This weekend we took the Biggs and the Chummy to join 8 other cars at an Austin themed display that we arranged at the Tinkers Park Rail Plus event in Hadlow Down in East Sussex. Admission was free to exhibitors and they could enjoy model railway layouts, miniature and narrow gauge steam train rides, traction engine hauled trailer rides, trips in classic buses and even a ride in a Green Goddess.
We managed to display 10 different models of Austin, ranging from 1928 AD Tourer and 1928 Heavy 12/4 two seater, through a 12 Harley, RP, AAL Open Road Tourer, Ascot, Ruby, A40 Devon to an A35 in Rolls Royce 2 tone paintwork. My wife and I also ran the Harveys Brewery bar!
Back home after the holiday. Not too many A7 miles (around 200) but quality over quantity. I can certainly vouch for both the area round Slingsby and that around Haltwhistle (the second part of our break) as being superb A7 driving country. I don’t have too many photos but here are one or two.
At Rievaulx Abbey
Helmsley Square
Brampton Square
On the Hadrian’s wall tour
Packing up this morning
06-08-2024, 08:19 PM (This post was last modified: 06-08-2024, 08:21 PM by Andy Bennett.)
Ah Howard I wish I had known we could have joined you for a trundle as we are only a few miles north of Haltwhistle. Next time if you venture slightly further over towards the coast there is some beautiful driving country as you head for Wallington and Cragside, with its 6 mile carriage drive, where you drive through the house arch past the front door whilst marvelling at Armstrong's ingenuity at building the world's first domestic hydro electric powered house...
After rebuilding the clutch on the C Cab a week or so back I found that there was a very slight amount of slip. I surmised that the toggles had been set just too high and bolting up the gearbox started to put pressure on the clutch leading to slip. The clutch pedal had no free play which confirmed this suspicion. We’ve done about 25 miles with the clutch in this condition in the vain hope that the toggles might bed in and the clutch settle down. However on a run on Saturday the slip became progressively worse and we only just got home. Annoying as I’d hoped to take the van on its first major run to the Three Cocks Vintage show in Hay on Wye. We ended up in the special and had a super day (one van did make it!)
So today I set about installing washers under the bell housing studs as David has done earlier in this thread. The gearbox just wouldn’t go back far enough to get full washers in so I cut U shaped washers that just clipped over the studs in the gap between bell housing and gearbox and were held in place whilst I tightened up the bell housing studs. It seems to have worked and the clutch is operating normally with no hint of slip. However it is only a temporary measure as I hope to rebuild the box with Andes gears in the Autumn.
So just a word of caution …If you are rebuilding the clutch and you set the toggles as per normal advice to 1 1/4” above the plate they might be slightly too high. So make sure that the clutch pedal has some play before finally tightening everything up.
I now check the toggle height by fitting a gearbox or just a casing with the thrust race in situ to the engine.
There should be a small amount of play which acts as a check on the toggles.
