Ok, this is a strange bike I have never heard of, and at one time I owned a Lilac as well as a Montgomery Wards 250 scrambler made by Benelli, and have worked on all sorts of strange bikes. At first I was thinking someone bought Indian's old vertical twin design, and the mix of parts is really interesting if not shockingly cobbly. Nice find!
Sounds like my old Triumph ( kinda looks like Triumph motor ) which hasn’t been run in almost 30 years. It looks a lot better than this and I am leery of starting it up without oiling the crap out of it and turning it over about1000 times with plugs out. Whenever I see one of these ‘ First Start After 50 years’ type videos I think of the small block Chevy motor I had that sat for only a couple years and I started and ran it for a few minutes then ended up taking it apart. I discovered that one of the rod bearings stuck to the crankshaft so good that the first crank over made it move in the rod end. Everything was still good but if I had run it long enough to reach temperature or even tried to drive it the crankshaft would have been wasted
Crusty-lookin' bugger...amazing that it fired at all! The Japanese made a number of "imitation Brit bikes" before WW2, and some "imitation BMW's" as well. Sure would like to see more of 'em here ... if they still exist!
Cabton is a defunct brand of Japanese motorcycles based in originally in Osaka, Kansai region[1] and later in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture,[2] that produced motorcycles from 1933 to 1960. The company was started in Osaka by Koushiro Nakagawa and his son. The name is supposed to originate from the slogan "Come and buy to Osaka, Nakagawa".
Your impressive knowledge of it's history notwithstanding, having spent 7 years there, most of it in the 60s, and taught Engrish Conbersation 40 years later, a better guess at the origin of the name is probably their improper spelling of the word Captain.??
Most of these "Britty's" (no apostrophe needed, and "Brits" or "Brit bikes" would be more acceptable, especially to a "Brit") have worn carb bodies which causes them to run badly at low revs.
@@wontputrealname Yep! Amal's are a ''Bitty'' like the ''Lucuss's''. Just as sure as i was a ''Bricklayer'' durin' the mid 70's - the mid 80's... And now; i'm just an old ''Bricklier''! 121918
Restore it or just ride it as it is? Me?,I would service it and keep the patina intact. Taken a long time to look that interesting! Just know it would have people talking at bike meetings and catch their interest too.
First change that change the oil in the motor use airplane 50 weight oil in the motor and last longer there was Shell oil from airplane oil micron 650 got some almost 50,000 miles on it I'll be using it airplane oil in it but if you're in cold weather 10:40 airplane oil almost have 50,000 miles on my tramp using airplane oil and changing the oil and gear oil 75 90 weight gear oil regular gear oil
I get old bikes and make them sound, run properly and useable. They should then be kept clean and be wiped with an oily rag to hold the corrosion at bay, unless they are so rotten they MUST be restored or "painted up".
This Cabton twin design is a copy of the ill-fated, British made twin that was marketed as an Indian "Warrior" in the early '50s. Indian was sinking in the market and had changed ownership and tried to modernize their line-up of machines with these handsome but poorly tested ones. They were dropped in a few years after many short-comings. Perhaps Cabton improved on the design, Indian had done that on the last of them as well and perhaps they were good enough for Japan later on. I understand Cabton had a 500cc single as well, not sure of that.
+whalesong999 I posted this a few months ago. It was a answer to an opinion that the engine was similar to a BSA. "Ray Colgin The engine owes more to Triumph and AJS/Matchless practice with it's 2 camshafts. It appears most similar, almost a copy, to a Indian design from the '50s. The gearbox looks like a Burman box, as fitted to a number of '50s Brit bikes. The primary chaincases look like Ariel. I'm surprised that it needed electrical assistance to start as accepted practice at that time on motorbikes was to have a magneto. Some bikes HAD coil ignition, but most, if not all, had alternators. Coil ignition was seen by motorcyclists of the era to be unreliable and troublesome, especially if the generator on the machine was a dynamo. Many machines which did have alternators continued to use the magneto for ignition, some right into the late '60s.". You're probably familiar With the 250 side valve single they produced in the '.50s, my brother had one and found it to be very slow and heavy
By the way, the same people who made the Indian Warrior also made a 250cc unit construction side valve single for Indian called the Brave. When Indian folded, they continued production of this bike as the Brockhouse Brave. My brother had one.
How interesting and ...kind of sad. About this time good quality German machines were getting a following in the U.S. (my first bike was a '57 200cc Zundapp Challenger) and the Italian bikes were becoming something to make lightweights a serious place to look for a teenager's good ride.
OH Yeah... I owned one of these on Okinawa in 1960 ..a 1958 model,. bought it abused and in poor condition. Put it in a mc shop for complete mechanical and cosmetic restore...think that the total bill was about $275.00.. that was close to a months pay for a young S/sgt back then. The 650 cc Cabton was a poor (and I mean poor) knock-off of the BSA 650cc. Ran ok but lotsa vibe at higher rpm . Was all show ..no go.! This was long ago an' far away ..as the sayin' goes !
Ray Colgin The engine owes more to Triumph and AJS/Matchless practice with it's 2 camshafts. It appears most similar, almost a copy, to a Indian design from the '50s. The gearbox looks like a Burman box, as fitted to a number of '50s Brit bikes. The primary chaincases look like Ariel. I'm surprised that it needed electrical assistance to start as accepted practice at that time on motorbikes was to have a magneto. Some bikes HAD coil ignition, but most, if not all, had alternators. Coil ignition was seen by motorcyclists of the era to be unreliable and troublesome, especially if the generator on the machine was a dynamo. Many machines which did have alternators continued to use the magneto for ignition, some right into the late '60s.
The badge had what I think is an M on it.Is that affiliated with matchless?It almost has to be british influenced.Love the plunger type suspension. I briefly had a 650 kawasaki that was a close copy of a BSA pre unit.Kawasaki made them and some went to the austrian army,I was told.
Isn't this a Briggs Weaver design? In the early 1950's INDIAN tried to update it's range with a series of new vertical twins and singles with a conspicuous lack of success. The 250 cc Side Valve BRAVE was made in the UK by BROCKHOUSE I had a rigid version and it was fine if a bit slow. I did meet a someone named Carl who had a red spring frame machine and he swore by it. In fact I think that he even went from the UK to Rome as well as other long continental trips on it. (I think he lived in London and went around with a girl on a HARLEY-DAVIDSON TOPPER Scooter which used the same engine as the DKW RT 125 derived engine that was use in the HUMMER which if memory serves was a 165 cc machine .BSA used the same design in their BANTAM models also The Poles and the Russians used this design as did YAMAHA in their first machine the YA-1) Also many years ago I met someone in Shropshire who had a 250 cc OHV single which basically was half of this CABTON he told me that a 175 cc OHV version had been built as well along with a 220 cv SV version . I did hear that when BROCKHOUSE took INDIAN over they sold the designs on to CABTON who got them to work reasonable well. By 1960 INDIAN had become part of the ASSOCIATED MOTORCYCLES Group at Plumstead (MATCHLESS, AJS, NORTON, FRANCIS-BARNETT & JAMES) I suspect that very few survive today.
Biggest problems with the indian verticals was poor magneto and oil pump. Collectors had long since figured the issues out and good modifications can be done to make them reliable from what I read many years back. But that the japanese did fix the issues and build bikes (not for long by the sound of it is all) is good. For the time the engine design Indian did was very good, only let down by poor parts.
The electrical circuit needs to be complete with a battery to prevent damage to it's components. It has an amp meter which could be ruined with voltage spikes, for instance.
