Paul,
I haven't got a tank for it yet, they seem to go for quite a lot of money on E-bay as they are the same tank as on the P11s which are becoming more sought after. I might go for an alloy tank from The Tank Shop, I had a 3 1/2 gallon Manx short circuit tank for my Commando cafe racer from them and I was very pleased with it. I have collected the correct oil tank, battery and tool tray and sundry other items for a G15, I will have to reweld the mounting brackets for these, but other then that there doesn't seem much more in the way of frame mods. I will also have to alter the engine balance factor of the Commando engine to accommodate the rigid mounting. I am slowly collecting the parts I need as I am currently in the middle of restoring 2 more Commandos - one Dunstall equipped cafe racer and one Roadster, a 1965 Triumph Bonneville and a 1927 BSA flat-tank 500, so I have enough on my plate for the moment.

My chum with the G80CS engine is also encumbered with a plethora of projects and hasn't really got round to his cafe racer special yet. I have to say that the photo of the Matchless you posted looks great and I bet it would be a lot of fun to ride.

If you do a topic search using 'Commando engine into a P11 rolling chassis' you will see among other things a link to an article and some photos of a bike built by Ludwig, who was a regular contributor to this forum until recently when he hit 1000 postings and decided to retire, Ludwig has built a wonderful beast with a Commando engine, front end and shortened primary drive into a G15 frame, I hope to achieve at least somewhere near the quality of what he has done.

Warmest Regards

Dave

dave M wrote:Paul,
I haven't got a tank for it yet, they seem to go for quite a lot of money on E-bay as they are the same tank as on the P11s which are becoming more sought after. I might go for an alloy tank from The Tank Shop, I had a 3 1/2 gallon Manx short circuit tank for my Commando cafe racer from them and I was very pleased with it.

This gives me an idea. From what I can see here, the P11 tank might fit right on the G80CS frame? If so then The Tank Shop already has the mounting pattern needed to make a G50 tank to fit the G80Cs frame. There would be other things to work out of course but there is a possibility anyway.

dave M wrote:I have collected the correct oil tank, battery and tool tray and sundry other items for a G15, I will have to reweld the mounting brackets for these, but other then that there doesn't seem much more in the way of frame mods. I will also have to alter the engine balance factor of the Commando engine to accommodate the rigid mounting. I am slowly collecting the parts I need as I am currently in the middle of restoring 2 more Commandos - one Dunstall equipped cafe racer and one Roadster, a 1965 Triumph Bonneville and a 1927 BSA flat-tank 500, so I have enough on my plate for the moment.

Wow, your workload is a long one. I have only three motorbike projects in the hopper now but several car & truck projects in the mix too. It will take several lifetimes at the rate I complete things . . .

I mentioned the G50 el cheapo look alikes somewhere in this discussion.

http://www.mecum.com/auctions/CA0811/CA ... 3011183511

Rohan wrote:I mentioned the G50 el cheapo look alikes somewhere in this discussion.

Yes, there are a lot of SR500s done up like the great British racing singles. There is an outfit with the unlikely name of Custom House Stinky in Japan that specializes in such conversions. I can see how this would work, I bought my SR500 because it was so much like a modern Matchless. I even have a Matchless key fob for it.



I have been giving the Matchless a great deal of thought and have even moved forward with getting another front end and brake that will look period but improve braking performance. I found an entire front end from a 1972 Suzuki GT750 that has a 4LS brake, or possibly it would be more accurate to say a dual TLS brake, one on each side:

LHS


RHS


This is going to look really good on the old Matchie! I'll have to see if it will polish up, if not black paint works too.

Vintage Paul