4 of Waynes new bikes

[Randy]

Here is 4 more bikes and one engine Dad just Acquired
Little Indian :

Trail Horse 100 :

Trail Horse 800 :

Rupp Roadster:

Briggs 5HP:

 

[INJUNTOM]

Here is 4 more bikes and one engine Dad just Acquired
Little Indian :

Cool. Sure it's not a MiniMate?

 

[INJUNTOM]

Looks to have 4" wheels like mine:

Would the frame come apart in 2 pieces? Not sure when they cut the head tube in half, but the late Lil Indians I saw were like that. My MiniMate has a one piece head tube even though the rear axle tabs are still seperate.

 

[oldsledz]

are the handle bars/ forks dent on the yellow one? The Mini Mate has straight forks and the Lil Indian are bent or is it just the newer Lil Indians?
The forks on the yellow one look bent but maybe not as much as the lil Indians that I have seen.

 

[tyleryamaha]

Your Yellow bike is a mini -mate. I have one (welded foot pegs and handle bars different than the lil indian ) I live near allied leasure the company that built them. Mine is blue in color. They were built for around a 2 year period early 70's. I have only ever seen 2 others. Nice find.:thumbsup:

 

[Randy]

Looks to have 4" wheels like mine:

Would the frame come apart in 2 pieces? Not sure when they cut the head tube in half, but the late Lil Indians I saw were like that. My MiniMate has a one piece head tube even though the rear axle tabs are still seperate.

LOL.
Yes.....4" wheels
Yes..... The frame splits at the neck into 2 pieces

 

[Randy]

are the handle bars/ forks dent on the yellow one? The Mini Mate has straight forks and the Lil Indian are bent or is it just the newer Lil Indians?
The forks on the yellow one look bent but maybe not as much as the lil Indians that I have seen.

See Dad has 3 of these bikes we are trying to positively ID. So we where lining parts up the other day trying to figure them out, and he also took measurements from all the bends for comparison.

To answer your question the forks on this bike are bend slightly forward above the crown. But the bends to me looked either like high speed bends or maybe like some one was tring to bend them forward for leg room. I personally did not think they where a bend life you would see from a pipe bender. The red bike that I'll eventually add photos of had Identical forks but they are straight and about 3" shorter below the crown? Maybe for a larger tire bike?
Randy

 

[Randy]

Your Yellow bike is a mini -mate. I have one (welded foot pegs and handle bars different than the lil indian ) I live near allied leasure the company that built them. Mine is blue in color. They were built for around a 2 year period early 70's. I have only ever seen 2 others. Nice find.:thumbsup:

Thanks, Do you know if all mini-mate had the welded foot pegs, And could you explain the difference in bars? Because we have 3 of them now, and they all are the 2 piece frame with welded foot pegs but the one has different handlebars?

Thanks, Randy

 

[joshhoward]

Cool Trail Horses! Love those minibikes. I have a GTO 1500 frame im gonna build someday. Just need a set of forks for it. LOL :doah:

 

[INJUNTOM]

This page here mentions Lil indian tooling started in 1973 for the new style bikes.

Springer Minibike Kit

Not sure how accurate it is, but that seems about right considering the MiniMate timeline.

 

[INJUNTOM]

Also, the forks Wayne's bike don't look like the Lil Indian forks. They look like MiniMate forks with the bars bent forward.

Another thing about the MiniMate bars is that the portion you grab onto tilts up unlike any other Minibike I've ever seen. The Lil Indian doesn't have that feature. Hard to see in pics, but it's very distinctive.

I'm also surprised to see it's a 2 piece frame...mine isn't seperated at the front.