I know half of you will hate this video but hopefully there are some who understand and even like what I have
done to my Austin seven. It is a labour of love. It is not a road but a hill climb car, it competed last year in the Bo'ness Revival and got 5th.
This year the event has been postponed hopefully till next year. The major change this year is the steering and geometry. I have a 1950's Bowden
arrangement but it led to lousy handling with the original Austin worm and peg arrangement. There were two problems the double springs turned into a
parallelogram on the corners resulting in excessive oversteer and the relationship with the steering caused an instability. The springs change length
under load resulting in massive bump steer. Driving the steering input symmetrically from the middle gives a tow in change rather than a bump steer
artefact. Anyway if there are A7 originality experts about to view this don't it will just upset you!!!
https://youtu.be/l8R7YD4in4k
Love it!
A frame chassis, low power and skinny wheels what's not to love,...
No skinny wheels that is something else I updated, had them specially made. Not much can do about the chassis, but it corners well now for a Seven.
Really well thought out and beautifully executed. Very well done indeed.
I am a fan of the Austin 7, and was the first car I ever worked on, with my next door neighbour when I was about 14
I learnt everything that I know now from that 1933 A7,
But to the OP, its YOUR car, so do what ever you want, as with modern day traffic, an A7 would be a nightmare to drive
and even in about 1979/80 when I drove one from Crawley- Shoreham, it was a real handful and the steering was vague
and the brakes, non existant
Not a car I would like to drive now
steve
Love it.
Nice job.
quote:
Originally posted by steve m
I am a fan of the Austin 7, and was the first car I ever worked on, with my next door neighbour when I was about 14
I learnt everything that I know now from that 1933 A7,
But to the OP, its YOUR car, so do what ever you want, as with modern day traffic, an A7 would be a nightmare to drive
and even in about 1979/80 when I drove one from Crawley- Shoreham, it was a real handful and the steering was vague
and the brakes, non existant
Not a car I would like to drive now
steve
No, I worked for RCF tools, just across the road from Edwards, my best friend worked there though Steve Hoskens
I did my private pilots licence at shoreham, (well started there finished at Redhill) and my neighbour helped me learn to fly until I was 16, I live in Crawley,
I think its great and it's a race car and race cars are modified to go fast so are hardly going to be factory 
3 times the power!! 
scary
quote:
Originally posted by steve m
I am a fan of the Austin 7, and was the first car I ever worked on, with my next door neighbour when I was about 14
I learnt everything that I know now from that 1933 A7,
But to the OP, its YOUR car, so do what ever you want, as with modern day traffic, an A7 would be a nightmare to drive
and even in about 1979/80 when I drove one from Crawley- Shoreham, it was a real handful and the steering was vague
and the brakes, non existant
Not a car I would like to drive now
steve
Aye, the purists will be spewing in their soup and sure as hell will curse you forever for destroying a, oops should have said improving a 7.
A sound engineering job.
I used to think at 40mph the car was trying to kill me with it's instability in the steering now that speed is 70mph not limited by the engine power but not large enough cohonies. The limiting factor is the spring rate and the inability to trck the undulations in the road fast enough. If I was a proper suspension engineer I could possibly work out what was going on but hell 70mph out of an Austin Seven chassis is fast enough I think.
I think it looks and sounds great mate. Good to see someone not wasting lockdown.
Have to admit an Austin 7 ruby is still at the top of my list of cars to get. Once I hand my VW Up back in June next year I may think of getting one as I've wanted one badly for around 15 years...