest gauge me pipe bending machine can do is about the size of your shields. 'No way I'll be able to bend pipes as small as yours". And we left it at that, people here seem very unwilling to get paid ... one more reason to respect the US (where, at least in the smaller and more traditional shops, they know you're the most important person in the room when you step in). Will find a way ...

You were right on the money. The front section (header pipes) is stainless and so is the muffler. The middle section is some unknown metal. The heatshields are all chrome. Now, to find a guy that's handy with welding and bending stainless so that I can reconstruct my Y sections out of stainless steel and be done with it (wouldn't pay Yamaha $500 apiece even if I were held at gunpoint).

I knew I couldn't continue my argument without further evidence, so here it is: http://gallery.dexter.linux360.ro/d/20453-2/DSC_1136.JPG The lowest point of the whole exhaust system is the slight bulge in the middle-left of the photo, where the pipe weld is -- just below the top punctured region. That part should be the rustiest, but instead (after steel wool-ing the dirt away) it still has the original grey hi-temp paint on it. Also, the pipe seems to "want" to rust a lot more around the brackets holding the heat shield in place than anywhere else. The heat shields are intact and the pipe sections away from those brackets, albeit dirty, still have full thickness and are almost not corroded at all. The brackets themselves appear to be made of the same sheet metal as the heat shields: chromed steel. I'm out of ideas as to WHY