AJS & Matchless Owners Club

Can anyone give me guidance on the best and easiest way to fit new knee pads to my freshly painted fuel tank (without scratching it). Can the pads be stretched over the plates or is some form of leverage (screwdriver) necessary.

Thanks

Should just slip on OK. Warm them in hot soapy water to make them supply and slippery. Use washing up liquid not a detergent which may have a bleaching effect on the paint.

I'm still having trouble fitting the knee pads to the plates. I notice that the plates have a curvature in them which I assumed goes toward the tank. When I fit the plates this way I have not been able to fit the pads however if I fit the plates with the curvature facing out the pads will go on relatively easily. The issue here is that, with the plate curvature facing out, the edge of the pads sit about 25mm away from the tank which leads me to ask the question are the plates mounted with the curvature toward or away from the tank?

Hi

The curvature of the plates follows that of the tank, have you got the two tubular spacers and washers fitted correctly, (they determine the clearance between the plate and tank).

Can you fit the pads to the plates when they are removed? may be worth giving that a try first.

Regards Mick

from memory I'm pretty sure there are two shapes of retaining plates, kind regards

There are two different shapes. The Matchless pads are shorter than the AJS pads and the mounting plates are also different. The mounting plates are fitted with the curvature towards the tank but have spacers between the tank and the plate. They're about 2.5mm thick (a couple of washers would probably suffice). The pads go on easily and fit nicely. Having said that, the pads I have are a pair of original soft rubber 1950's items made by 'John Bull' (scrubbed up in hot, soapy water and given a coat of tyre dressing). The pads are also curved to match the tank curvature but whether that was by design or because they've been fitted to a tank for 60 years, I wouldn't like to say. The modern reproduction pads I bought from AMOC Spares for my AJS were made of a much harder 'rubber', flat and didn't fit half as well.

Thanks all for all this info. Having had a good look at the pads and plates it would appear that the pads may be smaller hence not fitting properly. When I pulled the plates off the tank there were no spacers under them (another of many surprises with this bike) but I had already tried fittin washers under the plate to space it out. I have already ordered new plates from AMOC so I'll wait to see how big they are. Failing that I guess the next step will be trimming down the plates to fit