Bustin' Loose

1929 Chout, pictures taken by "bondygirl" at the Edmonton Motorcycle Show 2010 - more information needed

Another classic Bubeck Chout picture

This time courtesy of Jerry Hatfield's excellent American Racing Motorcycles, which I fiinally managed to get my hands on!

"Indian speed was convincingly demonstrated at the June 27th 1948 Rosamond Dry Lake California Speed Trials. The builder-rider team of Frank Chase and Max Bubeck won top honours with their special 'Chout', a combination of a Chief engine and a 101 Scout frame. The Chout was equipped with telescopic forks built by the Vard accessory firm. Skinny tyres were used, an 18x4.00 rear and a 19x3.20 front. Twin Schleber carburetors fed methanol to the motor which had special cams designed by 'Pop' Shunk. This was a four lobe cam setup instead of the normal two lobe and the lobes were 1/" wide instead of 1/2" wide. To reduce drag only the high gear ratio was installed, there being no gears internal to the transmission case. The bike's 2.6:1 gearing gave 4600 rpm at 135mph. The engine produced 65 hp at 4400 rpm at the rear whee', as measured on Frank Christians dynamometer. The toughest competition for the Chout was Bus Schaller's OHV Harley Davidson; but the Chout emerged victorious at 135.58 mph. Bubeck's ride thus became an interesting entry into Indian's rich folklore, for his speed was the highest ever to be officially recognised for an unstreamlined Indian."

A year to the day since the CBA blog appeared on the internet

Nearly 3500 page views with visitors from all over the world, we have had visitors from all over the world, contributions from Europe, the USA, Australia and New Zealand.

Thank you to everyone who has got in touch, looking forward to another year and hopefully some more Chouts appearing on the site.

Thanks, Steve

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