For those who care about originality the rubber I have is exactly the same as the one with the indent for the fixing wire which Austin posted pictures of. I would think that as probably every restored Austin seven now has the wrong rubber fitted it would be worth one of our cherished suppliers manufacturing and advertising as such a batch of original pattern moulding. Of course there will be many out there who are quite willing to accept near enough as good enough, but there will also be plenty who want to get details correct.
Yes sorry Henry Harris not Austin Harris, my mistake, if you are talking about Erich's picture i feel that they are probably the same but Erich is rather bending his one. I guess that we need some reasonably accurate dimensions of all the contenders to see if they are the same, my hunch is that Austin will have only used one profile, as already pointed out I feel its unlikely they would have had something unique made for the Ulster's.....that said it surprising how many times we have been proven incorrect in our assumptions.
That first pic was my hand, but as the profile came off a white painted engine bay, I binned it after photographing.
This should be quite an easy search because it's attempting to draw in saloon examples. I'll put something on Facebook asking about identifying something that has that indent. The difficulty will be extracting a section from something which plainly does not want to be disturbed. I'll send a note to David Mawby perhaps.
I have been trying to find a replacement bonnet rubber for my 1932 Tourer, and have experimented with those that were on the market a couple of years ago.
The top sample in the photo is original moulding taken from three different 1932/33 cars that were in totally original unrestored condition with original paint. I am 100% certain that this is the correct Austin moulding. The same moulding was used on both the scuttle and the rad cowl, and it makes for a perfect fit between bonnet and scuttle. I have no experience of sports models, but I remember my 5 or 6 or so unrestored 1930s Sevens in the 60s and 70s all having this same moulding.
The second one down is the solid moulding available from Willie Mackenzie (and maybe others). I find that the step up in this is not high enough, causing the bead to point upwards. It also lifts the bonnet to a slightly higher level than the scuttle, and the wire clips are not hidden.
The third one down is from Seven Workshop (and maybe others). This one works somewhat satisfactorily, but again it tends to lift the bonnet too high, and the ensuing exposed bead is too wide and rather unattractive, more obviously so with light coloured bodies. Also, the wire clips are not hidden.
The bottom one is the from Edgware (moulding 447). It comes with rather too much curl rendering it tricky to fit correctly, but it looks good when it's on and is probably the best of the three. I believe it is no longer made, unfortunately.
I would be very happy to be able to buy bonnet moulding of the original Austin profile, as I am sure many others would. Maybe there would also be a demand from owners of other cars also.
fabulous photo. It also starts to give another prompt for assessing whether the upper one was universally used. The fitting of the wire staples becomes very specific to (remains of) a line of holes in or close to the step up of the metal?
I was struggling with the rear bonnet rubber on an Ulster being different to all other production mouldings and particularly from the front moulding on the same car??
Moving away from that assumption and the design makes perfect sense.
The hollow in the beading seems to make sense, as ti allows some deformation or "squish" without looking out of kilter. It does make sense that there would be a notch to accommodate the clips so that the bonnet would not rub on the clips. I wonder why the slope of the flatter part. Perhaps to accommodate some profile variation?
Erich I did try to respond to your PM but the site froze on me again and I lost the entire thing, it appears that you now have the answer you need and I hope that you go ahead.
There is plenty of evidence on early Cowls and Scuttles that the holes were in the crease, interestingly though my 36 Nippy shows no evidence of this which is a puzzling conundrum. I do have a theory that a change may have occurred either just before or with with the introduction of the Jewel cars but need to check some other evidence to corroborate my thoughts.
