1951 Blackhawk Roadmaster Chief

My 1951 80" Indian Blackhawk Chief, 50th Anniversary Model 351. with its serials Motor C-4338 B and frame
C-4338 she is essentially a matching numbers, 'zero repro' machine.

After 6+ months of looking daily and researching chiefs for sale on the WWW, all in various stages of disrepute, I purchased this one via the Internet which was located in Medusa New York, in May 1999. John, the previous owner for 38 yrs called her 'Mother' and was naturally, very sentimental about giving her up.

 Before John, one other N.Y owner, and originally the New York Police Dept, (then PDNYC). While this is not officially confirmed I have based it on the following, many of the late chiefs were destined for the Police markets, it had white police hand grips, a max hand on the speedo, both rear fender cutout's for the heel actuated siren, front fender had the two holes for the precinct plates, the battery tray is larger to compensate for a larger generator & battery combo. The late '51 rear wheel corbin speedo read 28,491 mi on delivery.

I  received it Aug 1999 after missing the first boat by just 1 day and delaying by a further 6 weeks!. The call I had been waiting 6 months for came and I dropped everything to go down to the Port. I have to say, when I finally cracked open the well built container, I was very disappointed, actually somewhat shocked. It was very run down and rat looking, nothing like it looked in these 6 photos  which, along with numerous e-mail's was all I had to make a purchase decision.
Try to remember photos almost always show the subject in much better light than it really is, if someday your in the same predicament, for instance chrome in the pictures can be just silver tape!. Still it would take more than cosmetics to ruin the high of this day.

Once rolling on terra-firma again, I just parked it up and walked around it for 1/2 hr, watched with "WHAT!, you paid that for this.." looks from three of my mates.

O.K off with the leather (later it would take a gallon of Neatsfoot oil to soften), and on with the engine degreaser which I let sit for another 1/2 hr. While waiting minutes for the degreaser to penetrate decades, I started looking a little closer, mentally armed with many-a-fact I had memorized while waiting for delivery ...spouting aloud... that's the wrong front crashbar - its a scout one, hey it's the wrong year carb and that's not an Autolite coil, damn that's a 46 speedo, a Jawa horn, a Bosch Generator... Still it would take more than a few incorrect parts to ruin the high of this day

.Out with the water blaster and I blasted the last 30 yrs of grime from the bike, it didn't look much the better for it but I sure felt better, sort of like I had blasted John, the prev owner from the bike as well and it really was mine now!.
I dried it with the air compressor and heat gun and generously sprayed it with CRC. ( I don't use WD40, this absorbs moisture and will go milky with time). After routine maintenance like renewing oil's and fuel's, checking timing, new spark plugs and cleaning points I got it running.  "It's alive...its alive", I cried, now I had completely forgotten about its faults!.

Then after several other adjustments she was ridden 150mi or so. After making the decision early, after viewing many true baskets, to buy a mostly complete, mostly original ride, I had initially hoped to just maintain her and keep that character of a riders bike. After spending a week detailing and cleaning it, much of which involved rubbing aluminum foil into the rampant rust covered chrome (this works a charm, try it!) , it wasn't to be, I found myself artificially aging, matting back painted bits, stuff I had worked on, just to blend with the bike. It was beginning to look like a half-assed restoration, still I persevered until one afternoon I accidentally spilled acetone on the tanks which immediately went opaque white, this the final straw, the nail, and it spurred on this full nuts and bolts, ground up restoration which was started in Oct 1999 and was just recently completed Feb 2000.

This represents  a four month labor of love restoration, but very intense, i.e. fulltime, most days, nights, and weekends.The objective of the rebuild was to preserve originality (remember this bike was complete and mostly original already) while incorporating any improvements that would go largely unnoticed by casual observation. Fortunately the IORNZ Rally Feb 18-20 provided a deadline which gave me much motivation during the late hours out in the workshop. Doing the tedious preparation work, like leaning into the wire wheel on several hundred fasteners and the likes, while I glanced at the space where my mount once was, my heart sank,  I felt as it had been stolen from me!.

     
I also wanted and tried, though somewhat without success, to do the restoration entirely myself, or at least have complete control of it.     I mostly sought advice and options before proceeding but any tasks I had to farm out, was on the condition that I could be there and wanted be fully informed as to what was happening and why.     In most cases I was allowed to help with the work.   

 I remember the day passing quickly in the paint shop after paint stripping as I dremmeled (this is the best tool I had for this restoration - simply a must have) away the frame casting marks, bronze speltering splashes etc before blasting and priming it all on there shop site before the painters laid down the final coat(s).     Over restoration?, maybe, but this is my mount and  I pride myself on attention to detail and am satisfied with nothing less than perfection, I believe this is the single biggest reason for the result.     I am not in the trade or even the industry so I hope this provides motivation for other d.i.y's who are tentative about doing the restoration yourself, believe in yourself, use this medium to ask questions, use the experience of the multitude of regular contributors and resources out here and you CAN do it yourself. Briefly

What's been done?, well actually a full ground up nuts and bolts restoration with everything taken apart as far as it can go and all back to bare metal, all sheet metal including tanks (usual probs) were immersion dipped then metal finished (outwork), i.e. no body filler, plastic or otherwise used. Upon stripping  down the running gear and inspecting , I found the cam gear to be in excellent condition with only  reprofiling and linishing of surfaces necessary and replacement of two roller rivets.     I measured the cams and  found them to be bonneville and followers standard, but wait, the lifters should have been bonne also and must have been swapped out at some stage (unscrupulous dealer maybe!?).  
                   Hoping this was a sign of the state of the rest of the motor, I continued pulling it down...Alas it wasn't to be...

Below, the crank pin and drive pin needed replacing, more from deep pitting from dry rollers during it's long periods of sitting, rather than wear, a crank thrust washer was split in two, (incidentally the new crankpin required .001" machining off its taper).     Installed .003" over big end races and  new undersized rollers and new bearing cages etc (drive and pinion cages are same as 741 which I had plenty NOS). Conrods were deburred, polished, magnafluxed, straightened and sent away to be  shot-peened.. Crank balanced to 65% +/- 1%. I believe I was the first to crack these cases open since it rolled out of Springfield.

 I measured .008 or so cylinder wear in the jugs thrust surfaces and managed to have bored out to just .010 over, incidentally the reconditioner (I use this term lightly) broke the top fin off the rear jug while pushing out the old guides, but first  tried to tell me it came off in his hands, no kahuna's, so consequently they did not receive any payment.; It's well repaired and impossible to detect now painted...but still!..

 Previous to this mishap I  removed the Chevy 305 (or 327) inlet valves and the' Made in England'  heavily domed exhaust valves of unknown make. It also had solid skirt Robbins pistons of std 3.246" dia which had broken lands between ring grooves, I don't know if these pistons are OEM?, I think they were used in fours?, but the bore has never been sleeved, so why are they there, what happened to the originals?. 

Fitted  new .010" over pistons, rings & pins, (JCC T-slot),  valve guides, valves (Eaton SS),  and new dual bonne springs, again much attention to porting and polishing given (with poss some drawbacks, more on that below).
The excellent hi temp silicon impregnated stainless steel core James Gaskets have been used exclusively during re-assembly, I won't  use anything but now.    

Further protection is provided by magnetic drain plugs all round, large magnet in the bottom of the oil tank and the use of internal oil filter inside on the return line. I removed the notorious feed check ball from the pump, reseated the return ball in its seat and have no wet sumping probs and big piece of mind.     The gears in the pump were near perfect. 
After replacing the distributor sleeve in the pump, I started on the distributor and carb rebuilds with the ususal throttle shaft and dissy shaft bushes being replaced.

The left crank case, inner primary cover and alum oil pump required minor welding repairs for hairline fractures, then everything was media blasted with a mica/alum dust mix then hand polished with 3M ScotchBrite pads and CRC, actually I have never seen a better finish.     The cylinders were phosphate treated (POR Metal- Ready) and painted with POR Engine Enamel and baked for several hours. POR-15 tank sealant was also used in the now sound tanks with so far great results. 

As I tackled the gearbox, starting with two new semi-sealed bearings I also separated the primary and added '52-'53 seals to the hubs and sealed the connecting galleries.     After having a countershaft bushing made to replace the one that had been spinning in the case and correcting the cluster gear end float with thrust washers, I found a near mint slider gear I had in stock and replaced the old one which showed signs of the case hardening almost gone. 

The primary chain was so stretched and at the end of  it's adjustment, it was starting to gouge away at the cases, I don't believe it was the original or correct chain as it had connecting links, off which the clips had long since vanished!.     All fiber clutch discs were then slotted and drilled, an extra 1/16 disc added to the stack and the gearbox is using 80W/90 and the clutch, ATF.     Result is a very much improved drive and gear train, no more 1st gear grating, slipping or chattering on this baby!.     I replaced the chain with a heavy duty (630) O-ring chain and re-routed the cam breather away in an effort to keep the whitewalls, well, White!.

                        .

Wheels and hubs, front forks and steering head all rebuilt with new bushes, and improved seals, sealed bearings, new rollers and felts etc.UNF & UNC drum studs had been interchanged between front and back drums resulting in the galling of threads and  not so tight drum/hub fits  that had already sheared off two studs on the rear. These I corrected with keen-serts (like heli-coils with tangs you drive down).     Hubs and drums then blasted and prepared for powder coating after softer modern linings were bonded  to the shoes and  radiused to the newly machined drums. Wow, now I actually have brakes!. One rim was re-plated, one replaced because of depth of rusting, and spokes and nipples replaced with all SS sets.     I laced the wheels myself but had the hub offsets and truing done

Paint and Plating, hard to easily re-plate parts like pushrod covers, head bolts, front engine mounts etc were cad plated and then heat treated against hydrogen embrittlement, but almost all small parts and  fasteners were Zinc plated (silver chromate). Some de-plating was done on parts that were chrome plated when they should have been painted and all parts that should be chrome, re-plated with triple pass process. This being,  soft nickel, hard nickel, then chrome, (no copper).    The plater's did not treasure these 50yr parts as much as I did and several needed re-done as some come back with dents in them even, and others were over polished and distorted.     My worst experience was with the electroplaters, in fact the fork dust covers have been put out of round by heavy handed buffers to the extent they are removing paint on the fork tubes better than a paint scraper. I think beveling the edge off the covers will relieve.
Initially I was going to powder coat the frame and larger castings, but due to the amount of oil in the frame this was ruled out (seems the oil tank breather was routed into the down tubes in the Blackhawks?). We tried to bake it out for a day but it just kept on flowing out.It was finally painted (jet black) 2k 2-pac and baked.The finish is all you could hope for, deep, glossy and very black, and this could never be matched by powder coating. 

All the other major sheet metal was also 2k 2-pac & baked (this time midnight black but with clear coat).     Unintentionally  we got a very subtle white pearl in the finish,  still don't know where it came from but its barely noticeably amongst the dust that new black paint prides itself it in attracting and showing up so well.     The finish is also near perfect but only achieved by weeks and weeks of fastidious preparation.... Pity that the frame mounted horn has already made a mess of it on the front fender on the rare occasions it has bottomed out!. Mind you this one's a rider anyway but I'll touch it up this Winter.

To-date (since completion 17 Feb) it has done 460mi with no pipe discoloration or so much as an oil leak so far, however it does have a big flat spot under acceleration (30-50mi) which I have put down to having the inlet manifold and passages too damn smooth and thereby loosing some turbulence effect for fuel/air mix.?.& I hope to remedy by putting the old nozzle and venturi back in it (I had prev kitted it out for bonne specs), and/or Mig welding some tit's or humps or something inside the inlet manifold 'vee'. Either way  I'll let you know what happens, but in the meantime it's tolerable and even has the effect of acting as kind of a governor!. If you have anything to contribute to this problem, please email me (below). Update 23 Feb, Tonight I have just returned from a road test after changing the bonne nozzle and venturi back to std set and the difference was immediate, no more latency or flat spots, no more hesitation and back firing under throttle load, and the needles now find the window between to rich and too lean, previously it was hard too know where the too rich setting was. So now Im very happy, the bike runs as good as it looks! - Moral of the story, bigger is not better, though interestingly enough that bonne combination worked well prior to the rebuild and porting.  Some 700mi complete now.

'I don't know what was more stressful or heartbreaking, it being completely apart, or partially complete' 
G.C 02/2000

 
 please direct any comments or suggestions 
to the owner/restorer/author Greg Cooney