Matchless G80 G80C G80 CS G80S
Matchless G80
"G80"
. .In the early 1950s, the most popular British four-strokeswere still pushrod singles. The Matchless G80 is typical of this era. Theearliest G80 is sometimes referred to as a G80L, the L signifying "Teledraulic"forks, rather than girder forks.The magneto on an AJS was in front of the cylinder, and the Matchless magnetowas behind. A design originating in the 1930s, the Matchless was updated with aspring frame (swingarm) rear suspension in 1949, becoming the G80S. Thesuspension was a vast improvement on the bouncy rigid rear end but wheel travelwas limited.AMC had adopted Velocette's twin-shock swingarm rear suspension design for itstop models. Vertical shock absorber units were introduced in 1949. The initial"Candlestick" shocks held only 50 cc of SAE 20 weight oil. Leak prone, they werereplaced by the "Jampot" shocks in 1951, and by Girling shocks in 1956. In 1957,AMC switched from Burman gearboxes to their own make.
The leaky pressed-steel primary chain-case first appeared on AMC machines in the1930s. In 1958 an alloy cover primary chain-case became available.EngineThe motor was released with a compression ratio of 5.9:1, because of the poorquality fuel available in the United Kingdom immediately after the Second WorldWar. In 1949 the hairpin valve springs were back, after the use of conventionalcoil valve springs in wartime engines. By 1951 the G80 had an alloy cylinderhead and the barrel fins now went all the way to the base on competition models.The compression ratio was increased to 7.3:1 in 1956.
G80R "Sawn Off Shotgun"
Low compression meant that it was easy to kick-start and was more flexible atlow revs. The earlier long stroke version might not quite reach 80 miles perhour (130 km/h), but it could trundle along at less than 20 miles per hour (32km/h) in top gear. It also gave good fuel economy.Model variationsThe 500 cc "long stroke" G80CS was produced from 1951 through 1955. In 1956 itwas replaced by the shorter stroke, larger bore models that used the samenumeric codes. The bore of these early G80CS's was 82.5 mm (3.25"), while the1956 through 1966 “short stroke” (final version) models had a bore of 86 mm. TheC is for Competition (Scrambles) and the S for Suspension (not a rigid rearframe).Matchless also made a 600cc version of the G80 called Typhoon. The bore wasincreased to 89mm while the stroke was increased from 85.5mm to a whopping 96mm.125 bikes were reportedly made and almost all of them were sold in the USA.There was a road model with lights and a competition model without lights. Theengine prefix code was TCS on these bikes.Engine numbers usually start with the year of production, followed by modeldesignation, and completed with the production number of the motorcycle.