Someone told me Bottoms were addictive. I just picked up a 7266 AJS. NORTON framed Stormer. Any one got info on them?

Damn autocorrect! That should read Norton lol

Is it RED . ?

90 mph moto - X bike . Cylce test said it as good as any .and faster.
so much for Japanese Superiority . Made in V limited numbers .Due to
' the troubles ' . ( accountants and the workforce at the pub . )

Said to be ideal for the sage brush / desert raceing .Lucky Find .
That and the B50MXBSA in 74 were the equal of anything .
But race performace demands race maintanance .

May have an old magazine with it in around somewhere .

Villiers engined MX bike, which were not really competitive against the other European and Japanese bikes being raced at the time. Up to a few years ago it was possible to buy a brand new one, as they were being built in a shed not far from the former Norton factory at Andover.

At least the intake manifold is an obvious norton bit...

I spent the last 8 months of my N-V career working on the Stormer program. Two things to watch for, if they hadn't been fixed in your model year are problems with localized overheating which damages the cylinder liner and frame cracking inmmediately aft of the headstock stiffener (if yours doesn't have the tapered top tube). The "new" ones being built in a chcken shed were built by one of the retired Moto-cross mechanics from parts he'd bought when the company went broke. if you go to the AJS Owners news group there's some info on him.

The engine overheat was a part-throttle detonation issue. The Starmaker woud run WOT for days without complaint, but in stop & go, light throttle settings, the liner would get red hot around the area of the exhaust port and you'd get instantanous welding of the top piston ring as it passed by. This would set up an oscillation as the piston travelled on and circumferntial ripples would develop. Initially, we would see this in less than 1000 miles on a new liner. I tested the bike riding to and from work on one that had lights.

Initially the fix was to use Castrol "R" in the fuel, but it doesn't dissolve in gasoline, being a vegetable-based oil. After about 6 hours of not being run, you had to give the bike a good shaking to re-mix the gas and oil. As I left (June '68) they were working on a more user-friendly fix.

The early M-X bikes had frequent frame failures caused by a stress raiser where the original design of heastock reinforcement ended. I propsed splitting the top tube into two semi-circular pieces and welding a long triangular piece of flat steel in between on each side. the resulting top tube went from being an obround cross-section almost the full depth of the headstock down to the original circular section at the back. I think this made it into production. Taking a closer look at your full-bike photo, what appears to be a weld line along the center of the top tube suggests you have the tapered set-up. Your bike is dated four years after I left for America.

One of the cleverest bits of design on the bike was the eccentric plate for chain adjustment, It shows very well in your pic of the gearbox. I've since seen an identical set-up on (I think) a KTM, so maybe the AJS design was sold off when N-V went Tango Uniform.

frankdamp wrote:I spent the last 8 months of my N-V career working on the Stormer program. Two things to watch for, if they hadn't been fixed in your model year are problems with localized overheating which damages the cylinder liner and frame cracking inmmediately aft of the headstock stiffener (if yours doesn't have the tapered top tube). Taking a closer look at your full-bike photo, what appears to be a weld line along the center of the top tube suggests you have the tapered set-up. Your bike is dated four years after I left for America. The "new" ones being built in a chcken shed were built by one of the retired Moto-cross mechanics from parts he'd bought when the company went broke. if you go to the AJS Owners news group there's some info on him.

The engine overheat was a part-throttle detonation issue. The Starmaker woud run WOT for days without complaint, but in stop & go, light throttle settings, the liner would get red hot around the area of the exhaust port and you'd get instantanous welding of the top piston ring as it passed by. This would set up an oscillation as the piston travelled on and circumferntial ripples would develop. Initially, we would see this in less than 1000 miles on a new liner. I tested the bike riding to and from work on one that had lights.

Initially the fix was to use Castrol "R" in the fuel, but it doesn't dissolve in gasoline, being a vegetable-based oil. After about 6 hours of not being run, you had to give the bike a good shaking to re-mix the gas and oil. As I left (June '68) they were working on a more user-friendly fix.

The early M-X bikes had frequent frame failures caused by a stress raiser where the original design of heastock reinforcement ended. I propsed splitting the top tube into two semi-circular pieces and welding a long triangular piece of flat steel in between on each side. the resulting top tube went from being an obround cross-section almost the full depth of the headstock down to the original circular section at the back. I think this made it into production.

One of the cleverest bits of design on the bike was the eccentric plate for chain adjustment, It shows very well in your pic of the gearbox. I've since seen an identical set-up on (I think) a KTM, so maybe the AJS design was sold off when N-V went Tango Uniform.

I was waiting for you to chime in with your experiences.

I'm sure with a modern two-stroke oil like Royal Purple the overheating issue should be minimized.

Didn't they also use the eccentric adjuster on the B50?

I don't know if BSA-Triumph got a hold of that eccentric swing-arm pivot design, Dave. I was under the impression that it was one of Bob Trigg's team that came up with it. The Stormer was an all-Wolverhampton project, as the AJS name had been dormant for a while.

Just before I left, we built four bikes with road-legal equipmet which were entered in the 1968 International Six Days Trial. The were ridden by members of the Royal Air Force Motorsports Association. There were three 250cc AJS machines and a 350cc Matchless, all actually Stormers. I believe that "Matchless" was the only 2-stroke to ever wear the "Flying M" badge and was probably the very last Matchless ever made. The bikes all had 1968 registrations. They had an extra coil on the ignition system stator which provided an AC voltage to run the lights and a spark arrester was added to the tailpipe for fire prevention purposes.

frankdamp wrote:I don't know if BSA-Triumph got a hold of that eccentric swing-arm pivot design, Dave. I was under the impression that it was one of Bob Trigg's team that came up with it. The Stormer was an all-Wolverhampton project, as the AJS name had been dormant for a while.

Here's how BSA did their adjuster. Not a stock bike but the frame mostly is.

Initially a 250, it was later available as a 370cc and then a 410 - which vibrated badly to the extent that the lower frame rail fatigued out during testing at MIRA No. 2 circuit.
A full 500 two-stroke was developed at Wolverhampton, named the Chindit, featuring an Isolastic-mounted motor. It was raced in several UK events but didn't make it a s far as production.

They were probably used on bikes before 1960, but Rickman who had them on frames produced from then onwards may well be where AJS got eh idea.