AJS & Matchless Owners Club

I've just loosely assembled my forks to see how the front brake fits, I find that the spindle only protrudes into the R/H fork leg by about 5/16" with the spindle pushed fully home. The sleeve nut does reach but is this right?

Martin.S wrote:I've just loosely assembled my forks to see how the front brake fits, I find that the spindle only protrudes into the R/H fork leg by about 5/16" with the spindle pushed fully home. The sleeve nut does reach but is this right?

G5 Spindle.jpg

No, there should be some other parts there and a spacer the other side see my pics

No Paul, I'm using a Royal Enfield hub and an Indian Enfield TLS brake plate, I'm just seeing how things fit, my query is that the spindle doesn't appear long enough to fully span the two fork legs when their fitted in the yokes - you can ignore the hub.
Cheers

Hi Martin, you cannot use the axle as it is, the lack of engagement on the R/H fork leg looks positively dangerous. I have just completed a similar modification in that I fitted a BSA 8 inch single sided brake to my '54 G80, with 1 1/8 forks. I had to make up a new axle from EN16 to a drawing produced at the Triumph Meriden (presumably in someone's lunch breaks!) to enable this. I also had to make a brake torque arm up from 3/16 steel plate - a lot of cutting and filing! The Enfield fork leg has a cast in lug to locate the backplate, are you going to mill the backplate lugs off to allow fitting a torque arm? A new front axle shouldn't be too difficult to make if you have the dimensions of the original AMC axle and the Enfield one. I would recommend turning between centres as you will probably have to take it out of the lathe as there may be a bit (a lot!) of trial and error involved. PM me if you want my hard-earned experience! Andy

Hi Andy. Thanks for the reply. I was hoping to find out how long the spindle should be - perhaps I should of asked that question!!
I was expecting to make a new spindle - I have a lathe but trying to search the net on what material to use is a headache - EN16 sounds good (or was that EN16T?) thank you - no heat treatment I hope.
The Enfield back plate had a slot to locate to the fork slider - you can see where it was - I pencilled that area in yellow in one of the pictures. I had that welded up and polished it out. I was going to fit the torque arm to one of the brake shoe pivot bolts and put in an anchor point for the cable outer where I marked in black. The lever arms have to be modified of course.
People say when set up properly these are good brakes. I will bush the pivot spindles so that they are concentric to the wheel spindle - the production quality isn't up to much - hence using an old Royal Enfield hub.
Thanks
Matin

So can anyone tell me the length of the spindle?
Cheers

Martin, the axle material is EN16T, as per the drawing I have, and as recommended in several articles I have read for girder fork spindles, which face similar stresses. Radco's 'Vintage Motorcyclists Workshop also recommends it. I bought mine as a length of 1 1/4 bar from M Metals of Darlington. I have just measured a spare AMC axle; it is 8.312 (8 5/16) across the shoulders that sit in the fork ends, and 8.930 overall including 1/2 in dia BSC threaded bit at the end. I am also working on fitting Honda 180mm TLS backplate to my AJS, thus keeping the original hub and axle. This brake uses a torque arm, held to the backplate by an 8 mm bolt which seems a bit thin - it must be high tensile. This project still needs quite a bit of work, but is progressing well so far. Cheers, Andy

Thanks Andy but I don't understand what you've measured there but this is what I've got - Is this a G5/M8 spindle?
Does anyone know the part numbers of the G2csr spindle - the G5 is 244263 are they the same?

Martin.S wrote:Thanks Andy but I don't understand what you've measured there but this is what I've got - Is this a G5/M8 spindle?
Does anyone know the part numbers of the G2csr and the G5 spindle - are they the same?

The G2, G2CS and G5 spindles are not the same according to the Spares List. See pages 24 and 25 which also have exploded dia's of the front hub assy.........

http://archives.jampot.dk/book/Spares_l ... s_List.pdf

Thanks Spriddler - I can see the part No's for the G5 and G2 spindle but not the CS or CSR they all had different hubs and the G2, CS and G5 all had different yokes - what did the CSR have?

By the way - Why do you poke Badgers with a spoon?