After far too long the bike is now back on the road. Saturday was spent doing a few things to the bike such as not fitting a regulator/rectifier as I bought one with a Dynamo bike and I have an Alternator bike. Not to worry as that part will get used on the AJS once I get around to getting that to work.

One of the jobs was to finish off the failed attempt at drilling and tapping a nut, I visited my Uncle who is a dab hand at welding etc with some replacement nuts and the tank. Just ran a tap down the thread which has seemed to have done the task of taking it to a 5/16″ x 22tpi BSF thread even though it was 5/16″ x 26tpi Bicycle thread that has had an M8 bolt stuffed into it at some point. I may have to revisit this one day but I think that will be once I have learnt to weld.

Matchless G3LS Tank Mounting

The above picture shows the correct setup for the mounting of the tank. Since I have had the bike we have never managed this due to various bodges that others had done to this bike before we got it and the lack of correctly sized bolts. Now thanks to an AJS/Matchless owners club in Denmark all the manuals and data for the bikes are in an archive online, http://archives.jampot.dk/. I was able to find out the correct mounting solution, order the bits. Though I did have to ask another person on the owners club about what size bolt it was. 1.1/4″ Long 5/16″ x 26tpi Cycle Thread, I have cheated a little and gone for BSF just to make getting bolts a tag bit easier. But I am keen to remove any Metric stuff from the bike, its an old bike and should have the correct bolts for it. Anyway, I digress. The tank took a bit of fiddle and levering to fit and now it is on and good.

Tank bolts in place.

With the fuel tank on I needed to get the fuel pips back on, a good part of the time was spent looking for the 3 way adapter we had for the bike and was put away in a safe place for when we got to working again.

Fuel Pipes warming up before fitting.

Posh clips used because I could, the pip is in hot water to help get it onto things.

Then it was time for the important things, such as improving aerodynamics. So this item was removed to give me extra HP.

With ugly, not needed Tax Disc

Now with extra Aerodynamics

Oh and this fell out of the exhaust pipe,

Honest guv, it just fell out.

By the time I had done all this, it was dark and cold. So I had to wait until Sunday to go for a ride. You may also notice a new Genuine Lucas rear brake light lens.

As you can see the gear lever is set to trials mode and will need adjustment.

Sunday and I robbed some fuel out of the BMW and put a litre or two into the Matchless. I started it fairly easily and warmed it up and took it for a quick ride around the block. Where it coughed and spluttered along until I pulled over and remembered this bike never liked the choke. Then I rode home and waited for it to cool down. Took this time to give the bike some extra air in the tyres and also a Polish using a Dirty Oily Rag.

Standard Drip tray in place, it is a Classic Bike.

This amused some on the Social Media saying aren’t you worried about Oil getting on your clothes or damaging the paint.

The original paint can be seen.

Nope, not worried about damaging the paint in the slightest. As for getting oil onto your kit, well its a classic bike it is bound to leak some fluids. Currently, it seems happy to leak fuel from the taps on the tank. These have cork in them and that has a habit of going dry so needs a bit of time to soak and swell with some fuel, I hope.

Oiling the tank does make the water bead up.

It then rained and prevented any more rides for a bit. I am trying to do short rides to bed in the new piston and to check everything is on where it should be and I won’t have it blow up miles from home. Thankfully it dried out enough I could go for another ride. So I went and visited my Gran and stopped for a picture on the way home.

Top of Stockhill in Chilcompton.

Next weekend is the classic bike show where I bought the BMW. Let us hope I don’t panic buy myself another motorbike while there.