Having had so much fun with our other single seater special at the Simola Hillclimb in Knysna, South Africa, we decided to build another weapon for attacking the hill....
Rest assured that no living Sevens were harmed in the process, 95% of the stuff came out of boxes Dad collected in the '60's. Recently we were able to purchase a job lot of bits from someone who had plans to build an Ulsteroid and amongst them was a new Phoenix crank, re-metalled rods, Honda 57.7mm pistons and a set of close ratio gears for a 4 speed box. As we already have a '33 Type "65" as well as a '26 Chummy & '28 Top Hat Type R plus sundry other marques we have the open 2 seater thing covered already, so the Phoenix crank gave us the 'unburstable' bottom end to take the little supercharger Dad bought more than 40 years ago. A Rootes type triple lobe MAG blower made by Motosaccoche in Switzerland circa 1952, originally for a VW 1100 or 1200 flat 4.
With a SWB chassis that's been hanging on the wall for 40 years, we set to work - first straighten and weld up the cracks in the chassis, then look at the internet for inspiration. Both of us were really taken with the shape of the Kaye Petre replica, so the basic idea was formed and we decided to go with an offset driveline. One of the spare diffs was modified and the half shafts modded to suit. The basic offset of the engine was decided on and I welded up new mounts. We decided to drive the little MAG Blower off the nose of the crank using a Yamaha 650 shaft drive with universal - the jury is still out on this idea...
A suitable front axle was turned upside down and new spring mounts welded on, the leaf spring was reset to suit. I fabricated a suitable steel mounting bracket for the blower and the front shock absorbers. This plate is sandwiched between the spring and the chassis for stability and there is a brace back from the top of the blower to the chassis. New radius arms were fabricated along with all their fixing points and trimmed sections of angle iron with a suitable tapered hole were welded to the chassis to take the tie rod ends at the end of the new radius arms.
Basic chassis and driveline sorted, we turned out attention to the body frame. various spare rims yielded suitable jigs for body hoops, from 21" Model A Ford , 19", 17", 16" A7 wheels, 15" Alfa Giulietta & 13" Opel formed the basis for the slighly tapering tubular steel frame. Superleggera Coachwork in the making.
From here is was a case of bending duplicate pipes to suit the left and right sides of the frame as closely as possible. With this done I approached someone about wheeling out a body. This was a little disappointing as for the (rather high) agreed price, I was supposed to get a body completed ready for paint, instead I got a body half roughed out with no side panels that still needed a lot of work and he now wanted a lot more money Long story short, we agreed to disagree and went our separate ways. Needless to say my aluminium working skills are rapidly improving...it's just welding the darn stuff....
So this is where we are with the body thus far, I'll post some detailed mechanical pictures later. 80% completed and 80% still to go....
Cheers
Greig
Port Elizabeth
Sunny South Africa
Hmmm I notice that my careful re-orienting of all the pictures in my files came to nothing and it certainly didn't load them in the sequence I intended.... sorry about that, they were supposed to be in a chronological build sequence.
More of the body in progress....
Aye
Greig
A few more, we have developed our own Bowdenex conversion off the one that was fitted to our Type "65". Basically copying the fittings but using modern cable inners and outers and it's made a huge difference to our other Green special. You can see the front axle details a bit here, similar to our green car which was converted into a single seater circa 1949. There is at least a bit of Alfa here as the extensions off the axle to hold the spring shackles are two litre Alfa conrod little ends, the Green Job uses parts of a second front axle, but we didn't want to cut up another axle.
We've raided Dad's 60+ year old stash of bits for all the brake fittings and things like the hand brake lever etc. The steering box, steering wheel and the brake pedal actually come from the Green Job, when dad rebuilt it there was a box of bits he couldn't find and so he raided his stash. Several years later that box emerged when he moved closer to me, so the new Job has a physical connection with the Green Job. Also many years ago an Uncle had a single seater out here called the Consul Special, that ended up getting crunched and was scrapped, but Dad saved the throttle pedal, so that's going in there as well.
My wife Lucie in the Green Job - see the other thread about re-metalling the rods.....sigh
I know this isn't strictly Austin Seven related (but it should indirectly help with my restoration) but I am on the lookout for a Remline top tool box like the one pictured below. I recently purchased the bottom roll cab section and I have since discovered they are as illusive as Ulsters (in this country at least). I believe they are more common in America but I was hoping someone in the UK may have one going spare that they would be willing to sell.
This is my first post to this forum. I hope somebody will be able to help!
I replaced the steering wheel of my Ruby ARR with a recoated one. The inner part of the original (old) steering wheel and the new steering wheel does not look exactly the same (see attached photos)
When I reinserted the trafficator switch/inner control column through the new steering wheel into the steering column I could not achieve the gap anymore between the trafficator switch and the steering wheel, thus the trafficator switch moves with the steering wheel. First, I thought that the reason was the new steering wheel which does not look exactly the same inside as the old steering wheel. Then I inserted the inner control column into the old steering wheel outside of the car but could not see out any difference, so the solution must be somewhere between inner control column and the steering column, but where?
Does anybody know how to achieve the gap between the trafficator switch and the steering wheel so that the trafficator switch does not move with the steering wheel? The spare parts booklet shows felt bushes for inner column, top and lower. Are these the solution? If yes, I do not have them and also do not know where to get them...
I am most glad to receive any feedback to solve this problem and enabling me to reassemble by Ruby ARR.
Hi All
I've recently bought a 1-1/2" Nippy crank (splash fed) that I intend on putting in the new engine I am building. When I look at it against the old 1-5/16" crank the oil ways and catch scoops that the oil jets aim lubricant at seem very small on the Nippy crank (see photos - Nippy crank with Con Rods attached, 1-5/16" crank without). Is this going to cause me any problems? Do I need to be extra careful about the aim of the oil jets? Has anyone drilled these holes out to enlarge them a little?
All advice gratefully received
Cheers
Robbie
I am the owner of a battery powered half scale Austin Seven tourer manufactured by David Royle circa 1984. Any information regarding numbers made or contact details of current owners would be greatly appreciated.
I have been trying to get into this old thread about moving/fitting various sevens into vans and, when using a popular internet search engine, I can find the old forum, read the text but not the photos. On this new platform the search facility refuses to retrieve on the title or variations of the words. Where do I go next?
![[Image: vintage-rem-line-tool-box-chest-toolbox-...444787.jpg]](http://images1.americanlisted.com/nlarge/vintage-rem-line-tool-box-chest-toolbox-large-size-americanlisted_35444787.jpg)
