Rear fender straightened out. Everything lines up pretty good.
Front end alignment. Not perfect but pretty close.
Spent a good amount of time today banging out dents and straightening the rear fender. I didn’t have to take any rivets out but I did hammer out the hinge pin to help make some bends. In the end I think I got everything pretty straight.
1931 Indian 101 Scout Rebuild 
This is a wonderful build blog, thank you for taking the time to post and share your experience. I love the process of discovery with these old machines. My first Indian, a 1948 Chief was painted a rattle can blue paint too. Upon tear down of the fenders and gas tank what wonder did I behold but some amazing original Prairie Green paint! A late color offering that year by Indian. My Chief was a late number bike, and of course they did not make any Chiefs in ’49 so it was a rare color. I, of course, had to repaint it that color. Glad you’ll be redoing yours in the original red. I like the cream tank with a red frame and fenders, it will be stunning.
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Thanks for the kind words. It’s pretty neat finding the history as you dig through the layers of paint and years of grime, rust and patina. The tank was completely stripped down when it was redone in the 60’s. Probably had to fix some leaks. So I leaves me no evidence on if it was cream sided or all red. I know chances are it was red as from what I recall reading, something like 80 to 90% of them were all red. It was like $7 to $12 to upgrade the paint from all red. Not a small amount in the late 20’s early 30’s. The more I look at all red bikes with the gold pinstripes the more I’m thinking of going that way. Well at least I have time to think about it.
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The front end moves about a bit out on the road, the fender tip moves about and the rods moves about, so it is common to find wear marks even worn holes where the rods pass the fender. On the picture the gaps seems to be uneven, try to get ample gaps there to avoid future problems with wear marks. Unfortunatly it looks like the factory got the indentations for the rods slightly too far rearward and it makes the fender fitting a bit troublesome.
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Another troublesome point is at the rear fender where it meets the saddle plate. Because the saddle plate position is so ridgid, and the fender moves about from side to side surprisingly much when riding and add to that any strain when tightening the bolt to the fender there will make a load point that risk/will crack the fender later on. It is a good idea to spot weld a reinforcement washer (about 2″ circ.) at the underside.
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