AJS & Matchless Owners Club

I have bought some unused wheels - New Alloy Flanged Rims and Stainless spokes but the hubs have been powder coated grey - all over and I think it lets them down.
Has anyone restored one of these hubs to factory finish?
The centre aluminium ribbed section would need polishing and the steel parts painting - How do they come apart?
For the front I was wondering whether perhaps an 8" heavyweight hub would fit - but perhaps I should leave that for another question.

I do not think I would bother trying to convert a heavy weight wheel to fit. Things that come to mind are perhaps, 19" wheel would have to be 18" for 350 lightweight, wheel may not fit forks for starters, brake anchor and cable mod.?? I do have a Suzuki front wheel in a 250 CSR fitted quite easy and a very good front brake. Also does not look out of place, until you spot double shoe expanding brake arrangement. The same bike has alloy rear wheel rim.

If I want to strip the rear hub I'm obviously not worried about rebuilding the wheels and so I haven't to worry about a 19 inch rim.
May not fit the forks? - Didn't the 1 1/8th forks get fitted to other models?
Regarding oriental brakes - not on your nelly! and I'd rather you did not use such offensive words!!

I saw a full width heavyweight hub fitted to a lightweight with 1 1/8 teledraulic forks at one of the spares open days at Kettering and it looked OK and you'll almost certainly find that the brakes would be better than the standard lightweight hub (CSR hubs were better).

The 350cc Lightweights all had Teledraulic forks, but standard lightweight hub was fitted though, so it should be easy enough on 350cc (G5/M8)

I once had a light weight fitted with a Honda 500 XBR engine and a triumph conical front wheel I still have the wheel as the bike was broken for bits I seem to remember the brake was very good.

Fitting a heavy weight front brake is possible as i have just done this to the latest G5 i am building.

However there are subtle differences with the wheel spindles - the heavy weight is actually slimmer than the lightweight so the fork caps won't fit and tighten up correctly - I made up some cups/shims to fix this.

The yolks on a lightweight are more narrow than a heavy weight which means the brake arm doesn't fit correctly and catches - warmed up and reshaped ( bent).

The front Hub i used was a 1960 G3 one i had spare. I shaved down the fins to look more like the lightweight rear and had both hubs powder coated silver Grey.

That's it really.

I think your wheel look great the way they are so use them as is and save a lot of grief!!

Cheers
Steve

Rangy65 wrote:

I think your wheel look great the way they are so use them as is and save a lot of grief!!

I agree!

I have acquired a Royal Enfield Double sided 6" Hub to play with for the front end as it looks like I could use the spokes already on the wheel -but there's no rush to sort that out whilst I've got the standard one meanwhile.