Will the problems never end, vol.2

[DazeOff]

In 55 years I've had 16 A7's with 2 very recent 'Dogs'. The first (which we still have) we call 'Frankie' because we suspect it was made from parts. The second was said to be "ready to drive..." MY ARSE!!!!  50 hours just to make it even driveable. Problems with A7's just never end and you may just have to accept that. 

I'm now into my 3rd 1933 Austin 10 and my god they are fabulous, strong, girder chassis, brilliant brakes, 4 door - just a larger Seven.......but Austin engines either go on forever or the problems never end.  In 87 years from leaving the factory, there is so much to wear and fail, but I'm discovering the modern replacments parts are not a patch on the originals. My bitch is HEAD GASKETS, how bloody difficult can it be to make a reliable head gasket?. OK asbestos is out, but it's not rocket science. The latest 10 has only travelled 600 miles from a £9000 rebuild and the head gasket blew today. I wonder why most early Austins had the two cab flaps??? was it to allow the oil vapour to escape generated from leaking head gaskets which caused crankcase compression. You really have to be an enthusiast to own and drive Austins. I wonder which British marque has lasted the longest???

[Bob Culver]

There does seem to be a potential market for an effctive gasket substitute. Both my father and myself repeatedly reused Seven gaskets, as Nicholson and other hanbooks assumed. Without trouble, but now read of regular problems. Similarly I ran a Javelin for decades with the heads very frequently removed. Because of differnt expansion rates these wet liner engnes are prone to gasket trouble but none despite reuse. Club members now report frequent failures despite low usage.
A colleague very familiar with Ford 10s rcently renovated a 1935 A10. It had some substitute pistons which raised the cr and he impressed by performance. Also reckoned steered and rode better than a Ford. But the heavy engine had to be removed from underneath and I vaguely remember the clutch/gerabox also difficult so not as ideally amateur suited as a Seven. Used parts here very cheap.

[Alan]

Nothing wrong with the current supply of head gaskets. My race car operates at more than three times the power output and considerably higher compression than standard. I don’t have head gasket problems. But then my head and block aren’t warped. Are yours?

[Colin Reed]

Hi,
Just wondering how you get compression increase from a leaking Head gasket.

Colin
NZ

[Steve Jones]

Nothing wrong with the current supply of head gaskets. My race car operates at more than three times the power output and considerably higher compression than standard. I don’t have head gasket problems. But then my head and block aren’t warped. Are yours?

+1. My experience exactly.

Steve

[Tony Press]

In 55 years I've had 16 A7's with 2 very recent 'Dogs'. The first (which we still have) we call 'Frankie' because we suspect it was made from parts. The second was said to be "ready to drive..." MY ARSE!!!!  50 hours just to make it even driveable. Problems with A7's just never end and you may just have to accept that. 

I'm now into my 3rd 1933 Austin 10 and my god they are fabulous, strong, girder chassis, brilliant brakes, 4 door - just a larger Seven.......but Austin engines either go on forever or the problems never end.  In 87 years from leaving the factory, there is so much to wear and fail, but I'm discovering the modern replacments parts are not a patch on the originals. My bitch is HEAD GASKETS, how bloody difficult can it be to make a reliable head gasket?. OK asbestos is out, but it's not rocket science. The latest 10 has only travelled 600 miles from a £9000 rebuild and the head gasket blew today. I wonder why most early Austins had the two cab flaps??? was it to allow the oil vapour to escape generated from leaking head gaskets which caused crankcase compression. You really have to be an enthusiast to own and drive Austins. I wonder which British marque has lasted the longest???

WOW! I wonder what Master Dunford has to say about this 

[Zetomagneto]

I think he’s talking about Austin 10 head gaskets

[Hedd_Jones]

Nothing wrong with the current supply of head gaskets. My race car operates at more than three times the power output and considerably higher compression than standard. I don’t have head gasket problems. But then my head and block aren’t warped. Are yours?

As a mere mortal maintaining Austin 7 engines, I must disagree. The point is that the gaskets presently availible do not perform as well as those availible even 10 years ago.

They may well work when all is 100%, but are not so good when they are not. 

Those of us lucky enough to remember proper copper and asbestos gaskets will know how forgiving they were. The present products bear no resemblance. 

We should of course be gratefull that gaskets are availible, but we shoukd not kid ourselves that they are ace. They are not, they are shit.

[Zetomagneto]

Well Tony’s gone to a lot of trouble to get good ones.
I suspect a large number of head gasket failures are because the job has not been done properly 
,non flat surfaces, poor studs, using gasket more than once to name but a few

[David Stepney]

I have no experience of the 'modern' head gaskets. However, I remember that, some little while ago, there was difficulty with head gaskets for the high compression head ( '36 on). My car came with an unused NOS 'Payen' head gasket which I used when I had the engine to bits the first time, as the gasket that I removed made of was some sort of Bakelite material! The second time I had the block off, I reused this gasket and, so far (and slightly shy of 1000 miles) I have had no problems.