A tale of two Chouts

The Ultimate Indian Motocycle Hybrid, the marriage of a vintage Scout frame with a Chief engine!


The Alchemist

The essence of motocycle, picture a rigid framed vintage roadracer, leaf sprung fork, single pan saddle, hand gearchange, foot clutch, left hand throttle and the biggest production Indian engine of the time shoehorned into the best handling Indian frame of All time! A true hotrod, the looks of a stripped down wall bike on steroids!


Sunday 23 November 2014

Home

Yesterday, i collected the Chout from Foss Fabrication where it had been sitting since september 2012. Richi had been commissioned to make good the frame crosstube, make up a set of stainless pipes following my foam templates, fabricate the kicker mount and brake torque arms and linkages. He also designed and made the shifter, modified and mounted the footboards and made up a mudguard stay for the rear.




Now i have it home ill pull out the powerplant for final assembly then deliver the frame back to Fossfab to let Richi weld the inner side of the kicker mount.




Ill need to build the transmission into a better case that i have as the existing one needs many repairs, then its time to build up the primary, fit a King clutch, then put the powerplant back into the frame for final build up.


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Monday 23 June 2014

Saturday 15 December 2012

Cross bar and Handlebar

Removable crossbar welded and bolted in place



And new handlebars courtesy of Dr Foss, made up using a set of 741b bars and a mid 30's chief bar centre


Saturday 24 November 2012

Bit of a change of direction with the frame

After a chat with Richi at Foss Fab, a decision was made to modify the cross tube once more, Richi sweated the front casting off the twin downtubes .. the plan is to move it upwards and turn it upside down, with the crossbar socket drilled out the new crossbar can be swept up in a curve to meet the rear socket on the seatpost casting .. which will be trimmed back to suit. The front casting will be set at the right height to pick up the lower tank mounts








Thursday 4 October 2012

Exhausts first fix

Richi has nailed just the way i wanted the pipes to sit ... tacked and ready to weld 8)






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Saturday 8 September 2012

Option 3 revision 2 version 1.5




741 bars




A little bit of modification to the already butchered 30's top yoke and tjey will bolt down nicely giving the same sort of height as bars on 1 1/2" risers







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Friday 7 September 2012

A change of bars ...

After re styling the foam exhausts i had re think with the bars, a bit more sporting and a bit less dirttrack .... jury's still out!















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Thursday 6 September 2012

Drive chain

A stormy day in Achnasheen today, so I decided it was time to centre the rear wheel and set the final drive chain run. A spacer turned from alloy roundstock and drilled to suit the 18mm Honda spindle set the wheel dead centre in the frame.

With a 3' length of 1/4" flat bar G clamped to the rear sprocket and a short length of the same bar clamped to the gearbox sprocket, i firstcheckd that the two were running parallel then measured the offset.... 3/8"




I turned down a piece of steel tube to the same inner and outer diameter as the standard sprocket distance piece but 1/4" narrower then turned the sprocket round and fitted it with the 1/8" dish in the way..... Jobsagoodun!!!!






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Saturday 25 August 2012

Fat tyres n Borranis

Fitted 4.00x18 dirt tyres to the Borrani rimmed Honda K4 wheels and got them on the Chout... Really balances the bike nicely and makes it feel bigger.







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Thursday 26 July 2012

Repositionimg the kicker mount

One of the issues with fitting a chief powerplant into a 101 chassis is that the kicker stud is too close to the pinion... Today i made a start on repositioning the stud.
First off i drilled a piece of flat 1/4" stock to fit snugly over the existing 101 stud



With a length of 7/8" roundstock as a kicker pivot i offered the kicker up into position so the teeth mesh but not too tightly



Having marked the centre of the stud i drilled a 1/2" hole and turned the roundstock down on the lathe to the same size


With the new pin loosely in position i marked it with room for a washer and circlip then parted it off


All clamped together ready to weld now.

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