Below a new project - I managed to buy a 1937 Ruby chasis together with engine and gearbox, I'm not sure what happened to the body but in the process of removing it someone hacked off the rear extensions, however I have a cunning plan......
I made a start on the chassis and one of my main tasks was to clean off all the muck before starting on it with the grit blaster. Said muck was an eclectic & heady mix of oil, grease, road dirt and soil and I found that a paint scraper was the best way to get it off. I found the chassis in really good condition for something that had been built 74 years ago and mainly I suspect due to the large pile of greasy dirt which had protected things much better than underseal. After de-greasing and gritblasting, a coat of 2-pack Zinc Phosphate red oxide primer was applied, which is so tough it will outlast me by many decades, followed by a coat of ‘Dacthane’ chassis black.
Then, it was a case of reducing the piles of loose bits I had by bolting stuff back on, painting as I went and replacing every bush or bearing in the process. I find that you can overcome any possibility of “oh dear, there are some bits left over” when you finish, by chucking a handful of mixed nuts/washers/bolts in the container that you put the bits in before you start.
Replacing the Kingpins, always a delicate job, went surprising well although I had to do a bit of lathe work and make a pilot extension to go on the shaft of the adjustable reamer. I was very fortunate in that the axle eyes were just a little worn and they reamed out a treat for the +0.015” oversize pins. The hardest, or at least the most frustrating bit I found was trying to get the core plugs, at the top and bottom of the kingpins, to stay in place under grease gun pressure when I did a ‘dummy run’ and tested greasing the kingpins with the front axle on the bench. The plugs kept popping out until I finally ran a bead of solder round the edges (of the 3rd set after destroying the others) of the core plugs and then battered them into submission. Our cat, who comes down to my workshop for a bit of a purr now & again, learned a few new words when my patience ran out a couple of times and I cursed the move away from screwed plugs.
I’m not quite sure what came over me, but re-fitting the brake cross shaft, I had a mad moment and painted all of the brake bits Red and I liked the outcome so much that I shall repeat the exercise when I rebuild the brakes on the Opal. The Red bits should be safe from the inquisitorial gaze of the rivet counters unless they are prepared to get down on their knees and peer underneath the car.
I have put the engine and gearbox back in the chassis but will need to whizz them out again to rebuild the engine once I have got the body on and the car roadworthy. I have had a fair bit of practice at hauling out and putting in the engine & box on the Opal so this is not a daunting prospect at all.
I have a reasonable selection of tools in the workshop but the single most useful item that saved me more work than any other, and also saved my back, was the use of my Motorcycle lift to raise the chassis up to a comfortable level to work on. Having things at waist height was a revelation. It’s not the largest lift you can buy as I’m not old enough to ride a Harley, however it will cope with all of the bikes we have, the heaviest of which is my Moto Guzzi California weighing around 240 kg. I reckon the A7 chassis, sans engine/box, weighs similar.
As a matter of interest, a ‘fully-dressed’ Harley Road King weighs nearly 400 kg (or in real money around 880 lbs). I believe that an A7 Ruby weighs (and this is excluding the ton and half of spares that some of us seem to carry) around 540 kg.
I digress; I anticipate that the body will be ready by the end of the month and as soon as it is to hand, I will send in another photo or two.
Part 2
Did I really say that “the body will be ready by the end of the month” ??
Stupid boy...
The modified body shell I acquired (I think it is an RM of 1931 / 32 vintage) was originally maroon but had been painted in a sort of flat black paint and is generally very good for its age (aren’t we all?). I gritblasted a fair percentage of it with 180 – 350 µm Garnet; using this particular blast media provides a good surface for paint to key onto but with the attribute of minimal metal removal (for the technical amongst you, this applies even when preparing the surface to SA 2 ½ standard). During blasting, a couple of badly corroded areas came to light as shown later.
I had lots of ½ full spray cans in my workshop left over from paintwork touch-ups made to cars I have owned over the years and I thought it was an ideal way to finally get rid of them. The result is sound but leaning towards the grunge look.
To extend this grunge theme, ‘Rat’ bikes (and some cars) have a certain charm and a cult following. Normally mechanically excellent, the paint job on these machines can be a work of art in order to make them look awful. At the IOM TT Races a couple of years ago, next to me on the campsite was such a Rat Bike. If you look carefully, you can see a skull on the front resplendent with teeth.
One morning early, I was sat outside my tent having a mug of tea and a roll-up when the guy in the next tent emerged and asked for a light. I commented on his bike saying I really liked the way he had finished it. Looking pleased, he asked if I liked the skull and I said that I did. “See those teeth” he said, “every time I have a tooth pulled, it goes in the skull”. Nice touch. The only very visible problem was he was running out of teeth.
Maybe a ‘Rat’ A7 could become fashionable? No? OK then...
Having a totally stripped body, it would have been pretty foolish not to fully tackle all of the problems I had found and I put the repairs shown below in the care of John Salter, a local old-style Panelbeater.
One major area of the body shell that was quite badly corroded was part of the scuttle; this was probably caused by water dripping onto it when it was stored. To repair it properly, the section had to be cut out as shown in the photo.
John then fabricated a replacement panel as shown in the next photo; this now needs finishing off, welding in, final dressing and lead filling. It is surprising how complicated a shape it really is; at first glance it looked a doddle but it was found that these are quite curvy bits and the curves run both ways!
At some point in the past, the car had a sunroof which was removed and some sort of covering applied to the roof, not very well I hasten to add as the roof side panels were quite badly corroded. New ones have now been fabricated (you can just see one of the panels in the photo below) but I need to decide what to do with the roof. I would love a sunroof, albeit a small one, but how to tackle the job I haven’t a clue, not having seen one in a state of deshabille.
Anyway, this is where I am currently with the body – more anon...
Postscript:
I am not sure exactly how noteworthy this is but the front wings still carry their WWII Blackout colours of white leading edges as shown below. Apart from photographing this for posterity, there is not much more I can say about it. I would like to have kept the original colour scheme but short of repainting the body with a lead based eggshell finish using a dead hen as a paintbrush, this idea is probably a non-starter.
