classic motorcycle forum

Motorcycle Discussions => Identify these bikes! => Topic started by: cliveg on April 01, 2012, 03:47:04 PM

Title: Cany anybody help identify this?
Post by: cliveg on April 01, 2012, 03:47:04 PM

Hi all, i hope someone can help me identify this bike. Photo is my grandad in about 1932 in SE london.

Title: Re: Cany anybody help identify this?
Post by: cliveg on April 11, 2012, 09:48:41 PM

any one??  i personally think it could be a Matchless T3, but would love to know for sure. Any ideas welcome :) 

Title: Re: Cany anybody help identify this?
Post by: cardan on April 11, 2012, 10:36:18 PM

Well spotted - I had a look but it defeated me! Not a T3 sidevalve, but one of the overhead valve models. Perhaps and R3 from about 1929? http://cybermotorcycle.com/gallery/matchless/Matchless_1929_Model_R3.htm Even the flutes on the muffler fish tail seem to match.

Leon

Title: Re: Cany anybody help identify this?
Post by: cliveg on April 21, 2012, 02:45:55 PM

Cheers Leon, i think you might have cracked it.

Title: Re: Cany anybody help identify this?
Post by: 33d6 on April 22, 2012, 11:53:21 AM

I don't think its an R3. If you look closely you can see it that it is fitted with a Duplex Pilgrim pump rather than the usual standard model.
The only Matchless catalogued with a Duplex Pilgrim was the 1929 350ohv T/R. This was a variation of the standard TS fitted with an oil feed to the big end for speed and serious competition work. (Factory blurb, not mine) You'll see the owner has also discarded the push rod tubes introduced that year leaving the pushrods out in the open as they were in the previous year when the first OHV 350 Matchless came out.
The timing gear wore horribly on these R & T series. I have a small collection of dead engines including an R, RS, R3, T4 and TS and an equally  small pile of horribly worn cams and followers out in my workshop. Regrinding the cams presents no problem but reshaping and regrinding the followers is proving very fiddly.
Matchless knew their lubrication system was inadequate and changed over to a dry sump system in 1930 although you still had to pump grease into the rockers for a few more years before they ran an oil line up there.
So, a very uncommon 1929 350 OHV Matchless T/R.
Cheers,

Title: Re: Cany anybody help identify this?
Post by: cliveg on April 22, 2012, 09:29:28 PM

Wow.. Thank you 33d6, that fits perfectly with the man, who took part in countless trials during the late 1920's and well into the 1930's, and was an exceptional mechanic/engineer.... trust him to have somthing that is probably imposible to find an example of.

Cheers
Clive