Tech Tips
Hand Shifting
Ok, the scoop on the hand shifter is this:
The original BMW R71 (the grandaddy of all CJs, Urals, Dneprs) was one of the first bikes in the world with the now universal hand operated clutch / foot operated shift combination. In order not to scare away any buyers who were used to the old way of doing things, BMW incorporated a hand shifter on the right side of the gearbox.The early Ural and Chang copies of the R71, being direct clones of the original BMW, incorporated this feature as well. When the Russians redesigned the Ural gearbox to include a reverse gear, they sacrificed the hand shifter. The Chinese made far fewer changes to the original design over the years, and the hand shifter has stayed. When they incorporated a reverse gear on the newer 12V bikes, they kept the hand shift, although the lever is shorter.
Surprisingly, the hand shifter is not completely useless: 1, It is a handy neutral finder. (Changs don't have neutral indicator lights.) 2, When pausing at a light or stop sign, instead of rowing down through the gears, you can simply pull in the clutch, push the hand shifter directly into first and be ready to go. 3, Its fun for the sidecar passenger to watch the shift lever moving, seemingly by itself, as the rider uses the foot shift.
Hope that answers the questions!
Jay -
FYI-
The hand shifter shaft is still present on the URAL transmission...it's the stubby thingie which sticks out near the reverse lever. It is used to index the shift quadrant, but could easily be adapted to hand shift duty by an intrepid and mechanically-inclined foilhead.
Wonders never cease...
Chuck. --
I have added a hand shifter to my solo and do indeed use it to find netural at a light. Years ago I saw a pictuer of a Neval Soviet that had a hand shifter so I fashioned one myself to match the photo. It is made out of 3/4" round stock Alum. and works very well. I have a Ural shop manual that shows a hand shifter as a special tool used to adjust the gear shift. If this special tool is not available through UA one might try UUK. But, I think that a hand shifter so close to the reverse shifter would be too busy. The Ural hacks don't need a extra hand shifter to find netural as the reverse lever does it quite well. -- Sidney Pollard IIIt