1/3 Scale Austin Seven Engine

[Rob.Barrett]

Hi All,

Progress so far on the cylinder head. It's made from two bits (to give a water jacket) which are dowelled together with 18 dowels.

Rob

 

[MuellerNick]

That looks very promising!


Nick

 

[Jasonb]

Thats a nice start to a project, is the head cast or carved from solid?

I'll be following this one haveing rebuilt a 1928 Swallow with my brother a few years back from a pile of bits.

J

 

[compspecial]

Looks like a beautiful casting, Rob hard to believe they got away with two main bearings though, must've been a very springy crankshaft!
Stew

 

[MuellerNick]

Looks like a beautiful casting,

My bet is: This ain't a casting.
I see some hints that it is milled. And doweling it together out of two parts is just an other hint.


Nick

 

[sunworksco]

Very nice project !

 

[Rob.Barrett]

That's right Nick, it's made of two bit of machined plate, a lot of dowels and some fancy glue.

 

[idahoan]

That's a nice piece of work; I will be looking forward to more updates on this project.

Dave

 

[sunworksco]

Can something like this be hard silver soldered ?

 

[Jasonb]

Not when its been made out of alluminium like that one.

I can be done with silver solder if made from cast iron, Mike Sayers well known Bently engine is has the block soldered from 11 parts. Its a bit more involved than usual silver soldering needing preheat, driving off the carbon and the right flux.

 

[sunworksco]

What if it was machined from 304L stainless steel ?

 

[Jasonb]

Yes with the right flux to remove the oxide of chromium though hacking it out of CI will be a lot easier going than stainless.

J

 

[pgp001]

I will be watching this build with great interest, I have an Austin 7 myself and know all about building and modifying full size engines.
I have often thought a model of my own car would be an interesting project some day, but thinking about it is as far as I have got.

My car


Phil

 

[kuhncw]

That is a very nice piece of machine work. Do you have any photos of the two parts before they were joined, that you would post?

Regards,

Chuck

That's right Nick, it's made of two bit of machined plate, a lot of dowels and some fancy glue.

 

[Niceonetidy]

very nice indeed

 

[Rob.Barrett]

Thanks for the comments.
Here's the water outlet manifold.

 

[moanaman]

Looks like a beautiful casting, Rob hard to believe they got away with two main bearings though, must've been a very springy crankshaft!
Stew

The 2 bearing motor was used a lot for racing in the 750cc class. Reason for this is that crank ran in roller bearings. Yes they snapped very easily. You can purchase a crank now that has been machined from a billet. Expensive but seems to last a lot longer.

About 1930 Austin changed the crankshaft to a 3 bearing white metal but these were not favoured by the race crowd as it has more friction than the 2 bearing roller crank.

Rob you have done a great job on the head. Next step is to make a twin OHC version. (just kidding)]

 

[Rob.Barrett]

Progress so far on the cylinder block. It's machined from a solid block of 2014 T6 with wet cast iron liners. There are a lot of plugged cross drillings for the additional water ways.

Regards,
Rob

 

[Maxine]

Absolutely beautiful work. Very inspiring to look at. Thanks for posting!

 

[aonemarine]

That's awsome!! I assume your using cnc??