Back when I did the wheel swap to put the regular DURO tire back on Natasha as the pusher wheel, I'd noticed that the gear splines within the hub were kind of worn down. I remember thinking to myself that I needed to start shopping around for a replacement wheel hub.
I guess I didn't move fast enough for Natasha however. I was riding on Deer Creek Canyon Rd to shoot a video of the curves and twists offered by this nice road. I had stopped to mount my son's video camcorder onto the grab rail on the sidecar. I went to start moving and there was this dreadful metal rubbing noise! I stopped the engine immediately and did an inspection of the transmission area, the drive shaft and the final drive assembly, no obvious damage or leaks of any sort. Hmmm.
I started the engine once again and gently eased off the clutch, again there were the dreadful metal rubbing and clanking noises! Damn. I started walking her down the slight incline where I had stopped, all the while watching the drive shaft. I noticed it turned just fine but I noticed that the sidecar drive shaft was not spinning. The noise was coming from the final drive area....damn damn.
Then, a light went off in my head and I remembered an article on sovietsteeds.com where a fellow rider had a similar situation and it turned out to be worn spline gears within the pusher tire's hub. In his case, they had worn down to the point where the gears from the final drive were not engaging the pusher tire's spline gears and so no power. Here's a link to the article: LINK
Hoping against hope, I started working on taking off the pusher tire so I could see if that was the problem in my case as well. It took me over 90 minutes to swap the wheels out. It's really hard to swap wheels when you're on a slight incline, have to dig a channel in the hard rock encrusted dirt to allow enough clearance to pull the old wheel out and put the spare wheel in. (It really helps to have a helper when swapping wheels).
Still, I had managed to get the old wheel off and sure enough, the spline gears were worn almost completely away! I put the spare tire on as pusher, and was hammering in the axle when a good samaritan stopped to offer help. Good timing on Bruce's part, that was his name, since I was having the usual issues getting the final third of the axle to go into the frame's suspension arm.
Axle in place, Bruce said goodbye with my thanks. I wish he'd have shown up about 30 minutes before when I was struggling to pull the wheel out but hey, he stopped. Unlike the many cagers who simply went by as I worked on Natasha.
Got the spare wheel buttoned up and secured. Put away my tools, secured the bad wheel onto the spare's position on the sidecar. Used some of the Goop I carry in my toolkit to clean the grease and dirt from my hands and washed them in the snow. Brrrrr!
I geared back up, started the engine and damn if she didn't start moving as expected, with NO noises! A good self-recovery experience for today! A new wheel will cost me $311 and I pick it up tomorrow. (I was thinking this was pricey but it turns out to be a good deal) It's got a black rim vice a chrome rim like my old one but again, beggars can't be choosers. I might, in the long run, find someone who can take the hub from the new wheel and install it onto the old rim with the old spokes but it won't be tomorrow.
After all this, I decided to shoot the damn video I'd come all the way to Deer Creek Canyon for anyways. I hope you enjoy it. Sorry, no pics of the repairs, was to busy repairing and fighting to get the old wheel off!
After all, I can't let Bobskoot do all the videos can I?
Here's a picture of the old pusher wheel's hub and the stripped splines therein. Looks pretty bad don't it?
Here's my pusher wheel's hub
The threaded rod in the center is the support rod that holds the spare tire
not much left of the splines eh?
The wearing of the splines is apparently a common issue with Urals, sigh. Russian metallurgical skills can sometimes be "lacking" apparently. Oh well. Things made by Man will break or wear down, that's life.
It's good to have a spare wheel/tire!
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