What have you done today with your Austin Seven

[GK5268]

The Ruby took me to work yesterday afternoon, a short trip to a job over in Seaford, came back and as it was nice and sunny wanted to stay outside for a bit and give the engine a wipe down, last week, the oil filler cap either fell off whilst I was out driving (or I did not re-fit this and just left it on the bulkhead - not very likely) and a couple of days subsequent driving without a cap on made a bit of a mess of the engine bay, I cleaned the worst of it last week, got a new cap and then found the old one alongside the road (I remembered the location of where I heard what I thought was a stone but it was in fact the oil filler cap bouncing off) a few days later, intact! New one is a much snugger fit, so quite possible the old one was shaken off - the stretch of the road where it came off is rough and the car pitches quite badly on this stretch.

However, after the quick wipe down last week, I noticed that there was a fresh oil leak from the forward plug to the oil jet, got a spanner to tighten, but wouldn't, removed it and found the thread completely stripped, bugger. Must have been on its last legs and all the heat from recent usage expanding & contracting has probably finished it off, I have not touched the plug since whenever so this was a recent fault (and I had been quite pleased that the engine was relatively oil-tight).

So that is that, Saturday, it will be an engine strip down, to fit a helicoil insert, hoping I can do this without removing the block - it is not looking good as it is a tight fit to get the drill & tap in there, but wondering if I can just bodge this with JB Weld for a short-term repair, I don't really want to stop using the car whilst the weather is still ok. Hoping that the stripping of the tread will mean that I don't actually have to drill, just tap a new thread... Oh well.