I am looking to reinstate the original handbrake into my Ruby. I currently uses hydraulic brakes and a Morris minor cable hand brake.
I can't see any obvious fittings on the chassis for the cross-shaft and have recently acquired a cross-shaft (image attached). What fittings and attachments to I need to fit the cross-shaft back into the chassis and connect the hand-brake lever? Also are all the parts available with the main suppliers or do I need to hunt out old parts?
I can't seem to find technical or parts information on the A7CA website.
I have found this image below from a previous thread, but don't know where to source the parts as the seven workshop, austin seven components, etc... don't seem to stock most of the parts along he cross-shaft.
You need to look at the A7CA Archive where you will find the Austin works spares booklets that can be downloaded free fully or just a page from the booklet.
You appear to have all the main parts save for the brackets that hold the assembly to the chassis. As far as I know, these have never been available. As a temporary measure, until you can find some used examples, you might want to use what I saw on one car, a pair of self-aligning bearings in imperial plummer blocks from RS. Inexpensive and very much more rigid than the units fitted originally.
31-07-2022, 09:24 AM (This post was last modified: 31-07-2022, 09:25 AM by Hugh Barnes.)
The thing to bear in mind, James, is the cross shaft needs to be quite a 'sloppy' fit in the housings. The chassis flexes so much that if the cross shaft is held too tightly, it binds when the car moves around on the road... Tony's suggestion of the self aligning bearings may overcome that, but just so you are aware of that aspect...
31-07-2022, 09:51 AM (This post was last modified: 31-07-2022, 10:08 AM by John Cornforth.
Edit Reason: addition
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Hi James
The cross shaft you picture is for the semi-girling setup, the final incarnation of a design that evolved and grew in complexity (and weight) over the years. It dates from mid 1936 to 1939.
I restored one recently, and even with no missing parts it was a heroic struggle with umpteen felts, circlips, washers and bearings. The chassis brackets are fabricated from stamped steel, and fix to the angled chassis rails with 8 rivets. Unlike the earlier versions they have plain bearings rather than self aligning types. There is also a centre bearing to resist the bending forces from the handbrake lever.
If you only want to restore the handbrake function, you only need the smaller diameter inner shaft with its two outermost levers. However, once you ditch the hollow outer shaft you will need to modify the offside chassis bearing to suit the smaller diameter. At the centre, you need only one of the three levers, to take the force from the base of the handbrake lever.
I include a couple of extracts of the drawings I made during the restoration process plus a photo of the whole assembly. If you decide to go ahead I can dig out more photos and drawings.
Thank you for the advice and photos, they should help a lot. I will definitely look into the self-aligning pillow blocks as Tony suggested as I don't have the facilities to create the brackets you have brilliantly created.
I am only looking to restore the handbrake function at the moment but am planning to put the whole cross-shaft in, in case I wish to re-fit cable brakes at some point in the future.
My ruby is a Mk1 but produced in mid-36 and I have found it has some little features of the of the MK2 (clearly when they ran out of MK1 stock).
Were you able to fit to the chassis without removing the car body? It does look like it could be a fiddle to get into place.
31-07-2022, 07:43 PM (This post was last modified: 31-07-2022, 07:45 PM by John Cornforth.)
Hi again
James
The brackets (shown in purple on my drawings) are standard Austin, and I was lucky enough to get some along with a shaft so had no need to create them. I ended up buying two shafts at different times to get enough parts to create one good one. A case of "I've started so I will finish".
As standard, the brackets are riveted to the chassis rails but the rivets can be replaced by quarter-inch hi-tensile bolts and nyloc nuts. This makes cross shaft fitment feasible without removing the body, but you still need to thread it through the longitudinal chassis brace that carries the handbrake. So yes, fiddly is the word.
The centre bearing sits in a square plate which bolts to this chassis brace. Its 4 holes are slighly elongated, as are the ones in the chassis, which allows a bit of fore-aft and up-down tweaking before it is bolted up hard.
