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Christmas 2009 - 1951 Chief Project
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Home / Index / 351 Resto
The Trail of Tears
Part 2 of Jeff's Chief Restoration Story - Part 1 here
by Jeff Reynolds

Moen has asked me to continue the saga of my 10-year project of restoring a 1951 Indian Chief, an ordeal I have come to refer to with my friends as “The Trail of Tears”. 

When I left off last December, I had finished the dry fit and had disassembled the bike to send everything off for final finishes. I guess it seems only fitting that I finish the story, as much as I can call this story finished, since I am still adjusting and tweaking to try to get a reliable ride that I would feel confident taking off on an extended trip. Rather than a lot of long-winded blather, I will let the photos and captions tell most of the tale from here on out.
 

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Part 1 of Jeff's story here
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The bike is disassembled again and parts are sorted into batches for paint, powder coat, chrome and cadmium plating. Now that each of the finishes is done, the final assembly can begin.
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A banner day, when after just shy of 10 years, I assembled the first parts with their final finishes. The bottom cup is installed to complete the rear shock.
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Front forks are mounted to the frame. Despite the abuse the frame and the rest of this bike suffered over its previous life, the frame was very straight and required no bending back into shape. Always a fairly good indication that it had suffered no major wrecks.
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While waiting for my wheels to come back from truing (another in a long line of catastrophes), I fit a few peripheral parts such as handlebars and headlights.
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As per the advice of members of the VI mailing list, I soldered all the wire connections. It is not recommended to rely on crimped connections with these old machines that vibrate as they do.
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With the wheels now back from truing, I could mount the tires. Setting the tire bead into the rim was a real joy. Brush up on your profanity!
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With the front wheel ready to mount, this was another benchmark moment, when I could finally assemble the first painted sheet metal.
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The rear wheel went on fairly easily since it can be done without the fender in place.
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With both fenders mounted I was hoping I was past the biggest hurdles, but it didn’t turn out to be quite so.
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I hadn't even thought about it it when choosing a color scheme, but the black frame and sunshine yellow sheet metal were a perfect match with the 1951 YOM California license plate. I also chose to go with all the period bling on the back end to be as visible as possible at night.
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My oldest son was home from college for Mothers’ Day weekend and helped me get the engine mounted late one Saturday night. Around this stage I put in the battery to check the electrical system, which I was fortunate to do before the tanks were mounted. A short at the switch caused it to burst into flames. First thing the next morning I ordered a circuit breaker from Greer’s.
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I put on a few more peripheral parts such as generator and belt guard, but I found after assembling the chain guard and exhaust that there are those two little brackets that were supposed to be riveted to the chain guard, which I hadn’t been aware of. I had to disassemble, mount the brackets and sent the chain guard off for a repaint.
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In the meantime, I still had things to finish such as the tanks and dash. It was at this point that I found the throttle and spark cables decided to start sticking and wouldn’t return. More disassembly to find the cause of that.
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Once I put on the seat, the bike looks fairly complete, but not quite yet. If you recall the seat on the dry fit, you will notice that this is not the same one. I was never happy with the color on that one, nor the matching saddlebags I had made at the same time. I had vacillated over whether I would keep them or not, but decided not to, as they would just be a disappointment after all this work. You just can't be sure the leather shop knows what you have in mind when you refer to a color. Look at a swatch! This seat in tan is from my 841 (the next project).
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The gas lines are mounted, which required this custom spiral bend to get them to fit. You will see that I also opted to include a ‘48 fuel filter, which I was very glad I did for reasons I will get into later.
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One of the only obvious non-original accessories is the Old Iron oil filter, but the benefit far outweighed the cost in judging points for a daily rider.
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From this side the Chief looks complete, but I’m still waiting for the repainted chain guard.
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 Chain guard, exhaust pipes and rear brake linkage were the last things to finish.
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The Chief is finished, off the rack and out of the garage.
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It won’t look this clean ever again. From here you can see the Army green seat pan.
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With the help of fellow VI member Clint Gudobba one Saturday morning in early June, we made the first attempt to get the Chief running. See Clint’s ‘46 Chief bobber parked behind him.
Conclusion
It ended up we were fighting a losing battle that day. Later, with the help of Don Skidmore, we found that the oil pump had no check balls and it was wet sumping over night, the distributor shaft had excessive slop and would not hold time, and the carburetor had a multitude of problems. With a borrowed carb from Don, the bike is now running, but that has been far from the end of the problems. Just a few examples: The horn continued to short and got fiery hot. Seemed that something was wrong with the winding and I had to get a replacement from Roger Long. A slow short was draining the battery after a few days of sitting, so I added a kill switch to the battery ground to bypass the problem. The gas tanks had enough polishing compound in them from the painter that the fuel filter clogged after about a hundred miles. I had to remove the tanks and flush them thoroughly. I am only hoping the filter kept the polish out of the engine for the most part. Despite all soldered wiring connections, I had a generator wire break while on the road and ran the battery dead. The carburetor is still a mystery as to why it will not run, and it is out now for its fourth overhaul. Don’s generous loan of his M-344 has kept me riding this summer, but it has been more than once that he has had to come and rescue me along some Sonoma County back road. I am still having enough problems to limit my riding to short day runs. I would like to believe that an Indian can be reliable enough to go a few hundred miles without incident, but so far the tears continue.
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We both got a pretty good workout, taking turns in a futile attempt to get the Chief to run for more than a few rough seconds.

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