Purists, avert your eyes: I bought a Matchless

What the title says. I bought a Matchless. It might be the ugliest bike I have ever seen, but the frame/exhaust/forks/engine/gearbox/wheels look great. The tank, seat, head light, fenders and handlebars: not so much.

It's supposed to be a '49 Matchless G3L:





Bought it on wednesday, rode it home yesterday. A ~100 mile trip that didn;t really go flawless.



I lost a hand grip and tore the muffler (easy to fix). Then it really started playing up: It just wouldn't start anymore. It took me 30/45 minutes each time it stalled. Which it did a few times since all of the sudden it would only shift to 4th gear.


The gear shifting solved itself, the starting like a pig remaines. Changing the spark plug helpds, it starts first kick, but if I let it stall, it is nearly impossible to start again.


So that was the way home...

The plans: Get rid of the tank, rear fender, headlight and handlebars ASAP. After that, I'll see. I won't make it stock, but I also won't cut up the frame so it can always be made stock again.




My girlfriend really digs it by the way...




It might be a nice bike for her to join me when I ride my Ariel.

Way cool - best of luck with that project!

Holy shit!!! What's happened to the poor thing? Hopefully you'll do something a little more tasteful to it.

It would be really hard to do anything less tasteful to it


I did feel sorry for it, so maybe I should state that I adopted it, instead of saying that I bought it.

By the way: The Matchless is the newest member to the family. My other bikes:

It looks a nice base for a classic MIOB scrambler, lets face it it needed saving Poor thing its verging on a nervous brakedown its so mixed up..

A classic looking trialer like this with your Enfieldesque twist on it should be both cheap and easy to acchieve, enjoy it.

Shame someone tried to 'cruiserize' it, but certainly has the potential to be the great fun all around 'standard' it once was. Gonna take a bit of money, time and labor but the potential is there. Keep at it.

Some alloy blades and a compy type tank and it will be sweet, starting issue could be magneto sprocket slipping on taper spline or a tired magneto, when i got my g80 basket case 23 yers ago i spent $400[that was a weeks wages] having the magneto[later sr1] rebuilt and have never had an issue with it since, went back to the same retired bloke to rebuild the magneto on the g9

It seems to be spark plug related. With a new spark plug it fired up straight away. I checked for oil usage, I don't think that that's the cause (no smoke, spark plug is dry and white-ish).

Wouldn't a slipping sprocket also ruin the timing?


I have a suspicion that parts like the magneto are all reconditioned. Judging by the gaskets everything has been open quite recently. When I removed the spark plug I could see the piston shining trough the hole. Everything really does look like it's new too. I wouldn't even be surprised if it contains some go-fast parts because it is way faster than both my Ariel and my Enfield.

The previous owner should have saved some money on some of the parts to take a styling course

What a fantastic photo! :eek1

Thanks for posting.

Blessed are those who notice the beauty underneath the buckets of make-up.

I agree with Matty. Trials is the way to go. www.feked.com is a good source of parts

Good resource here --> http://matchlessclueless.com/resources/spares-lists/

As a long term Matchless/AJS owner, I can say that starting the earlier ones is a bit of a knack and each bike has its own oddities. Once the bike's particular method is found they start first or second kick. If the bike is warm do not use any choke or tickle the carbs or the plugs will foul and make it near impossible to get going again. Put the advance/retard lever back about half way, get it over compression with the valve lifter, and as it says in the manual give it "a long swinging kick", and fairly gently at that. Don't give it a hefty boot, just a nice firm push. Get the correct carb spacer as well as that sideways carb simply isn't going to work properly. I can't make out what carb is on it from the pic, but if it is the pre-Monobloc, replace it with a Mono and save yourself some grief. Also check what the advance/retard lever is doing to the timing as some are set incorrectly.

There is a huge amount of documentation here:

http://archives.jampot.dk/

but the site is down at the moment (15/9/14), as it is occasionally. Worth joining the UK AJS and Matchless Owners Club as well as they have an excellent spare parts scheme. If you get stuck, PM me your email address and I'll send you the FW Neill and Pitmans manuals and the 1949 Spares list. They are all out of copyright and in the public domain.

BTW, the "correct" NGK B7ES plugs tend to foul easily and I always take a couple of spares with me. Champion N4s are the other option if you can find them. Make sure it doesn't have a modern resistor-style plug cap either, as they don't work well with magneto ignition.



Try this link until Christian's site comes back up:

http://www.carlsalter.com/ajs-service-manuals.asp

Dave.

I have never understood the appeal of that Sportster peanut fuel tank.

The carb appears to be a concentric, never seen one mounted side on though, if you dont have a bakerlite or fibre carb spacer it will run like crap when the carb gets hot and the fuel starts to evaporate

Thanks for all the advice!

It is a concentric, the spaces are fiber but I've never been a fan of mounting carbs under an angle. I'll see if I can bolt it straight on (but I think I can't because the magneto is in the way).

Since I bought the Ariel I only use Champion spark plugs. It had a Champion in it when I bought it (the Matchless) and the spare spark plug was a Champion too.

Nor me ugly as sin they are. :eek1

Bummer, I was hoping to sell it to one of you guys

When I was young I used to make a bit of money on the side by buying stuff like your bike and fixing up problems with unreliable running - usually after the previous owner had stripped the carbs for the umpteenth time.

It almost always came down to the spark.

Replace the spark plug to eliminate doubt, and replace the plug lead. It's amazing how many folk didn't think to do the latter despite spending a small fortune on the rest of the bike.

If that didn't cure the problem, then it almost always was the condenser in the magneto. I won't go into how to bodge magnetos because these days the value of the bike makes it worthwhile fixing it properly. :)

Of course all that is assuming the bike is in reasonable mechanical condition, ie has compression, tappets adjusted etc.