Austin 7 Trials Special

[Pjkpjk]

I’ll take some photo’s tomorrow, cheers Peter

[Nick Lettington]

A friend with a Speedex 750 told me the steering wheel boss on an Austin Healey 3000 has the same spines. He owns both cars, so I'm confident that they are interchangeable... if you get a Moto Lita boss you could fit a smaller wheel. Some of the bosses on Ebay have a deep tulip shape like the Ruby wheel so would give both benefits.

[Ian Williams]

I believe spring spoke Austin 8 wheels fit as well, but not sure if they would help much, although aesthetically ugly a Ruby wheel as mentioned above is the simple answer. the only issue with that could be if you have manual advance retard, but that can be overcome with a little ingenuity. If you have the skills it would be possible to craft a ring onto a Ruby boss thus creating something similar to a Nippy frank ashby type boss, you could then attach various rim spoke configurations. Willie McKenzie was at one time making reproduction Frank Ashby wheels. If a Ruby wheel solves the clearance issue a Frank Ashby wheel will look a dam sight better and put the rim in a similar location relative to the top of the column.

[Nick Lettington]

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There's always the option of cutting down a Ruby wheel for a boss... these photos are fairly self explanatory... (thanks Dave!)

[Paul N-M]

How about this solution.
I had an old damaged wheel so used that. Cut down spokes, rim made with 27mm OD x 3mm wall aluminium tubing rolled into circle then welded to spokes. In this case the wheel OD is 13.5" but could easily be 14" or whatever. I dont need the center levers so turned up a blanking piece but you could just as easily put the levers back.
Surprising thing is hardly anyone notices my wheel is much smaller.

[Pjkpjk]

Hi, thanks for the further suggestions, looking at the smaller fabricated wheel, I think something like that could solve my problem without the need to alter what is a fairly decent job of the seat assembly.Indeed I took the 7 out today in between snow showers and managed to work all the pedals quite well,a small amount  of extra space and I’d think we’d be there.Anyway as promised here’s the car cabin, neither the hand throttle or advance/retards levers are in use, so presumably could be removed ( are they connected from the underside of the steering box?),Thanks again Peter

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And a couple more of the pedals and seat

[Steve Jones]

It may just be the angle of the photo but the seat base looks quite wide. How wide is it?

Steve

[Pjkpjk]

Hi Steve, do you mean how deep is the seat base? If so it’s about 4 inches, but compresses to very little when sat on, cheers Peter

[Mike Costigan]

Ruby seat cushions have a shaped metal base - it might be worth seeing if one could be fitted direct into the floor arrangement, which might sink your bottom just below floor level and could be used without much/any padding.

["Slack Alice" Simon]

With a different wedge under the steering box, and a different clamp between dash and column, you can move the wheel upwards by a couple of inches.

This made a tremendous difference in my car, when I had to fit a lad of 6'3"" or so in.

Limiting factor in "Alice" was ones knuckles hitting the scuttle top when turning the wheel.

Undo the bracket and move it away, slacken off the steering box mountings etc. (which is the difficult bit, access is tight, usually), cable tie the column to the crossbar, and see how that feels when you sit in.