Matchless Typhoon

worntorn

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One of our club members has one of these lovely old bikes and is selling it due to his age and infirmities. I have not heard the price yet, but it won't be cheap.
Has anyone ridden one of these? I had a 63 500 cs, very similar bike except the Typhoon is bored and stroked to 600 ccs. I owned the 500 cs for about six months when I was 15 years old, now 43 years ago. I have long forgotten what the bike was like, other than it was very revvy for a 500 single. The 57 on 500 cs was oversquare at 86 mm borex 85.5
I believe the Typhoons were 89 mm bore x 92 mm, so should also be quite revvy

Here is one that sold at auction recently

http://www.shannons.com.au/auctions/lot ... S04N8D4DE/


Glen
 
Remember that bike prices in Australia are currently running at about twice the levels of the rest of the civilised world. ?

And that bike seems to have a green tank....
 
Rohan, It is hard to get a fix on prices for these as there were only a couple of hundred or so made. Most went to the US.
The first model year Typhoon had a very low output oil pump, same as earlier G80s. It was said to be virtually unchanged from the 1926 Matchless motorcycles! This was OK for the lower performance, low revving pre 57 G80s, but started to be a problem with the higher performance oversquare G80s and also with the first year Typhoon.
In 61 AMC put the Norton type oil pump in the G80s and Typhoons, this solved the under oiling problems.
The bike I am looking at is a 1960 model, however the owner has changed to the uprated oil pump.

I kinda like that green tank.
The one in question is Matchless red tho :D

Glen
 
worntorn said:
The bike I am looking at is a 1960 model, however the owner has changed to the uprated oil pump.

How ?
The Norton gear pump is a totally different setup.
New crankcases ?
That was later than 61 though ?

worntorn said:
I kinda like that green tank.

Its the only one like that (??), so you pay a lot extra....
 
I will have to get details on the pump. I recall that the cases were apart and there was machining done for the conversion. This was done perhaps five years ago. It was quite a big job, but one that the owner felt was required.
He is a Matchless man from way back, raced a G45 roadracer at Portland and Westwood. He was also a Champion Enduro rider in the sixties. Sad to see him struggle to walk now.

He sold his Vincent Black Shadow 15 years ago because he felt it was too much for him. He opted for an electric start bike, a Honda GB500. Now that is too heavy for him and he has purchased some little featherweight 125.
As he says, the electric scooter is next.

Glen
 
I saw a couple of those compy Matchlesses at Bathurst in 1963. They were to die for - lovely stuff, however few people bought them in Australia. Rohan, if you don't like the colour of a bike, you can always stick vinyl flowers onto it, like we had back in the hippy days. Fits with the era ? 'Flower power' - it is like using nitro !
 
Selling it for megabucks in a color it wasn't born in also requires a buyer that likes it.
Not that I have anything against green.

Its just possible though it was born that color ?
Some Atlases came out something like that, so maybe just maybe.
For a compy bike, a hard working cycle if ever there was one, it was VERY highly polished...
 
My father sold and rode some Typhoons, and so did another nearby dealer, they were around. None of them had the Norton style oil pump. The first year for the Typhoon was 59' and it had the single downtube frame, 60 and later scramblers had the duplex frame. I don't think they sold the typhoon after 61' or 62' I will have to dig out the old brochures. The Norton style pump was not put into the Matchless singles until very late, if they had them in 63' it would have been the first year, I think it was later.

I had a later G80cs I rode a bit with the Norton pump. You could tell the bikes with the Norton pump because the timing cover was smooth with no emblem embossed into it. My father still has a 61' Comp single in his barn and it is the old style engine. Rohan is right, you would have to change the engine cases out to convert an early bike to the later gear pump. The early pump was a crazy sort of rotating plunger gizmo, it certainly worked well for Matchless for many many years.

The Matchless twins had nice gear pumps from the start.
 
The owner was feeling poorly today so I did not go to look at the bike.
In a couple of places, I have found referenced a change to a high output oil pump in 1961, not sure if this was the Norton pump or some other pump.
This Matchless ad for the Typhoon states " like all 1961 singles, the Typhoon is fitted with the new redesigned high output oil pump"

http://books.google.ca/books?id=q_oDAAA ... CDUQ6AEwAw
 
Roy Bacons book on matchy resto shows a pic of 4 or 5 different oil pump spindles
- so getting a "new high output oilpump'" was a fairly regular event, over the decades. ?
And that may not include any prewar versions. Nor Norton gear pumps....
Cheers.
 
Nice bike, Mate of mine has the 650 twin desert racer, same tank by the look of it. Cool bike.
Those Aussie bikes went for reasonable money for the rarity I thought.

Cheers Richard
 
I am becoming a bit wary of posting anything on this site these days without a sworn affidavit from the original designer - but I will chance my hand again ;-)

Apart from output a major issue with the earlier " rotating spiral type pump" was that you only had room for a plan bearing on the timing side. Which was then half machined away for the oil pump. When the Norton type pump was finally fitted you could fit a proper bearing.

So looking back through the mists of 40 years I think to adapt the cases for the norton pump and proper bearing would require a lot of rewelding and machining.
 
Yes they did tweak the old style pump a few times, so "upgraded" did not mean it had a Norton style pump. The Norton gear pump made it's debut for the 64' model year.

If a bike older than 64' has the Norton pump then they probably put new crankcases in the bike at some time. The bikes with the old style pump were not unreliable though, testament to this is the many hundreds that are still around and that they still regularly show up in restorable condition with their original crankcases. Of the several Typhoons that were around here in the 60s, at least two are still intact. A 59' is being slowly overhauled by a good acquaintance of mine, and a later Duplex frame model that was around here for years was recently exported back to the U.K..

The only old Matchless single we had that came apart was one with high miles where the crankpin came loose, the flywheels moved and whacked the cases, not related to oil pump failure at all.

In the East where off road competition was generally tighter than out West the bikes probably had an easier life. Western style desert and Ascot style TT racing was surely tougher. A dealer in the East has a G80R that was built by the factory as a road racer to run at Daytona, a tough venue, and it is still intact.
 
'So looking back through the mists of 40 years I think to adapt the cases for the norton pump and proper bearing would require a lot of rewelding and machining.'

Friends of mine played ad nauseam with Matchless singles and did all that stuff. One day at a race meeting I said to these characters 'why don't you fit a Jawa speedway engine to your bike, and you will start where you finished with the Matchless.' They bought three motors. First race they beat one of the local heroes who'd just bought a Molnar engined Manx from McIntosh in New Zealand. The Jawa two valve motor was totally unmodified at that stage , just fitted into the featherbed frame. The latest news is that they are lightening pistons. I think they will tune the motor to a standstill. If you look at a two valve Jawa , the value analysis/improvement has been done to it over years of speedway racing. The earlier Matchlesses were a fragile disgrace, however a Seeley Condor could be a good thing ? It is what Matchless singles should have been !

http://www.tga.co.uk/catalog/product_in ... cts_id=213
 
G50CSR - 25 made for homologation purposes. This is what made me extremely angry about the British motorcycle industry , and currently the same about many Australian companies. They supply crap where with minimal extra effort they can be superb. This is not exactly rocket science ! :

Matchless Typhoon
 
Fitting a G50 engine and selling them profitably is not "minimal extra effort."

This seems to have turned into yet another of those Jawa engine Acotrel threads.

Is there an "ignore" function on this forum?
 
Triton Thrasher said:
Fitting a G50 engine and selling them profitably is not "minimal extra effort."

This seems to have turned into yet another of those Jawa engine Acotrel threads.

Is there an "ignore" function on this forum?

Hope the "foe" thing is something like "ignore."
 
acotrel said:
G50CSR - 25 made for homologation purposes. This is what made me extremely angry about the British motorcycle industry , and currently the same about many Australian companies. They supply crap where with minimal extra effort they can be superb. This is not exactly rocket science ! :

Actually it was 50 of them made.
And did you note the cost of them new ?!!!!!!?

Of course, what apparently happened was that folks bought them and used them as spares for G50 racers.
Although the cost wasn't far different, G50's were apparently hard to obtain.

Reminds of the ole cammy trials irons before the war - trials being fast road trials on minor roads (ie enduros) , not banging through creek beds...
 
Triton Thrasher said:
Fitting a G50 engine and selling them profitably is not "minimal extra effort."

This seems to have turned into yet another of those Jawa engine Acotrel threads.

Is there an "ignore" function on this forum?

Most of us have just become used to a dumb conclusion about to follow.
As sure as eggs are eggs....
 
acotrel said:
'So looking back through the mists of 40 years I think to adapt the cases for the norton pump and proper bearing would require a lot of rewelding and machining.'

Friends of mine played ad nauseam with Matchless singles and did all that stuff. One day at a race meeting I said to these characters 'why don't you fit a Jawa speedway engine to your bike, and you will start where you finished with the Matchless.' They bought three motors. First race they beat one of the local heroes who'd just bought a Molnar engined Manx from McIntosh in New Zealand. The Jawa two valve motor was totally unmodified at that stage , just fitted into the featherbed frame. The latest news is that they are lightening pistons. I think they will tune the motor to a standstill. If you look at a two valve Jawa , the value analysis/improvement has been done to it over years of speedway racing. The earlier Matchlesses were a fragile disgrace, however a Seeley Condor could be a good thing ? It is what Matchless singles should have been !

http://www.tga.co.uk/catalog/product_in ... cts_id=213

More Aco rubbish ?

20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing.
In your case, 40/40 hindsight ?!!

BTW, Jawa engines are no longer faintly competitive, if you hunt around there are lots of stories of giving up the chase and buying one of these latest manxs or G50s, they are just streets ahead it seems. Not that this has anything to do with Typhoons, off topic as usual....
 
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