Cavemen and Dinosaurs

I've had the bike now for a few days. The first few days I had to spend just getting basic tools. I recently moved to Michigan from London U.K. where I was working the past 2 years. Needless to say I didn't bring any tools with me on the aeroplane.
The Ural comes with a very basic set of tools but no socket wrenches.
Also I needed to get cleaning supplies.
Yes first thing I did was wash it.
For some reason people think rust and grime is Russian Lock-tite
It aslo gave me a chance to look over the bike and see what was where.
Once I had that done I started the bike and the engine ran fine with a battery charge of 11.2.
Pretty good after sitting in storage for a month.
Yesterday I started on the major repairs I have to do to get it back on the road.
The two big things to fix are the broken front brake cable and find out what happened in the final drive.

I started on removing the final drive which means:
remove the rear axle
take off the back tire
unbolt the final drive from the frame and remove it

More detail on the steps can be found here

http://myural.com/removing_and_installing_wheels.html
http://myural.com/final_drive_removal__installati.html

It has several more minor steps but I hit a snag from the first.

The rear axle would not come out.
It should just slide out but didn't.
I know the bearing inside the final drive had screwed up.
One look at the oil out of the final drive told me something bad had happened inside.
This is a shot of the rag I had just wiped on the final drive drain plug.




I thought maybe the bearings were binding the axle.
It started to rain so I quit for the day.
I was afraid I may have to cut the axle off like Dom did before.

I thought If I could just hit the right hand side of the axle
with a hammer it would come out.
But there is a U-Joint in the way. I had to remove that.
Emailed Dom and he told me how to get it off.



Got that removed and whacked the axle with a rubber mallet and it came right out.
Looks like there is no damage to the axle which is good.
Once that was done I removed the wheel and was able to get the final drive out
…..with several more whacks of the hammer.



At this point I felt like caveman killing a dinosaur.
I wanted to grunt, beat my chest and have a steak afterwards.

I settled for a bologna sandwich and a cookie.