Austin Seven
Matt strips and cleans every last piece of his Seven…
After weeks of stripping every nut, bolt and cotter pin from my Austin Seven’s rolling chassis, I’d made the decision to send a number of key components away for blasting and/or powder coating. Having carefully boxed and labelled everything leaving the shed, my friend Matt Rathbone came across to shuttle the bits to the blasters.
Only the rear axle – already stripped, cleaned and painted – remained, so it was that which filled my time to begin with. A careful inspection of the crown wheel and pinion revealed witness marks perfectly central to each, meaning there was no need to mess around with the number of shims in place between the torque tube and axle casing. Mine being the later ‘heavy’ axle means that no off-the-shelf gasket is available to seal the two halves of the main axle casing. I therefore cut one from gasket paper.
A little bearing tightness presented itself due to the new gasket being marginally thinner than the original, so I backed off the bearing adjusters before re-fitting their cover plates with fresh gaskets. Finally, to keep oil in at the top of the axle, I replaced the torque tube’s upper scroll seal with a modern lip seal set-up from Oxfordshire Sevens. The return of the chassis atop Matt’s Volvo estate saw a turning point for the rolling chassis build. Inside said Swedish load lugger was a plastic box filled with assorted parts of the running gear, resplendent in gloss back powder coat, as well as blasted springs, track rod, front axle beam and radius arms. The crank case returned, too, fresh from vapour blasting – and it was beautiful!
Blast from the past
The trip to the blasters had saved me countless hours of cleaning by hand and the cost wasn’t much more than the materials I’d have used to do an inferior (and far messier) job at home. After a quiet couple of weeks, I wasted no time in getting stuck in with the newly-clean jigsaw pieces. The front spring was split apart, and a leaf removed to compensate for the loss of the hefty Ruby body. The leaves’ working surfaces then received a light dressing with a flap wheel before a coat of chassis back, grease then reassembly. The ¼ ecliptics at the rear were topped with a piece cut from their removed leaf to keep their thickness correct, then each re-riveted with a countersunk steel rivet from Sapphire Products Ltd (see stepby-step on following page).
The axle and radius arms were carefully inspected for cracks or damage before, too, receiving a couple of coats of chassis black.
The vapour-blasted aluminium crank case was masked carefully and, after a thorough degrease, received three heavy coats of clear lacquer to keep its pristine surface clean.
The chassis itself required just two pin holes filling with weld to make it solid, but blasting had revealed several loose rivets that were dutifully ground off and replaced with nuts and bolts to restore factory levels of stiffness to the frame. A dust with rust converting primer to catch any nasties remaining in the steel’s pits was quickly followed with two coats of aerosol chassis black then another three of brush-on. The next step will be to strengthen the chassis beyond factory specification but within the confines of what is allowable within VSCC guidelines to allow the finished special to be granted eligibility paperwork. A trip to see master Seven builder, Ian Tillman, at Oxfordshire Sevens beckons.
I’ll report on that next time.
Going round in circles
I’d been sorely tempted to send the wheels away with the chassis components for blasting and powder coating, however opted instead to send them down to friend of PC and winner of our Restorer of the Year competition, Richard Skinner. Richard runs Tudor Wheels and, when he’s not working on his own projects, restores vintage and classic wheels for enthusiasts all over the world. The wheels of my Seven are 83 years-old and I figured Richard’s experienced eye would spot any safety issues with the wheels before I embarked on restoring them aesthetically. A call on delivery of the wheels confirmed I’d made the right decision.
‘I’m really sorry, Matt, but these wheels are going to need a fair bit of work.’ Richard had realised that all of the wheels required either individual spokes replacing or completely respoking.
He enlisted the help of his colleague Nick Mouat, who is highly experienced in Austin Seven wheel building and is Richard’s first choice for Seven wheels, and spoking in general.
Nick thoroughly assessed the wheels as to which spokes needed to be replaced and which wheels needed fully rebuilding before fitting each wheel in turn to a special jig that replicates the Austin Seven’s hub and allows spokes to be fitted and adjusted so that the rim runs perfectly true.
With the safety issues addressed, it was then on to the aesthetics. The refurbished wheels were submerged in a chemical dip tank for three days to remove all the old paint and grease from the wheel before being bead blasted to remove all corrosion and etch the steel ready for priming. At that point, Richard gave the wheels a final inspection to check for rust perforations or excessive pitting in the rims before a powder coat primer was applied and assessed. Once Richard was happy with the primer’s finish, a final coat of gloss black powder coat was applied.
Richard then delivered the wheels to me when the PC team visited Beaulieu on what would have been the International Autojumble weekend and, the following morning, I took a trip to see PC alumnus, Ben Field, at Vintage Tyres. Ben shod the now perfect wheels with a set of Waymaster BL100 crossplies, complete with a fresh set of inner tubes. Now back in the shed, the wheels sit patiently awaiting the bringing together of the growing pile of restored components to create a rolling chassis…
‘Richard found the Ruby’s wire wheels to be in a very dangerous state’