Matchless Typhoon

And yes, we are off topic. Haven't said I like your bike yet. Nice and original, just the way they should be. Years ago we had a G90 Matchless, it had the earlier style rod and piston in it. The gudgeon pin height and rod length were different in later models. Had a swing arm frame which looked original, high level pipe and a map lamp on the tank. It performed particularly well. I think they are very rare these days. I've never seen another in the past 50 years. THe one we had, had only one pipe, so the head could have been swapped, so the swing arm frame attachment might also be suspect. It had bolted up perfectly with no butchering.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tpX1DcR95c
 
About that Daytona Manx in the magazine. It is not rocket science to look at Beart's book and get the bike looking correct. The owner obviously has no sense of history or of the intrinsic value of his bike. Why would anyone fit a 1959 seat to a 1930s Manx ? Obviously a rabbit !
 
Well that can't be a 'Manx' .
Prewar they were called Internationals.

To 'full race spec' if a customer ordered one like that.

acotrel said:
Matchless Typhoon
 
acotrel said:
Years ago we had a G90 Matchless, . Had a swing arm frame which looked original, high level pipe and a map lamp on the tank.

A swingarm frame can't be too original with a G90 engine in it.
One of them hadn't been invented yet !!
 
Rohan, How do you know what was available in AMC bikes of the thirties ? When I looked at that G90 Matchless it looked as though it had left the factory with the swinging arm. I agree with you that it was unlikely, however when we were fitting race cams to Matchlesses in the late fifties, getting information on what was available was very difficult. We bought cams from Rod Coleman in New Zealand for the pushrod single. He used to be a works rider for that brand, and obviously knew a lot more than we did, however I feel that the factory didn't race those models after the 500cc R7 etc OHC bikes were made. A more sensible reason for that G90 having a swinging arm frame is certainly that model progression meant that the front part of the frame was the same on rigid and swing arm bikes, and somebody had simply updated the G90 with later parts. The result was a vey pleasant, good performing bike. We were very sad to lose track of it when one of our idiot mates sold it and wouldn't divulge w here it had gone.
If you have a look for the 1938 G90 Super Clubman Matchless on the web, the a mount of information is almost zero.
 
acotrel said:
How do you know what was available in AMC bikes of the thirties ? \

Because I have an interest in Ajays and Matchies ?
And AMC didn't come out with a springer frame until the late 1940s.
If they'd had one in the 1930s, it would have been trumpeted from the rooftops.
Or appeared in 'ClassicBike' by now.

As soon as Enfields and AMCs had springers in the 1940s everyone wanted one - and they (springers) were cleaning up in enduros and trials events, and roadracing (eventually).

Besides, you can always tell a good bodger at work - it looks factory. !!
Quite apart from that most 1930s engines will go into 1940s frames, and vice versa.
Phil Walker was the designer at AMC, and his nickname was "Mr Spacer".
If you've ever worked on an AJS or Matchless, you will know why.
And the lengths mostly aren't even quoted in the bloomin parts lists.
Which is fun trying to figure out the separate lengths of all of them, blind as it were.

P.S. That is just plain wrong about the cams for the ohv models - cams from the later CS models will fit
just about everything back into the 1930s - provided everything else is made to suit (valve to piston clearances etc).
AMC made quite a range of compy bikes (ie ohv) over the years, they were market leader in dirt bike sales for quite some years, after all.
For road bike use though, the std cams give a reasonable performance and give a very pleasant low-stress ride.
Which is what you are after with one of these bikes, after all....
P.S. Look up AMC's 'Cadwell' motor = OHC performance from an ohv compy engine.
 
1964 was the first year for the Norton oil pump. I have one of the last G80CS' from 1963 with the reciprocating pump. Many racers feel that, though the change increased oiling the redesign weakened the cases.
 
Rohan,
'P.S. Look up AMC's 'Cadwell' motor = OHC performance from an ohv compy engine.'

It stands to reason that there must have been some thing quick from AMC in pushrod engines, however back in the late fifties we certainly did not know what it was. The only way we could find decent road race cams was through Rod Coleman in New Zealand. I don't know what was in the G90, however it seemed to perform better than many others. I had looked very closely at the swing arm frame on that bike, and you would swear it had to have left the factory like that. The bike was excellent with swing arm and girder forks. As you pointed out, the swing arm did not appear on AMC bikes until after 1953 when the sprung hub appeared on Triumph twins. So our G90 had to be a fiddle. It also had only one exhaust pipe so the head had probably been changed too. It still had the 30s piston and rod in it (different lengths to the later models). It is dificult to find info on the G90, I think it was pretty rare.
 
" the swing arm did not appear on AMC bikes until after 1953 when the sprung hub appeared on Triumph twins. "

Dont know too much about these bikes but this bit is definitely wrong.

The first road bike AMC spring frame was in 1949.

My father owned one. Brought new in Wanganui New Zealand from Percy Coleman Co (father of the Rod Coleman mentioned above). It had the candlestick shocks which predated the jam pot shock. Im certain of the date because my dad was an amateur photographer and he had lots of photos. (now lost unfortunately) Plus I was born in 1953 and this bike preceded me by a few years :)

His bike was a very early one. He and his best mate both wanted new bikes. His mate wouldnt wait and got the rigid 500 Matchless but my dad waited and got the first AMC 500 spring frame to come to NZ - an AJS.

Dad told me Coleman told him it was the 7 th spring frame bike AJS made. The first 6 went to the Belgium army and he got the next one off the line. Dad was an ACU steward and organised a lot of races around that time including being involved in the original set up of the Cemetary circuit in Wanganui.

John
 
I think you are correct, the Triumph sprung hub was an inadequate response to the swing arm frames which appeared on other bikes. I remember the AMC bikes with the pencil shocks. My uncle had a new Thunderbird in 1953, and there were a few swing arm bikes around well before he owned that. I think that BSA still had plunger frames in about 1953, and also Aerial. I know I was quite intrigued with the G90 Matchless with the swing arm, and girder forks - it definitely looked as though it was ex-factory like that. I suppose that it is to be expected that if a British factory started to produce swing arm frames, the new bit would bolt up to the old ?
 
I certainly didn't say anything about AMC swingarm frames only appearing in 1953.

I have a 49 Ajay rigid, with a kit of parts to make it into the swingarm frame with 'candlesticks' that also appeared for roadbikes in 1949.
The whole rear subframe just bolts and unbolts.
And the 7R AJS (ohc racebike) had a swingarm frame for 1948.

I was offered a G90 head a while back - they are around in dismantled form - so maybe rare as whole bikes, but they are around.
That head weighed a ton, I picked it up and decided to forget about it !!
The 90 bit meant that it supposed to be good for 90 mph, as compared to the 80 of the G80 models. So it was a tuned version from new.
There is a G90 bike on the road in Europe, with a plunger rear suspension conversion, and the owner intends to keep it like that to show
how folks adpated their bikes to later developments - he says it was done to it in the 1950s.
 
Mention of the "inadequate Triumph sprung hub" reminds me of just how inadequate they were. A friend had a T110 with a sprung hub. It was the only bike that truly terrified me. The sprung hub used to take over and the bike would be all over the road, and Commando owners complain about a high speed weave!!
cheers
wakeup
 
wakeup said:
Mention of the "inadequate Triumph sprung hub" reminds me of just how inadequate they were. A friend had a T110 with a sprung hub. It was the only bike that truly terrified me. The sprung hub used to take over and the bike would be all over the road, and Commando owners complain about a high speed weave!!
cheers
wakeup

How did he contrive T110 with a sprung hub?
 
Triton Thrasher said:
How did he contrive T110 with a sprung hub?

Shoehorning a sprung hub into a swingarm, perhaps ?!

Perhaps that was a typo, and should have been T100, or Thunderbird.
Nothing like having an element of rear wheel steering, to add to the excitement....
 
Well the number on the crankcase indicated that it was a T110 (from memory, it was nearly 50 years ago, it started with "T110....."),and it was definitely a sprung hub. No it didn't have the sprung hub shoehorned into a swinging arm frame.
I suppose that technically it may not have been an actual T110, I don't know not being a Triumph Anorak, but as far as we were concerned it was a T110, rather than a T110 engine in T'bird cycle parts. At the end of the day, it looked like a T110, it went like a T110, therefore it was a T110.
Of course its possible that someone had rebuilt a T'bird motor into T110 crankcases, but I think that's unlikely. Also on a wide flat road it would do over 100mph. I was following it on my Gold Star and it did something like 100 ...105mph. I don't think a T'bird would do that. Oh, and yes it was all over the road, the owner reckoned it was "exciting".
At the end of the day, the sprung hub was probably a barely adequate small boat anchor, it was certainly not an effective means of rear suspension, probably even worse than plungers.
cheers
wakeup
 
I don't even have a Triumph, but know that the T110, among others, had a swingarm frame.
That is its distinguishing feature....

Matchless Typhoon


We diverge away from Typhoons ere, a bit....
 
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