Matchless G2 CSR 250 Lightweight - PKD 106F

Where is that old bike?
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BultacoBen
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Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2015 9:48 pm
Location: Bristol

Matchless G2 CSR 250 Lightweight - PKD 106F

Post by BultacoBen »

As the current owner of PKD 106F (which came to me with the incorrect plate PDK 106F...) I am very interested to hear from anyone who owned or knows this bike.

Some information about it's current form here: http://www.ben-eddings.com/matchless-g2-csr.html

it looks a little like this in July 2016:
scrambler.jpg
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Last edited by BultacoBen on Fri Oct 28, 2016 11:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
http://www.ben-eddings.com
1966 Matchless G2 CSR scrambler
1986 Suzuki DR600 long-range explorer
1971 BSA B50T street tracker
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BultacoBen
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Posts: 107
Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2015 9:48 pm
Location: Bristol

Re: Matchless G2 CSR 250 Lightweight - PKD 106F

Post by BultacoBen »

Great development! A gentleman who owned the bike in the 80s has been in touch thanks to this post.

Here's a photo from the period:
P1110142.JPG
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http://www.ben-eddings.com
1966 Matchless G2 CSR scrambler
1986 Suzuki DR600 long-range explorer
1971 BSA B50T street tracker
User avatar
BultacoBen
Member
Posts: 107
Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2015 9:48 pm
Location: Bristol

Re: Matchless G2 CSR 250 Lightweight - PKD 106F

Post by BultacoBen »

I've received some words from a previous owner of his time in possession of the bike, and quite interesting they are too!

Part 1:
This is my part in the history of matchless 250cc PKD 106F.

I saw the bike parked outside Hyde Park Motorcycles in Leeds in, it must have been July, 1983. I was riding a rather highly tuned (not by me, I hasten to add) RD200 Yamaha, which went like poo off a stick. I wanted another British bike, though, having been brought up with tales of the lore and the charisma that they had, and missing the BSA B25 that I had swapped for the RD a few months before. PKD 106F was parked in a row of battered Jap bikes, mainly under 250cc, and had a sign saying “Rare machine £125”. I did a straight swap and rode it home without a front brake cable, a seat from some big 1970's Jap bike and accompanied by truly horrible mechanical noises.

This was not really a sensible move- Summer was just starting, I was broke and the bike, although MOT'd, was clearly not serviceable. From memory, I'm sure the liquid in the tiny oil compartment on the RHS of the crankcase was largely petrol. I pulled the engine to bits and it really was in a bad way.
Just to set the context, I was a 20 year old student subsisting on a grant (how good that seems now, in these days of student loans!) and too intent on being young and free to do anything as sensible as get a summer job. The second-hand motorbike business was enjoying a very fleeting golden (as far as the buyer was concerned) period, following the 125cc restriction that had not long been introduced. This meant that bikes of 200 – 250cc capacity were abundant and (especially if abused) VERY cheap. They were everywhere- the dealerships usually were located on sloping back streets opening into basements of semi-derelict Victorian mill buildings. There would usually be a row of decrepit bikes outside- Starfires, Ceefers, Enfield 250's, Norton Jubilees and all sorts of Villiers engined bikes. The Jap 250's were plentiful too. It all lasted for a year or two at most, after which the classic / collectable status grew, just like the business rates for the bike shops. I did see one other AMC 250cc lightweight at about this time- with an orange tank and bearing the legend “Seized gearbox, £100”- this was when Kidsons Motorcycle Spares had a big purge of stuff. Yet another one went, so I'm told, for thirty quid when Geoff Darwyn Motorcycles had a similar clear-out in my home town in Kent whilst I was away.

The back-to-back terraces were also being pulled down everywhere, too and there were frequent bargains to be got as the cellars were cleared. I turned down an Excelsior Talisman Twin (in self-assembly form) for 45 quid and Bantams or Ceefers could be had for about £65 pretty easily. All usually pretty grim, though. What it all added up to was that it was easy to go from bike to bike as they were so plentiful – and this is what I did, soon amassing also a cellar full of bits.

But I digress. PKD 106F: The engine was, as I have said, pretty far gone- big end, mains and, from memory, the oil pump were all past it. So, a “rebuilt” lump was found in a dealer's back room in (Castleford, I think) and various good bits combined to make a running motor. I know I kept the polished side casings from the original engine as I didn't like (or couldn't be bothered to clean up) the white-powdery ones with the recessed red flashes on the new engine, for which I paid £75, from memory. I truly don't know if the engine that came with the bike had CSR in the number. It's possible- I don't think the “rare machine” tag that it had when I found the bike reflected anything other than that a dealership that dealt mainly in Jap bikes had not seen one before. It's possible that some other parts from the original engine made it onto the replacement one- pushrods, certainly as they were missing- maybe the head and, just possibly the camshaft- I don't remember. I had the rest of the old engine for several years, although the head and gearbox went with the bike when I sold it- of which more anon.

Anyway- it ran. I tinkered with it regularly and slowly tarted it up. A seat from a BSA Starfire, some pattern AMC top shrouds on the rear shocks (from Hamrax, I think), and I had the tool boxes bead-blasted and I re painted the black bits. I replaced both the bottom fork sliders as the mudguard lugs had been broken off- all as and when my grant came in.
Last edited by BultacoBen on Wed Nov 02, 2016 2:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
http://www.ben-eddings.com
1966 Matchless G2 CSR scrambler
1986 Suzuki DR600 long-range explorer
1971 BSA B50T street tracker
User avatar
BultacoBen
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Posts: 107
Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2015 9:48 pm
Location: Bristol

Re: Matchless G2 CSR 250 Lightweight - PKD 106F

Post by BultacoBen »

Part 2:
I say it ran- shuffled along, really. I'd discovered Hermetite “Instant Gasket”- the orange stuff- and this found its way into the oil tunnel to the top end, causing a seizure on the Stanningley by-pass whilst using this babe magnet to take my girlfriend to the flicks in Bradford (an obscure and bleak film about rural marital strife by a Soviet dissident, from memory, so we didn't miss much) and we were rescued by a passing pick-up that belonged to Steve Rhodes Motorcycles, who kindly took us to Bradford and let me leave the bike in their basement showroom (a typical example of the place described in the third paragraph) where I pulled the top end apart the next morning. For my 21st birthday (how exciting!) I had a CSR swept-back exhaust and a copy of “AJS and Matchless, the post war models” by Bob Currie. The exhaust fitted at the port end but at the silencer end it was angled downwards far too steeply to suit the silencer (a decent Dunstall, from memory) and it was at this point that I carried out THE bodge to end all bodges- I'm still shocked to this day that I did it.

A chum of mine had (still has) a Trident T150. Not immaculate by any means but very cosseted and meticulously and skilfully maintained. At some stage he'd pranged it and in his workshop I found a bent fork leg left over from the accident. The external diameter was a snug fit in the CSR pipe and the bend was just right- there was even a half-decent hole down the middle- so I shortened the downpipe and the bit of trident fork leg remained as an essential exhaust component until I sold the bike. Gulp!

PKD 106F very slowly started to become less ratty. The tired (but very long) rear shocks were replaced with some MZ chrome ones, keeping the AMC top shrouds and I'm pretty certain the speedo (or a replacement one) moved over to the top of the RH fork during my ownership. My mate's good lady sewed up the tear in the Starfire seat and I think I also replaced the rather un-cool chaincase (well- the surviving top half) with a slimmer, sexier bit of metal.
There was the small matter of a stand, or lack of one. I think she had a centre stand when I got her but it was so knackered that I removed it, being content to leave the provision of a suitable wall or tree to lean the bike against to chance. This meant a degree of riding around when I reached a destination until a suitable prop could be found but usually this was not a problem. The Trident owner one day presented me with a side-stand that he'd welded up from rectangular MS bar in return for some painting I did for his Starfire café racer and this was fitted and worked well.
I usually named my bikes- my previous BSA B25SS was “Geraldine” after an un-attainable goddess at technical college. PKD 106F acquired the name “Feebles”. I, or my then girlfriend, I can't remember which, decided on “Phoebe” as it seemed a rounded sort of name for a rounded sort of bike. This, inevitably, became “Phoebles”, then “Feebles” as performance was, to say the least, lack-lustre.

I never went far on the bike- I think the furthest I ever went was Scar House reservoir, and somewhere I have a nice photo of Feebles leaning against a tree at Bolton Abbey, which I'll try to unearth.

Eventually MOT time came around and I either couldn't afford (or couldn't face doing) the swinging arm bush replacement she needed, so I parted with her at yet another Leeds bike emporium, doing a swap for a white RD250 Yamaha, with K&N filters, Souriau expansion pipes and CND logos on the side panels.
All in all, I knew PKD 106F fairly intimately. I kept the old lump going but, perhaps not in the manner that befitted an elderly lady. She taught me some useful skills, however, and later bikes were put together with a little more expertise.
And that, as Forrest Gump would say, is all I have to say about that.
http://www.ben-eddings.com
1966 Matchless G2 CSR scrambler
1986 Suzuki DR600 long-range explorer
1971 BSA B50T street tracker
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