Well it is a Lil Indian......

markus

markus

Well-Known Member
#1
#1
....Just not one to get excited about :laugh: Spotted this on craigslist the morning, pull the rope and go, so I drove up and picked it up. not too rigged or butchered. The engine is an H35 at least that what the decal says, but man is it powerful!!! I know they changed the HS40 intake exhaust config in the later years to this style so it may just have a replacement shroud on it.





Does not fit the bike too well but I always dug the little MX seat (it is from a little bicycle that was sort of a fake dirt bike from the later 70's IIRC) Bike should wash up pretty decent and with the exception of a seat should not have to throw much $$ at it to do it.
 
markus

markus

Well-Known Member
#6
#6
Last night I did some researching to see how seats look on this little stubby frame. Short of having something totally custom to fit the severe flare out of the top rails nothing looks that great. So I went ahead this morning and ordered the stock flat seat from allied which was what they used this frame, I had to get the fork plate decal anyway from them.

After that I went out to the garage and ripped into it:

I am not sure if the frame numbers mean much, the manufactuers date on the engine is 0172 if I read it right...


After doing some web surfing I think that the engine IS what they supplied for this frame, I say that because of the strange fuel tank mount, Its an extended flat plate that relocates the late model large cap center fill tank so it is usable in the frame.



I thought someone had maybe made it fit this engine or tank in instead of just finding a side fill, but then I spotted this one on the minidoodle site:



so it appears they did it that way for the short frame, the seat on the above bike is the one I ordered for mine BTW.

Its got scratches and chips in what I guess is powdercoating but nothing on the frame is bent, broken, or needing repaired so I'm just going to detail it out as best I can to keep cost down to to a minimum, I'll go through the engine and paint it up and just clean everything else up so its more presentable, but other than some corrections to the cables and little things like that I think I can reuse most everything.

Very cool, I love the LiL Indians! I also have one of those MX seats that came on a mini bike that I got from craigslist.
Click to expand...
:laugh: A friend of mine has one cobbled on a mini bike he has too, the pan is stamped viscount, so maybe they sold them individually at bicycle shops or something.
 
markus

markus

Well-Known Member
#7
#7
couple other notables I found as I am cleaning up parts. Yea, nobody give a rats ass about a bike like this now, but in a few more years when they are truly vintage and allied is long gone, someone might be thanking me for this posting :eek:ut:

On the sprocket they etched the Mak-it label and part number and and also made some neat stepped spacers for the wheels which at least I found pretty impressive!



I spotted the Mak-it name recently in a ebay listing, Dave L./enginepowered has some boxed old stock sets of clutch band brakes listed that are the lil indian versions with the Mak-it name on them, has the allied trademarked image on them as well, I guess they were allied or rec leisure...or part of. Dunno the true history of that or how long that name was around, Maybe since the mini mate time since these versions of the indians seemed to be spin-offs of them?

Also after taking the engine down for clean up and so I can redo the shroud and tinware I found the stickered tag on the underside of the custom tank bracket with the Rec. leisure name on it to verify that they did make these for this bike.




Just a shot of how they look disassembled, came apart easy, they use a nice sleeve/bushing that runs the total length of the headube to hold the upper and lower together.

 
mardyn

mardyn

Member
#9
#9
Saw a decent original Lil Indian at the Pate Swap Meet at TMS/Ft Worth yesterday (05/01/15), had a 3HP
Briggs but had a band brake on the clutch... asking price was 350.00 which scared me off.

mardyn
 
Briggster

Briggster

New Member
#10
#10
mardyn said:
Saw a decent original Lil Indian at the Pate Swap Meet at TMS/Ft Worth yesterday (05/01/15), had a 3HP
Briggs but had a band brake on the clutch... asking price was 350.00 which scared me off.

mardyn
Click to expand...
I went to that swap meet too! Never seen so many minibikes at a swap meet. I bought a bonanza bc-1300 frame. I bet I saw 30 Honda trail 70's in various condition.
 
mardyn

mardyn

Member
#11
#11
Yeah, I'll agree... lots of minibikes out there this time.

I purchased my first Bonanza 1200 project bike out there about 5 or 6 years ago. Paid a little too much at 175.00,
but it was there, and I wanted it.

Pate is a pretty good swap meet, but is so big, it's difficult to see everything in one day. We've been renting scooters
just to cover it all, but feel that we miss about 50% of the stuff we'd normally be interested in as we moving through the
vendors so quickly.

mardyn.
 
markus

markus

Well-Known Member
#12
#12
alot of scrubbing and $100 worth of OEM seat, forkplate decal, and tires done to it:


I used 11x4.00 tires because they are little bigger than the 4.10 This bike had more than enough pull and power from a stop than alot of little bikes I have had and even modded so hopefully that 1" taller tire should work well with it :thumbsup: (and they were only 19.95 for the pair shipped :laugh:)

Working on the enigne now, hopefully my idea for it will look OK, dunno yet :eek:ut:
 
1stlegendtx

1stlegendtx

Well-Known Member
#15
#15
markus said:
Last night I did some researching to see how seats look on this little stubby frame. Short of having something totally custom to fit the severe flare out of the top rails nothing looks that great. So I went ahead this morning and ordered the stock flat seat from allied which was what they used this frame, I had to get the fork plate decal anyway from them.

After that I went out to the garage and ripped into it:

I am not sure if the frame numbers mean much, the manufactuers date on the engine is 0172 if I read it right...


After doing some web surfing I think that the engine IS what they supplied for this frame, I say that because of the strange fuel tank mount, Its an extended flat plate that relocates the late model large cap center fill tank so it is usable in the frame.



I thought someone had maybe made it fit this engine or tank in instead of just finding a side fill, but then I spotted this one on the minidoodle site:



so it appears they did it that way for the short frame, the seat on the above bike is the one I ordered for mine BTW.

Its got scratches and chips in what I guess is powdercoating but nothing on the frame is bent, broken, or needing repaired so I'm just going to detail it out as best I can to keep cost down to to a minimum, I'll go through the engine and paint it up and just clean everything else up so its more presentable, but other than some corrections to the cables and little things like that I think I can reuse most everything.



:laugh: A friend of mine has one cobbled on a mini bike he has too, the pan is stamped viscount, so maybe they sold them individually at bicycle shops or something.
Click to expand...
This is what I found out about the engraving.........http://www.oldminibikes.com/forum/general-minibike-talk/99495-lil-indian-started-doing.html
 
markus

markus

Well-Known Member
#16
#16
1stlegendtx said:
This is what I found out about the engraving.........http://www.oldminibikes.com/forum/general-minibike-talk/99495-lil-indian-started-doing.html
Click to expand...
So I wonder if the first batch of numbers is the date or if they are mixed into the 2nd set. the 0400 would be pretty in tune with my born on date for my engine, not to mention I think 2000 was probably the heaviest year for them as they started to sell them online etc.. I think there was a place here in FL that sold a lot of them back them.

0400 kinda seem like it could be the model number too though :shrug:
 
1stlegendtx

1stlegendtx

Well-Known Member
#17
#17
:shrug:The only thing I know about the new "LiL" Indians is that there was a short one and a tall one. There seems to be less short ones around.
 
Not so mini bike

Not so mini bike

#19
#19
This might be a stupid question but here goes nothing. What is the measurement from axle hole the the end of the tire. I like the look of those tires and would think they might look good on the baby bonanza. Just not sure it would clear the scrub brake. Love the bike Markus. Wanna trade it for one of those harder to find older frames?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top