Our abbreviated Grand Tour of Europe is now complete so the Lambda is patiently waiting at Cars UK for an available berth back to Australia, she will not be required to work her passage having hauled us over Swiss alpine passes, through scorching southern French valleys and at least 1000 crap gear changes by yours truly. Repetition of a roundabout every 5 Km has improved my down changes although the Lambda gearbox is a testament to the Lancia engineers who must have had me in mind when they designed it.
Meanwhile I have been filling my time getting the Bebe running with it’s new carburetor and after drilling the idle jet to .050 mm it now runs and idles, it also smokes a lot but how do you tell a 103 year old to give up? The next thing is to stop the clutch dragging as it’s nearly impossible to get into gear while stationary not helped by the gear linkage having lovely little leaf springs between the lever and the gearbox preventing the ham fisted from jamming it into gear when it’s not ready.
Which brings me to the Austin 7. I suppose the lesson here is never buy a car sight unseen although making sensible and measured decisions has never come easily when it comes to cars. That said this Austin is a real stinker giving me the opportunity to be conversant with every aspect of the car, quite an opportunity. As you can see I am down to the chassis, the new MIG welder at last has seen some duty stitching a plate to “box” the top hat section with a mild swiss cheese effect via the hole saw… more holes to come. Remember Colin Chapman started with one of these although his hole to metal ratio was somewhat different.
Just in from David R. something I should aspire to?
