What have you done today with your Austin Seven

[Ruairidh Dunford]

Bob,

The Merlin engine belongs to a friend - it crashed onto his parents’ farm in Kent, thankfully the pilot escaped (but then died in another crash some years later)! You can see parts of the prop embedded in the engine.

Some time later he dug it up (such was the force of the impact it was some 9’ down) and one of his daughters (a Typhoon pilot) arranged for a cradle to be built and then shipped it up to his new home in the Highlands via a transport plane.

Last year the son of the pilot, now in his mid 80s, visited the engine - tracking him down is another remarkable story in itself.

Like me, my friend has three daughters - two are fighter pilots and one is a doctor, I always ensure my daughters chat to these ladies on our visits.

Never a dull moment.

[Chris KC]

Fascinating stories...

I did think the A7 head gasket perched on top gave it an interesting perspective!

[Ruairidh Dunford]

Chris - you just won yourself a pint, well done you very observant person!

[Chris Garner]

Just curious. Is there a blind spline on the prop spindle?!

[Chris KC]

Never mind the pint Ruairidh - just let me have a go when you finish your V12 27 litre GE Cup!

[Ruairidh Dunford]

Fake handlebar moustache at the ready?

["Slack Alice" Simon]

Near where I live there is a "vintage vehicle" meet on a village green, on a day close to Midsummer's day.

There are usually a couple of hundred assorted cars, bikes, tractors etc. and if you are lucky, a Land Rover with a trailer.

On the trailer a Merlin engine.

Every half an hour or so, it gets started.   It only has stub exhausts.

All the blokes on the field stand round like flies round a honeypot, going "Ahhhhhhhhh"

Lovely.

[jansens]

The transport museum (MOTAT) Bob mentions has a certain rustic charm to it that I always liked. Things aren't labelled particularly well but I like museums to show me lots of random things, not just one thing with a carefully curated story as most seem to do now. If I like the things I then find out more about them myself outside the museum. That museum also has a Lancaster bomber (not flying unfortunately).

The other big museum, the Auckland War Memorial Museum, has a very nice sectioned Merlin engine on display. It has an electric motor so you can turn it over - slowly. It used to have a little hand wheel and you could rotate it manually. It has light bulbs where the spark plugs go that light up at the right time on the firing stroke.

http://www.aucklandmuseum.com/collection...ect-675874

When I go to look at it, it always takes me a second to remember you are only seeing the two exhaust valves per cylinder lifting, all the inlets being on the non cut away insides of the heads of course.

R, the magnet tray is a trick some modern racing teams use apparently during pit stops. All tools and parts have to be put on the tray when not being used and not left sitting on top of the engine or body. Allows them to quickly remove the tray, slam the bonnet down and be sure they haven't left a socket on top of the head or spanners in the scuttle or similar.

Simon

[Hedd_Jones]

Theres a bloke round here with a Napier Lion aero engine on a stand. There is a website somewhere about its rebuild. That is worth seeing. He also has a 'buckboard' pre 1920 Chalmers car. Hus father has a superb sleeve valve edwardian Daimler

[agmatthews]

Today I stripped off....

...all the paint on the '29 Chummy SWB chassis.

It's almost time to start putting things back together... exciting times!

Here it is almost stripped bare!

May I ask what you use to remove the paint and dirt?

Regards,

Jamie.

Stripping back to bare metal was not the original plan but once you start....
It all started when I found rust under the previous black paint and so decided it had to come off to see what was there.

I started with gel paint stripper (poly strip), then a pressure washer, then a combination of wire brush wheels, flap discs, scourer disks and lots of elbow grease.

When I thought it was done I cleaned it with grease and wax cleaner, then wiped over some phosphoric acid, wiped it off, then cleaned it all again. Tommorow it will get a coat of etch primer.

The main ingredient is the elbow grease!

Andrew