What have you done today with your Austin Seven

[frequentflyer]

Thats one way of skimming a head. not conventional but I guess it works fine.

[Charles P]

Thats one way of skimming a head. not conventional but I guess it works fine.

It's worked well for me for some years. You need a solid and accurate lathe with a decent faceplate (as you can see)

[Charles P]

Hi folks. 
I am posting from sunny New Jersey. I may have mentioned before that I picked up a chassis and engine from Connecticut this Summer. In the process of tearing down the engine to find out if it’s a runner with not too much effort. Look at the attached picks. When I took the head off I see that some of the valves have been replaced with Ford (USA) valves. Anyone heard of this before? Can I use these as replacements?  I am super curious. 
All the best 
Chris Law.

I’ve not seen that before but have adapted non Austin valves to fit in the past. It’s not hard to alter a valve head or stem if you have suitable machine tools. I’ve not heard of of a direct replacement from a Ford but you never know. 
If you put it together with Austin type parts from one of the suppliers do check the diameters first. When people start modifying parts they sometimes modify the rest. It’s worth checking the cotter and valve cap arrangement too.

[Reckless Rat]

Nice day today, but rain forecast for tonight so I thought I'd make the most of it and take the Austin out for a run round the block, and fill it up at the supermarché with a few litres of E10 ready for the winter.
First of all I had to release the Kraken (Merc) so I could get the RP out from the middle of the garage:



I had a run round through St Sauveur de Cruzières and the old 403 pick-up is still there. It made me think of the Monty Python film where they are calling "Bring out your dead!" and an old guy in a loincloth says "I'm not dead yet!"



On the way round there was a guy harvesting his olives - very bucolic!



The traffic, as usual, was terrible...



The RP is now back in its nest, covered in a couple of sheets until the next nice day...

Bon weekend!
RR

[JohnD]

Started to change this a few weeks ago and when removed the spring pins broke, so this weekend, with new parts received this was finally changed

Amazing what people had to repair before we had the cherished suppliers working hard to supply these parts 

   

[Jamie]

My Ruby had had one of these rear links replaced with a piece of flat steel, about a 1/4" thick, drilled for the bolts. They dispensed altogether with the rubber bushes.

Jamie.

[Stuart Joseph]

Having spent a chunk of the kid’s inheritance on a surface grinder and magnetic chuck I was advised by a Kent based engineer (who is a correspondent on these pages and I greatly respect) that the best results were achieved by facing the head in the lathe. He also introduced me to the concept of ‘wedging’ which I hadn’t heard of before. Fortunately my Harrison 140 is up to the task. 

Regards from the creative county Staffordshire.