Folks, I have just got another new addition,
A Matchless 41 G3/L its is a good project for further work and restoration,
I am however attempting to find the tank C number,
I am having a bit of confusion trying to work out the tank C number from references can you please help me out,
it must be an age thing,

The frame number is 29881
The engine number G3/L 44381
I think I am on contract number C11102

Regards Jim

Hello Jim,
I'm sure someone who knows better will come along soon and tell you exactly what you have got but my '41 G3L's engine number is 42326, only 200 ahead of yours and an early engine. But your frame is over 8000 later, mine is 21090, a late '41 frame. I hope this helps?
Richard

Hi Jim,
you are correct, both the engine and frame are from the Lucas equipped half of C11102.
Here is another-
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I also have a G3L from this contract, but its from the Miller equipped half.
Cheers, Mick.

email (option): mick@motorbikemike.org.uk

Hi jim, it's nice to hear of another G3L being restored. Have you got a couple of pics you can post

Barry

email (option): Mrsbfuller@hotmail.co.uk

Barry thank you. Yes I still have to take some photos have not been to successful at posting these here but will try again, will send to your email either way,
Quite a few wrong bits on the G3/L but this will be a work in progress, the tank has knee rubbers correct Matchless manufacture, nicely marked not perhaps correct for the G3L may be earlier G3 model or later G3L but either way its a petrol tank
my knowledge of the G3L is already growing with this project.
Still hoping someone on the Forum can figure out what the correct Census number for the tank would have been.
Regards Jim

Barry thank you. Yes I still have to take some photos have not been to successful at posting these here but will try again, will send to your email either way,
Quite a few wrong bits on the G3/L but this will be a work in progress, the tank has knee rubbers correct Matchless manufacture, nicely marked not perhaps correct for the G3L may be earlier G3 model or later G3L but either way its a petrol tank
my knowledge of the G3L is already growing with this project.
Still hoping someone on the Forum can figure out what the correct Census number for the tank would have been.
Regards Jim

Your frame number is a 1941 G3L but the C number is hard to work out as there are a lot of numbers missing, my wife could work this one out buy building up every C number for over 4000 bikes, that'll take a while. Maybe Steve maddeden of some one on the forum can shed some light on this?
I've restored 7 G3Ls over the last 3 years with a very low budget or got a part when I could afford it, but every time I make the bike better, just wish I could afford another.

Barry

email (option): Mrsbfuller@hotmail.co.uk

My first pre-war bike a G3L - went miles and miles on it, never let me down even though it a weak magneto (needed a push when hot).

In the 70's it was a damn sight harder to get parts than now!?

email (option): ginantonik@tiscali.co.uk

If your bike was a G3L then it was not a pre-war bike.G3L 1941 -0n [unless of course you are in the USA? }

as for "In the 70's it was a damn sight harder to get parts than now!?"

No it wasn't I built mine from mostly new spares in 1971/2 for a total of less than £30.

Even by the 80s I knew of NOS spares being skipped for scrap, mostly girder fork parts!!

any one remember Pratts of Greenwich?

I think to a large extent where you lived, who you knew, how much you knew and how much cash you could scrape together had a great effect on what might be available to you...

There wasn't much NOS floating about in S.Devon at that time for sure and even if there had been my first year apprentices wages didn't allow for much spending...

In late 1970 I built up an M21 from two ex AA donor bikes I bought cheap and largely used the best of what was there with the addition of a few new cables and other bits and pieces...

There were no large dealers in ex WD vehicle parts, few bike shops that were selling anything at 'knock down' prices and I'd never heard of a lot of the dealers further away...

As for finding NOS parts in skips...No bloody chance...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

C11102 is indeed a complicated contract. It appears to have been the original intention to have 4000 Miller and 4000 Lucas-equipped machines but production didn't quite reflect this. In addition, the contract was placed at a time when the RASC were still responsible for '2nd Line' vehices and using their own series of census numbers (The C94**** series). In general, RASC issues seem chaotic and the RAOC at Chilwell seem to have tried much earlier to put their numbers on a consistent basis.

It isn't completely clear from the RAOC records but it looks as if the intention was that they should receive the Lucas machines.

However, the records show "390 machines with our numbers on deld. to RASC" and there was therefore a further batch of 390 RAOC census numbers to complete their allocation.

Although the numbers don't tally, it seems that the intention was that 4000 machines commencing 29364 should go to RAOC and receive serials C4688899 - C4692898...As 29881 was only 517 into the contract it may well be that things had not yet gone wrong before the number was issued.

Logically, 29881 should have been C4689416....it will certainy have been around that figure.

Rik
I thought I was suffering from the ageing process trying to work out the census number. I appreciate the fact I am not alone in this confusion my other WD machines were simple by comparison, perhaps we may never know for sure with this particular contract but your suggestion is welcomed and may well find its way on to the tank
Regards Jim

Ian, back in the 1970s the guys that became Pratts of Greenwich bought up the unwanted stock of a number old bike dealers, one of who was Schweiso bros of Dartford who had surplus WD stock almost to rival Russells.

In 1976 I stated up a shop with the three basements full of NOS Triumph/ BSA and everything else spares I bought for 180 quid, I lived off those for a year or more.

In the 1980s a lot of the stuff in Pratts, went into a skip because they were fed up with looking at it, no one was buying it.
From it I rescued, girder fork springs, spindles, links,yokes, damper parts.
Such was the 'demand' for G3 fork parts i those days I only took enough for myself.A couple of bits of each.
My WD recon G3L engine,with mag, carb and dynamo cost me a fiver, thrown in with a van load of other later Matchless parts to make up a price (25£] in 1971/2.
The forks came from Blays of Twickenham, NOS,£7.50
Rear wheel, £1.50, from a guy in St Austell, Rear wheel a couple of quid from anther guy.
Both mudguards, exhaust and silencer were NOS from Russells.As were pannier bags and their frames
Frame came in a job lot, S/h fuel tank from Pratts. Tool box, rear mudguard stays and some other small bits, like the cast iron timing cover and rocker box were givaways from another chap converting a WDG3L to a trials bike.

Brass control levers came off a string of about 2dozen pairs I paid a fiver for from GGmobike in West london. I think I had to pay a tenner for a pair of NOS canvas grips at Founders day.

I think getting ones face known in various places helped, I was always poking around looking for bits for one thing or another.

Back in the early 1970s us WD fans were regarded as a bit odd to say the least.

You obviously missed the amazing goldmine circa 1982ish in St Austell then?

['You obviously missed the amazing goldmine circa 1982ish in St Austell then?']...

I did indeed, though just a couple of years back I bought a NOS front wheel from a chap in St. Austell who said he'd bought it decades ago but never got round to fitting it...

So maybe I had the 'last bite of the cherry'... ...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

I can remember going into Russell's mid-80's with a shopping list for BSA M20 and Matchless G3L and getting everything on the extensive list NOS..........this included crankcases, G3L forks (WD overhauled complete with label that I still have), a brand-new M20 front wheel, a genuine NOS DU42 headlight complete with blackout mask, near-new genuine WD pannier bags and "Y" straps plus tons of smaller parts...........It needed a car to remove the quantity and I still have the bill that was less than £400 all-in..........

Also bought AMC parts from Joe Francis Motors around this time, plus Royal Enfield bits from Gander and Gray (in Bristol) plus Burton Bike Bits.........C & D autos in Birmingham also had a fair few NOS WM20 parts..............

There simply wasn't the huge international interest back then therefore prices were low and almost everything available.............

Ian, the St Austell stuff was staggering. An old chap, a very decent old boy, had a large stable building full of mostly vintage AJS, he was a life time AJS fan, he also had collection of OHC engines and crates and crates of new vintge stuff he rescued.
Vagur memory he may have once been in the motor trade in some way.
I've never seen anything like it since.
I bought from him, circa 1980/1 ish two flat tank AJS from him, one SV one OHV; sadly he died very sortly after.
The collection was then cherry picked and sold off by his son,who I think might have been a Land Rover dealer in St Austell.?
Couple years later the rest went to auction down there, that would have been maybe 1984/5. There was still a lot left.

I also managed to gain acess to the Inners sanctum that was Clares Motor Works Alladins cave in South Norwood, masses and masses of NOS WD stuff of all kinds.

Those were the days