Famous James V-twin

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At the Shovel Shop; a site I knew nothing of till just now.
I can't remember hearing about F.J.'s V-twins on here before. Anybody?
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The Famous James Motorcycle

Me and the Famous James at Walter Jones’ shop in Marion, Texas. Forty years ago I attended an antique motorcycle show here in Austin, and came across two Famous James motorcycles. I&#82…
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In the early days it does seem as if almost everybody fielded a vee-twin at some stage - several years back I was surprised to spot a Raleigh vee-twin from the mid twenties locally, the owner also has an Edsel, a Corvette (early), a Velo, old Beemer, etc which was quite an education for me as I only knew Raleigh as a cycle manufacturer. More recently I picked up a book on old Brit bikes and found Vee-twins I hadn't seen from AJS, Lea-Francis and Norton!
 
Always amusing when, as in that blog, Americans refer to Armoury Road BSA, Meriden Triumph, Bracebridge Street Norton, etc. as "metric" bikes. They didn't even use "standard" (unified) threads until the late 1960s. There wasn't a metric thread anywhere in the British motorcycle industry. :)
 
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Paul P. said:
In the early days it does seem as if almost everybody fielded a vee-twin at some stage - several years back I was surprised to spot a Raleigh vee-twin from the mid twenties locally, the owner also has an Edsel, a Corvette (early), a Velo, old Beemer, etc which was quite an education for me as I only knew Raleigh as a cycle manufacturer. More recently I picked up a book on old Brit bikes and found Vee-twins I hadn't seen from AJS, Lea-Francis and Norton!
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You're right Paul. It was seeing a Matchless V-twin that provoked the question; I didnt know Matchless dared it either till I saw one in a Famous James advert..
 
Oh my God !!! It's that chain-drive valve train engine I put up earlier this year . Many Thanks Finn Dave (y)
...so that thing was an Enfield eh? Cool.
 
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Skip said:
Oh my God !!! It's that chain-drive valve train engine I put up earlier this year . Many Thanks Finn Dave (y)
...so that thing was an Enfield eh? Cool.
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Your pic looks very similar, but it's not exactly the same, which means there are at least two of them out there in the wild! Here's a closer pic of the cam drive. I thought it was a home-made one-off until now!
https://flic.kr/p/bpTu3z
 
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