Austin 7 Ruby - We Found A Loose Bearing

[@austinswallow]

I put the rear bearing housing in the oven to expand it before fitting the outer race, you could put the outer race in the freezer to contract it as well, should just drop in with a nice click, 10 minutes or so at around 150-degrees C should do the trick - use an oven glove as it will be hot, I speak from experience! When cooled, warming up the crankcase will help to ease this in place. You can make a tool to press the rear bearing on - details of this are in the Woodrow manual - more gentle to press this on rather then hammering it - the lip on the front bearing will take the blows, and these are weak enough as they are! So anything that spares them is worth doing! The big end nuts should be torqued to around 20ft.lbs, when I had mine re-metalled, the re-metaller said to do them at 25ft.lbs and I have run them at that tightness, but latterly, I have had them slacker, if they are too tight, or they bind, they will run hot and could run a bearing, where the white metal simply melts - I have had this happen to me! The oil film should take up any gap. You will be surprised how quickly the engine will sludge up if you use a straight oil, I use a modern detergent oil (Comma 20/50) and even with that, the engine oil get dirty after only just a few miles. Nice job! Good luck with the rest of the re-assembly!

[@classicandvintagecars]

Thank you, fantastic advice there! We love the Austin 7 community and the local club too. Everyone wants to help and see another 7 on the road.

[@Walt_G]

very informative video, thanks for posting

[@classicandvintagecars]

Thank you!

[@andreasvenator]

Yeah, I had a steep learning curve as well when I purchased my 1950 Riley RM. Seems that the 20,000 km service interval for modern oil changes was the interval for engine overhauls in those days: constant tips on decoking on the cylinder heads etc. made me realize what I´d gotten myself into. Now I just grin and bear it, I guess. But there is something about these vintage and classic cars. I like them and I support anyone willing to tell me their experiences over this youtube medium... Do ponder the thought of hardened valve seats though to prevent your exhaust valves from burning out unnecessarily from that (low octane) leadfree fuel. Other than that just make sure sludge may deposit in your oil pan to keep it from setting in the inner oil channel of the crankshaft. It has been known to happen that detergent oils went and cleaned away a lot of deposits and thereby loosened otherwise well-fitting crankshaft bearings... so many things to consider... won´t even start you on full-flow oil filters...

[@classicandvintagecars]

It is a steep learning curve but we are enjoying that. We are looking into an oil filter update for our car as the engine block has oil ways that can accommodate this and a supplier of Austin 7 parts sells a full kit. A friend has bought a kit so we will let him test it first.