Talk me into buying a Ural.

Ok, I don't need any help because I've already talked myself into another one. But I do have questions!

Background: I had a 2007 Ural Tourist in the US that I sold before moving here to Sweden a few years ago (insert visual of me kicking myself). I'm not planning to go long distances, mostly just within 10km or so (to the beach, to the store, etc). I have a 16-year-old son with autism and he's the primary reason for getting one as I'm more comfortable with him in the sidecar than riding pillion.

So, I am hoping to find a Tourist or Ranger in the 2005-2008 or so range (newer ones get too pricey for me) because of the technological improvements. But those seem hard to come by. I've been mostly shopping in Germany (mobile.de) because those guys seem to really like outfits (there are over 400 for sale right now) and there are hardly any here in Sweden. Anyway, the more reading I've done the more I'm warming up to an earlier model (mid-90s). That's where my questions kick in for the experienced guys here. I know I want one with a leading link fork. On top of that, should I only look for ones that have been updated with regards to electrical system, Denso alternator and new spur gears? Are there other mods or upgrades I should be looking for? ANd once these improvements have been made is the bike fairly reliable (I know that's a relative term when it comes to Urals)? Can someone give me a ballpark estimate of what it costs to do these improvements if I buy one that's fairly stock and modify it myself?

Thanks in advance/mark

Buy one of these instead:-



Faster, more stable, safer, more economical, more reliable and you can use them in the winter without dressing for the Arctic. Better still with the correct tyres it will deal with a huge amount of snow.

Packer said:

Buy one of these instead:-

Faster, more stable, safer, more economical, more reliable and you can use them in the winter without dressing for the Arctic. Better still with the correct tyres it will deal with a huge amount of snow.

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I already have a Forester for that application!

Yes, but the Jimny is a soft top so almost bike-like for those special dry days when the snow is crisp and the sky is blue. Your son would probably love it.

Packer said:

Yes, but the Jimny is a soft top so almost bike-like for those special dry days when the snow is crisp and the sky is blue. Your son would probably love it.

Click to expand...

I appreciate what you're saying but I if I were to go that route I'd probably just get a fun convertible. We live in a little village on an island and are a few kilometers from the beach and from town. My son and I don't have many activities we can share but riding around on a Ural for most of the year is one of them.

Edit to add: I've actually never seen one of those but it looks pretty fun.

Back to Urals.

Don't be headworked into paying a King's Ransom for a Denso alternator.
If you see a Ural that you like and want and it's got the 'hand grenade' alternator just buy yourself an early L424 alternator and a separate solid state regulator like I fitted to my 650.
Although parts from F2 motorcycles are expensive,David Angel is very helpful and he sells a package to convert over to this set up including very detailed instructions......there's an option of a type of regulator which keeps the charge lamp working as normal,rather than some conversions where it's lit all the time and somewhat annoying.

The later Herzog timing gears are high quality and an improvement in several ways over the original Russian ones but again,don't waste your money and time pissing about like the Americans trying to swap over to them.
I've run my two Urals for 6 or 7 years now for a great many miles,and run them pretty hard,and I've only had one Russian timing gear shed its teeth.
No other damage was done to the machine and I just bought a new pair of timing gears for about fifty quid and changed them in about an hour.

There's many,many American threads and posts about all the things they've changed and how they've put the latest version of this or that on their Ural but if you look for where they've been on them you'll see almost nowt.
There's no real need to alter anything apart from that Hand Grenade alternator (if one's fitted)because it WILL fail at some time.
Trust me on that...I had three of them fail.
A friend and I homebuilt a Mitsubishi/Ural hybrid alternator once,and that failed on the driveshaft arrangement after a while.
I fitted the aforementioned L424 and solid state regulator some years ago and have had no trouble since.

Thanks Tarka, that's very helpful. Kicking myself again because I lost out (he accepted but by the time I got back to him the next day he had another offer) on a 95 that the person had really done a ton of updates to but was also selling for 2200 euros. That seems to be toward the bottom of the price range. The cheapest I've seen have an asking price of 1700 or so and the norm seems to be between the high 2s and the low 4s. Oh well, I bide my time and wait for another to pop up...

OK, I just bought a 1966 Hungarian Pannonia T-5 (I think) outfit. It's a 2 stroke single piston 250. It needs new gear bearings but otherwise seems to be in OK shape. A bit of an impulse buy because it was crazy cheap for Sweden. Does anyone have any experience with these?

Oh, here's a pic

Ohh that chair looks comfy grommet ....



Sent using witchcraft

I've never ridden one, sat in a side car but that looks great fun - hope it works out.

i have a 1992 ural 650 with a side car ,on the left for this country ,brilliant condition long mot and tax ,if you want it pm me and i will email you some photos next week ,price is 2000 quid
cheers ian