old guy, new member; I'm tommerr

[tommerr]

I am very pleased to find this forum. I got my first bike, a mini bike, in 1965. I then went through two small Honds's, a Sporster and a 1956 Harley chopper. Along the way, I found six Indians. I eventually traded the Indians, now that was a big mistake, for Harley stuff. I grew tired of Harleys and I sold everything. One day, about eight years ago I saw an exquisit vertical twin in the parking lot at work. I was mortally smitten. It was a 1980 XS650. I now have four of them plus ten extra engines and a ton of extra parts. Lots more from me on my next post.

All the Best,

Tom

[tommerr]

Tommerr here again,

I rephased my motor to 270 degress. I am in the process of building an XS650 into my own Indian Sport Scout. I bought a hard tail. I started a dialog with Kiwi Indian to have a flat spring front end built up for the XS frame. I sent them an XS triple tree as a guide for machining the stem. Travis of Kiwi and I talked last Thursday. I should have my front forks in a week or so. Three years ago, I drove to pa. to pick up two 1953 jet trainer drop tanks. Now mind you, this was in the dead of winter and the toll charges were $100! My Tommerr bike will be a side car bike with the drop tank as the side car body. I am affeared that long postings will die so here comes post three.

Tom

[tommerr]

I found a new side car setup on Ebay. It was built in Ukraine. It was built on captured German tooling so the design is 1930's. For lights, I have lights from a 1953 Dodge M57 military pickup truck. Let me assure you that they do not look like new chrome chopper stuff. Now for some devilish Tom fun! I intend to have the engine side covers welded up to eliminate "Yamaha". I love Yamaha so that is not the point. What will then be attached is "Indian". I would like to tell the Harley people that; "This is the last and most advanced of the Indians. I has overhead valves and a five speed transmission. Indian was always better than Harley!"

Tom

[tommerr]

I am age 63. I retired three weeks ago. Now imagine seven day weekends! Fifteen years ago, I started building a shop. It is 30x40 with 55 feet of benching. I have a large grease pit and a built in car lift. This is Tom's House of Yamaha. This year it will finally have power. The heat is a large wood burner. I live in the country and some of the modern world can pass me by. I retired after forty years working in an aerospace materials laboratory. That educated me in materials, heat treating and mechanical strengths. I am still in contact with many top drawer engineers. They love to answer interesting questions.

Tom

[G Man]

Tom, great intro! LOL ;D

I don't know where to start, except to say it sounds like you have a great set up there. Tons of great parts and bikes and a cool project hack which I look forward to following along with on your progress.

Maybe start a project thread in the project section when you feel like it.

Take care and talk to you soon,
G Man

[tommerr]

Of course my wife has a list of honey dew jobs for me. I intend to quickly polish them off and move back into finishing my shop. I need a ceiling and I want to paint the floor. The next step is power. Then my bike project will start. Can you tell that I'm fired up? I just bought more machinery. I now have a large Monarch lathe and two milling machines. I'm itching to get power out there. I am a moderator on a firearms web site. I have 3500 posts there and lots of pictures. Rest assured that I will document and post many pictures. When that time comes, I will start a build thread.

Tom

[mwp309]

Hi Tom, I'm glad to see another firearms enthusiast here too! Going to compete in a Garand match in 2 weeks. At my age, my eyes like that long sight radius!
Anyhow, I had an 82 Heritage that I gave to my son when he graduated college, now I am trying to buy an 83 for myself. I am looking forward to riding with him on our nearly matching XS650's!