What have you done today with your Austin Seven

[Tony Griffiths]

Lovely composition with the Chummy in front of the cottage Tony!

Thank you! It's Ashford in the Water.

[Ivor Hawkins]

You are welcome to the bit of aluminium extrusion that I used to clamp onto the transverse piece as a guide to trim it down. I also learned the hard way (though I should have known really) that the more expenisve genuine Dremel cutting blades were the only way to go and having gone through about 10 cheapo nasty things, once I had invested in the genuine article, 1 blade saw the job done in about an hour...

Thank you Hugh, I’ve also learned the hard way with Drexel blades, it’s not actually the width of the rail that’s causing me problems, it’s the clearance between the rail and the criss bars in the sliding roof, I have a feeling it’s bent runner guides causing the problem.

[Nick Lettington]

I spent a happy hour or so making repairs to the sump threads on a crank case that will eventually be built up for my ORT. A previous owner's broken tap, a skewed second hole next to a snapped bolt (now also removed), all good fun... one more sloppy thread needs to be done before I start the rebuild.


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[Dave Mann]

Spent the day repairing a friends fuel pump, the inlet valve seat was knackered and I ended up re cutting the seat, no idea what damaged it.

[Malcolm Parker]

I haven't used the Pytchley much over the last year.  Having converted it from twin SU's to a single 1" SU, I detected considerable harshness in the engine and feared the worst.    The engine is the first I ever built up, back in 1982, and it has done service in several specials over the last 40 years.  I suspected that there could be a problem with the bottom end, which has an original crank and rods.
Part of the conversion to a single carb involved changing the cylinder head, from a planed low comp to a bronze 9E1.   I spent the other afternoon trying to sort it out and establish the problem.   It seemed to be ignition related.   It has a Bosch distributor but it is an old Skoda unit probably 30 years old, in other words, not a rubbish repro unit.
To cut a long story short, it turned out that my problem was nothing more than a set of duff spark plugs.   I fitted a set of known old plugs and set the mixture and timing up from scratch.
Today being a lovely spring day i did some road testing to fine tune the mixture and ignition settings.    Starting from my driveway opposite the Church there is a slight rise through the village, a water trough on the right hand side defines the end of Sector 1.  Leaving the village there is a road junction on the left which is the end of Sector 2, then a left hand bend and a long drag up a hill of about 1 in 8 to the end of Sector 3 at the gates of the 'big house' at the top of the hill.
My dashcam records each run and the sector times and speeds are useful for analysis.    Before anyone accuses me of road racing I would point out that the top speed recorded on any of the runs is 35 mph.  This is less than the average speed of cyclists who pass through the village with the apparent blessing of the authorities.
When the Pytchley had twin SU's the time recorded was 75 seconds for the climb, with the single 1" SU I recorded two times of 72 seconds, on one run I lost a second or two having to slow for a pair of partridges on the road.   A third run had to be aborted as there were three horses up ahead.
       

[Neil Morrison]

Not so much what I did with my Seven but what I did with some parts.   I went over to Bill of  ‘All Alloy Cup’  fame who had kindly agreed to fire up his nickel plating kit and we spent the afternoon plating the boot lid catch parts and my self made bonnet catches which have come out with a very nice finish for which I am very grateful. 

I also take this opportunity to express my appreciation of the help the Forum has provided to me over the last few years in the building of my ‘special’.   As others have said what a marvellous resource,  my thanks to those who run it and also those who regularly post.   You may wonder, no threads by me and very few posts but the information was usually there, just needed looking for!  I also rather enjoy the “ off piste” posts.


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[Ruairidh Dunford]

Looking good Neil and those castings came up nicely!

[Malcolm Parker]

That's a very pretty and practical 'special', Neil.  Most people would call it a GE Cup!

[Hedd_Jones]

I spent last night gathering the bits to make a start on the next 'Special' project.

   

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[goodwoodweirdo]

thats a interesting pile of parts, love the BFG they'll help with trials :-)