Ajs 650 csr 1963

I haven’t looked at this forum before, but the Norton 961 forum had gone quiet. I’ve had a soft spot for the G12 CSR since owning one as a teenager in the early 1970s. I bought it as a box of AJS/Matchless engine bits and a rolling chassis (café racer style) as the crankshaft had snapped. I rebuilt the engine but I didn’t use the stronger crankshaft, and sure enough one day the crankshaft snapped about a mile from home. It did get me home though. I rebuilt it again with a nodular iron crankshaft and it was fine after that. I’ve only got one blurry Polaroid photo of it in its café racer guise. I sold it a couple of years later.

Roll on about 40 years and I happened to come across the Facebook page of the guy I had sold it to, and he had a photo of a chopper with what looked like my AJS/Matchless engine. I got in touch and he confirmed it was the same engine. He said he had been all over Europe with it and had clocked up about 60,000 miles with no serious engine issues. I think the original chassis had got written off in an accident.