Engine number AJS 18CS

[harrisrotax]

Hi

Is it true that AJS has not all engine and frame numbers for identification use?

I have 1958 18CS engine and I tried to find out about this engine from dating officer Roy Bellett.
He has tried 2 weeks to find out about this engine he only wrotes:

Our records show no information on you engine. I am still trying to find out more for you and will come back to you soon.

Roy.

Best regards

58/18CS/2901

[alanengineer]

I too have a number on a 18cs engine that the club do not have records for. my engine is dated 1952.
If you look real close under a decent magnifying glass, you can see parts of another number. Crankcases are easy to restamp.
Have a close look at yours.
I think their may have been some dodgy characters around in the olden days

[Merlin]

I think their may have been some dodgy characters around in the olden days

Some are still around not too far away either.

[harrisrotax]

Maybe you never know.But this same happened with my 7R.No documents what so ever in factory records but nobody said the number is restamped?

There was no records from factory.
I would say that there was some doggy in old factory papers.Selling was not easy anymore and maybe they had to make some bikes out of paperwork. AJS was not the best bike on a market.

[les ward]

I used to be the machine dating officer before Roy and have spent many hours searching the factory records.

The club have almost all of the post war records for the road machines, with the exception of some gaps for the late 1940s and the last 1966 ledger.

However the competition machines were not built in the main part of the factory, rather "over the road" in the "comp shop" and many of those ledgers have not survived. So if the ledger no longer exists, then we cannot provide any specific information. Going by known surviving machines with original logbooks, other archive material and production figures we can give a year of manufacture for registration/title purposes.

A factory ledger regarding race bikes/engines came up for auction a few years back, but the club were outbid by an undisclosed buyer.

There is nothing suspicious about the records and AMC only had financial problems in the early 1960s, where the road machine records are complete.

You must remember that when the factory closed much of the office paperwork was thrown away and in the period after to many people this sort of thing was worthless. At one stage all of the factory records were put in a skip and it was only the foresight of one employee that saved the majority of them for us.

[BRobbo]

I've have something of a mystery with the engine number on my 1948 500 single.

The PO told me that the person he bought the bike off restored it back in the early eighties at which time he put another engine in it. When he went to register the bike they refused because the engine had no number. So he went home and stamped it 48/18M 20.8.51, the latter number being his birthday. This is the number now on the reg docs. Interestingly this is a 1948 engine with the valve lifter in the crankcase and coil valve springs.

I have looked at the crankcase very closely and there is no sign of any previous number having been present.

Is it feasible that an engine would leave the factory without a number? I suppose if replacement crankcases were fitted they would have been blank.

Would be interested if anyone has any ideas.

Cheers

Barry

[Rossd]

My 1953 (I think) 18 CS has no engine number and no sign of it being ground off. Some posibilities I suspect. Replacement crankcases as above? Did any cases leave the factory unstamped on a new bike? What about a long shot of being a works engine or crankcases?