Indian 640 Canadian

[Stew Robertson]

Rob
this bike when found had the same markings and was put back together as found
there is some cobbled parts in the distributor as we could not find originals as it was done before the internet and all this excess info was out there
I have no original pictures but here is one before Shilo and one at the Crearar
ceremony

CANERA 156.jpg CANERA 160.jpg

[rob love]

Stewart
As always, thanks very much for the photos and especially for the information.

I wouldn't say that there is an excess of information out there, but at the same time it is certainly many thousand times quicker than the old days of writing letters, or waiting until 2 in the morning to make very expensive phone calls to other parts of the globe. How far we have come.

Aside from re-assembling it and locating the missing parts, the only other changes envisioned at this time are to install a sidecar fender lamp (if applicable....still waiting for more data), adding the arm rests to the sides of the sidecar, and possibly a new floor in the sidecar. The thin metal there is really starting to show it's age. Perhaps those who have climbed into it in the past decade or two tend to be a bit heavier than the builders intended back in the 1940s.

The bike is missing the speedometer and the cover over the instruments, however I note that the speedometer alone is well over $1200 Cdn these days, so we'll possibly have to wait until a funding surplus presents itself.

After seeing the drawings on the Jerry Greer site, I have to check the chain length to the generator. I note the present cover over it does not allow the generator to tighten up fully, and the chain has worn into the driving end housing. It would appear that the cover may be incorrect, as it does not seem to mount the same way as the ones illustrated on his site. I'll see of the present cover has the right dimensions.

I like to keep about 3 projects going at once so I can make better determinations as to what is correct, rather than plowing full steam ahead on one project and wasting efforts towards incorrect restoration. Hopefully by the spring I can report here that the bike is "back in service".

[Stew Robertson]

Keep up the great work Rob
It sure is good to see the Gregg collection being finally worked on
Between all the project you have going thanks for your persistence and push and expertise in bring it to tuition
I thought for many years it was all forgotten and all our work was in vain

I still have the original rope gate for Crear's caravan'
if you have something going west let me know
PS: hopefully some day the caravan will be put onto the right truck

[rob love]

Originally Posted by Stew Robertson

Keep up the great work Rob
It sure is good to see the Gregg collection being finally worked on
Between all the project you have going thanks for your persistence and push and expertise in bring it to tuition
I thought for many years it was all forgotten and all our work was in vain

I still have the original rope gate for Crear's caravan'
if you have something going west let me know
PS: hopefully some day the caravan will be put onto the right truck

Stew
No compliments needed, it is an honor to work on this stuff.

Tuition? I think the word is "fruition". Funy you should use that word. It is one of the prowords I used to use when writing PERs. In fact I used it with some frequency that my boss in Afghanistan started making fun of me. I left for 6 months, and when I cam back he had to admit to having adopted the word himself in some PERS. Anyway, I am starting to ramble.

I was remiss in not following through with those ropes a couaple years ago. I have the purolator account number which I was supposed to give you to get them brought to here. There is a tractor trailer leaving Pet tommorow bringing us some artifacts and taking some back your way (as well as moving a LAV) but I suspect the timelines are a little short to make that work.

By the way, as I think I may have previously reported, we have purchased a closed top Diamond T cab and chassis from California, which is slated to be restored and the van body moved across. On paper this is tentatively planned for 2018, but of course there are always surprises and priorities can change. Then we will be able to re-assemble the open top Diamond T with it's wrecker body.

Hopefully you will make it out here again one day for a visit and see what progress has been made at the museum. Still a long way to go of course, and I am not sure I will live long enough to get it all done, but labor is accumulative, and it's done one hour at a time.

[David Dunlop]

Good to hear about the caravan, Rob. And as for the Indian sidecar setup, that is one nice looking combination! For some reason, an image of you and Mr. Derrin racing about on it comes to mind!

David

[rob love]

The lighting in the shop make everything look yellow. My apologies.
This is the bike in question. There is also a photo of the sidecar outer hub. Something is missing from there.

[rob love]

As an aside, this is the other item I am performing a little maintenance on. Just like the older vehicles, what starts as a simple job turns into 10 other jobs. I brought it in for excessive smoke on start up and hard starting. That was over a week ago. It will hopefully be done this week. On top of the tune-up and checking a few injectors, it has fed over to a compression test, replacing an exhaust manifold gasket, an oil change, replacing all crossover lines, replacing a xmsn temp switch, repairing the tachometer cable, repairing the oil pressure gauge, a zero pressure check and replenishing the oil in the turret hydraulics (thanks for the help Laun), pumping up the equilibrator, refilling the nitrogen in the main accumulator, (shhhhh.....don't tell the artillery.....cleaning rust from the breech area), and likely a few more jobs which will crop up.

The artillery want to come by for a bit of professional development/"the way we used to do it" briefings next week.