Thursday, 10 July 2025

Mini Leaky oil sender fix

Annoying leak from the oil pressure sender. 

There seems to be a failed seal between the metal and plastic part. 
New sender in place. Looks dry now

 

Tuesday, 8 July 2025

Test and Service for the Mini Van

After a thorough service, grease ands oil change, the Mini was deemed safe again for use. 


Nice clean brakes and everything moves as intended.  


 

Monday, 7 July 2025

Wednesday, 2 July 2025

Austin Seven Saloon carburetor fix

The first of our ordered parts have arrived. 

We have moved the Seven to our shed. 

The jet needle in the SU is chewed up and the piston is stuck, so mixture is a little hit and miss.

Who would do this to a precision item as a Jet needle? 

Cleaned up the piston looks a bit better, 

With a new needle and centered Jet the piston moves well now and the car starts and runs much better. I couldn't find the M9 needle that was in there and the MO that was standard in this carburetter, so I ordered an AN as used on many Austin Sevens modified with an SU. We'll keep an eye on the  mixture to decide if we need another needle. But the AN seems close to the other needles. 


  

 

Tuesday, 24 June 2025

Austin Seven Saloon Inspection #2

Today we'll have our first official inspection by the German safety institute. We do not expect a pass, but a list of repairs we'll need to do for registration in Germany.  



The tester seems to like our little Austin, but is not impressed with the brakes.  

He declares the seven to be "not bad"but gives us a useful list of items that need fixing or added.
Obviously the brakes will need a full overhaul and we need to add alarm flashers front and rear.
 No big surprises and less than we feared for. Things are looking good!   





 

Saturday, 14 June 2025

Austin Seven Saloon inspection part one

Here's the Seven in her new home. Now we have time to see what issues we can expect before we apply for the official inspection for a German road safety certificate...

Not a safety item, but rather important is the ignition. The rotor looks a little chewed up and someone has jury-rigged a condenser from a modern car, with wires loosely wound to the earth point and feed. 
We'll need to order some new parts for this. One reason the engine ran like a limp Imp.

Compresion is not very hight, but fairly even, so we declare this a usable engine.  

Another reason is that te piston in this rather nice early SU seems to be stuck.


Now for the brakes.

Very oily brake shoes up front. But why? There should be no oil near the front brakes!

Shiny and black. We'll need some new brake shoes ASAP. 
For now we try to clean the shoes, so we can move the car around. 


Correct condenser and cleaned up points

Now she runs much better. 


 

Monday, 2 June 2025

Elfsteden 2025 Harich-Sloten

Another wonderful event, with around 400 old cars and 200 motorbikes visiting the 11 towns of Friesland.