Took the frame and forks over to Tim Raindle so he could throw them on the frame and fork jig. They were real close but we decided to give them a little week and make them as close to perfect as we could. The nitpicking will all pay off during assembly.
These are just some of the parts cleaned up and ready for the plater. The tool box latch was bent and broken so it needed to be fixed before it went of for a fresh coat of nickel. It came out pretty nice.
I could not be happier with how the plating came out! Most parts on a 31 that are plated are nickel but Indian was in the very early stages of using some chrome. With the help of the 101 association shop manual I was able to determine what few parts needed to be chrome for this year. Here are a few examples of the finished plating work.
I was pretty amazed at how the dash came together. Here are some before and after pictures of the instrument cluster. If you look back through the blog you will see some pictures of pulling these parts apart and fixing them.
Found an amazing piece of leather at the leather shop and had a local leather worker make up some cable covers for me. I ended up having to purchase the entire hide so I think I have a nice leather project in my future. Maybe some saddlebags.
Allot has happened in the time sense my last post. I don’t want to just jump forward so over the next few days I think I am going to post the updates as they happened. At least when the blog is looked at as a whole it will be easy to follow.
Got the rebuilt motor back from Laughing Indian! The nickel plating on the freshly restored cylinders and heads looks amazing! Sorting all the other parts for nickel and chrome plating is next.
The magneto was fully disassembled and the coil was re-wrapped. Even though it was in pretty good shape it needed the refresh. The spark is super strong now!
Have to be careful. This thing bites now!
When the motor was taken apart we found that one of the wrist pin c clips came off and the wrist pin ran up and down the side of the cylinders. Lucky that the motor was not run very long this way. 30 thousandth over and the scratches were gone. Here are some pictures showing the scratched sidewall and the process of boring out the cylinders.
Then we have the cylinder heads. They had a few fins broken off. This is pretty common on these old cast iron heads.
So, off they went to Cast Iron Fusion welding in Utah where Jon Reed was able to make them like new again. With nickel platting being my finish choice this was the only way that I could have had them repaired as the nickel plating process eats away at the common brazing usually used for a repair like this. To see more about this process check out his web sight. castironfusionwelding.com
I am simply blown away at the results! here are the heads all cleaned up and ready to be repaired. They look so much better with all the rust gone but you can clearly see all of the broken fins.
Here is one of them in the furnace mid repair.
Lastly here they are again after the repairs are complete. Absolutely amazing! They look like they could be right off the shelf in 1931! They are going to look so incredible once they are nickel plated.
More machining and oh so close to final assembly! Lots of new parts and honing them to perfect tolerances. I am going to returning the cylinders and cylinder heads to their original nickel plated finish so those will be addressed in an upcoming post. Bottom end is all set and ready for final assembly
Here are some pictures of the gear train and valve system of the motor. New bushings where needed. There were a few that had failed. The new shinny rollers look soooo nice.
Even though I am not doing any of this work myself here are some pictures of the machine work that is being done to get the motor ready for plating and final assembly. Danny from Laughing Indian really knows his stuff. His work looks flawless. Here he is getting the new Truett and Osborn flywheels balanced and ready for install. Next post I’ll show what he did to get the gear train ready.
After a very long layoff I am back to working on the scout. I am committed to having it finished for the spring riding season. So I sent the Motor off to Laughing Indian in Florida for a full rebuild. Not the easiest thing to ship down the coast. My local PakMail crated it and off it went. Danny from Laughing Indian got right to it and had it stripped down in a few days and the machining is underway.
It’s tough finding a radiator shop nowadays. I guess the chemicals they use in flushing them out are super highly regulated and expensive to use and maintain. I only found one guy in my area so I took my tank to him to be flushed out pressure tested and have any leaks soldered. Got it back today with a clean bill of health. He had to solder 3 spots including around the filler opening. They didn’t do a great job cleaning up the repairs but I can handle that myself. I was told by my dad before he passed that the tank was fully stripped when he had it repainted back in the 60’s but as you can see from the pics it was not. You can clearly see the original red under the blue. I’m guessing it was only stripping where it needed repairs. As I remove the paint from the side of the tank I’m hoping to see if it was all red or if it had the cream sides.
Also it was pointed out that the front fender was not ligned up between the front spring arms as seen in one of my previous pics. It’s funny how perspective can play tricks in photos. The fender is centered perfectly between them. I’ll post another pic with a better view.
1931 Indian 101 Scout Rebuild 