A little background on the project. My friend gave me the frame after he got it from another friend. It had apparently sat in a pile of junk for a while and had a good coating of sludge and surface rust. I saw it, and wanted to clean it up and thus the madness begain.
Now I know some people are diehard restoration junkies but to be perfectly honest, I didn't realize what it was until long into the project. I had already cut and modified things and then came across a serial number stamped into the engine plate. I found out that it is a Lil' Indian and that it probably from the 60's. Too late now. So consider this entry in the build-off as the intermediate custom one.
Now for the pics:
This is pretty much what the frame looked like when I started. The tube for the footpegs was on the outside leading me to believe it was one of the higher models. It was bent quite badly and one of the welds was broken as a result. Not the best placement for a 6'3" rider either so off it came.
The fenders were pretty beat up, one of them bent pretty bad but I got it back. One of the previous owners obviously didn't use washers so at some point the nuts pulled through, elongating and cracking the holes. More on this later.
Somebody at some point drilled some holes in the frame, not sure what for but I didn't want them so they got filled.
To give an idea of how rough the thing was, the top section was before I cleaned it up and the bottom is about half way through the cleanup process.
A few sections here and there had some pitting after all the surface rust was removed so they got hit with some glazing putty to fill the imperfections.
The holes were filled with weld and then ground down. This fixed the previous problem and it also allows me to tweak the angles they bolt on at so I can get the look I have in my head. Not pictured but the mounting bars on the frame and fork were replaced with thicker ones as the stockers were bent quite a bit and the holes were also messed up.
Now I know some people are diehard restoration junkies but to be perfectly honest, I didn't realize what it was until long into the project. I had already cut and modified things and then came across a serial number stamped into the engine plate. I found out that it is a Lil' Indian and that it probably from the 60's. Too late now. So consider this entry in the build-off as the intermediate custom one.
Now for the pics:
This is pretty much what the frame looked like when I started. The tube for the footpegs was on the outside leading me to believe it was one of the higher models. It was bent quite badly and one of the welds was broken as a result. Not the best placement for a 6'3" rider either so off it came.
The fenders were pretty beat up, one of them bent pretty bad but I got it back. One of the previous owners obviously didn't use washers so at some point the nuts pulled through, elongating and cracking the holes. More on this later.
Somebody at some point drilled some holes in the frame, not sure what for but I didn't want them so they got filled.
To give an idea of how rough the thing was, the top section was before I cleaned it up and the bottom is about half way through the cleanup process.
A few sections here and there had some pitting after all the surface rust was removed so they got hit with some glazing putty to fill the imperfections.
The holes were filled with weld and then ground down. This fixed the previous problem and it also allows me to tweak the angles they bolt on at so I can get the look I have in my head. Not pictured but the mounting bars on the frame and fork were replaced with thicker ones as the stockers were bent quite a bit and the holes were also messed up.
.......cool:thumbsup:
ut:
