Total Loss Ignition System installed.

Took me about an hour or so once I collected all the stuff and tools. Easy.

I bought yesterday a 125 Amp Hour Marine Deep Cycle Battery at Walmart, a pair of battery cables and a plastic storage box; got out of there for less than $120. Not too bad.

Assuming the figure I've read online of a Ural normally using 8 amps/hr, I should have with a fully charged battery about 15 hrs of riding time in terms of range before I have to recharge. Since I plan to run with the headlight on (it's the law here), we'll see what actual ranges come out to.

Cleaned up trunk, ready for install

Here's the marine battery in the plastic box I bought for it, all wired up

A closeup of the exit point of the battery cables to the bike's small battery

View of bike's regular battery, hooked up inline with the marine battery

Here's what you'll see when in traveling mode

Battery box with cover on, note the vents for battery gases

Yeah, it takes up some room in the trunk but the peace of mind I am hoping it'll give me in terms of not having to deal with another failed alternator should make it worth it. The battery weights 68lbs so it's ballast with a useful function!

The box is anchored to the bottom of the sidecar with a couple of steel bolts with locknuts and washers to help spread the load.

Now, to wait for the new timing gears to get here so I can put them on and reassemble the engine parts I took out.

Update: Researching the matter still, but have decided for now to isolate the smaller battery to prevent it from being "deep cycled" along with the large battery. It'll be the onboard "spare" which gets me perhaps 20 Amp/Hrs or maybe 2 hrs of riding time w/ headlight, probably 1 with headlight on.

Shopping for voltmeter to monitor the battery as well. Thinking also of wiring a switch into headlight circuit so I can cut off headlight when running low on juice.

Update: Small Battery isolated. It'll be the onboard spare. Just have to rig up some quick disconnects so I can isolate either battery easily.

Update: A very informative link to an article written by Ed Paynter who has been running a TLES system for over two years and over 35,000 Km! LINK

Update: 22FEB10:  Today I bought a second 125 amp/hr battery, same as the first one and hooked it up in parallel to the first battery.  Why you ask?  Because I've learned a few things using my TLES system.  Yeah, the 125 amp/hr will do what I want but to get the range I want, I have to drain it down to 10.5 which is full discharge.  This is bad even for a deep cycle battery, which turns out you're not supposed to discharge below 20% which correlates to 11.6 volts!  See chart below:

I ran my power usage requirements and desired range/operating hrs by the folks at a couple of places who sell deep cycle batteries and the consensus was I should be running a 255 amp/hr battery based on these requirements:

8 amps/hr usage (headlight on), and run it for a max of 12 hours run time.  I did not factor in amps consumed by the electric starter since it's hard to quantify without an ammeter.  Suffice to say, I use kickstart whenever possible (which means after the fifth kick or if I am in a hurry).

By hooking up a second 125 amp/hr battery in parallel, I retain 12 volts for the system and about 250 amp/hr of capacity.  I've tracked usage with the headlamp on and gotten about 200 miles range and drained the battery down to 10.8 volts.  I am hoping for about 400 miles and still be at 11.6 volts or above with two batteries.  We shall see.

My new TLES setup, yep, lost a lot of space in the trunk.  But can still fit all my tools!  I foresee a large ammo can bolted onto the side of the sidecar in my future though, for more lockable storage if the above arrangement works out as I hope.