Five, four, three......

So with the carburettors back where they belong it was time to actually start the austin for the first time in two years.
This of course meant purchasing a new battery, the last one having expired not long after i parked it in the workshop, so when i finally got paid i whizzed off down to the battery shop and picked up a new one... voila.

I then needed to think about introducing 'go go' juice to the newly refurbished carburettors, took a bit of a struggle to get the fuel pipe back under the car, but a few carefully chosen swear words soon found it complying with the pushes of my spaghetti arms. I didn't want to start filling the pertrol tank as i'm going to be welding again soon so i would only have to drain it all out again, so as the electric fuel pump is in the boot i needed a suitable container. Luckily being a bit of a Womble i had recently found a metal drink bottle while out with the girls which fitted the bill perfectly. It just needed two holes in the cap, one for the fuel pipe and on to let air in.

Ready ??

Ignition

hehehe the austin lives, sounds like a tractor due to the missing rear silencer but it started pretty much straight away. Yeah.
So at least i know that i put the carburettors back together again correctly.

Celebrate

Just one minus was the loss of a little coolant, hmmmm who forgot to check the radiator hoses?

Only one thing to do after a successful start and that is to have a celebratory clear up. two years of standing still and slowly depositing gearbox oil on the floor leaves its mark.

MMmmmmmmm neat and tidy, tidy and neat.

Project hubcab. End

Got some bonus time down the workshop which was mainly to get the Austin started but i also needed some closure. Project hubcap has been in the pipline for quite a while now, and i have spent many and hour mulling over how best to attach the ye olde hubcaps to the more modern wheels, the two just weren't meant to be one. So after getting the clips all the way from the U.S.A. via Canada (thanks to my north american courier for these) and having a false start involving some glue that just wasn't stong enough i needed a plan B. This would inevitably be more work but meh, thats where the fun is right?. I needed 20 grub screws (M4 x 12mm), a M4 tap, a 3.3mm drill bit, 20 M4 stainless steel washers and 20 M4 stainless steel nylock nuts, and the rest of the previously discarded glue.

I expertly and super accurately marked out where the holes would be drilled, just so happened that this paint tin was the perfect diameter.

I drilled the holes, and cut them to M4 thread.

and screwed in the grub screws to check for fit.

the glue was then mixed and applied to hold them in place. I could have welded them on the backside, and i might still do that, but i didn't really have time for that on this workshop trip.
the clips were then fitted using the washers and lock nuts.

Cap in place, finito.

Almost there?

Been faffing around getting the carburettors back on the engine any available chance i have had at the workshop recently, which hasn't been as often as i would have liked obviously. Got them back on but the front one mysteriously became a bit stiff and the throttle spindle wouldn't move about freely at all after i had connected it all up, so off it came and was taken to pieces AGAIN, slapped it all back together and bolted it back on (the usual 20 seconds to write but several hours to actually do) and this time all seems well.

Sooo hopefully next time i am there i can put the fuel line back under the car and improvise a suitable temporary petrol tank, and maybe even try to start it for the first time in well over a year.

Mmmmm, nice shiny carburettors, hope they work.

This is what is truly amazing about old cars, just look at this, the throttle linkage is all rods and joints, no throttle cable to be seen here. Took me a while to get this working as it should as i had somehow neglected to photograph said linkage before removing it. Doh.

Boxes of power

Not so unsurprisingly my home concocted power supply went bang and now just constantly blows it fuse, so i was on the lookout for more junk another power supply (or two) Happily I found these two for 10 quid at the Oslo autojumble in september.

A good old fashioned battery charger does the trick, the modern ones are all overload protected, regulated no fun. This was perfect and it works as it should too. So my home brew electrolysis tank is back in action.

Not sure what this is for but having googled it i'm guessing at some kind of amateur radio equipment power supply, weighs and absolute ton and makes a great deep hum when powered up. It all lights up as it should but i can't seem to get any sign of a voltage or current form it. This will need more investigating when i get some time (so probably never).