Fully paid up at last

[PedigreeChummy]

Well... I have finally gained my Austin wings and taken delivery of my little tourer. It's been a bit of an epic, involving the delivery woes of the company I was using to get the car from Sheffield to me here in the French Pyrenees. 3 blown turbos on his wagon (avoid Nissan like the plague, it would appear...) in a 4 month period, and the resulting backlog of deliveries have set the schedule back some 5 or 6 months, but the car is finally here... and just in time for summer.

The drive back home was something of an adventure... the car was delivered to within 10 miles of my house, as access in the mountain roads was too tight. Unfortunately, he turned up at 4am, but I wasn't going to pass up this delivery window, given the long wait to get the keys. 6v lights and a badly running little 7 meant the trip back was eventful and needed some imaginative driving techniques, most notably full choke to keep me going, the result of a 6 month-standing gooed up float bowl and blocked jets, all cleared on arrival at the house, but not possible in the half light half way up a mountain. The faces of the three farmer walking their cattle up the road to the higher pastures was a picture, as they were approached by a spluttering, 6v firefly-power illuminated 30s toy car.... ils sont fous ces anglais!

Said clean up of carb and jets and fresh fuel means she is running nicely though a bit rattly on tickover thanks to a missing fan pulley felt up top... smoothes out under revs but disconcertingly clattery at idle.

Various test runs up and down have so far resulted in a rubbing noise from the passenger side front when turning left (only), so far not located (any ideas...?), a nut falling off the throttle linkage, resulting in coasting to a stop with no power (hastily replaced by temporarily nicking a similar sized nut off the horn) and a bit of overheating on the climbs. Fourth gear seems very tall compared to third, quite a big jump, especially on the uphill slopes. Any tips?

So... second day of driving and loving every minute. Smiles per mile ratio off the scale... and that includes those of passers by, who so far have included a very chic young lady in a Clio who asked me if everything was okay when I was repairing the linkage, and then proceeded to tell me the car was "très, très jolie...." (who'd have thought it a potential pulling tool) and an old dear whose day was made by me getting her to successfully turn the car over with the starter handle.

More to come I'm sure...

[Smiley]

Welcome to the fold. Sounds great,  Have fun and you'll need lots of patience.  Can't help with the problems though,
still learning myself.  My first 7 was in 1954.

[Chris KC]

Glad you are enjoying your new acquisition!

Re the fan pulley, you might find the bushes are worn but these are mercifully easy to sort out. If you are going to do a lot of mountain driving you might consider adopting a four blade fan anyway, which should help a little with the cooling. It would certainly be worth flushing the cooling system through as years of accumulated crud really doesn't help. And possibly a 'water wetter' type coolant.

You are doing very well on the grades if you can get from 3rd to top!! Is it a synchro or crash box? The crash type though generally tougher has a lower 3rd gear. You can get close ratio conversions but if I were you I'd give it a while and decide about that when you have assessed the car under all conditions. Another option to consider may be a lower rear axle ratio, but that's a bigger and more costly job.

Rubbing noise on turns - is the tyre rubbing the inside of the wheel arch perhaps? You should see a witness mark if it is.

Be glad you have a summer to be in time for!

[Bob Culver]

Newcomers to Sevens and accustomed only to moderns are either captivated by the general quaintness, unique handling and historic association of the cars... or horrified by the standards of yesteryear. Glad to see you are the former. The gear ratios are wide spaced; 3rd is more akin 2nd of powerful 3 speed makes. Unavoidable with a low powered car. But despite low power will climb where many others will not.  If  you can climb anything in the Pyrenees in top, these cannot be what I imagined! The only thing more sensitive to gradient is a push bike.

Worn timing gears make a lot of harmless clatter. And the general “smoothness” (“roughness”?) of 2 bearing engines is very sensitive to spark advance.

Although in recent times not in a Seven, nearly all my motoring over the decades has been done in markedly out of date cars. Recently inherited a "modern" ie 15 years old. Nobody gives it a glance!

[PedigreeChummy]

Thanks for your kind words, chaps.

Chris, I'll look into the 4 blade fan for sure, and I'm going to completely "service" the car over coming weeks, so will be sure to give her a coolant flush. I'll look into those bushes, but just to the naked eye the pully is moving back and forth on tickover, and there is a noticeable gap, which made me think something was missing. A quick look in Austin 7 Parts showed it was a felt washer, which I suppose dampens any minor travel, but I will check those bushes at the same time. Can the pully assembly come off without taking the radiator off?
Gearbox is a crash variety, I'm pretty sure, though I am by default adopting a double de-clutch on downchanges, and notice the pedals are nicely positioned for a bit of heel and toe, though upshifts are very smooth with just one press. Third to fourth is a big gap, almost like it's an overdrive, so that's seems to match what you are telling me. I'll hang fire on fiddling about with ratios....

Bob, you're right, I am in the "charmed by it" category, though this is far from my first experience of vintage motoring. The difference now is "choice"... I have a very love/hate relationship with cars of this era, my main experiences having been being dragged out of bed on what seemed like endless, usually rainy, Sunday mornings as a teenager to sit in the back of my dad's various pride and joy vehicles on VSCC runs, Lakeland this and that (definitely always raining...), Manchester to Blackpool events (more rain) etc. etc., the hood always being down, no matter how inclement the weather, as it "spoils the lines of the car", being bollocked for looking miserable, then hanging around with other moody teenagers wishing they were at home with a copy of Escort, in a field or isolated hill-top pub car park as he and various other men of his type poked around under each other's bonnets... not to mention the constant midweek evening sessions of "lifting things on and off" the damn things, when I should have been doing my homework... or watching Blackadder or the Young Ones, or listening to The Smiths or The Stranglers. How things have changed now as a 40 something. Minis were and remain my thing primarily but I always secretly loved the cuteness of the Austin 7, even as a surly teenager.
I did used to think back then "wtf would you choose to spend a Sunday driving slowly in something you're likely going to have fix by the side of the road...", now I am that soldier!

[Ruairidh Dunford]

You tell a good story and I like what I am reading.

Enjoy the car - I am envious of your location!

[Chris KC]

Take care if using radiator flush that it doesn't in fact result in blockage - the loosened material tends to gather in bottlenecks like the aluminium side manifold. Needs flushing out very thoroughly.

Fan felt may certainly help. Whether you can get it apart depends on your car I think. I have recently replaced my fan bolts and did it by removing the radiator screws & bonnet brace, undoing the top hose jubilee clip, and tilting the radiator forward. But each car is a little different. The aluminium casting which holds the fan is a minor 'weak spot' on Sevens and easily broken - take care with the bolt that locks the fan belt tension.

You can tell a crash gear box by the slightly taller 'turret' for the gear lever, which has a large nut on it. The 3rd ratio is about 4% lower than a standard synchro box. Whether this is a plus or minus rather depends where and how you are going to drive the car! Personally I like the crash box and in steep places it means I can hang on to 3rd where I might have had to drop into 2nd. There is also less in them to go wrong if you fancy going further afield.

[Andy Bennett]

for rubbing I had similar in my RP and it was soggy springs meaning that the car was leaning and wheels were rubbing on the arches.
When I replaced my rear springs the car lifted by 3-4cm. Front did not raise up but was noticeably firmer and nicer to drive around corners.
Might also be front shock absorber central adjuster needing cleaning of oil etc and tightening, cheaper to do before going for a new spring.
If you can find a similar car you can do a comparison on sogginess and ride height.

Andy

[Ron Hayhurst]

If there is rubbing from the front tyres it may be because a previous owner decided to improve the turning circle. On full lock a boss on the track-rod arm closes against the front axle. To improve the lock, it is not uncommon for some enthusiasts to carefully file back the boss to improve  the turning circle to the extent that the tyre occasionally rubs. Maybe a comparison with a "standard" arm is one way to know if this is the case, alternatively perhaps you can get a check measurement off another car of a certain distance from, say, nosecone to tip of tyre on full lock.
Ron

[Tony Griffiths]

For driving tests, as well as grinding away the stops, we used to cut a little V-shaped wedge out of the inner valance to give even more clearance - as well as using bald, 3.25-inch section front tyres...