What have you done today with your Austin Seven

[David Stepney]

At the back end of last month, as some of you may recall, I made a plastic spacer to take up the slack in my torque tube mounting, working on a suggestion made by Bob Culver who had wondered whether modern plastics would provide a solution. Well, I can report that it does but only for about 300 miles. On Tuesday my car started to make the now familiar knock that indicates that the torque tube mounting is loose.

So, once again, I pulled the prop shaft off and began to investigate the problem a little more deeply, and with a bit more courage. I decided that the sensible way forward was to take the whole mounting off, which involved removing the axle drive flange. Remembering that these are usually very difficult to remove with the distinct possibility of distorting the flange, I approached the task with great trepidation. I managed to undo the nut, which was tight, and attached my three jawed puller, tightening the centre bolt as much as I dared, only to discover that I had left my hammer with which to give the bolt a good blow on the bench.  As I extracted myself from under the car, there was a clatter and the puller and flange was on the floor! I heaved a sigh of relief and pulled the mounting off. 

Once off the car, I found that the plastic ring I had made had disintegrated. I am aware that many of us have filed the back face of the mounting to take up the wear, but, once again my natural caution and fear of messing things up got the better of me, especially as I had no spare mounting I case I got it wrong. After several cups of tea and cigarettes, I found a piece of 1 1/2 mm steel plate and made a dished washer to fit snugly between the ball on the torque tube and the front of the mounting. Not having the skills exhibited by many of our brethren on the forum, this took quite some time and indeed head scratching (l am a retired lawyer after all) but eventually I got it the right shape and fitted it. It is early days yet to see how the Mk 2 repair (bodge?) will work, but the knock has gone and the joint appears not to bind at any point. The car has now done about 100 miles since I completed the work on Thursday and a quick check under the car this afternoon reassured me that all remained well. I shall monitor the joint and report back. If it does work, it would appear to a viable alternative repair to taking a file to the joint, which, somehow, I feel is a bit drastic. (Or is that just me?)