Wrapped up for storage

My new 1949 Matchless G3L rigid model

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this website, the 1949 Matchless G3L rigid model I recently purchased in mid-way through a complete restoration. Most of the difficult jobs and painting have already been completed by the bike’s previous custodian, as well as the sourcing of numerous replacement parts as necessary.

In fact, it’s pretty much only a case of reassembling all of the parts now to get the bike back on the road. That will be an enjoyable job to look forward to, although like with any classic bike, I’m sure it will still have a few surprises in store for me further down the line. But it will be a pleasant change to work with a nice clean machine as opposed to my other ‘oily-rag’.

However, all of that is pretty much on hold for the time being as the bike is back home in the UK and I’m living about 6000 miles away at the moment in Hong Kong. So after collecting the bike whilst back home on holiday, the only job I got chance to do was to wrap up the frame in copious amounts of foam and bubble-wrap, and to safely box up all of the engine bits.

Wrapped up for stoarge

But there’s no rush with these things and I have more than enough jobs to keep me busy for the time being with my other Matchless bike that lives with me here in Hong Kong. The new bike will stay safely wrapped away in storage until my next visit home when I hope to be able to do a little more work on reassembly, but that’s not likely to be for quite a while.

However I will endeavour to keep this blog updated with details and photos of the restoration as it progresses. 

For now though, more photos of this bike can be found in my 1949 Matchless G3L Photo Gallery.