Joined: Aug 2017 Posts: 2,400 Threads: 33
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Location: Deepest Frogland 30960
Car type: 1933 RP Standard Saloon
I believe that the original fitting to the Ruby series cars was a Lucas DK4 distributor which gives 8 degrees advance. Earlier cars has a Lucas DJ distributor which has no centrifugal advance and relied on manual adjustment via the column lever. A manually adjusted dizzy should be set at full retard for starting and then advanced when on the move. Advance is clockwise relative to the distributor body and its base. The column levers may have been reversed!
Joined: Aug 2017 Posts: 772 Threads: 33
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Location: Beautiful Northumberland
Car type: 1933 RP Saloon (aka Mildred)
Just to add to Reckers' comments, mine is an RP but the levers (ignition and gas) were reversed both in operation and side to side, so could not have been more wrong.
Lots can (and will) have happened in 80 odd years of tinkering and bodgery. I had a brake pin which had broken and rather than replaced had been threaded to take a bolt from the back, but the bolt was so large that you could see some of the thread through the side of the pin...I found all this out because it was so weak that it snapped at 30mph and locked the wheel up. Very exciting...
But once sorted you will not regret joining in the fun.
Andy
Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think!
Joined: Aug 2017 Posts: 1,191 Threads: 71
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Just a quick follow up on local Clubs. Having looked at the Chassis register, your car is noted as belonging to someone in the Brooklands Centre. It may be that people in that group will already know the car and some of its history...
Joined: Aug 2017 Posts: 2,748 Threads: 31
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Location: Auckland, NZ
15-08-2019, 05:56 PM
(This post was last modified: 15-08-2019, 09:11 PM by Bob Culver.)
The ign advance is certainly non standard. It is likely to have both auto and manual. Or the auto may be locked. Two auto variants, the original one for your car with considerable advance. See recent posts.
The manual system alone, depending on how levers are arranged, can give a large range and retardabout half way adequate to start.
If a cable is involved it is not a standard manual advance. May be for the driver to experiment with.
Joined: Aug 2017 Posts: 781 Threads: 26
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Location: On a hill in Wiltshire
We don't know that it has an Austin 7 engine yet.
Joined: Aug 2017 Posts: 107 Threads: 6
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In general, it looks a lovely car certainly body-wise, a Mk2 Ruby and I suspect it was registered in 1938 as it looks as if it has got a steel sunroof. Difficult to say whether it has a 2 or 3 bearing engine, if the latter the engine will have a small web/vertical metal casting about halfway along between the engine mountings and it definitely should have a DK4 Distributor (deeper base than existing one) with automatic advance and retard. Strange system on the Advance and Retard lever on the distributor especially as spring-loaded, never seen that before!!! Suspect that whoever set this manual distributor up had it so that on tensioning the lever against the spring that action retarded the ignition for starting and then let it go when the engine warmed up...but just a guess!
Take your time to get acquainted with the car, everything is really simple and mechanical unless someone has modified it, such as the braking system (ref. to 'no fluid!'). Also as has already been suggested get the documents sorted out. There are loads of books on the Austin 7 but some can make even the simplest of tasks look complicated!
Joined: Aug 2018 Posts: 190 Threads: 5
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Location: Dorset seaside
It's within the last 100 Rubys produced as it has a steel sunroof and hidden hinge (step backwards, open one side at a time ) bonnets, I bet it has bakelite on the top of the handbrake lever and no doubt Big 7 rear axle with rod brakes
