Well yesterday!
Josie and I drove from Findon to Worthing and then along the south coast to Shoreham Airport for a photo. Then went along the airport side road to Ricardo, parked and walked over the footbridge to see the memorial to the men that died in the airshow accident.
We then crossed the A27 and pootled up the Coombes Road past Lancing Collage and through Steyning and headed towards Partridge Green. Before getting to Ashurst we turned left onto Spithandle Lane and drove through the Sussex Countryside towards Ashington.
Joining the A24 we had a blast back to Findon even getting 45MPH at the top of Washington Hill.
Terrific FUN !
Going over the new to me RN I sorted a couple of issues, loose Tie Rod, one rear axle hub needed a tighten and the a closer look at the engine which runs quite well apart from a too fast idle. Checked the Block to Crankase nuts, all nice and tight in the tappet gallery BUT the RH side all needed a tighten, and then the fun bit, the front one. OK remove the generator, not hard! still could not get a bite at that nut, sacrifed a spanner and ground it down, still no go, the gene mount has to come off, can't get to the nut behind the Camshaft Pulley, so drain the radiator, off with it, off with the gene mount and now I can get it off so to tighten that front Nut. Because of Covid no spares for gaskets and because of our 5KM limit no gasket paper. Hopefull my home made gaskets out of photo paper will fill the bill.
A little time in the workshop, singing quietly in the hope that Andy Fox knows an agent who might sign me up for a career. A couple of questions discovered. Do any of our cherished suppliers sell Freccia replacement valves? Not sure that they are a familiar installation for a Seven. Having drained the very gooey contents, what remained stuck inside the sump was...interesting. A very thick emulsion that was resistant to petrol or acetone and had to be scraped out. Quite what is the result of that mixture for lubrication of bearings, time and further investigation will tell.
04-10-2020, 10:41 PM (This post was last modified: 04-10-2020, 10:45 PM by Bob Culver.)
Hi Circeonya
For thicK gaskets the heavy paper in banan boxes is useful.
Hi Steve
when I was a schoolboy around 1950 I was given the job of cleaning the sump of our Seven. it was used extensively for short runs and with the oils of the time th sump was often fill with grey sludge with a burrow where the oil pump lived. Main bearing life was always short. the balls and tracks appeared matt grey.
In later times with later oils and extensive main road running no trace of sludge and bearings fine, retaining chrome like finish. As i have mentioned before i suspect a thermostat would do more for many Seven engines than the exotic oils often passed through.
The valve appears oversize. I dunno what modern valves are made of but many Seven valves were not even XB steel. Driven hard life between valve grinds was ony 5000 miles or so. modern steels (non magnetic) are remarkble; from experience with other cars will function with cracked seats etc and still not burn.
I've done the thermostat mod as suggested on this site and am very pleased with the results.
The engine warms up quickly and keeps a nice consistent temperature on runs. before the mod the temperature was all over the place depending on use and/or conditions.
Buy an Austin 7 they said, It's easy to work on they said !
Freccia valves were widely available as an aftermarket replacement (distributed I think by Causeway Autos/ Northwoods, and sold by the various A7 specialists) around 40 or 50 years ago, but have not been around as far as I know since then. There was nothing special about them, they were not oversize, and any standard A7 valve will do to replace them.
I've searched and I've got close....but I can't find the details of the thermostat mod in thr forum. Where is it please, or more importantly, wha are the details of the thermostat used.
05-10-2020, 03:02 PM (This post was last modified: 05-10-2020, 03:42 PM by Nick Lettington.)
I used a Renault 5 one. Drill a couple of small holes through it to allow a little bit of thermosyphon. You need a slightly fatter hose for the thermostat, but with a couple of jubilee clips and a bit of tube it all joins up... I'll find a photo or three of mine, which works well.
Look back to pages 143 to 148 of this thread. It is well covered!
Excuse the modern BMW hose... but it was the perfect size to fit the top water outlet and then fattened to take the thermostat and then join back up...
bystander Wrote:Freccia valves were widely available as an aftermarket replacement (distributed I think by Causeway Autos/ Northwoods, and sold by the various A7 specialists) around 40 or 50 years ago, but have not been around as far as I know since then. There was nothing special about them, they were not oversize, and any standard A7 valve will do to replace them.
Older than that! I was introduced to Freccia valves by the late Ray Stevens (anyone remember him?) in the late 1970's and they were obsolete then!
There was something special about them, they didn't burn out like the then commonly available new valves, on leaded petrol.
I still look out for them although the new valves sold these days seem to be much better or perhaps the lack of lead helps. Or is it that I'm not doing 20,000 a year any more??
