AJS & Matchless Owners Club

I am not sure to be relieved or worried that you have confirmed my thoughts about the reason for its unreliability

I have three other bikes and don't have half the trouble from them all together as I get with this one and none of them are what you would call "young" nor were any of them half as expensive to buy, in fact the G12 cost more than the other three put together with change.

I was not intending to rebuild the bike for a few years but it looks like I may have to just to get it to run properly.

I am interested in your comment about the clutch, I noticed when I took off the chaincase inspection plugs while it was running that the clutch is running a bit out of true, did the clutch coming off cause any other damage at the time?

From what I remember the clutch centre nut had come undone but caused no obvious damage. It was refitted with loctite and had no further problems. The headlamp switch was always rubbish with very poor registration so that you never knew whether it was in the correct position. The bike was never a "first choice" ride and was sold over a decade ago.

I wouldn't say cursed but certainly hexed.everty time I take it out something fails, basically before every single use I have to fix something that broke on the previous trip.
At the beginning of the month I got pulled by plod for no front light coming back from the bike club, sometime jsut before I reached the house the bulb melted. They were happy to just talk to me about the bike and I was nearly home anyway.
I fixed this and replaced the sidelight holder at the same time. On checking the bike before todays club run the suide light bulb had blown, despite the fact that it had not been used since I changed the holder, when it worked!
On the run today I started getting popping on overrun and eventually no idle, obviously an air leak. Exhausts checked on the way round were fine but when I got home I found one of the carb to manifold bolts was stripped and air was getting in the side of the carb causing the issues.
It always gets me home but it seems to have a bit of an excess of character!

I admire your stoicism. One of my own bikes is also cursed - the list of faults caused or overlooked by the previous owner is eye watering as has been the cost to rectify them. I am at the point of setting fire to it to exorcise the demons that lurk within it - if I could do the same to the PO I would be a happy man!

I suspect that this is the issue on my bike as well. The bike has obviously been rebuilt in the past but I suspect that a number of issues have been glossed over and ignored or covered up. However I don't think this is the whole story as I have properly fixed some issues already that are reoccurring only a few miles later, and I know I fixed them properly the first time.
I will go over the bike thoroughly over the winter as the weekend was probably its last use this year due to darkness, road salt and the bitter cold. If it plays up badly next year I will probably sell it (rather than set fire to it) and buy a BSA A65