We are about to go to paint with Bikernet’s 5-Ball Racing 2014 Indian Chief Classic. We thought we might squeeze in a piece about Paul Aiken’s Aeromach components for Indians. “But most of the items will be installed at the detail stage,” said Rich Worley, the boss of American Biker, the Indian dealer in Charleston, SC.
Here are the before Aeromach lowering bracket installation.
The American Biker team was only able to install the Paul Aiken-designed, Aeromach footboard lowering brackets, the heal shifter, and oil drain plugs. Starting with the life-saving footboard brackets, they will lower my boards about two inches and extend them out an inch.
Here's my stock puppy. We are going to eliminate the chrome on the fenders and black out the running light.
Some Indian Chief models come with front and rear crash bars, but not my classic, fortunately. The front bars must be removed to fit the lowering bracket in place on the other models. Other than the crash bar, it’s an easy, straightforward install.
Aeromach sends all the hardware necessary to install the brackets and an extended shift rod to allow the shifter to be moved out the 1-inch once the plates are in place.
“The shift rod comes with the floorboard relo kit,” said Paul. “The rod is left hand thread at one end and right hand thread on the other. When you loosen the jam nuts the rod turns and moves the shifter up or down depending on which way you turn the rod. I had to adjust mine to fit my boot toe under the shifter on my Vision and the Chief. You cannot go too far with it because the rod will back out of the rod ends eventually.”
We will install a bunch of other Aeromach details once final assembly begins, but at this point we installed only the board adapters, the heal shifter, and the Aeromach Indian drain plugs.
Rich blasted over to Paul’s Aeromach shop to check out the action and discuss Indian mods.
There are two drains under the engine. Since the engine is unit construction, there is only one lubricant type used for the engine, transmission and primary, engine oil.
Stock drain plugs.
The drains are assigned one for the crank and one for the return container. The dipstick only measures the return container, so if the bike sits for any length of time, most of the oil slips into the crank and won’t read on the dipstick. I need to make sure the bike is warm and upright before checking it.
The Aeromach drain plugs are either plated or stainless with super strong magnets attached to keep chunks of steel crap from circulating in the engine. “But some folks complain that the filter will catch everything,” Paul mentioned. First, crap in the oil tank will circulated through the engine before it meets with the filter on the return path back to the oil bag.
Plus, the crap stuck to the magnet is a major engine condition indicator. If it’s a fine, light fuzz, then all is well. If it looks like a chandelier of broken glass shards, you’re engine is in trouble and you'd better get it checked.
There's one more benefit to these Aeromach drain plugs, and it speaks to my long-time mechanical concerns. I don’t like tightening steel fasteners against aluminum threads. The aluminum will lose the fight every time. I generally compensate for this concern by attempting not to over-tighten drain plugs. This is always a double-edged sword. At times, I'd wrap plugs with Teflon tape to allow them to seal without being hard on a wrench.
Aeromach addressed this concern by drilling the heads of their fastener to allow safety wiring. That answers all my concerns. I don’t need to over-tighten them, and I don’t need to be concerned about losing a drain plug on the road and all my oil spilling all over my rear tire.
The American Biker team received a Chief with unpainted sheet metal this week, so the move to go to paint stepped up. My only complaint about the new Indians has to do with the rear fender. I wanted a smaller rear tire and the fender inside the swingarm like days of old. I also wanted to reshape the bottom edge of the rear fender to give it more of that classic Chief flow. Rich worked with me and I sent him shots of my ’46 Indian rear fender. We went back and forth, but I believe we came up with a reasonable solution.
Then we looked at the front fender and I thought about trimming it slightly to match the rear mods, and then Rich pointed out the removable caliper covers. We decided to go for it, since this is destined to be a race-related bike. We are still going to trim it slightly. Then I noticed the whitewall tires. We can’t run whitewalls on a race bike.
Hang on for the next episode. Rich is on his way home with the sheet metal to cut and form the fenders.
Click for more info: 679 Treeland Drive, Ladson, SC 29456. 843-641-0258
More Products for Indians from Aeromach and Highway Hawk
Highway Hawk products for touring motorcycles.
There were some complaints about the massive Indian Ignition switch, so Paul and High Hawk came up with a classic peel-and- stick Indian head coin replica. Does the trick.
