What have you done today with your Austin Seven

[dickie65]

Yesterday I took the plate off the floor and removed the plate over the flywheel to invesigate a bit of a rumble which went when I pushed the clutch down.
First thought was it could be a loose flywheel.

At 6 pm I decided to take the engine out for a look.
The 65 engine has to be parted from the gearbox and lifted up level and brought forward until the gearbox studs will scrape past the bulkhead whilst lifting it over the track rod still keeping it level ! by 8 pm it was on the black and decker workmate with the clutch off, flywheel on tight but I was able to lift flywheel up and down with a tyre lever enough to hear a clonk.
It is the fastest that I have ever got the engine out I used a trolley jack and a block of timber under the sump to lift it and wheel it forward until I could get it onto the front crossmember.

Diagnosis so far is clapped out rear main bearing. ( It was running up to 7000 + rpm )

Now to decide whether to put it back in and ignore it for a while or do a strip down and replace the bearing.

I will be building a Hadley Cranked Nippy engine up as soon as I have the crankcase repaired, the 9E crankcase will be going under the Laser in a couple of weeks or so.

My car will not be going to Beaulieu this weekend.