AJS & Matchless Owners Club

Although I seem to remember that most of these clutches have basket wobble to a greater or lesser degree, my one looks excessive, so taking out the spider and inspecting it I find that the splines are perfect, but looks like bearing surface of the spider has had it's day. Bearing plate hole is 34mm and the spider bearing surface is 32.7mm I think this is 043509 being a duplex chain part?
Take a look at the picture and let me know, I don't have another to compare.

One word answer, shagged! Good news is the club have them in stock, bad news is they are more than the H/W type as supply and demand is far less so they cost considerably more to have manufactured.

Yes, shagged, and also blued up too as you can see in the picture, the person who last built it had made an interesting slipper for the primary chain to keep tension, this was in an attempt to alleviate the fact that the sleeve gear bearing surface had been ground 2mm smaller so the bearing had play. In order to stop the gearbox leaking there were two seals, the list goes on sadly but I'm getting there, I take it that this is a 043509 for the duplex clutch.

The clutch centres don't vary by simplex/duplex, it depends which mainshaft design you have (early/late). To get the right one, look at the shape of the end of the mainshaft.

Early mainshafts 041701 and 041263 (with two steps) need clutch centre 043186. Later mainshafts 043058 and 041703 (with one step) need clutch centre 043509.

Oh Bother, looks like I just ordered the wrong one then, I'll have to exchange it.

it's easily done. Lightweight gearboxes are confusing.

New spider arrived today but the bearing surface is only half the size, should not make much difference hopefully but it is obviously a manufacture or design issue.

Did it assemble ok?

Yes, Went together perfectly, had to do the cush drive rubbers in a big vice using the clutch tool, a bit of scaff tube and an old mainshaft, looks good and probably does not move that much in service to worry about. The plate assembly is a slight puzzler though as it had some wrong or right plates to start with..

Glad it went together OK! You do need a surprisingly big bar to get those clutch rubbers in...

The plate assembly on Lightweights is another lottery.
Here's my guide - as far as I can tell this is all correct, but the clutch will still work with different arrangements.
For example, mine ran with a reversed type 2 (early 250CS) clutch pack in a type 3 (250CSR) basket - and it worked brilliantly.

https://1drv.ms/p/s!AreW5w5WmJsqg0QG63B ... q?e=2qsg9L