Thread: Restoring Cars

Originally Posted by 4x4 MORE

WOW, that would have been a steal!

It was,, it was drivable and had about a months rego left on it at the time. Had I had an older head on me, I'd have grabbed it, but alas, too young dumb and full of ,,,,
Horses for courses etc etc.

The old green Austin would do me. My cousin used to have one of these as a paddock car :-)

Must be a good party you're at Chops if you are logged on here...

I'll leave the front light on....

Originally Posted by 4x4 MORE

Uncle ho wow interesting story

How much Hp in the 7?

IIRC, an Austin 7 cracked the 100MPH mark at Bonneville in the late 20's/early 30's. It still had the 750cc motor, but had a blower fitted to it.

The amount of body variations for Austin 7's is quite surprising. Attached is a pic of a few from a private collection during a SLOw club run a few months ago.

G'day 4x4MORE

The 27's were 7hp developing 18 BHP from memory,the green sedan 33/34 models had slightly higher Compression and got to about 24/25 BHP,at age 16 all I knew is that it was flat out at 28/30 mph


BTW. I will be out your way tomorrow 29th as I am going to the Pine Rivers Motorcycle Swap Meet at the Samford Rangers Soccer Club grounds where ever they are, I will be in my D1 with an AULRO spare tyre cover on it.

I've restored several cars over the years, both with my Dad and on my own. I've also spent *significant* £££££'s on doing the last one after deciding my time was worth more !

We have a Triumph Spitfire 1500 that I took to a bare chassis about 6 years ago, which I bought for my now wife as her first car 18 years ago. It's the 3rd one I've done, only this time I paid to have the bodyshell repaired / painted as my welding days are long since over. When we emigrated 3 years ago it ended up being rushed as 2 months before we moved it was still just a rolling chassis

I'd caution against buying anything needing a full resto, unless you're incredibly handy with the tools and have a lot of free time / plan on doing it over a number of years. Had our Spitfire not had very high sentimental value I wouldn't have done it, in no way is it worth the time & money we've put into it. Buy something with a solid base, ie a solid shell. Everything else is easy, but bodywork is ridiculous. As someone else mentioned, the old Triumph saloons are great cars to learn with, cheap to buy in solid condition and super simple mechanically. Nice engines as well.

Now, after all my advice about not doing a ground up resto, I don't heed my own warnings having recently picked up a Mk2 Escort rolling shell. It may not need any welding, but it needs everything else.....

Some interesting reading on people's thoughts and projects.


Chops,
There is another way of looking at what project you want to do.
If the plan is to tour the country why not do up something that could be used to do the trip with?
Do you know of a vehicle that is sitting idle that could be finished, like a bus?


Cheers, Kyle.