Lil' Indian Find

Tom S.

Tom S.

#1
#1
I was so sad to miss that Powell yesterday, but the minibike fairy smiled on me overnight and led me to this Lil' Indian this morning. I haven't looked at CL in weeks, but peeked at it on a whim during breakfast and found this mini in Vancouver, Wash., just an hour from home.

The seller was really nice. She said she bought it two years ago for another family member who never got too excited about it and she finally decided to get it out of the garage. She'd done some research and had a pretty good idea what she had, but was also quite willing to negotiate a reasonable price.

This appears to be a very original bike. The motor is date stamped 1967 and it has a Lil' Indian decal on the shroud and a decal on the block apparently from the selling dealer in Vancouver, who is still in business. There is a Lil'indian decal on the frame. Scratches in the paint reveal only bare metal underneath, and no other colors. It has steel wheels and two double Indian head Carlile tires with plenty of tread, especially on the front. The steering head bushings are a little loose, but other than that it seems to have led an easy life. The wear and tear is really uniform. No crash damage. No cracked or repaired welds are always nice to see on one of these, especially around the steering head.

Can anyone tell me which model this might be by its appearance?













 
capguncowboy

capguncowboy

Well-Known Member
#2
#2
Nice score! It has that hard-to-find-and-oh-so-expensive brake caliper to boot! You feel better about the Powell yet?

That dealer decal has a fax number on it. Something tells me that's not from '67 :laugh:
 
markus

markus

Well-Known Member
#4
#4
its a 500, Matches the 1967 brochure info perfectly too factory color and all, as does the frame numbers, great find. Can you get some close ups of the grips and brake handle? Curious if the OGK grips were in use during that year.....they have a "68-2" stamped on them which always made me think that it was possibly a date code, which of course would de bunk that thought if they are on your bike~ Also, not real important but if your are detailing or doing any service if you happen to notice if the brake caliper has has 3 heat dissipating ribs or 5 on the side that faces the wheel. Info we have shows that they were 3 rib in 67.

I can email you the pictures of the 1967 info I have, with the current photobucket fiasco going on among other things I'm not getting anything posted online.
 
Tom S.

Tom S.

#5
#5
capguncowboy said:
Nice score! It has that hard-to-find-and-oh-so-expensive brake caliper to boot! You feel better about the Powell yet?

That dealer decal has a fax number on it. Something tells me that's not from '67 :laugh:
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Good eye. Can't put a lot of faith in that sticker, but they may have serviced or re-sold the bike back in the day. Vancouver's area code changed from 206 to 360 in 1995 and FAX machines came into widespread use in about 1985, so the sticker likely falls into that 10-year window.
 
Tom S.

Tom S.

#6
#6
markus said:
its a 500, Matches the 1967 brochure info perfectly too factory color and all, as does the frame numbers, great find. Can you get some close ups of the grips and brake handle? Curious if the OGK grips were in use during that year.....they have a "68-2" stamped on them which always made me think that it was possibly a date code, which of course would de bunk that thought if they are on your bike~ Also, not real important but if your are detailing or doing any service if you happen to notice if the brake caliper has has 3 heat dissipating ribs or 5 on the side that faces the wheel. Info we have shows that they were 3 rib in 67.

I can email you the pictures of the 1967 info I have, with the current photobucket fiasco going on among other things I'm not getting anything posted online.
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Thank you, Markus. I'll post the photos you asked for in another day or two. My email address is steinthms@yahoo.com. Regarding the photobucket problem, I use smugmug and it's always worked fine.
 
Tom S.

Tom S.

#8
#8
cheezy1 said:
The motor has the year on it with the date code......
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Yeah, the fan shroud is date stamped '67. But the left side case also has a square 4-bolt accessory mount with the clutch guard attached to it. When did they start having that? All of my old engines have a smooth left side case. Is it possible that the original fan shroud was installed on a replacement engine? The paint on the fan shroud and engine matches very well, and the Lil' Indian decal on the shroud appears to have been there a long time.



 
Divouneh

Divouneh

Active Member
#9
#9
I love the yellow Honda in your garage t[emoji6], this Indian is nice too [emoji106][emoji106][emoji106]


Sent from my iPad using OldMiniBikes
 
markus

markus

Well-Known Member
#11
#11
Tom S. said:
Yeah, the fan shroud is date stamped '67. But the left side case also has a square 4-bolt accessory mount with the clutch guard attached to it. When did they start having that? All of my old engines have a smooth left side case. Is it possible that the original fan shroud was installed on a replacement engine? The paint on the fan shroud and engine matches very well, and the Lil' Indian decal on the shroud appears to have been there a long time.



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That sidecover was standard issue on the Lil iIdians, makes a suitable engine a bit tougher to find for these bikes than say a Taco or fox where they used the more typical smooth sidecover. Using either small tabs off the cover bolts or the engine mount bolts for the chainguards.

1967 Info has been sent to your email, That one photo looks odd because it came off an listing where some of the photos were auctiva encrypted and you could not direct download them, but verifies feb 1st 1967 date of the literature. Note the brochure states prairie blue vibro for the assembled and standard blue for kit bikes. Hope it helps some, your photos are getting saved in my files....great bike to pull some reference from that was a great find :thumbsup:

Oh yea, nevermind on the brake caliper photos, looking closer this AM I see its got the first generation style brake on it still. :detective: but definitely would love to see the close ups of the controls at your convenience
 
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RobertC

RobertC

#12
#12
That's a nice find Tom. Congratulations...!

On an original bike like that, I like the stickers, even if one is from a bit later time period...it just show's 'provenance' to me...(or however you spell it.)
 
cheezy1

cheezy1

#13
#13
Tom S. said:
Yeah, the fan shroud is date stamped '67. But the left side case also has a square 4-bolt accessory mount with the clutch guard attached to it. When did they start having that? All of my old engines have a smooth left side case. Is it possible that the original fan shroud was installed on a replacement engine? The paint on the fan shroud and engine matches very well, and the Lil' Indian decal on the shroud appears to have been there a long time.



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Ya..67 sounds about right then. They moved to Livonia in 66 I believe. The sticker on the head tube can tell a lot. And yes..the side cover is correct....my 65 has it also.
 
minibikin'

minibikin'

Sho-nuff
#14
#14
Wow, that is a fantastic example Tom. I could stare at survivor bikes like this all day and think about the stories they tell. Congrats on a terrific find!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Tom S.

Tom S.

#15
#15
Divouneh said:
I love the yellow Honda in your garage ...
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Thanks. Look close and you'll see there are two of them, side by side. They're identical 1982 C70s, and the serial #s are about 50 units apart. Some guy bought them new at the same time. The Washington license plates are sequential, differing by only one digit. They both had fewer than 500 miles when I got them. The one I ride most often now has just over 800 miles, and its mate has around 350.
 
Divouneh

Divouneh

Active Member
#16
#16
I had one student, 30 years ago. I bought two from the junkyard (like 10usd now), rebuilt one and have done lot of miles with [emoji849]... it was a 50 cc : they are so expensive now here [emoji30]. I am still looking CL, one day [emoji102][emoji188][emoji8]..,


Sent from my iPad using OldMiniBikes
 
Tom S.

Tom S.

#17
#17
markus said:
...1967 Info has been sent to your email...
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Thanks, Markus. Got 'em. You are a fountain of knowledge. I love this site.

I believe this is a factory-assembled bike. It has the metallic Prairie Blue Vibro color mentioned in the brochure. The brochure also says that assembled bikes have a kickstand, while kit bikes do not. My bike has a kickstand attached to bottom of the engine plate.

Thanks for the engine side cover info, too. I believe this is the original motor. There are no signs that it's ever been painted or even been apart. The governor and delicate linkage are still intact.

Has the minidoodle site been taken down? I tried to go there this morning, but...nothing.

It was fun last night to note some of the differences between this bike and my other Lil' Indian, which you said earlier is probably a 1969. Particularly, the steering head tube is of a different diameter on each bike, and the newer one has bushings. The tube on this is much smaller diameter. The steering head is also positioned slightly differently on each frame. It sits just a bit higher on the '67 and has a little less weld material on it.

I imagine that with the simple construction it was pretty easy for them to make specification changes on the fly.

Here are pics of the throttle, brake lever and grips. I couldn't find any markings or numbers on the grips like you mentioned. I also stuck a finger down between the brake caliper and wheel and couldn't feel any ribs at all. It's smooth.

I'll do what's necessary to get it running/riding and will clean it up a bit, but that's it. So much would be lost by painting it. It will also make a good reference point for repairs on my other bike, which has had the caliper mount cut off and a scrub brake installed by a prior owner.



 
markus

markus

Well-Known Member
#20
#20
Thanks for the pics Tom :thumbsup: Those are in fact the same grips as the later ones, just not stamped. So my theory of the "68" could hold true still, kinda like the SAE stamps on headlights and lenses etc :shrug: Looks like they used those grips on all the 1967 models....which at that time were only the 400-600's. If you look at the next years catalog when the lineup was expanded and now called century series they were only used on the 400/450/500's, the 600 and newly introduced 700 got "cushionaire" grips.....which are just OGK made Boltons, which is what they were using on the fulls suspension bikes that also was new to the lineup

I am afraid to direct link but so this a quote with a PH bucket pic I had put up awhile back showing an NOS set for comparison to yours (hope it shows up for a little while anyway)

markus said:
And I have been waiting for these for quite awhile and they just rolled in from overseas today, they match the Original black NOS set I have pretty good (that is because the they are probably what OGK copied back in the 60's):
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My NOS grips in both complete with throttle and grips alone are marked "Japan OGK 68-2", Pretty sure they were in fact marked that way by 1970. The other thing notable on the controls is the LI used Japan made throttles did not have the tension adjuster or even a flat spot in the bottom side of the throttle assembly which was pretty typical on British made throttles and commonplace on currently made ones.

I was wondering about the kickstand, Its hard to tell in your pics cool that it does :thumbsup:
 
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