Tommy's A-series Misery - Swedish Bricks

[Tickman]

Some things are more important than a trip.

[Supernaut]

36 minutes ago, Tickman said:

Some things are more important than a trip.

What he said.

I was at a show on Sunday and was reminded of you, @Tommyboy12 by this little gem.

I stood there for a good 5 minutes thinking "there's a turbo, and an intercooler crammed in there, blowing through the SU carb?!" 

Madness.

[Tommyboy12]

24 minutes ago, Supernaut said:

What he said.

I was at a show on Sunday and was reminded of you, @Tommyboy12 by this little gem.

I stood there for a good 5 minutes thinking "there's a turbo, and an intercooler crammed in there, blowing through the SU carb?!" 

Madness.

Ooof. Its got the bagsport fabrications side manifold by the looks of it. Side mounted turbo over the flywheel housing. Ive been contemplating converting to this setup as it offers better, more modern turbos plus I might want to be a total chav and have a screamer pipe out the bonnet...

I love the fact it looks completely standard on the outside apart from the wheels.

[Tommyboy12]

1 hour ago, Tickman said:

Some things are more important than a trip.

100% agree. It was never a question of whether I should cancel or not. I was absolutely going to cancel when we found out but im not going to let it dampen the desire to do a road trip in a near 100 year old car.

[Tickman]

We have no doubt about your sanity levels when it comes to utterly daft roadtrips perfectly sensibly use of your car.

[Supernaut]

And here I am, convincing myself that a cars and coffees event 40 miles away is "too far" to take the series one Land Rover...

I am weak!

[sharley17194]

On 30/06/2026 at 09:30, Tommyboy12 said:

100% agree. It was never a question of whether I should cancel or not. I was absolutely going to cancel when we found out but im not going to let it dampen the desire to do a road trip in a near 100 year old car.

just gives me longer to fix mine! 

[Tommyboy12]

So I am back from the family funeral now and spent last night tinkering on the Austin 7. I pulled the tank off and it was full of crud as suspected. I gave it a good hose down and rolled some gravel around it for an hour until my arms became very tired and bolted it back onto the car. I have however ordered a tank sealing kit and fully intend to take the tank back off (it takes longer to drain it than physically remove it) to seal the tank up. Problem being that although I washed it out and filled it with gravel, it is actually a baffled tank, which surprised me somewhat given its age, so i suspect that some of the areas I couldnt reach are still full of shite.

I gave it a run round the outskirts of the village for about 10 miles and it didnt give me any issues so im hoping that has resolved it. I did notice however that I lost water during my drive round.  I didnt check it beforehand so have no idea how much I have lost but it didnt give any signs of overheating like bubbling or steam so I am wondering if I am losing it somewhere. Something to investigate at least.

I did manage to fix the speedo too! I got up to a heady 45mph yesterday. It didnt have a lot more to give but it cruised quite nicely at that speed. I have read that standard cruise is 40-45mph anyway and it happily sits at that now so the engine is clearly in reasonable health.

[Tommyboy12]

Last night I discovered how many times it's possible to break down in a 12 mile trip!

I fully prepped the AC before setting off on my epic adventure!

My epic 12 mile adventure was to the local club meet and it was going so well for 4.5 miles!

Then it didn't...

Fuel line blocked again!

Then it did it again a mile later...

So then I swapped to the 'auxiliary' tank to save me cleaning the lines again.

Unfortunately that didn't help and I was on the road side again at 9.7 miles. My forever patient partner had been following me up to this point as I wasnt 100% confident I was going to make it.

This time it was unfortunately a bit more terminal. I snapped a fitting on the fuel line while trying to remove it and wasn't carrying a spare...

I did break down in a nice spot though. Calendar photo?

So the cavalry was called!

And the princess did indeed make it to the ball!

Where I found a few familiar cars... @wesacosa Might like this one...

The Panda has been sold and bought by another member of the club and it's been treated to some bumper reconditioning and a deep deep polish. It's looking great! It's also had a raft of other new parts fitted too although it currently has a few light-based electrical gremlins.

It's always nice to see my old Reliant too. I don't regret selling it but it was definitely a great car

Plenty of fantastic chod as usual. This shot could be straight out of the 80s.

The MG Metro is a stunning car. It's been in a few magazines and is completely original and unrestored.

Plenty of other great cars present too

I will diagnose the 7 at some point but I'm preoccupied this weekend. I suspect it's the fuel pump also being problematic although I will be cleaning the tank again too.

[wesacosa]

thanks for sharing those pics, the Panda looks fabulous. I'm thrilled it's living its best life and I'm sure @spartacusand @Mrs Spart would be too 

I'm sure the current owner probably knows but most times the earth hedgehog is to blame. I did remake a lot of those earths but worthwhile checking again if he hasn't already 

[Mr Livered]

I don't like rods, but I'll make an exception for that yellow one, which is fabulous. But the star of the show (present company excepted, obviously) might have to be that gorgeous Metro.

Thank you for going to such lengths to get us those photos!

[Tommyboy12]

4 hours ago, wesacosa said:

thanks for sharing those pics, the Panda looks fabulous. I'm thrilled it's living its best life and I'm sure @spartacusand @Mrs Spart would be too 

I'm sure the current owner probably knows but most times the earth hedgehog is to blame. I did remake a lot of those earths but worthwhile checking again if he hasn't already 

I know theyre already on it. Its getting a lot of TLC at the moment which is really nice to see

[Zelandeth]

If that fitting already had fatigue issue you might have been pulling air in there from the start.  Hopefully not too difficult a fix.

[Tommyboy12]

2 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

If that fitting already had fatigue issue you might have been pulling air in there from the start.  Hopefully not too difficult a fix.

Frustratingly it was one of the fittings I bought. The barb was wafer thin and snapped in my hand while trying to pull the fuel line off it.

[Tommyboy12]

While I was away on my stag do this weekend my mechanical fuel pump arrived for the 7. I spent a bit of time this afternoon fitting it. I fitted the new diaphragm I bought that I couldn't use on my original mechanical fuel pump as the lifting arm was broken.

Just waiting on some fuel barbs to arrive in the post and then it'll be good to go again! I played with the primer on the lift pump and got fuel reliably from the tank so here's hoping it fixes the issue.

[Tommyboy12]

I've made great progress on things!

Yesterday I finished off fitting the fuel pump to my 7 after the new hose fittings arrived. The battery was really weak last time I tried so that went on charge too.

I also fitted a very important modification. Now the RAC will know I have membership if they find me on the road side 😅

This afternoon after work I decided it was a prime opportunity to test out my new fuel pump. I completed a whole 9 mile journey without incident!

Returning back to the house without breakdown or any form of stoppage! Great success!

To celebrate I gave my Mini head

It's not quite finished. I need to replace the manifold studs, get the carb back on and put it through a heat cycle but it's nearly there.

[Matty]

Nice one Tom. Id take that RAC badge off though. If my experience with them is owt to go by itll be a Jonah 😆

 

[High Jetter]

Love the badge, have one similar, somewhere

 

[Tommyboy12]

Took the Moggy to a local show. Kimbolton Country Fayre, although it's more of a car show with over 1000 cars in attendance.

I shined up the Moggy beforehand with some oily rags. It actually brought some real depth to the paint so I think with some actual polish and elbow grease it'll come up nice.

Some of my favourites including an impeccable base model Metro, with an already spotted MG Metro, and an early Tatra. There was also a Fiesta SuperSport! I also counted 3 other '34 7s. I did contemplate bringing mine but was put off by the lack of current reliability 😅

[EightMegs]

That Celica is fucking beautiful, I'd love a '70s Celica or Sprinter or even just an E20 Corolla but they're either rotten or worth half my annual salary at this stage with very little in between.

[Tommyboy12]

6 hours ago, EightMegs said:

That Celica is fucking beautiful, I'd love a '70s Celica or Sprinter or even just an E20 Corolla but they're either rotten or worth half my annual salary at this stage with very little in between.

The crazy thing was that you never see a 70s Celica and yet there were three parked next to each other and none of them knew each other!

[Tommyboy12]

It's been a busy couple of days on cars.

Finished off assembling the white Mini. This is actually due to be my wedding car in two weeks so I needed to get it finished! I had to get manifold studs back in then finish off the engine bay.

Unfortunately when I fired it up it was very flat running with a really weak idle. Nothing had changed except that I removed the timing gear to do the new alloy timing cover. I lazily timed it 'dot to dot' on the timing gear when I reinstalled it. That bit me in the arse and while it ran it was noticeably slower. So I had to strip it down and re-time it. Thankfully with my Vernier timing gear I didn't need to take the timing gear. I just needed to fit a timing disc, find TDC and use a DTI gauge to measure timing. It took a while but I took it from 115° timing as I measured it to the correct 107°. Too much advance on the camshaft means the valves are opening too early and closing too soon so it isn't sucking in as much fuel/air in.

It now runs much better. I need to put some miles on it and retorque the head then it should be good.

Not sure how easy this is to see but the daily also needed some work. It has an auto dimming electrical rear view mirror. The dielectric fluid had failed and was leaking out the unit plus it makes it go foggy.

A new unit from Porsche is £800. So I find a seller online who sells new glass for £100.

Stripped it down.

And fitted a new one

So now I can see behind me again!

I also checked the brakes on the 7. I took it for a spin on Saturday and it was driving fine but the brakes were dragging after braking. So I stripped, cleaned and greased the joints.

I forgot to take pictures so here is a door cam snap shot of me mid process 😅

There's a couple of car shows on this week so I'm planning to be brave and take the 7! If it makes it it'll be the first time it's got more than 10 miles under its own steam in probably 50 years!

[auntiemaryscanary]

1 hour ago, Tommyboy12 said:

This is actually due to be my wedding car in two weeks so I needed to get it finished!

Congratulations. Hope you both have a lovely day.

[Tommyboy12]

It's finally happened! A car show in the A7 without breaking down!

I travelled a whole 6.2 miles to the car meet I run and I made it!

A great lineup as always.

Then it made it home!

The glow worms needed some adjustments

Easily corrected

[Tommyboy12]

The Austin 7 was papped by a local photographer. These are some great close up photos!

 

[Tommyboy12]

Another successful outing for the A7 this weekend to a local cars and coffee meet. This time completing a 25 mile round trip! I'm tentatively calling it roadworthy once more!

 

[Mr Livered]

It makes the Minis look enormous!

[Tommyboy12]

Not much to report except I got married and my Mini made an adequate wedding car. My bride only got a small amount of engine oil on her wedding dress... 😅

 

[Matty]

Best wishes to you both Tom 

[High Jetter]

Many congratulations. How did she get oil on her dress, where you trying to top her up with it? 😀