1960 Austin Seven resto

[jeff10049]

Wife found this on the bay http://www.ebay.ie/itm/351366598376?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2648

I also found a hood latch, still looking for the complete safety catch off  a junk hood if anybody has one.

Got my carpet installed.

[jeff10049]

Made some progress had the seat frames sand blasted and got them painted. Made a couple boards to put on the seat bases with a pillow so we could take the car for its first real drive. Car ran and drove great. The list of stuff to complete the car is getting shorter. Seat upholstery, seam covers and trim, interior panels, license plate bracket, wipers washers, and its done. 
A few pictures still need to give it a final polish

[94touring]

Looks really good

[MiniDave]

Wonderful!

Is this a trailer queen/show car or something that will be driven?

[Mudhen]

Gorgeous!!!

[jeff10049]

Thanks guys,

Dave It's not my style to trailer a car they built em to drive. That said this is a very correct build right down to correct head marks on the bolts it is a show car but it will be driven in fair weather. Maybe trailed to a show if its over a 1000 miles round trip other than that its a driver.  Had it been ready I would have driven it to mmw.

Jeff

[MiniDave]

Excellent - I'm the same way - I build them to drive them, but I can understand someone being reluctant after this much work to make the car absolutely correct.

Beautiful little car - well done!

[tsumini]

Excellent!!

[jeff10049]

Spent the day working on the steering wheel filling cracks with pc7 epoxy and sanding. its ready for primer. Also stripped and repainted the horn button.

[jeff10049]

Also made a nut for the steering wheel it's a odd size nut, cut the head off a large bolt and drilled and threaded it on the lathe 11/16" 28 tpi.

[jeff10049]

painted the wheel today

[MiniDave]

Is it a special kind of paint used on the wheel? something with a little bit of flex in it?

[jeff10049]

Flex additives are not really needed with most paint systems anymore. The wheel is painted with sikkens base clear it's flexible enough on its own, for steering wheels and bumper covers. Some systems don't even recommend or offer a flex additive anymore.

I am a little worried about the pc7 epoxy re cracking I hope it holds up seems to be recommended for steering wheel repair time will tell.

Jeff

[tsumini]

Did you mean sikkens black base with a clear coat?
I have a austen wheel that was cracked quite a few places. I filled with 3M 8115 without routing the cracks using dental floss to work it in. It's had a winter/summer heat cycle. I'll check to see how it's doing.Haven't painted it yet.

[jeff10049]

Yes sikkens base and clear, any of the top shelf base/clear  paint products should work fine. I think diamont dc92 clear might be a even better choice for a wheel the stuff dries hard as hell. So if you wear a ring or something it should hold up well and still seems to work fine on flexible parts not sure how important that is on a wheel but I see Daves point a black plastic wheel going from -10 to full sun and 100+ likely grows a bit.
I'll post back how mine holds up after a few months we get some pretty good temp swings here it was 38 this morning and 90 this afternoon.

Jeff

[MiniDave]

It sure looks beautiful!

I have a tractor that lives outside and the wheel has cracked on it, so I'll get to try my hand at it this fall too.....

[jeff10049]

I took my headliner frames to a upholstery shop and got the fabric installed they said it was a bitch keeping the frames square and pulling all the wrinkles out I got the frames back last week and put them in the car yesterday had to steam out a few wrinkles that came from installing, but the headliner is really nice better than any mk1 I have seen I'll be looking at them all now to see how they came out.

[Willie_B]

Nice. I wish my MkIII was going to be that easy.

[94touring]

I have a headliner ordered for my car.  I've gotten rather good at installing them but it's definitely a project since all the glass needs to come out as well.  Looking good!

[jeff10049]

The plastic  levers on my lucas toggle switches were missing, I bought a balsa wood dowel cut off a couple pieces, carved ,sanded to the shape of the lucas lever then drilled a mounting hole and soaked the wood with super glue. let it dry, finish sanded,painted, and epoxy on to the metal stubs worked great quick and easy if anybody is missing a lever.

[MiniDave]

Not to disrespect your workmanship in any way, but I thought those toggles were readily available?

[jeff10049]

The whole switch is easy to get are the levers available? my switches are dated in 1959 and I wanted to keep that. Also I have read on many reviews that the new lucas switches are complete crap.

Jeff

[MiniDave]

No, I thought you could just buy the black toggle parts of the switches separate......don't they just screw on? I've seen guys who have really long handles on theirs is why I think that......

[jeff10049]

The newer ones might screw on, mine do not the metal stub coming out is part of the switch innards and has no threads  I thought about buying some of those long ones Ive seen them in truck stops and try to cut them down that was after trying to make a mold and cast a plastic one then tried making one from a sheet of hdpe plastic no luck then thought of trying wood.

Jeff

[jeff10049]

My interior came in from newton commercial. Been installing that along with other small items on the list. Almost done! Seat straps came in so seat frames go to upholstery next week.