More tales of my CSR – plus a 7R
One of the most keenly anticipated events of the summer in the Scottish Highlands is the Highland Classic Motorcycle Club’s Loch Ness Rally and we are delighted that the club’s membership secretary Dode Fraser was there with his camera.
John Edwards’ ‘60 Years A Biker’ tales have been a very welcome addition to Readers’ Tales and both we and he were delighted when, after his last article in the August 2021 issue of OBM, we were contacted by Malcolm Graham to whom he had sold the motorcycle featured in that piece, his Matchless G12CSR. Malcolm bought the Matchless from John 30 years ago and still owns and cherishes it, so it’s a pleasure to bring you a little more of the story of that machine.
In my previous Readers’ Tale in the August 2021 issue of OBM, I wrote about my number one bike in the 1960s, my muchloved Matchless G12CSR. This big Matchless will always remain one of my best-loved bikes and it might be interesting to now tell the tale of how the bike faired after its crank finally broke late in 1968, before I finally sold it 24 years later.
It was in September, while I was on the Isle of Man for the Manx Grand Prix, that the CSR’s crankshaft failed. This was an unfortunate tendency with the early 650cc AMC twins fitted with the original, nonnodular iron crankshafts and was reputed to occur at around 10,000 to 13,000 miles. Remarkably, mine had lasted for more than 31,000 miles.
At the time I was out for a quick fun lap of the TT course with a few mates, one of whom was Tony Dunnel who was down to ride a Triton in the senior race. On the run down from Appledene to Ballacraine, the performance of my CSR suddenly took a dramatic downturn and I found it impossible to keep up with the rest of the guys. Something was obviously amiss.
A nasty rattle
As I shut off on the approach to the corner at Ballacraine, I leant down to listen to the engine. There was a nasty rattle down there. I suspected it was the crank, a disaster I’d told myself would now never happen as I was well past that critical mileage.
For me, the burn-up was over. I was disappointed but perhaps it was for the best. I am as competitive as any biker, but trying to match Tony’s pace could maybe have ended in tears. I turned the bike round and set off – very slowly and very gently – back towards Douglas. I was relieved when the bike made it the seven miles back to our guesthouse. By the time all the other guys arrived safely back I had the primary chain case off the bike and had discovered that the drive shaft seemed rather ‘loose’ but still in place. As they gathered round to see what the problem was, I surprised them all by laughing like an idiot.
“I’m pretty sure the crank has finally broken,” I chortled, “after all this time.”
Another friend of ours, Mick Bird, was riding his 7R in the Junior race and offered to transport my bike back to Sussex in his van at the end of the week. Another good mate,
Ron Burgoyne, offered me a pillion ride home on his featherbed Model 50 Norton which sported a 500cc long-stroke Manx engine. This bike was deliberately built to look very standard, complete with the original style mudguards. I had gifted him these from my 1955 (’56 model) Norton Dominator ‘99’ which I was in the process of rebuilding to look like a 650SS model, complete with a twin carb cylinder head, AMC gearbox and slim, alloy mudguards.
It was particularly kind of Ron to take me home on the very bike I had soundly trounced on a burn-up over the mountain on my little 250cc Suzuki Super Six, only months earlier during our previous TT trip in June – an outcome that he was not at all happy about at the time! Anyway, Ron obviously didn’t bear a grudge over my outrunning him on the Suzuki and made the ride home on the Norton much more enjoyable by generously allowing me to spend more than half of the journey on the front of his interesting special.
A smell of unhappy metal
Once back at home, I needed to collect my Matchless from Adrian Richmond’s usefully large garage in Littlehampton where Mick had deposited it and get it the 20 or so miles to my lock-up in Brighton.
Not wishing to presume on Mick’s assistance with his van any further, I decided to risk gently riding the stricken machine one more time. Looking back, this was a foolhardy decision but, luckily, the intrepid injured machine completed this additional (and longer) journey without bursting asunder. I was lucky, though. There was a distinct smell of unhappy metal by journey’s end. It wouldn’t have lasted much further…
When I stripped the motor, I saw that the balance weight and drive side of the crankshaft had sheared clean off from the rest of the crank perilously close to the drive side big end.
Because these motors are blessed with a centre main bearing, the crank had remained supported on this and its timing side main bearing so that the con rods were still able to drive the crank. Drive to the engine sprocket had been maintained against the broken-off side which was now only supported by the drive side main bearing. In this stricken condition, the bike had managed to run (very gently) for nearly 30 miles without exploding. A quite remarkable feat and a testament to the sensible design of the engine, sadly only let down by the original choice of iron for the early 650 crankshafts. Had the bike been a two bearing Triumph, Norton or BSA twin, a broken crank would have destroyed the engine in a second.
Resurrecting the CSR
The original plan for resurrecting the CSR following the crank breakage was a bold one. I would fall back to an idea that had its birth in 1962. At that time, I had read an article in the American Cycle World magazine about the fascinating Matchless G50CSR roadster motorcycles. AMC had produced 25 of these homologation specials so that it could enter G50s in that year’s Daytona 200 road race. The bikes were essentially the same as my G12CSR road bike but fitted with a G50 racing engine. I thought they looked fabulous, having always loved the look of the Matchless
G50 engines with that beautifully crafted gold timing cover and the gold crankcases. I promised myself back then that one day I might turn my G12CSR into a G50CSR replica, completed by a slimline fuel tank.
Unfortunately, when I had then contacted AMC motorcycles to see if it could sell me suitable engine plates, an exhaust system and other parts for a ‘G50CSR’ conversion, it had agreed to supply everything I needed – but only if I could quote the engine number of the G50 motor I would be using. I couldn’t afford to buy a G50 engine at the time so the idea was shelved.
Let us now move forward to 1967. The Matchless was still fine and dandy and was soon to take me to the TT again, having been forsaken for the Velocette Venom in 1966. Ironically, this had been due to the risk of a crank breakage on the bike while travelling abroad for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza which that year, due to the seamen’s strike in June, followed soon after the postponed TT races, in September.
In early May of 1967, I had spotted an MCN advert for a second-hand 1951 7R (the one with the bolt through tank) advertised for sale at a reasonable price at Whittakers of Blackpool. While these earlier models were slightly less beautiful than their later siblings, they did have that iconic engine common to the 7R and G50. Despite living 300 miles away in Brighton, I was more than a little interested and knew I just had to have a look at it.
A 7R – for £90!
There followed an overnight trip to Blackpool in my Ford 100E van one Friday with two of my mates,
Ron Burgoyne and John Cheadle, picking up the latter on the way from his home in Watford. We had arrived at Whittakers by about 7.30 on Saturday morning and waited contentedly in the van for them to arrive and open the shop. The 7R on first sight was a wee bit disappointing. Its engine looked just like the later models but was all matt black, not finished with that lovely gold paint. The bike was also showing its age and with its older long stroke engine was certainly no longer competitive as a serious racer. However, it was a ‘7R,’ it came with a spare magneto, I had no plans to race it and at £90 it was certainly affordable, so I bought it.
Buying the 7R suddenly presented a tantalising opportunity to ride a standout, road-legal race bike on that planned trip to the TT the following month, once again forsaking the faithful CSR Matchless.
At the Manx GP a couple of years earlier, I had been impressed by a road registered Matchless G45, fitted with a 500cc G9 engine. The plan for putting the 7R on the road was quick and simple. Use the silencer from the CSR, put a speedometer on the bike and get it registered for the road.
Amazingly, it really did turn out to be that quick and that simple.
The silencer fitted straight on and the speedo replaced the usual rev counter. The speedo was fitted with a cable that had no inner wire. This cable disappeared under the tank and connected to … nothing. Since the authorities didn’t know much about bikes, the AJS passed its static inspection and was duly issued with its up-to-date registration number. You would certainly never get away with such behaviour nowadays….
Armed with its registration number, I whizzed around on the 7R for a few days but found the performance disappointing, seriously hampered as it was by the silencer and the relative lack of cubes. Also, although the bike was registered and was covered by my ‘any bike’ insurance cover, it really wasn’t practical or even properly road legal. It didn’t have a working speedo or a rev counter, any lights, any stands at all and, of course, no kick-starter. It quickly became obvious that it was going to be impossible to sort it, fit some bobby dodger lights and cover sufficient shake-down miles in the short time available to be able to ride it the 250 miles to Liverpool en route to the Island.
Ambitious ideas and pipe dreams
No worries, I could always revert to taking the CSR Matchless to the TT again and, with the 7R motor looking virtually identical to the G50 version, it might be possible to put this into my CSR chassis – but this time making my own engine plates and sorting out all the other bits and pieces, so as to build something near to that dreamed-of G50CSR replica. In the future, I would possibly be able to obtain a genuine G50 motor…
Also, another ambitious idea. The 650cc engine of my CSR, being a direct descendant of the tuned G9 engine in the original G45 prototype, would most certainly fit into the 7R chassis relatively easily to make another special. How cool would it be if I one day ended up with not one but two unique specials, both of which could still be returned to their original status?
With hindsight, it was all just a brilliant pipe dream and in the event the plans came to nought. Quite unexpectedly, I met a girl on a train while returning from one of my working trips, having been away commissioning the control systems for a new steelworks crane at the British Steel works in Middlesbrough. A large part of my working life was spent as a crane control systems engineer, an occupation almost as fascinating as playing with motorcycles. After all, what is a crane if not a very large, big boy’s toy?
Anyway, the girl and I hit it off big time and very suddenly I needed extra money to entertain her, having invited her down to Brighton from her home in Bromley to pursue the romance. The elderly 7R was the only bike I felt I could do without so I rashly sold it to Bert Thorn at Comerfords for a quick £70. Predictably, since the girl turned out to be not the slightest bit interested in motorcycles, the romance didn’t last long!
However, this wasn’t quite the end of my time with the big Matchless. Following the 650cc engine calamity, I came across a mid-1950s G80 motor, complete with engine plates and its period tin primary chain case. I fitted this into the CSR chassis using the extremely efficient spare magneto from the 7R, my original gearbox and a ‘new-old-stock’ nicely chromed blue AJS slimline tank and the bike became a G80CSR.
Sadly, I didn’t much like the assembled result even before it was finished. I didn’t like the old tin chain case, never worked out how I would organise a dynamo for the lighting while retaining the original alloy case and, well, generally ran out of enthusiasm. A quick trip round the block was all the halffinished bike ever got.
Maybe I should have tried harder, but it was never going to be the bike I’d always dreamed of building. Rebuilding the original 650 engine, fitted with a replacement nodular iron crank seemed a much better plan.
And 24 years go by…
It wasn’t until around 1969 that I obtained the necessary nodular iron crankshaft for the CSR motor and stored this and all the other parts for many years while I bought, rode and sold lots of other bikes. During this period I got married, had two children and moved house four times, yet I diligently hung on to all the Matchless bits. I got as far as mounting the new crank to the cases at one time and always intended to eventually rebuild the whole bike. Over the entire 24 years since I had last ridden it, I never even contemplated selling my beloved Matchless.
Then Malcolm came along, persistently attempting to buy it while I persistently refused to give in. However, he really, really wanted it and intended to rebuild it straightaway. I knew I certainly wouldn’t get around to this for ages and eventually I became convinced that I ought to do the decent thing and let him have it. This was the bike that had taken me on my first visit to the
Isle of Man in 1962 and given me enormous pleasure for the best part of a decade before suffering its unfortunate crank breakage. I didn’t repair it and now was the time to let it go to someone who would.
When Malcolm bought the Matchless, the tan coloured seat and the blue slimline fuel tank that were then with it were not original. These were ‘new-oldstock’ items for an older, single downtube AJS, both bought years ago from the AMC sales rep when he was visiting our local dealer’s.
The original dual seat from the Matchless was long gone. It had done the trip to the Island one more time for the TT in 1968 on my Suzuki Super Six, recently acquired from Comerfords, the CSR being left behind, forsaken for this racy little hussy. The Suzuki was bought sporting a one-piece, glass fibre racing tank and seat which I didn’t fancy for long journeys.
It was agreed that Bert Thorn would send on an original tank and seat for the bike. In the event, a tank for a Suzuki Invader (the 200cc version of the Super Six) turned up. No worries, it was a ‘freebie’ and looked okay. The proper Suzuki seat never appeared, so the CSR seat was pressed into service and, being notably short, fitted very nicely. Unfortunately, after that last trip to the Manx Grand Prix on the Matchless, the Suzuki regained the Matchless’ seat and thoughtlessly still had it when the bike was later sold on.
A few years later the boss of
Bikes of Brighton harassed me for weeks to sell him my Matchless tank to use on an AJS 650 CSR that he was rebuilding. I now had the blue AJS slimline tank with the G50CSR plan still in mind for the stricken Matchless so was eventually persuaded to sell him the original tank. This is why Malcolm ended up with the slim, blue AJS tank.
The interesting story of Malcolm’s rebuild of the CSR appeared in the July 1995 issue of OBM’s sister magazine, The Classic MotorCycle and the Matchless graced the front page. This was an issue I had not bought, but luckily, it was used on an advert promoting regular subscriptions. I spotted it, recognised the bike, got hold of a back issue and took out a subscription, which has continued ever since.
Looking back, I suppose I should have kept that 7R and tried harder with those pipe dreams. That’s easy to say – but you can’t keep them all, can you? Instead, I briefly dabbled with a bit of road racing on two and on three wheels before getting married and thereafter continued buying, riding and selling on lots more bikes and I haven’t stopped yet. I continued working as a crane engineer and always commuted the 20 miles to and from the office on a variety of motorcycles which was always the best part of my day, whether it was fine, wet, cold and misty or even icy.
I well remember one of my colleagues once remarking: “You must be insane, Ed, always riding a motorcycle to work even on crap days like this.” My reply was instant and brief. “If I couldn’t ride my bike, mate, I wouldn’t come!” And I meant it.
Eventually, in 1986, by which time all the British crane manufacturers had, one by one, gone to the wall and I had very few cranes left to play with, I grabbed a redundancy opportunity and did a silly thing. I bought a business, selling MZ motorbikes, Tomos mopeds and bicycles, which was probably not the best idea I ever had, but that’s another story altogether…
Among the many classic motorcycle runs held in this green and pleasant land there is a friendly rivalry as to which has the most scenic and bucolic route. Now it’s certainly a debate in which I have no intention of suggesting any favourites, but it would be impossible not to think that the Highland Classic Motorcycle Club’s Loch Ness Rally doesn’t have a very good claim to be among the frontrunners for that title.
The club, which was started in 1983, was originally aimed at owners of older British, European and American motorcycles. But within three years it had realised that there was a whole classic world being excluded and, from 1986, the rules were changed to include Japanese bikes over 20 years old. Now just about anyone is welcome and now with more than 70 members the club runs a programme of events over the year, from its regular meetings at the Chieftain Hotel in Inverness to monthly run outs (which also cater to smaller and more elderly steeds), barbecues, quizzes, guest speakers and other social outings.
But the jewel in the Highland Classic Motorcycle Club’s sporran is its Loch Ness Rally, held (pandemics permitting) on the second Sunday in June. This year saw an assortment of machinery gather at the Fairways Golf Club in Inverness before taking part in a 75-mile run around some magnificent countryside.
In all, 97 motorcycles spanning some 83 years took part, riding in glorious sunshine and under blue skies around Loch Ness with roads to suit everyone. After that, it was back to the golf club for the presentation of concours trophies, as well as club awards, not to mention a raffle. (Last year this saw the Forres, Nairn and District Riding for the Disabled (RDA) presented with a cheque for £100.)
The run is open to classic motorcycles more than 25 years old and this year the oldest motorcycle taking part was Bert McKay’s wonderful 1919 Douglas. Mr McKay’s machine won the Milburn Shield for the oldest motorcycle, while both man and machine were awarded the McKay Shield which is presented to the partnership of oldest rider and oldest motorcycle. There were quite a lot of examples of the word ‘oldest’ in that sentence, but I hope that I am as spry as Bert when I reach his age.
The Highland Classic Motorcycle Club has members not only in Scotland but also Wales and England, and the Loch Ness Rally attracts riders from far and wide.
So, each year, the Loch Ness Shield is awarded to the rider who has travelled the longest distance to attend the rally and in 2022 that trophy went to Simon Freeman who had ridden his 1964 Francis-Barnett Cruiser some 490 miles from his home in Norfolk. Take a look at these photos and you will see why.