What have you done today with your Austin Seven

[Nick Lettington]

Today I put a Ford Burman steering column in the garage for another day... now I'm wishing I'd taken a few more photos of how the column is fitted to the front of Henry's Forrest special. 

The Forrest steering box is a modified 1932 Austin 7 (cast steel type). 
It's mounted face down centrally. The drop arm moves side to side and has been altered to take two Ford 8hp ball joints.
The steering column has a UJ to allow things to line up.
All Mike Forrest's handiwork!

Thank you Henry, that's the detail I was hoping for. I know Harry Worrall and Mike Featherstonehaugh's FW Special used the Burman box as they considered it to be superior. I foolishly assumed that was the standard approach! the '32 Austin box having a 360 degree rotation is probably a better option for setting up the steering straight ahead and it may also fall inside the latest the 750MC regulations... I think the one I have is a pre-war design but from a post war Ford. (Harry commented last year that he wouldn't be able to build the FW or Worden under the current regulations). Still I was given the ford one, so it's not a mistake that cost anything [insert winking emoji].

Are the stub axles and steering tube levers Big 7 ones? I'm trying to work out what happens with the tracking when the transverse spring deflects, although if the centre of rotation of each ball joint is aligned with the axis of rotation of the pivots in the split axle, I guess it doesn't change..?  Also scratching my head to visualise what happens to the tracking on full lock as the modified drop arm must decrease the effective length of the track rod as it turns... that may explain the cut away section of the brake backplate allowing him to exaggerate the radius on the steering tube levers so the reduced length of the track rod on full lock doesn't counteract the Ackerman effect... I'd be interested to know!

Thanks again for the pictures. I'm slowly building plans and collecting the parts necessary to rebuild my Silverstone as close as I can to the FW but remaining 750MC eligible, so no coil springs either unfortunately.