[45/70fan]

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WWII motorcycle
Resurrecting a war relic


http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_c473e621-517c-5f95-a09e-f075fed44d22.html



BTW: machinegun (demilled) was banned from campus.

 

[exavid]

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That's the same bike the Russians were selling as the 'Ural'. After the war the Russians basically took a BMW factory back home from Germany and continued building 1938 BMWs under the name Ural. Same bike has been for sale here in the US up until recently. There's one here in Medford. Kinda slow, you don't want to get on the freeway with one of these but they are quite capable in mud and snow. I don't know why the guy was getting parts from Germany, any Ural dealer ought to be able to supply all the parts.

 

[45/70fan]

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Do the Ural's come with machine guns?

 

[Heffo]

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exavid wrote:

I don't know why the guy was getting parts from Germany, any Ural dealer ought to be able to supply all the parts.

Probably because the Urals were a poor copy. The Germans took much of the critical tooling to the south of Germany, and destroyed more before the Russians arrived.
Urals were a common sight on European roads, and sold in decent numbers at least up to the mid-80's. I know several owners, and none of them claim that the Urals reliability is up to that of any older BMW. But for many years they were the cheapest way to get a complete brand new rig.

 

[unionjk]

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The older Urals ( up until the last decade) did have the machine gun mounts welded into the frame under the top sidecars skin. All you had to do was punch the holes in the skin and the nuts to screw into were already there.

When I was a kid in England there were four Urals in Plymouth all olive green and two of them with the sidecars. They made dummy machine guns out of wood and painted them black then mounted them to the sidecars. Sure got a lot of looks and concerned cagers!!!

 

[goldtop]

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My friend is just in the throws of restoring one of these. It is a chair on the right model.

Just finished converting all the lights to LED so he can retain the 6v system.

Getting a twin spark head put on it too I believe.

 

[azdesertdad]

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that's kind of neat.

 

[jimsjinx]

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Urals are cool, but not a reliable tourer, that's for sure. We were looking at them before we went with a trike. Did a lot of asking and looking, and the engines came off the shelf from WWII. Seals were all dried up, even on the new "kits". One I saw, had a bright red paintjob, and under that, was olive drab green! It was too much a crapshoot for me, so I never bought one. There was a dealer here in Alabama, but I was told he's long gone. I really liked the old school look of them,though. They sound like they are running thier guts out on the hiway! jimsjinx

 

[redbaron]

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Funny that you mention Germany WWII war machinery, because my wifes former empolyeers BIL is a collector of old war machinery...From cars, to motorcycles and weapons....Back several years ago him and his family made a trip to Europe to buy some vechiles that he wanted..One of them was a German half track, tires on the front tank type tracks on the rear...OK they get back to Houston, all of his stuff came in but that half track????....So no problem, it all had came into Florida, the kids wanted to do Disney World, and they took their 40 ft motorhome and went to do both things, Disney and see why that half track wasn't shipped...Reason being it still had "workable machine guns" on it????....Paperwork done they bought a trailer to haul it, loaded it and started home...

Through Flordia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Lousiana, about four miles into Texas the DPS had a road block up, them and several other agencys were there????...The question was "Do those machine guns work??"...." Yup they do".."Do you have ammo for them"???..."No way guys"..Once these law enforment agencys made sure he had no ammo, seen his paperwork, he was cleared to bring them home, but a DPS car, and acouple of SUV'sfollowed him there....It was so funny hearing him tell about his trip...

 

[Wilson02]

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One of my Uncles had a Ural back in the 60s and 70s. One thing I learned quick was that Ural owners had to be mechanically savvy because they needed a lot of maintenance. They are definitely not proper BMW's. My Uncle's Ural always seemed to give cylinder head problems, valves and guides wearing out and breaking. Leaked so much oil that it made any Harley standing beside it look tight as a virgin.
But, my cousins loved travelling around in their Dads rig, they had fun times in it for all of their childhood.

 

[satan]

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Urals do rock - and that's a fun restoration effort... Nice work (de-mill'd or not )

Always get a few Urals for the Elephant Ride ( http://redlegsrides.blogspot.com/2010/02/four-uralisti-challenge-elephant-ride.html )

 

[seabee]

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Looks like a great way to keep the 'cagers' at bay. :lash:

 

[GLester]

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You can still buy new Urals, they now are up to 750 cc and have 55 amp alternators, but still will only cruise at about 65 mph max. I still if I had the area to park one, would like to own one of the newer ones. I got to drive one down in Texas once, actually I liked it, simple, rugged, and you can see all of the mechanicals, without having to remove plastic.:smiler:

Gene:action:

 

[peterbilt]

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thats awsum my grand dad had tucked away in the back of his garage was a harley davidson sidcar army issue scout vehicle

was a true testament of time and all that we the family sold it to help pay for his living expenses was sad to see it go

 

[exavid]

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On the way to Montrose, CO for Nassir 2 we came upon a Danish fellow riding a Ural that had been repowered with a Kubota diesel tractor engine. He was running it on Wesson Oil. Topped out around 55mph or thereabouts but was chugging along pretty well. He came to NASSIR 2 with us (he got in a good bit later) and John AZ1500 (who needs a new handle, OK1500 ought to do it) stored the guy's rig for awhile at his AZ place. There was a good bit of chatter on a thread about that awhile back.

 

[CaptainMidnight85]

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[flash=425,344]http://www.youtube.com/v/mcqGvBe2lxE&feature=player_profilepage&hl=en&fs=1[/flash]
...Now that is a Ural :smiler:

 

[exavid]

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Looks like a lot of the Forest Service and BLM roads around here. Also looks like the kind of roads the Ural was designed to handle back in the '30s.

 

[CaptainMidnight85]

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I think Mr. Cob lives in Washington. His bike is highly modified for durability. He's prettywell knownin the Ural sphere.

He keeps one of hisdogs with him on his rides. Not seen in the vid above, but in many others. His dogrides in the hack.

He's way harder on that bike than I would ever be on my 'Wing, even if it was 2WD.

I often think about a Ural final drive unit swap.

 

[Lightin]

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I have hear a convesation of a couple old timers talking Back then they mixed MMO with the petrol to keep em going , can do the same today. just a splash will do ya.I have yet to try it . cause I dont Know if they were Talking about the Machine Guns Or The Bikes.