Indian 22 vintage flavor/sabor
- Thread starter indian22
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Yeah, Aaniimoosh (means dog in Ojibwa) in her sidecar is a lot of fun. She sits tall wearing her doggles to keep the bugs out of her eyes, looks over at me and grins, then watches the road for wildlife. What a hoot! We get up to speed a bit and her ears go airborne like little wings... I like to think that makes us go a little faster. As far as being a chick magnet... I guess so a little. But having been married and divorced three times so far and a number of nutcase girlfriends back when, I'm careful (finally) about what I attract into my life. Been there and done that with sometimes disastrous results and always expensive. At 70 now having the dog is good enough and better than most. I finally met the right girl even if she does have four hairy legs and barks... my biker babe, my sidecar queen.
You've got some nice toys, Rick!
SB
You've got some nice toys, Rick!
SB
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Aaniimoosh is quite the dog! I don't doubt that she is capable & loyal. It was once suggested as a test, that I lock my wife and dog in the car trunk and let them both out 2 hours latter & judge which one was the happiest to see me! I'm sure the ladies could tell the same story & it would apply as well.
SB the truth about me and stuff is that I enjoy the other guys possessions as much or more than my own. I hope others get a kick out of what I like to build or collect. My son once told me that I only liked old things and I replied that I liked new things too, especially when they get old. I haven't changed much.
SB the truth about me and stuff is that I enjoy the other guys possessions as much or more than my own. I hope others get a kick out of what I like to build or collect. My son once told me that I only liked old things and I replied that I liked new things too, especially when they get old. I haven't changed much.
I like the bit about dog and wife in the trunk of the car... funny and true.
I like old stuff that's new to me, but you can really only have so much stuff before it becomes a burden and starts owning you. No, I don't waste my time wanting other people's stuff, as I've got my own. I think people tend to forget that we come into this world naked and leave the same way, no matter how much "wealth" of money or stuff or wives we accumulate along the way. While we're here, we are just custodians and few of us as children ever had ambitions to be a custodian when we grew up (those of us who grew up). Sorry, Bill Gates and Donald Grump, but those are the rules. Leave your stuff at the door when you check out and shut off the lights. No exceptions.
SB
I like old stuff that's new to me, but you can really only have so much stuff before it becomes a burden and starts owning you. No, I don't waste my time wanting other people's stuff, as I've got my own. I think people tend to forget that we come into this world naked and leave the same way, no matter how much "wealth" of money or stuff or wives we accumulate along the way. While we're here, we are just custodians and few of us as children ever had ambitions to be a custodian when we grew up (those of us who grew up). Sorry, Bill Gates and Donald Grump, but those are the rules. Leave your stuff at the door when you check out and shut off the lights. No exceptions.
SB
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For guys that like old, brass mechanical things consider the Gurley Sun Compass. Developed for accurate geologic surveys of the Americas & for many years the only type of survey instrument accepted for National geologic work.
I restored this one from two vitually bare frames and many photos. It actually works and was certified by a Gurley tech. It's made of Naval brass & silver. The brass was "antiqued" in brass black where appropriate and left bright in all others. Every threaded or removable part was missing & I machined them from spec. I have virtually hundreds of hours of machine work and study in this reproduction. Extremely rare as only 5 are known to exist & one of these in the Smithsonian. Original tripod not shown but all original mahogany travel case is in the background.
Things with wheels are also nice. Rick C.
I restored this one from two vitually bare frames and many photos. It actually works and was certified by a Gurley tech. It's made of Naval brass & silver. The brass was "antiqued" in brass black where appropriate and left bright in all others. Every threaded or removable part was missing & I machined them from spec. I have virtually hundreds of hours of machine work and study in this reproduction. Extremely rare as only 5 are known to exist & one of these in the Smithsonian. Original tripod not shown but all original mahogany travel case is in the background.
Things with wheels are also nice. Rick C.
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Rick,
I'm pretty certain you're the only kid on your block with one of those. Must be a good feeling to bring something of such quality back from the brink into being functional once more. Good for you.
The saddle is a work of art.
SB.
I'm pretty certain you're the only kid on your block with one of those. Must be a good feeling to bring something of such quality back from the brink into being functional once more. Good for you.
The saddle is a work of art.
SB.
Ludwig I'm sure I have a photo of the two brass frames & that's all they were,and will search some more. I spotted the first on ebay & wasn't certain what it was, just to be clear. The seller included minimal information, yet I sensed it to be either a navigational or survey instrument perhaps associated for field artillery. The vertcal sight vanes were of course missing but I could make out what appeared to be & was a 360 degree etching around the circumference and looked to have been set up for a tri-pod mount.
The price was not extremely high & I won the bid & was really overjoyed when it arrived and inclulded an identical second base/frame. Without the second I would probably have just polished the first and used it as a paperweight. I started asking questions of experts in the fields mentioned beforehand and all recognized the Gurley name, which when Googled yielded large amounts of information about their other instruments, but initially didn't lead me to the keyword "sun compass". It was an old surveyor with a love of history who mentioned the possibility that what I had purchased was a Sun compass, but he'd only read about them and never seen one and neither would I for a few more weeks and much more study. During the process I realized that Gurley used most of the same parts & construction technology on various types of instrments over the course of several decades and the light came on & there was indeed joy to accompany the shock of discovering such a rare bird. If I could find a collection of 19th. century Gurly instruments I could inspect, photograph, measure/gauge & duplicate each thumb screw, pivot, elevator, sight vane, gimble, level, scale & compass. Even to the point of adding a brass telescopic sight (original not rebuilt) as a later innovation to the sight vanes. My photos (resized )fail to show the lovely and artistic detail of this hand built instrument...not my design but the faithful reproduction of a 19th. century artist in metal!I found such a collection in my own hometown! A semi-retired surveyor with an incredible collection of antique survey insruments that he loaned me access to for the 6 months I spent rebuilding my Sun compass that actually has been certified as functional to 19th. century standards. I'm not a surveyor and extremely limited knowledge of how this amazing gadget works, but it made me proud to hear the certifier pronounced it good to go & once again capable of charting a nation!
Ludwig if you know where I can purchase of an early days British navigational chronograph, please save me from myself and keep it a secret! Rick C.
The price was not extremely high & I won the bid & was really overjoyed when it arrived and inclulded an identical second base/frame. Without the second I would probably have just polished the first and used it as a paperweight. I started asking questions of experts in the fields mentioned beforehand and all recognized the Gurley name, which when Googled yielded large amounts of information about their other instruments, but initially didn't lead me to the keyword "sun compass". It was an old surveyor with a love of history who mentioned the possibility that what I had purchased was a Sun compass, but he'd only read about them and never seen one and neither would I for a few more weeks and much more study. During the process I realized that Gurley used most of the same parts & construction technology on various types of instrments over the course of several decades and the light came on & there was indeed joy to accompany the shock of discovering such a rare bird. If I could find a collection of 19th. century Gurly instruments I could inspect, photograph, measure/gauge & duplicate each thumb screw, pivot, elevator, sight vane, gimble, level, scale & compass. Even to the point of adding a brass telescopic sight (original not rebuilt) as a later innovation to the sight vanes. My photos (resized )fail to show the lovely and artistic detail of this hand built instrument...not my design but the faithful reproduction of a 19th. century artist in metal!I found such a collection in my own hometown! A semi-retired surveyor with an incredible collection of antique survey insruments that he loaned me access to for the 6 months I spent rebuilding my Sun compass that actually has been certified as functional to 19th. century standards. I'm not a surveyor and extremely limited knowledge of how this amazing gadget works, but it made me proud to hear the certifier pronounced it good to go & once again capable of charting a nation!
Ludwig if you know where I can purchase of an early days British navigational chronograph, please save me from myself and keep it a secret! Rick C.
I confess to being a bit put off by it all at first. I think you might still put yourself in my place if you search "Gurley sun compass" and emerse yourself in the history of the exspansion era on this continent and imagine the storys that bit of brass in hand took part in. I felt a responsibility to bring it back to life and at the same time overwhelmed at the the task that lay ahead. At that very moment I knew next to nothing about the design of the compass only what a really nice one looked like. I knew I'd been entrusted with a treasure & didn't know what to do with it. Fate handed the project to me and what are the chances of finding almost all the parts and pieces in my little town of less than 3,000 souls? Then being allowed complete access to the delicate collection to disassemble and measure each part I was about to cut. Many times I frantically searched for small parts I thought I'd lost during reassembly of these museum quality instruments. Yet fate allowed me to see it through to the end.
The owner of the collection sadly passed on recently, but his private collection has been held intact by his widow and son (also a surveyor like his father). The Gurley Sun compass is keeping company, on loan, with that collection and one day it might even be housed in a display gifted & open to the general public. That would be very gratifying! Rick C.
The owner of the collection sadly passed on recently, but his private collection has been held intact by his widow and son (also a surveyor like his father). The Gurley Sun compass is keeping company, on loan, with that collection and one day it might even be housed in a display gifted & open to the general public. That would be very gratifying! Rick C.
Thanks Ludwig. Think my next bicycle project found me as I left home just yesterday on my Indian Navaho. I was stopped at the end of my drive by the fellow who had the Simplex Servi-cycle I'm working on & buying parts for. Seems he'd spotted a late 50's model Murray "Flying O" in decent shape, built for Otasco (Oklahoma Tire & Supply Co.) Following his directions I found the bike chained to a fence and guarded by three pit bulls, home owner was rebuilding a 4 cylinder Honda in the drive and I made him an offer without hesitation. It's a tank model with carrier rack, wheels & both fenders are excellent chrome and all the tins are dent free. He said it was his brothers and had been stored in his garage for close to 50 years and he needed the space so I should take it. I live in a very small community and asked him to ok it with his sibling first. Hope he agrees. I'll post some photos if I can complete the purchase. Rick C.
Heck, Id put one on just to take it off, That is a marvelous piece of restored equipment you have got there, Top noch work!
Update on using the Rocket "pillbox" CDI. I've seen some posts regarding the use of the Rocket & I used one on my Indian "Outlaw" bike and have about 17 hours on the breakin of a modifed 66cc nothing radical... 6cc head, SHA carb, Manic staight shot intake, exspansion pipe, port matched, ramped piston, balanced crank etc. still running 25:1 mix, NGK plug.
I'm pleased with the Rocket, hot spark, engine pulls good from low through mid range, no detonation detected & virtually no 4 stroking. It feels good at relaxed town speed, no bucking till almost at a walk.
I'm just relating my experience to date on my first use of the Rocket. I've used both the Jag and the Lightning with good results on similar mod motors and believe this is equal to either in low through high mid range your results might vary...no adjustments on this one just plug and play at about a third the price of the others. Sorry I can't speak of 11,000 rpm performance on any of these, cause I don't care, so if that's your goal your on your own. Rick C.
I'm pleased with the Rocket, hot spark, engine pulls good from low through mid range, no detonation detected & virtually no 4 stroking. It feels good at relaxed town speed, no bucking till almost at a walk.
I'm just relating my experience to date on my first use of the Rocket. I've used both the Jag and the Lightning with good results on similar mod motors and believe this is equal to either in low through high mid range your results might vary...no adjustments on this one just plug and play at about a third the price of the others. Sorry I can't speak of 11,000 rpm performance on any of these, cause I don't care, so if that's your goal your on your own. Rick C.
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I decided to pull the engine on my Indian Outlaw (shown in my previous post) after about 25 hours and take a peek inside. While I was about it I also pulled the motor from the Indian Navaho (Grubee tank frame) to see how it was doing with about 16 hrs. Both were in great shape, before reassembly I drilled the Outlaws piston and added an Aussy reed valve. I switched the modifed GT5 into the Navaho (Grubee frame) & used a short "kit" exhaust & the Rocket CDI with a 48 tooth rear sprocket. The motor was very lively before the reed valve mod with an expansion chamber and a 40 tooth sprocket in the black Indian Outlaw, but now it's really come to life especially after 5,000 rpm. What surprised me was how docile it seems at low speed the very reason I pulled the previous highly modified GT5 from the bike in the first place. It just didn't want to run below posted speed in town (25 mph) without "bucking" no fun at all. This one is fine at 10 to 15 mph. Most of my riding is in town, but it's nice to have a bit of grunt when asked for.
I haven't reassembled the almost stock GT5 (head, SHA carb, expansion chamber with a Jaguar CDI) cause it seems I want to drill a couple more holes and add a reed valve on this one also...we will see. Rick C.
I haven't reassembled the almost stock GT5 (head, SHA carb, expansion chamber with a Jaguar CDI) cause it seems I want to drill a couple more holes and add a reed valve on this one also...we will see. Rick C.
Ever think about how nice it would be to have an electric start on your china girl builds especially the one you use daily? I choose to ride a bicycle every day, about 75% of the time it's on a motorized bike & all are pedal start. Up to today I've been good with this, but for the life of me I don't know why.
Another thing, anyone else tired of babying the C Girl clutch & feeling like your a "beaver" whose sole purpose is to "dam up" traffic at each stop sign, while trying to pedal up to speed?
The solutions are out there, if you care to share. Rick C.
Another thing, anyone else tired of babying the C Girl clutch & feeling like your a "beaver" whose sole purpose is to "dam up" traffic at each stop sign, while trying to pedal up to speed?
The solutions are out there, if you care to share. Rick C.
