1937 Austin Seven Ruby

[metroman]

After years of "wouldn't that be nice", especially after Beaulieu autojumbles, I have finally bitten the bullet and bought an Austin Seven...

Being stuck in the house not really able to see anyone for months left me with plenty of time to research. As entertaining as an early car with 3 speed crash gearbox sounded I figured it would rapidly stop being entertaining as soon as I had to use a dual carriage way or large roundabout so this narrowed my search down to a Ruby. As well as a 4 speed gearbox with syncro on 2nd, 3rd and 4th these cars also had marginally better brakes and a higher compression engine (6:1!) so seemed to me to be the best bet for a car that could be pushed into regular service. With this in mind I read everything I could find on the matter and, as soon as lockdown restrictions allowed, hopped in the car to go view one, just to get an idea of what they are like really.

The car I went to see had been in storage for two years. First impressions were pretty good, it looked honest if a bit tired. It had been restored in the 70s and used pretty sparingly since. The original engine had spun a big end bearing after an oil jet had become blocked. The engines rely of an accurately aimed jet of oil which sprays into a trough on the side of the crankshaft web to lubricate the big ends. With nothing but a sheet of gauze in the sump for filtration these jets regularly clog and starve the bearings of oil so a close eye must be kept on the oil pressure. Any spike when warm means danger. Rather than rebuild the original engine an unissued military fire pump with a 7 engine had been found by the previous owner and the Ruby engine who had it rebuilt with new pistons and fitted a few thousand miles ago.

Despite the 2 year slumber the engine fired up almost instantly on the hand crank with a fresh battery and splash of fresh fuel, and sat idling very happily. I was impressed by this, and even more impressed when the seller took me out for a drive in it. Mechanically everything felt good, far better than I had been lead to expect. The brakes worked, the steering wasn't trying to kill me, the clutch was just a clutch and the gearbox was smooth. Other than being down on power I didn't think it drove any 'worse' than a Series Land Rover.

Being a sensible person I thanked the seller and went home knowing that with this sort of car only an idiot would buy the first they had seen. Being an idiot I called up the next day and a deal was made.

Being an even bigger idiot I also arranged that collection be postponed 6 weeks to last weekend.

Armed with a suitcase of Whitworth spanners and a lot of spares I jumped on a train on Friday evening to Oxford in time for my first indoor pub pint(s) of 2021 with an old friend from uni. Another friend joined in the morning and with his 320D full of spares and tools and us fuelled up with fried goodness we set off to Coventry.



And here she is! Perfect, all we had to do now was transfer the money and fire her up. So the card reader broke. Ad then my phone app locked me out. Nothing for it but to call up the bank and pay for it from the joint account. That was a stressful 40 minutes. In the mean time the seller was also having an experience, the engine wouldn't start! This was made more fun by a non-functional starter motor.





After some faff new plugs were fitted, the points and rotor arm cleaned and the pump re-primed and she burst into life and sat idling as if nothing had happened.



And with that, we set off! The first stint was 20 miles down the Fosse Way to Caffeine and Machine, who were full. Another pub just down the road wasn't so we stopped of a pit stop.



Everything had been working well and a spanner check confirmed nothing was about to fall off. The engine was definitely feeling down on power. When getting it going I had noticed the rotor arm was very loose on the shaft in the dizzy and looked pretty ancient so I swapped it out for a new one.





Some fun was had getting her fired up (note the glasses)



And we were off again



The replacement rotor made a notable difference to performance, before I was having to drop down to 3rd for long inclines which meant dropping to stupidly low speeds (25mph) which was making me a complete nuisance for other road users. I was now able to hold 4th and maintain 30 - 35mph on a climb with a cruise at 40 - 45. Any faster and the handling got a bit wayward and the engine felt like it was being trashed.



It did start to rain which you really notice in one of these, the single 6 volt windscreen smearer did very little to help. I was very grateful we had applied some Rainex before setting off. Thankfully it passed quite quickly.

Next stop was a photo op







And then a quick pitstop to check the oil jets.



These are accessible on by removing a pair of blanking screws in the side of the crankcase and poking a thin wire through them to clear any debris. The radiator was topped up to account for a small leak from the top hose and on we went.



An excellent lunch was had at the Hook Norton brewery with more photographs.

By this stage I was pretty tired so forgot to take any more photos. The car was now really running well and I was feeling much more confident driving it. After afternoon tea in Kiddlington we tackled Oxford head on and drove through the centre of town before stopping for the night in Abingdon. Over 100 miles covered without incident, not bad in my book...

More to follow soon

James

[goldnrust]

Awesome.

Sounds like a great adventure, and I look forward to reading about the second half of it!

As someone who’s also toyed with the idea of a ‘properly old’ car several times, it would be great to learn more about it and it’s idiosyncrasies and the experience of owning / driving it as you learn to live with it and put some more miles on it. 🙂

[johnthesparky]

Excellent

The videos are private though, need to change them to ‘unlisted’

[horrido]

This is great.
I think I'd find myself wondering how good/modern feeling you could make one of these, with the addition of decent tyres, damping, some anti roll and maybe one of those cute little Aisin superchargers. I'd guess the rubber on it is probably pretty ancient, which will be doing it no favours.

[dikkehemaworst]

dream territory!!
bookmarked!

[mr2fc]

May 31, 2021 17:22:53 GMT dikkehemaworst said:

dream territory!!
bookmarked!

Bookmarked for when the hot rodding begins...

[Paul H]

I drove a vintage 7 over 15 years ago, and it was terrifying (in a good way), so this sounds like a great fun car! I'll look forward to seeing it driving around the village

[metroman]

Safely back at my friends house in Abingdon with a few hours to kill before yet another pub meal we decided to tackle the starter motor. While she was firing up pretty easily on the handle now we had the hang of it I was becoming increasingly concerned about the consequences of stalling in traffic and causing a problem. So under an umbrella the starter was removed without any difficulty and put on the bench.



It will be repainted black.



Looking inside everything looked reasonable at first glance, the commutator was a bit dirty but not scored, and polished up with emery.

The cause of the problem was obvious, one of the brush carriers was bent out of shape completely. All I can assume is that someone replaced a brush and got over enthusiastic tightening it



A few minutes of careful persuasion got it looking sensible again. It was back together and in the car again just in time for dinner.



In the morning we addressed the rest of the ignition system. I had noted on the first viewing that the HT leads were not looking very clever with heavy corrosion on the contacts and loose wires in the crimps so had brought a kit along.





Cut to length and looking pretty smart with the new distributor cap.





The contacts in the coil were also in dire need of a clean! A rear wheel was also noted to be running out of true so was swapped out for the spare.

With that together she fired up and ran better than ever. The next door neighbour came out to take photographs and told us about going on holiday in his fathers box saloon in the late 40s which had been converted to run on paraffin due to petrol rationing, with a small petrol tank to get started on - and to switch to if police were present! I took him on the test drive around the block which went down well.

The 80 mile trip back using the satnav set to bicycle mode was completed again without a hitch. We crossed a pretty deep ford and the starter motor saved me on a lane when I stalled while reversing out of the way of a horsebox. The only hairy bit was an unexpected jaunt on the Basingstoke bypass for a mile which was interesting...



Back in time for tea!

Thanks for looking

James

[metroman]

johnthesparky - Thanks, hopefully fixed now

horrido - To be fair to the car it actually drives really quite well as it is. The tyres are pretty new and grip well. The plan, at least initially, is to get it to an 'as new' state mechanically and then reassess.

As far as getting it to drive anything like a modern car goes I think it would be very difficult. The difference in feel mostly comes from the steering, which is much more direct than anything I have driven post-war due to the combination of a live front axle and a very fast steering box which is much closer to a kart than a car in weight and response, if not precision.

Brakes can and often are replaced with 7" Morris Minor hydraulics but I am doubtful that this actually improves performance over well adjusted cable brakes as the area in contact is the same, it just feels less alien to someone not used to cable brakes. The weakness is the use of single leading shoes front and rear which I think can, and possibly will, be addressed.

The fear for me in modernising such a car would be a loss of character and occasion when driving, but performance at best still behind that of an A30 or early Minor.

Paul H - keep an eye out, she is in daily use now

[Jonny69]

I had an almost stock ‘54 Pop 103E for a few years. For all intents and purposes it was not much different to the preceding Model Y which was the 30s car sold alongside these. I loved it. So tiny and direct.

I did soup up my sidevalve a bit with higher compression head and high lift cam. Made quite a big difference to the driveability. One of the tuning options on the Pop back in the day was the 4-speed Austin box with synchro. I had one, but unfortunately I couldn’t work out how to get it in without quite a lot of surgery!

[VW]

Jun 1, 2021 10:14:32 GMT metroman said:

johnthesparky - Thanks, hopefully fixed now

horrido - To be fair to the car it actually drives really quite well as it is. The tyres are pretty new and grip well. The plan, at least initially, is to get it to an 'as new' state mechanically and then reassess.

As far as getting it to drive anything like a modern car goes I think it would be very difficult. The difference in feel mostly comes from the steering, which is much more direct than anything I have driven post-war due to the combination of a live front axle and a very fast steering box which is much closer to a kart than a car in weight and response, if not precision.

Brakes can and often are replaced with 7" Morris Minor hydraulics but I am doubtful that this actually improves performance over well adjusted cable brakes as the area in contact is the same, it just feels less alien to someone not used to cable brakes. The weakness is the use of single leading shoes front and rear which I think can, and possibly will, be addressed.

The fear for me in modernising such a car would be a loss of character and occasion when driving, but performance at best still behind that of an A30 or early Minor.

Paul H - keep an eye out, she is in daily use now

If the brakes are anything like fords of the era, the adjuster should float on the back plate. If It doesn't (they are normally seized), the brakes are rubbish. Freeing them off transformed my anglia brakes, could lock up the brand new crossplys easily.

[PhilA]

Jun 1, 2021 10:57:53 GMT Jonny69 said:

I had an almost stock ‘54 Pop 103E for a few years. For all intents and purposes it was not much different to the preceding Model Y which was the 30s car sold alongside these. I loved it. So tiny and direct.

I did soup up my sidevalve a bit with higher compression head and high lift cam. Made quite a big difference to the driveability. One of the tuning options on the Pop back in the day was the 4-speed Austin box with synchro. I had one, but unfortunately I couldn’t work out how to get it in without quite a lot of surgery!

It's interesting for me to see the difference between here and there. Pre-war, I think that the UK and America were about par for consumer product engineering, you have a lot of the same principles being used.
Post-war, the American economy was being floated by the government and spending power was high; my car still has a lot of 30's and 40's engineering carried over under the bodywork but in terms of the "mod cons" it was miles ahead- automatic choke, vacuum/weight modulated ignition timing, full pressure lubrication, 4 speed automatic gearbox, electric starter, heater with window defrost, dipping rear view mirror, AM radio with automatic antenna, telescopic shocks on dial wishbone suspension, the list goes on which reads much more like a bespoke coachbuilt car in the UK, not an everyman type of vehicle. That status quo wasn't met and out-accelerated until the late seventies.

[samta22]

Welcome to the club

Fantastic things to potter about in, especially in the lanes up here where you don't have to fight the delights of impatient 'modern' traffic

Oddly we too have been having some fun sorting the starter and replacing all fluids on SWMBO's baby recently


Drives so much better as a result though!

[skodacious]

metroman this is just lovely. I have a hankering for something similar and saw a well patinated Big 7 on CarandClassic the other week. I procrastinated and it went! Anyway, bookmarked and keen to see how you get on 🙂

[horrido]

Jun 1, 2021 10:14:32 GMT metroman said:

horrido - To be fair to the car it actually drives really quite well as it is. The tyres are pretty new and grip well. The plan, at least initially, is to get it to an 'as new' state mechanically and then reassess.

As far as getting it to drive anything like a modern car goes I think it would be very difficult. The difference in feel mostly comes from the steering, which is much more direct than anything I have driven post-war due to the combination of a live front axle and a very fast steering box which is much closer to a kart than a car in weight and response, if not precision.

Brakes can and often are replaced with 7" Morris Minor hydraulics but I am doubtful that this actually improves performance over well adjusted cable brakes as the area in contact is the same, it just feels less alien to someone not used to cable brakes. The weakness is the use of single leading shoes front and rear which I think can, and possibly will, be addressed.

The fear for me in modernising such a car would be a loss of character and occasion when driving, but performance at best still behind that of an A30 or early Minor.

I'd heard (via vintage VW circles) that cable brakes aren't inherently bad and certainly much better than you'd imagine. 

The steering sounds rather good, if different. Like it should be a bonus not a bug! 

When I say modernising, I should perhaps have chosen my words more carefully. "Making it as good as it can be, within the limitations of the original vehicle" is probably closer to what I meant. Not suggesting you do anything to mess with the character of the car. When I fitted new, good quality, adjustable shocks to my Beetle, it was just so night and day better I could hardly believe it. I was astounded that a single thing like that could make such a difference. What sort of dampers do these have? Lever arms?

[Paul H]

Jun 1, 2021 19:18:55 GMT horrido said:

I'd heard (via vintage VW circles) that cable brakes aren't inherently bad and certainly much better than you'd imagine. 

The 1930 Riley 9 that I drove on a VSCC event back in 2004 was cable braked & they were more powerful than those on a Morris Minor 1000. Going from my Amazon to the Riley wasn't an issue, but going from the Amazon to my Minor was scary... I can't remember what the brakes were like in the 7 I drove, as it wasn't on the road - Brooklands banking!!! However, provided that all the pulleys etc are kept in good order, I agree that there's nothing wrong with cable brakes. However compared to hydraulics, I imagine that it's a lot more work to look after them. On the 7, is there an adjuster that can be reached from the driver's seat to tweak the cables?

[metroman]

samta22 - what a beautiful car, the blue paintwork really suits her

horrido - that makes a lot of sense to me, damping is by a single friction damper on the front and a pair on the rear, so lots of scope for development. There is a bolt on kit to fit a pair of dampers to the front.

Paul H - on the Seven brake adjustment is advised to be done with the car in the air so it is a bit more involved, the cable brakes are certainly going to need more attention than hydraulics but that's part of the fun I think!

With the car safely back I took it along to the workshop to start servicing it and investigate a clunk from the rear axle which occurred if gear changes were not smooth enough. I had picked up on this on the original test drive and was reasonably confident it was the torque tube mount.



The mount forms the pivot / hard point on the chassis which the rear axle locates to



A prod with a screwdriver revealed movment





That is meant to be a metalastic / silentbloc bushing... That would explain the noise! A rummage in the box of useful tat dragged up some new Mini engine steady bushes were turned out to be a perfect fit and a quick, temporary fix until a proper bush arrives. Clonk gone and back on the road - time to celebrate with an ice cream and some photographs in Bosham harbour.



James

[Jonny69]

Jun 1, 2021 20:49:31 GMT metroman said:

Paul H - on the Seven brake adjustment is advised to be done with the car in the air so it is a bit more involved, the cable brakes are certainly going to need more attention than hydraulics but that's part of the fun I think!

They're probably more straightforward than you think. On the Pop, there was a front/back equaliser on the bottom of the brake pedal, a left/right equaliser at each axle, then a sliding compensator in each drum. You set the shoes in the drum like a normal drum with manual adjustment; you set the cable lengths once, so they're all pulling over-centre, plenty of grease under the sliding compensators and that was about it. After that, they mostly looked after themselves and adjustment was a bit like adjusting bike brakes.

The Y had individual cables running to each hub from the brake pedal. I believe they needed a bit more setting up because you had to manually set the cable tensions so that all 4 wheels pulled at the same time.

[metroman]

I think an update is due!

So since the last post the little Austin has been in as close to daily service as possible getting me to and from the workshop and town.

A known issue with the 6 volt dynamo cars is the current draw from the brake lights is more than the dynamo can charge at idle, and the problem gets worse when side or headlights are used. The lights are also not very good. I cleaned the contacts which helped a bit but decided to bring things into 2021 and get some LEDs from Classic Car LEDS. In theory this will allow me to keep the 6 volt system but bring the lighting up to more modern standards, which is important to me as I plan to use this car all year round.



Standard 6 volt sidelight



Old and new





Much better.

I did make a mistake in ordering and got negative earth, which is correct for earlier Sevens but wrong for a Ruby. Not a disaster, converting to negative earth took much less time and effort than sending the bulbs back! The longest part of the conversion was cleaning up the battery contacts.



It was well worth doing the LED conversion, the lights are much brighter and the current draw hardly registers on the ammeter now so I don't need to worry as much about the battery discharging on short trips.

Next on the list was the front axle. There was play in everything and the drivers side kingpin was starting to feel a bit loose. With the MG now on the road and not causing major headaches I have put the Seven into the 'shop and got to work.







Not too bad to remove, some fasteners were fiddly to get at but the main issue was the blistering heat!





It all got given a rinse with degreaser and the hose before inspection and strip down.



I am surprised how well the brakes were working... In fairness there is no contamination.



This was the real problem - there isn't meant to be any play there!



With the hub off the full extent of the disappointment was revealed.

The kingpin is meant to be a light tap / close sliding fit in the axle eye and is retained by a cotter pin. They are known to fret and wear the bore of the axle eye over time which can cause the hole to go out of round and no longer retain the kingpin. The wall thickness of the eye is quite thin, which may contribute to the problem, so the accepted 'correct' repair is to shrink the eye in a forge or weld around it. Oversized kingpins are also sold but reduce the wall thickness which can lead to the axle cracking.

The 'repair' on my axle is the worst of all worlds. The bronze is too soft and has deformed, and the axle is now very thin.

Moving forward I am going to refurbish all the components removed. The axle is going to a specialist to be crack tested. If this is successful they plan to weld the axle eye bore shut and then re-machine. As a backup I am keeping an eye out for a spare Ruby axle. I am a bit annoyed that the axle has been bodged but am pleased with the condition of everything else. It's all nicely made and enjoyable to work on, despite being a very cheap car for the time it doesn't feel like it has had many cost saving dweebs near it!

Onwards and upwards,

James

[oilyt]

Lovely , Have had a hankering for a ruby for a many years now . seeing a van at a vintage show a couple of years ago has made my mind up one is destined for a spot in my shed in the near future .