AJS & Matchless Owners Club

Hi all, I have recently become the owner of an AJS r8, I am having trouble trying to find what type/number of spark plug should be used, I see that there are a couple of posts with regard to R8s, so hoping another owner may have the answer, also the rear wheel needs a couple of new spokes, the rear wheel looks an awful lot like my friends Matchless g3 would it be the same???
cheers Paul

R8 is a 1930 Wolverhampton 500 cc OHV AJS, nothing like a 350 Matchless G3, or a late 1930's AMC AJS. Recommended plugs may not be available now. But neither is 1930 fuel, which was much lower octane back in 1930. So you may need to experiment as to which plug is best for your bike. Lodge H8V perhaps.

paul berwick wrote:........ the rear wheel looks an awful lot like my friends Matchless g3 would it be the same???

Welcome to the Forums, Paul.

Who can say? The R8 and G3 are from completely different eras, but since we can't see your wheel a photo might help!

My Champion catalogue shows early AJS spark plug types:-

OHV Models - 14mm L10
OHV Moddls - 18mm K9

Your R8 is probably 18mm spark plug thread?

L10 were later renumbered L86C. These are readily available but if you want an NGK equivalent it is B6HS.
K9 are not so easy to find these days. The NGK equivalent is AB-6.

Cheers. Bruce.

Thanks for the welcome Spriddler, and the sparkplug info was just what was required, Bruce. Its taken me a while to get back to the forum, as I have been trying to upload some interesting photos of my mate Pete's WOG3L rear wheel, its identical to the rear wheel in my R8 and would you believe the Girder forks are the same to, so that may be handy if anyone else out they is looking to replace or find parts for either, so not so dissimilar despite being 11 yrs apart and a different company by then, couldn't upload photos as the M.B was to large and I cant find a way of reducing them, anybody got any tips,
Cheers Paul

paul berwick wrote: couldn't upload photos as the M.B was to large and I cant find a way of reducing them, anybody got any tips,

Where are your photos stored? On a laptop (Windows? Mac?), Tablet, or a third party host (Photobucket, Tinypics......) ?

paul berwick wrote:Thanks for the welcome Spriddler, and the sparkplug info was just what was required, Bruce. Its taken me a while to get back to the forum, as I have been trying to upload some interesting photos of my mate Pete's WOG3L rear wheel, its identical to the rear wheel in my R8 and would you believe the Girder forks are the same to, so that may be handy if anyone else out they is looking to replace or find parts for either, so not so dissimilar despite being 11 yrs apart and a different company by then, couldn't upload photos as the M.B was to large and I cant find a way of reducing them, anybody got any tips,
Cheers Paul

Paul, if you would like to e mail photos to me at, prewar@jampot.com I will resize them for you and return the smaller files to you. It would be interesting to see the forks and wheels. 1930 AJS 500 cc R8 forks & wheel are nothing like G3WO.

hi Rob thanks for the offer I will take some photos of my forks and and rear wheel for a comparison and send them to you, and Spriddler the photos are on my lap top but try as I might I cant get the, things to resize from 3.1mb down to 1mb, slightly better at fettling bikes than computors.
Cheers all