This is a little status report on the renovation project of my Vintage Indian Scout 741.
Despite the title statement, be a little reassured: I didn’t have an accident with it. My Indian motorcycle is in 1000 pieces which have all been carefully dismantled!
What is not so reassuring is that I’m not entirely sure how we’re going to put it back together! 😉
Anyway, I wanted to give you a little status update on the restoration process because it took a turn I did not expect!
Giant fast forward update & spoiler:
Minty is whole again and running. If you doubt the statement about the “1000 pieces”, do check out the flat lay I created with all the bits and pieces!
I think it’s pretty cool and a little interesting too!
What happened?
I’m not entirely sure what happened in my dad’s head!
A few weeks back, we were discussing changing the head gaskets. But when I arrived, I got a surprise… my dad had removed both fenders from the bike and a few other pieces!
We had talked about starting the paint work and I was equiped to do so, but I did not expect that so many pieces had already been sanded and were ready, or almost ready, to get painted!
I was thrown off!
Where to start?
Since I was staying for a week, I decided to handle some of the paint work and some of the mechanical work.
To replace the head gaskets, we had to remove a lot of pieces from the bike, like the carburetor, the distributor, the gas lines, the oil lines, the tanks, the seat etc. to gain access.
We cleaned a lot, explored possibilities. The thing is that I also wanted to change the seat gaskets, but dad seemed reluctant, without explaining why.
I didn’t want to rush putting the new head gaskets on, so I did a lot of painting (or so I thought!) and by the end of the week, I went back home with the bike already pretty much in pieces.
Fast forward 3 weeks and my next trip… the bike was now in 1000 pieces! My dad had enrolled my brother to finish it! What was left of the engine was on a little trolley in one place. The main frame and forks had been sanded…
I was thrown off again!
This time it was mainly because I had not realized how many small parts there was to pain. So many!
I’m serious here. By now, I know this bike pretty well. But seeing the different boxes of endless bits and pieces still was kind of a surprise.
Paint job in progress
As you read above, the paint job is in progress! When I started, I was very optimist that I’ll be ridding my bike by mid-summer.
Now, I think it will be a miracle if I ride it before winter comes!
I’ll write a specific piece on the painting process to not make this one too long but before anyone screams at me, I want to clear out a few points…
Yes I’m painting it myself!
You should let a pro do the paint! It’s going to look terrible if you do it… Yeah thank you very much… Most helpful.
When we started the restoration process, my dad made it very clear that he did not want to send the bike anywhere. Under no circumstances….
I know it may not make much sense to you and I was a bit annoyed at first. But remember I started this project for my dad, not to stress him or upset him. So I had to gain the confidence to do the paint myself. No choice.
Considering everything else, it’s not even the hardest part after all!
No, I was never going to “keep the patina”!
Don’t repaint it. You need to keep the patina….
That was never my plan. I’ve mentioned this before on my main Indian Scout page.
Why would I keep the dirt and grease and rust? It never made any real sense to me.
I research this and it seems that a few years back everybody was repainting their old bikes and cars. To differentiate themself, a few started what was going to become the new trend: they started keeping the patina and the rust and stabilizing it.
There are, I think, a couple reasons why such trend makes no sense to me.
I think that part of it, is because I’m not knowledgeable on such matter. I’m not part of a club, don’t have a circle of friends who ride, etc. I have in reality no clue what people find attractive in the traces of time.
Part of it is because I feel that if the vehicle you are restoring is going to spend most of its time in a garage and is only going to come out on sunny days, for expos, maybe it’s ok if it’s rusty? But if you want to ride it regularly? I feel it isn’t so much. Things are just going to get worst, don’t they? Despite the stabilization process.
Now don’t get me wrong, I know I may be overly optimistic on how much I’ll be riding this bike! 😉
But the truth here is, that once again, I’m doing this for my dad. We’re taking his bike back in time. When he bought it and it was ‘brand new’ all shiny and stuff. It’s a way to take him back in time as well.
In short, we are basically giving this bike a new life. One that includes rust protection and a new paint which hopefully will last decades. It will have plenty of time to get a new patina… with me!
My dad wasn’t too happy at first…
When I started painting, the result turned out amazingly good! Not bragging here but I did a good job! Sufficiently good, that my dad wasn’t happy about it!!
Wait, what?
Yeah! He wasn’t happy because he thought it turned out too good. Sometimes, it’s really hard to follow!
Apparently he thought the paint was going to be too fragile and we wouldn’t be able to build back the bike because it would get scratched, just by looking at it!
He original thought we would just put a light coat of paint with a dirty brush and that would be good enough! What????
I was certainly not going to ruin all the cleaning work by applying paint with a brush!
So I asked him to cut me a little piece of metal which I painted like the rest. Once dry, I took a screw driver and hit the piece of metal as hard as I could. The paint held really well. Then he did the same. At the end, the paint barely had any scratches. Nothing, zilch, nada!
He was slightly reassured. Pfffff….
As I had mentioned before, this renovation project is like an emotional rollercoaster. The things I have to deal with are endless! And this issue he had with the paint job being too well done, was just so annoying to me. I mean seriously?! He’s my dad, I’ve known him for a while and vice versa, but some of his reactions are still puzzling to me!
No worries, I’ll continue to paint with the spray gun and redo what has to be done, even if it’s on a piece no-one can see…
Something has changed here. Maybe you’ve noticed…
There is one last thing I wanted to mention here. You may have noticed a little change when I talk about the bike… I call it, MY bike now! Not always, but I’m getting used to it!
My dad has agreed to formally donate it to me and the donation paper work are done! 🙂
My bike will stay at my dad’s place for now, even when it will be back to its former glory. I don’t want to take it away from him. In my mind, it still is his bike. But we’ve handled the donation, just in case.
I’m pretty excited actually and reassured. Originally I thought my oldest brother would inherit it, but things changed and now it’s mine!
You know, something happened when I rode it for the first time. It was like we were meant to be together! I know it may sound silly to some people, but I also think, some will understand such feeling.
That’s all for now. I’m heading back to do more paint in a couple days. Hopefully, no more big surprises!!
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