Forum

[simon]

Ah but I see it's the Indian ones you are interested in. I have access to an early 1970's one if that's old enough?

[Norm]

Hi Simon, I'm interested in all of the early ones but from what I have seen the mid sixties Indian frame looks no different than the recently stopped Indian frames. Problem is the early Indian bikes I have seen all seem to have new looking frames with old numbers stamped on them, the rebuilt in India ones if you get my drift. Going by the Interceptors they continued with the bronze swing arm bushes in England, but I was curious when they started with the silent block swing arm in India. Obviously they would have started out with bronze bushes in the early Indian frames and I would have thought the first silent block frames would not have appeared till the early eighties so my belief would be that for an early Indian frame to be genuine it should have a bushed swing arm. Not that it matters much just curious

[Chris Tindal]

Norm, yes post 56 style frame but sent to India, so some later ones were sent as well as the early type but yu never read it anywhere. I recently looked at a 1964 Indian made frame, looks the same as a modern one but don't know about the swinging arm bushes.

[Chris Tindal]

Erratum 'you'

[Norm]

Thanks Chris, makes a lot of sense, I couldn't see the English factory making 2 frames after 56 one for their local bikes and one for the Indian export ones. Something that has had me wondering for a while. The one you have has quite a bit of history behind it

[Chevy]

From my understanding, up until mid 1961 the Indian models used the same frame as the 1953/4 350 Redditch Bullets with the welded frame rails above the gearbox. After this the frame was bolted together at this point with the long 1/2" diameter stud that was common to the end of production. I would expect the change to have happened around frame number G2/48***Chevy

[Norm]

So Chevy, if this was the case the English factory must have still been making the old frames along side the new style frame because the Indian factory apparently didn't start producing frames till 1962. Gets very messy when records don't exist

[Mark M]

The earlier style of frames must have continued after 1956 because the Clipper S and Model G continued until 1957 at least, and maybe also the J2 as delivered to fleet users like the Milk Marketing Board quite apart from the CKD (Completely Knocked Down) kits being sent to India. The interesting one is Chris' bike, I wonder if it was a prototype or sent for evaluation? On a different note I am working on my 1970 Series 2 Interceptor at the moment and the frame (made by Velocette at this stage) is very poorly welded compared to Redditch ones!
REgards, Mark

[simon]

I'll check out the big brothers Indian one as his was first registered in New Zealand in the mid seventies. One thing for sure the build quality is a whole heap better than than the 92 frame I got with the wreck I turned into the Bitsa. The welds on that were truly woeful. Looked like bird shit and full of holes with slag in them. Another difference between the Reddich frame and the Madras was the tapered front down tube. Whilst rather stylish you can see why they got shot of it as it would have been a complication in manufacture. .