Grizzy's Dixie build part 4

On the IPE site here

1960's ?? Chout pic

Kevin kindly sent me this pic of what looks like a 101 framed 1940's chief Chout complete with high flanders bars and risers, we dont have any more info and not sure of the source so if anyone recognises the picture, please get in touch and we can fill in the history. Thanks Kevin

101 Bonneville Chout

Steve Murphy kindly sent a link to the Motorcycle Picture of the Day blog where I found this Chout, I contacted Buck Pilkenton who photographed this gem and supplied the info
in Bucks words


Hi,
This is a friend's Indian Chout. It was built by her father before she was born, ostensibly a 1929 Scout frame holding a 1940 Bonneville Chief engine that he just happened to find in a crate at the southwest airbase where he was stationed. The forks look to be latter day chief. Some time in the 1980s the bike passed through the hands of a "restorer" who added the H-D front fender and odd looking instrument pod. At least he painted it right and stayed out of the engine. The bike is back in the family now, and from stories I've been told it was one fast machine.


Ride safe,
Buck Pilkenton

And so it begins ...................... The Alchemist

Finally, I have most of the main components for my own Chout build, rather than take over this blog, which is here to gather Chouts and their owners together, I have started a seperate blog to diary the build - http://indianchout.blogspot.com/

Another one "found" on the web - more info required

 image found on here  http://photos.indianmotorbikes.com/racers/index0002.html
built by Pelle Uselius from Uppsala in Sweden, has anybody got contact details?

A pair of 101 Chouts spotted at the Scottish Rally 2010

Dick Grylls' Chout Build pics

Some pictures of the build.

Update on the Darwin Chout

Another picture of Dick Gryll's Chout this time in cruising mode.I'm not sure if that's Dick riding?

Any information about this '28 framed Chout

Found whilst Googling Gary Kittner's 1928 Chout, took 2nd best period special at the 2005 Fort Sutter AMCA show. Any further information or pictures gratefully received

Racing Chout from Indiana

Matt from Wheels Through Time contacted me and kindly sent me these pictures of a Chout that they have in the museum, the motor is from a 47 chief. The owner swapped the chief motor to the scout frame, and the scout motor into the chief frame. It was raced by a fella from Indiana.

Latest DiXiE update now on IPE

Click on the picture of DiXiE's cylinders to read all about it.

Classic Racing Chout from Darwin Australia

1924 Scout frame, 40's Chief motor, Fairbanks Morse magneto, its red! Thats all I know .....so far. More information/history gratefully received DCMR 8-)

DiXiE build report now on the IPE site

Grizzy brings the DiXiE build up to date on IPE

Modifying a Scout frame to take a Chief Motor

There are a number o ways to modify a Scout frame to accept a Chief motor, essentially you need to create a bit of height to allow room for the cylinder heads. Grizzy has kindly provided sketches of the various methods that have been used. Thanks Grizz!

Herb's Chout Update

Bobby Green from Old Crow Speedshop just got in touch, he's just bought Herb's Chout (without the motor) Looking forward to hearing from him as the Chout gets put back on the road.

You can read about Bobby's LSR Bellytank racer here!

James Lambert's Chout

This is James Lambert's Chout, Its rolling testbed for high performance Chief engine parts from Breed Flathaead Motors in Australia. It is currently running a 5" stroke (84cu") 8.5:1 compression ratio and a Roots Supercharger. This Chout eats Evo's !!

"This motor has been reved to 5000 plus RPM many times. In my Chout it has reached speeds of 115 MPH. plus on pump gas.
These motors are built to go hard and last longer.
Motor has done 10,000 kms plus on both road and race track with no mechanical problems."

Check out the Breed Flathead site to see what the guys are doing. They are currently developing aluminium Cylinders for chief motors to add to their range of high output oil pumps and performance tuning parts for Chiefs and Scouts.

Herb Kephart's 89cu" Chout

Herb contacted me after seeing the picture of the Chout for sale at Trinity post and kindly sent me more information about the build and the bike's history, along with some pictures of how he got a Chief motor stroked to 89cu"

The eagle eyed among you will recognise some of the pictures as the ones sent by Moen

" Here is the whole story, without any embellishment, or punches pulled" ---- Herb Kephart

About 1955 I met a fellow named Dick who lived not too far from me, and who had been an Indian dealer in Lincoln Maine, during the vertical twin era.. I had owned a '36 four a year previously, and he still had a liking for Indians, although not necessary the verticals. He had a '16 Powerplus, and I had a '12 single, and we swapped, and thus began a friendship that lasted until his death over ten years ago.

He was a constant visitor at the local scrap yard, and believe it or not back then he would be able to pick up 3-4 Indians a year that had been junked- that's how valuable they were . He had an agreement to buy any Indians that came in for a few cents a pound over scrap price, and they would set them aside for him. One day he came home with a 101, which he rebuilt and dry sumped. We would, on occasion, go for a ride together and would ride each others machines frequently. I was very much impressed with the 101's handling and told him that if he ran across another, to pick it up for me. A few weeks later I got a call, saying that a couple of fellows had stopped at his place looking for some 101 magneto parts- and he had talked them into selling the machine. He and I went to look at it- it was “barn fresh” long before that became a buzz word- flat rear tire, and engine locked solid. I bought it for ( I think) $65 The owners were asking more, but I got them down, pointing out that the engine was seized—their reply was “you goes to da Harley shop and gets some stuff dey call Lunk (they meant Gunk) and dat fix it right up.” I drug it home in my '30 Ford pickup. I had a number of other motorcycles at that time- two Gold Stars, dirt bikes and old Harleys, so aside from pulling the plugs and squirting some oil in the cylinders the 101 just sat. A couple months later, a four car garage that I was renting was going to be torn down, and living in the city, I would only have the single car garage associated with my house to store all the bikes-- so some had to go. Dick offered to take the 101 off my hands for what I had in it, so I sold it to him.

Fast forward 40+ years. A couple times I had mentioned to Dick that I would like to buy “Lunk” (which was what we had both called it since the purchase) and finally he agreed to sell it. He named a price- considerably more than what I had paid the first time, but less than what he could have got selling it to someone else. When we went to retrieve it from the second floor of the school house that Dick lived in I put some air in the rear tire (which in all the years neither of us had tried to do) and it held air – for a couple weeks it turned out! Trying to figure a way to get it down a flight of stairs, and having no faith in whether it had any brakes, I put it in gear, and used the clutch to lock the rear wheel- engine was stuck—remember? Part way down the engine started to slowly turn over!

I was able to acquire another 101, and used the best parts of the two to build a stock machine. What to do with the left-overs? The Chout was the result. I made a great many pieces in stainless as well as the stroker flywheels crankpin, bearing, and cams and a special high volume oil pump. The bores were sleeved back to std., and the stroke was as much as would fit (JUST!) into a stock set of cases -5 3/8”-ended up with 89 CID. Much better brakes, new aluminum rims, new tanks (narrowed a little) and after a couple years, in 1993, it was finished. It was a blast to ride, being built for low speed torque, and not to rev. Come to a hill, and just turn it on in high,sit back and GO!

Time went on, and in the area where we live traffic was increasing exponentially, and that combined with aging reflexes made me decide that 50+ years of motorcycles without killing myself was enough of luck-pushing, so I sold the Indians and parts, and gave the remaining other bikes to my son. I explained in what I thought was great detail what I had done with and to the Chout.

Herb Kephart

P.S. I am attaching 4 pix- one showing the gusseting that I did after moving the lower tank tube up, the other three show how much had to be removed from the cases and lower part of barrels to accommodate the 5 3/8" stroke. I didn't want to put plates under the barrels, preferring to keep the outside looking as stock as possible. Surprisingly, I never had any trouble from oil leakage. Pistons were CCK Kohler

Richard Gaudio's '46 in a '28 Chout

Some bikes are built to be unique, some for speed, some for eye appeal. This one of a kind has all three qualities.

Francis Clifford raced Indians in the 1940’s. After his racing years were over, he went to the workbench to apply his experience to building motors and bikes. His bikes were never “show quality” in looks but his motors were the finest built. Twelve years before his death, he and his godson, William Coffman, spent weeks building his “fastest chief” motor. It took weeks to create the one of a kind motor. Then the motor sat in William’s living room for 12 years

William knew an Indian collector in Florida. He had sold Richard Gaudio another motor of Cliff’s and knew he appreciated the man’s work. So the motor made its way to Florida.

Richard wanted a “chout”, a chief motor in a scout frame. Working with machinist, welder friend Roger DuPois, Richard spent months modifying various original Indian parts to create this champion.

The bike retains most of the original Indian features. An Indian was always foot clutch, LEFT hand throttle and right hand distributor advance. A jockey shifter is located behind the rider.

The 1928 Indian 101 frame was stretched 4 inches and lowered 2 inches to create a low profile and also allowed the tank tube to be exposed. The 1937 Indian Junior scout tanks have the best profile of any gas tanks. The small capacity was enlarged by removing the internal oil reservoir and installing the early style screw-in caps.

The oil tank was designed to be a 3 quart capacity tank that matched the frame lines. This was the second design, since the first didn’t allow room for generator adjustment. Trial and error fitting happened a lot in this bike.

The 1932 Indian fork stem is longer than the 101 frame neck. A spacer was made to fill the space. This provided a spot for the Indian logo, it looks like it was supposed to be there!

The dash is an enlarged copy of the original Indian dash. This holds the brass military ignition switch, tach, genny light and starter button. Starter? Yes, this 1937 Indian has an electric start.

There are three non- Indian features on this bike. One is the HD wheels. This concession was to provide adequate braking power since this bike was made to be ridden. The second is the Model A taillight. But it is cool. Third is the head light. A 1920’s Auto Electric spot light converted to accept a sealed beam fits the profile very nicely.

The leather work was custom to create a simple yet elegant look.

The heart of the beast is the 74 cubic inch Indian chief motor. Cliff spent a week hand profiling the cams. When the chout idles you know they are not stock. He believed Indians did not breathe enough so he installed HD intake nipples to provide more mixture. An S&S carb feeds it. The pipes were built from NAPA exhaust parts

The electric power is provided by a 12 volt CE generator. This genny is made to fit Indian and HD with no modifications.

The 4”longer frame obviously needs a longer chain. To take up the slack an idler gear was installed.

All in all a stunning example of the Breed

Bubeck! by Tim Cunningham

Just got my copy from Starklite in the post this morning, a great read so far!

Moen from IPE kindly sent me the pictures of Herb Kephart's Chout

Check out the home made degree marked flywheel, impressive work!


A tight fit, but a place for everything and everything in place



Click on the thumbnails for a better view

Wonder if this one ever got finished!

I'll email the builder for an update ;-)

1929 Oregon Chout

Found this while googlin! 1929 Chout lives in Oregon