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!


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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Tuesday, 24 July 2012

Saturday, 21 July 2012

Finally got the powerplant fitted in the chassis

Engine plates and spacer tube



Change of plan... I decided that the tanks fit nicer over the backbone of the frame



And at close of business this afternoon ...



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Thursday, 19 July 2012

Odd Jobs

Cleaned up the old Yamaha tls hub and trued it up on the old crappy chrome 18" wheel that it came with... It will get built into a new rim once I have decided whether to run an 18",19" or 21" rim up front






All done while the paint dries



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Bars

I picked up a modified '30s chief bar centre during the gathering stages of the project, it had solid round bar stubs welded either side ( slightly squint!!!) to take risers and aftermarket bars.
Today i set it up in the lathe turned down the stubs to the same diameter as the inside of a set of old Triumph 1" western pattern bars that i got from Tony with the 101 frame.






A couple of cuts later


And they are ready for welding




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Saturday, 14 July 2012

Crossbar... all welded and ground back

Thats the frame ready to come out of the jig and get a coat of primer or two


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Tuesday, 10 July 2012

'33 heads on '40 jugs

Make for a lot more room up top.








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Thursday, 5 July 2012

Tuesday, 3 July 2012

Progress 2

Revised steel plugs internally bored to 3/4" to cut down on excess weight, outer diameter 1.125" to match factory spec tube






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Saturday, 30 June 2012

Progress

A bit of time in the engine room on the lathe today and the cross brace is ready to be welded in place
















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Friday, 29 June 2012

Frame mods Plan C ref 5.5 revision F

I looked at the flat plate template this morning, cut out the shape in rough from a length of 8"x1/4" flat stock ... Picked it up and decided it had no place on a hotrod motocycle.....
Change of plan. Length of 7/8" tube in the lathe, squared off at both ends and cut back at 45 deg. Then i cut 2 end slugs with 3/8" dowels to fit into 1/2"x1" flat drops, which will be countersunk and bolted to the 1" slugs fitted to the frame.




















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Wednesday, 27 June 2012

Progress

Started the day with a modified plywood mock up of the removable flitch plate to replace the crossbar



Then i found a length of 1.25" screwed rod in the railway yard and turned down a short length to use as slugs in the frame, to fut the plate in place



As i was doing that, a courier arrived with the blower, so i trial fitted it to see if it would go where i want it.... all fits in fine 8)




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