AJS & Matchless Owners Club

Well it's MOT time again, my front brake may have been ok in the 50s but it's a bit weedy for modern day traffic so I am going to carry out spriddlers modification to the front brake shoes, now my question is this, when removing the front wheel because of a lack of clearance
I have to remove the four bolts that secure the mudguard to the fork legs then the two bolts on the lower stays and wriggle the whole lot clear to enable the wheel to drop down and be removed, the bike is a 1960 18s, i have tried deflating the tyre it will still not pass the bolt heads, the tyre is not oversized, how riders in the 50s carry out a roadside repair is beyond me, the bike is a mongrel 1960 mod 31
with a 57 18s engine, g11 gearbox, I am beginning to wonder if the front end is standard, your views would be most welcome.
regards
petemark

Can you let us know what size the tyre actually is? So we can eliminate that with absolute certainty.

There is something not right somewhere, but all I can identify at the moment is you refer to the four bolts that secure the mudguard to the fork legs, so there is a problem there.

The brake side should have studs so that the torgue arm would be partially or completely located on a plain part of the stud, not a threaded diameter. Next would be the mudgaurd bracket then the nuts and washers, so these would take up marginally more space than your bolts do reducing the space even fiuther than you have now. So with the correct setup there would be less space but the wheel should still come out, it all points to thw wrong tyre so let us know.

Hi Eric, thanks for your response, I think you are right and it is the tyre ,it readsDunlop touring elite MM90H19, I have compared it with my G3 which reads3.25x19and is noticably
thinner, shame because the tyre has lots of life left in it,also the Matchless has a lot more clearence between the mudguard fixings and the wheel.
regards
petemark

Spriddler, many thanks for your sound advice,
most obliged.
petemark