Hi all, here's my 1971 GP125 frame and engine purchase again, from start to finish, in a few posts. This came from Jonski up in Pudsey, West Yorkshire last August, cheers Jon. It was a marathon weekend. I left my job in Fareham, Hants at 21:30 on the Thursday night, and drove overnight to Inverness to pick up a load of stuff for a cousin who'd temporarily moved in with us in Pompey. Got there at 05:30, had about two hours kip in the car, and then loaded the wife's Honda Civic up to come back.
I stopped in Catterick around 3pm on the Friday and bought an Indian GP150 unfinished project that had loads of new Indian parts with it. I somehow got it all in the car and then shot across the M62 to Pudsey to buy the Italian GP125 frame and engine you see below from Jonski. By this time, it's about 5:30pm and I've had two hours sleep in the last 48 and I still have to get to Accrington for about 7pm
. Anyway, the frame and engine were well and truly shoehorned into the Honda, and I went over to Accrington to a nice b&b outside the football ground. A quick shower, and off out for a few beers before returning to the b&b around midnight. God knows how I was still awake, but needless to say, I slept well that night!
Next morning began with a leisurely full english followed by a slow wander across the road into the pub owned by the club. Couple of pints and out the back door and into the ground. A cracking 2-2 draw ensued, followed by a nightmare drive home where I really struggled to stay awake all the way
. Thank god for Pro-Plus! Finally made it home around 7pm, and unloaded everything the next morning.
So, what I ended up with was a bare Italian GP125 frame and engine case, a fuel tank and a chrome rear mudguard + a complete new set of Indian bodywork, GP150 engine, frame, forks, headset, hubs, tank, toolbox and good quality Ancillotti seat. There was also a new Indian electronic kit, a complete new rubber kit, several Indian wiring looms (all with yards and yards of indicator wiring), new tyres and inner tubes on new chrome rims. A couple of boxes of odds and ends, (mostly fit for the bin only) completed the inventory.
I kept all the new bodywork plus the gearbox, barrel and head, the forks, wheels and tyres, rubber kit and seat. The rest, I added a few bits to that I had lying around, and sold it all on as a project. After which, what I had was a nearly complete bike in bits that just needed a few parts, spraying and rebuilding.
Here's some pics....
First thing to do was to strip out the tank and rear mudguard. The mudguard being chrome, wasn't what I wanted, so it went into the Indian project I moved on. I measured the frame and found the front cross member to be just slightly out of alignment. I heated it up and used a heavy mallet to persuade it back into place. Once I was happy with the geometry, I did a quick dry rebuild. Most of the Indian panels fitted very well actually, with only minor fettling.
I didn't want to keep it metallic blue, so I decided to have it resprayed in Yellow Ochre, and after stripping it down again it all went off to Mike, my trusty retired sprayer.
Whilst the bodywork was all away being prepped and sprayed, I tackled the engine. On closer inspection the case I got from Jon was a belter, with no repairs and nothing needing to be done apart from a good clean. The engine number was some way out though from the frame, and althought it was the correct Li125S designation, it was clearly from a much earlier bike. I managed to find a case with a number only a hundred adrift from the frame, but it needed a few repairs doing to make it a good 'un. As shown above there was a side casing stud at the bottom that had split, and the top one on the left hand side had sheared off completely. These two were rewelded by a mate over in Waterlooville and the exposed upper repair is shown after filing back to it's original shape...
The rim underneath the layshaft housing bearing was split, and Rog welded this back into place also...
Side cover was ok, apart from the kickstart wear as shown here. It was a good cover otherwise so I was happy to live with it. It doesn't stick out like a sore thumb anyway...
The mag housing was from the Indian engine, and was perfect. All the threads were spot on, and I don't think it had ever been apart before. Haven't seen one as good for a long time, so this was a result. That's it for now, I'll add more pics shortly to show the build progress...