Is it me or have a number of newcomers been unfairly chastised on the Forum recently?

I have noticed numerous "new-to-Austin-Seven" users told off for not listening/reading/ knowing everything there is to know immediately upon purchase of their car. This has made me quite sad.

I have also noted an increasing swell of theoretical pomposity which, in my opinion, has damaged willing participation by an increasing number of incredibly well experienced, but perhaps less (thank goodness) "well read" stalwarts.

Lest anyone feels they have been the victim of such grumpy chastisement and un community/alone behaviour let me be the first to reassure you that many of us still learn about our cars each and every day and there is no reason that you should not experience the same.

Do not be put off by the bafflingly complex or sole miserable character, post your questions, please.

Its a bit of a sad state of affairs really R, there are some who seem determined to kill this forum. The result being the splinter groups which are popping up on other sites, without the huge pool of actual experience and knowledge represented here to draw upon.

Location: Teignmouth

Well said Mr Dunford and Palmer! I've just came back to this site and cannot believe the amount of pompous members who are not giving any advice but chastising the 'new guys' for not knowing 'the basic foibles' of the Austin 7.
I don't know everything,but if I do know the answer to a question, I will try and explain. There is an interesting topic on right now regarding the amount of knowledge that may be lost over the next few decades( don't think it will happen), the members who give negative vibes on this site are not part of the solution......they are part of the problem.

Location: Newcastle upon Tyne(residing in Harvard Ma presently)

R

I hadn't noticed it.
I hope that doesn't implicate me as a guilty party!

Newcomers deserve help and advice, as those before us gave theirs


Charles

Hi R,

Well sed.

I had noticed it building up quite some time ago.

As you will know from talking to me away from the forum, I no longer read all the threads. This is a large part of the reason why.

I can't really be doing with it.

This problem is in all car movements not just 7s, at woolaton park on Sunday we had one of our long time austin 7 owner who went over to the dark side of MGs, he is having a lot of this sort of problem there, and is now looking at telling them were to go.

And returning to austin 7s.

And I'll welcome home back.

Tony.

Location: HUNCOTE on the pig

Hi R,
As an educator I am aware that there is a right and wrong way to convey knowledge to students without resorting to chastisement,and putting off "Newbies" to the group.
Perhaps it would be a good time for forum respondents to be reminded of the standards and expectations the management expects from contributors in the public domain.
Respect is a two way obligation in life, and we must be cautious in our approach to others and to avoid what amounts to bullying, in much the same way that Facebook and other Social media can destroy relationships.
Many would agree that many of the available books on Sevens are out of date and somewhat riddled with mistakes. they can also be hard to reference answers in, and the best ones are often out of print.
Having considered the situation and having had the seed of an idea for some time ,perhaps if the all the Seven Gurus and Rivet counters to get together and collaborate on an up to date Bible of Austin Seven Lore, with each contributing a chapter on their specialty , we could produce an authorative volume of advice. The whole thing could moderated and published perhaps by the Seven Clubs Association. (or put on line )
Does anyone else enthuse to this idea and wish to contribute, if so I would be keen to contribute/ moderate / edit / help with , such an undertaking.
Food for thought , not the whole answer to your original fears , but it could help those struggling to get good advice without personalities detracting.
Cheers Steve Hainsworth

Location: Wellington NZ

Hey Steve, - I like everything you've just said - excellent!
One of the problems the new or would be Austin 7 owner can encounter as has already been said, is the sometimes dismissive reply posted along the lines of 'you need to make more effort searching for the info'.

It's not always possible to 'search' your way to the answer you need - especially if you don't know the correct description / terminology and even if you do know you may still not find the answer you want.

Given the recent thread on encouraging / bringing new blood in, we need to be more careful in responding to queries.

As said in that thread I'm approaching 60 (more knowledgeable in Austin 10's and 12's) but as far as the 7 goes am still a relative newbie in practical terms even though I have the usual past published books which I have avidly read.
I was fortunate to have had an older friend who rebuilt a number of 7's over the years, and although I witnessed his various stages of progress I didn't necessarily see all the fine detail of the rebuilds.

Geoff Halstead's ongoing reports are inspiring as it highlights a lot of the problem's likely to be encountered in a rebuild - many thanks Geoff!

A new collaboration on an up to date Bible of Austin Seven Lore by the Guru's and Rivet counters is a brilliant idea and something everybody could benefit from.

Regards, Steve V.

Location: Polegate, East Sussex, United Kingdom

As one new to the whole A7 thing I have found the help and advice found within this forum excellent and responses friendly. Thanks to everyone!

For newbies like myself I would suggest a few points that are worth remembering and that may go some way to suppressing deep sighs of resignation:

1) Before asking anything try using the search facility. Whatever you are going to ask has inevitably been asked before.

2) If you don't understand something say so. If you don't really know what you are talking about admit it immediately!

3) Remember the rest of the forum amazingly do not know what type of A7 you have...strange but true...

My experience of forums is that their 'moods' cycle through different levels of enthusiasm and generosity, this is most likely due to some contributors wanting to discuss whether semi counter sunk screws are used on GE doors and others wanting to know why their car makes strange noises.

As a newbie one can learn from both.

Location: Fishbourne near Chichester

Dear Steve,

Following up your lengthy and very sound contribution it occurs to me that we already have a compendium of knowledge based on experience in the excellent 750 MC publication, Austin Seven Companion.
My copy is 5th impression, 1985. The availability of newly made parts today makes some articles look dated but the anecdotal approach makes it very readable.
Perhaps there is a case for re publishing this,incorporating some of the best contributions seen on this forum?

Charles. Sunny Norfolk (at last)

Location: Norfolk

As a relatively recent newcomer I have found the forum very helpful but the lack of printed material unfortunate. Perhaps it's out there but I don't know what to look for nor whom to ask. I bought Woodrow and the 750 club green spiral bound workshop notes, how to build an A7 special, the Chris Gould Ulster build manual but find them mostly to be light on technique and heavy on the "assumed knowledge" side.
The Devon Club technical pages are excellent as far as they go. It may be that I've been spoiled by Haynes manuals which, while they are not perfect, are usually the result of dismantling a complete example of the vehicle for which they are written and accompanied by generally excellent photos related to the chapter and verse notes.
The service manual and parts list are useful but out of date in some areas. An on-line "How to" manual with good photos would help me a great deal. I've been playing with all sorts of engined devices since 1967 and still have stuff to learn and the A7 is a slowly opening book at present.

A recommendation list of essential workshop-based books would be a great help to me and many others I'm sure.

Location: Ripon

I am not new to A7's but a friend asked me about the set-up of the brake cross shaft on his 1933 (I think) RP. I can't remember what it looks like so I had a look through the Austin Service Manuals, Woodrow, A7 Companion, Design for Competition ,John Platts parts list and the Austin parts list. Nothing! Ok if it's a 1936 type or early up to 1932 RN. So I can understand people new to A7' s being frustrated. Any ideas anyone?
Dave.

Location: Sheffield

Hi Ruairidh,
As you well know I am new to A7s and I can agree with your comments, I find that some replies to what seems to a honest request for help finds a caustic response in return. Not everyone has lived with A7s for the last 50 years and it is very off putting to new A7 enthusiasts. I am a member of other vehicle forum sites that are much more friendly and tolerate the newbie with more sympathy.
Bottom line not everyone is a University Engineering Graduate who has spent the last 50 or 60 years playing with their A7s !!!

Location: Duns, Scottish Borders

Thank you all for the emails and your comments on here today - seems this is an issue to a good number of you.

Let's hope the great ideas and considered thoughts shared above are taken up by the few for the benefit of the many.

I feel differently.
The Austin seven community have always been very helpful to me. It is true that more could be documented.
So if I can be of help call, visit, or email me and I will do my best to help.
Please don't be grumpy.
There are a lot of share people out there.

Location: The centre of the universe

Hi Ruairidh,
I agree completely with what has been said on this subject.
One thing that might help would be to ask what experience the person has as this makes a big difference in how the reply is formulated (IE) it might help to explain why something is done in a certain way.
when you have been Engineering for a long time you have the Fundamentals fixed in your Head (Alzheimers permiting)Newbys don't.
I just think this is something we should all keep in Mind when Replying to Posts

Location: TINOPAI NZ

Hi Dave W

Your enquiry about mid 1930s cross shafts should be answered in the post "Brake Cross-shafts-Definitive Notes."
You will have to tolerate much by a contributor considered terminally boring by some who know it all (but seldom volunteer broad information for newbies).

Location: Auckland, NZ

Quote: Nick Turley
The Austin seven community have always been very helpful to me.
---------------
and me, sadly lack of knowledge prevents me from contributing more often.

The help often comes off forum.
Ruairidh was able to facilitate shipping of a cabin heater for my Ruby.
It's winter here in OZ, newly fitted, we are basking in comfort, may be a different story come the summer ! thanks Russell

Location: oz

I'm rather new to A7 - bought my first one in 2013. During the restoration of this car, the forum was a great source of knowledge. In addition, books like Woodrow are very helpful. In switzerland, where I'm from the number of A7 is quite low - therefore finding someone to talk about technical issues is difficult. In many cases, the forum was the only source I had.

Of course, some people tend to criticise and explain their point of view about everything but what you have asked. Maybee, thats a matter of time.

I'm happy that this forum exists.
Oliver

Location: Zürich

Steve V,
Thanks for the compliment.

Ruairidh brings up a good point, as we with long experience CAN and DO loose sight that WE where totally CLUELESS at one stage and had to start up that greasy pole of experience.

The reason I'm posting all the photos and videos of progress, is that with luck they will be of help to someone at some time in the future.

I'm new to Sevens, so everything I'm tackling is a leap in the dark so to speak as I'm CLUELESS with regards to 'ours'.

I have been lucky, however, in having a father who was a mechanical wizard, and have inherited some of his genes, but not enough of the wizard ones unfortunately.

The experience of working on my cars in the 60s/70s and then converting my 105E to go racing, and building my own engines, has proved invaluable.
The racing part taught me a lot about preparation and doing things right first time, something I must admit I sometimes fail miserably at.

Geoff - Lets not spoil the best reservoir of knowledge this forum is.

Location: South Norfolk - Next to Suffolk

Thanks everyone for your help. I remember reading it now you have pointed it out. R, I agree with your comments re grumpiness and it could be off-putting but this is a common occurence in all walks of life. Everything will be fine when someone invents an anti-grumpiness pill!

Location: Sheffield

One tricky thing I find with this forum is the search function is pretty rubbish!

Often I search using Google limited just for this forum. It a useful trick most people don't know. It also works for any site.

Enter your search in the Google search box as usual then include after it site:http://pub25.bravenet.com/forum

So, as an example, you would type:

tappets site:http://pub25.bravenet.com/forum

You will get returned results just from the forum but with a little snippet of the relevant text. That gave about 370 results for me for that tappets example. The first one is below.

Location: Wellington

I am new to A7s and must say I have given a very warm welcome and much help. I have found this forum to be a particularly rich source of information but you have to weigh up for yourself the best course of action having taken into account as much information and its source as possible. Its like all learning not all you read in books or find on the internet is 100% accurate! Over time you begin to learn who to rely upon and who although they may have things useful to say may not always get it right. Personalities also rub and a fair degree of tolerance is required to ensure a full diversity of views can be expressed. Of course you don't have to read it all.

When you buy an 80+ year old car with the sort of history an A7 may have had in the past you never quite know what you are getting until you come to take it apart and discover what has actually been done to the car in the past. In my case I had a rear axle made up of two mismatching axle casings, one kidney shaped giving extra brake shoe leverage and one round. No wonder I was struggling with the brakes.

I confess to being the friend that Dave Wortley mentions above and he is a fine example of a very helpful long standing A7 owner who contributes to this forum. I think I now understand how the concentric tube cross shafts work: the outer tube transfers the force exerted by the foot pedal lever to roughly the middle of the inner tube i.e. where it is fixed by the pin that passes through both tubes, this force is then transmitted to the outer ends of the inner tube such that the twist in the tube is equal at both ends and hence the rear brakes should be applied equally. This relies on the inner and outer tubes being free to twist about each other from the fixing pin outwards. If this is not so then you may as well not have concentric tubes.
The problem is when lying on your back under the car how can you exert enough force to verify that the two tubes are free to twist independently to work as designed. If all is as it should be then the advice often put forward to set the near side rear brake to come on first should be ignored.
If my understanding is wrong then please advise and I will not be grumpy.

I have now concluded that my braking problem was elsewhere and determined that the moon shaped front cable compensating lever was dragging on the cable and causing one of the front brakes to stick on if brakes had been applied on full lock. A chain saw file seems to have restored a free movement.

Sorry if I have wandered off topic but a relevant point I would make is that a newcomer may find it difficult to ask the right questions for fear of being accused of not having done enough initial research first. But maybe that is just me!

I also use google to search the forum as Simon does, works well.

Location: NE Peak Corner

Hi David. You should not have to fear asking even the most simple question on this forum for fear of the response. You will be in good company if there are things that you don't quite understand about our beloved cars even after many years of tinkering with them. There are also ways of doing things that if you don't ask first, can end in tears. This is a great forum for everyone and there is no place for unfriendly attitudes.

There is a saying that there is no such thing as a stupid question.

Location: Derby

Ray,
But there are a plethora of Stupid answers.

Location: Oakley , Hampshire

Location: Derby

Just restoring the original subject title to this thread which seems to have got changed by Ray's post.

Location: NE Peak Corner

So sorry - I don't know how that happened!

David,
Thank you for your kind words. You explained succinctly how the cross shaft works! I will reaquaint myself with the cross shaft on my special when I return from hols, even though it will mean crawling under the car.
Dave

Location: Sheffield

This all sounds good to me.
Perhaps we could then find some way of putting it on the internettything and all sorts of people could contribute their own personal ideas and fall out over details invisible to the naked eye.
There should also be a section for people who know virtually nothing about Austin Sevens but have a deep and enduring interest in a completely different vehicle.

Location: Wessex

We already have that. It's here:
www.jowett.org

I'm not convinced that a lot of the information isn't just re-packaged over the years - read the Special Builders Manual with posts from 1940s... all terribly good stuff. The 'splinter' activity I see more as repositiories of specialised info like the Gordon England archive, some filing of Nippy stuff, a few gathering on facebook and so on. They aren't really exchanges like the forum, but are well sited, easy to access, searchable.... and also free to all.

The mention of the Geoff restoration thread is exactly why we all wait with bated breath for a revised forum structure. With picture heavy posts, my computer takes 3 minutes to settle down and resolve each page before I can read the last post of each page as it loads all the photos up! It would be far better put into a wordpress site and referenced from here, so it can be scrutinised easily as well as accessed from here.

New stuff to be written? Bring it on! But make it permanently and easily accessible. I keep coming across real gems on google, hidden in odd corners of long forgotten sites.

Even better, some video'd contributions of people working on things, like Geoff. That would be really useful as well as getting to see some of the nuances/thoughts of people beyond what can be conveyed on the forum texts.

Being able to access film of - stripping an engine - assembling a clutch spring - disassembling a PLC etc - in a growing index would be quite inspiring as well as fun. Could all go onto one youtube channel, for instance... with a bit of networking.

I thought John Cornforth's wiring diagram deserves printing on a t-shirt. But obviously, wouldn't be directly easy to USE unless printed in reverse and in a workshop with full length mirrors...

Has anyone considered that such a repository of information might need to be policed or moderated in some way? One of the most annoying things about so called facts that appear on the net is that they have not been researched properly and there are many instances of old and inaccurate information being simply rehashed. If such errors can find their way into printed works of reference - and they do - the opportunity for "old wives tales" becoming a feature of the new internet "bible", I believe, is a real problem.

I am not being negative - I really want this to succeed (and I might be able to help) but I want it to be established with the highest possible standards.

Location: Derby

I quite agree Ray, a number of us get concerned about some of the misinformation and old wives tales that get posted on this site at present. Some of this is unfortunately accidental, but more sinister and unforgivable is the blatant over dramatization of facts, or indeed fiction in some cases. Filtering through the irrelevant hypothetical nonsense can at time be tedious, and often confusing for the less experienced reader. Perhaps we should have a warning, that readers should check with experienced experts before relying on information posted here.
I believe that this site has been in general been brilliant, and contains some absolute gems, the issue is that because of the lack of categorisation and/or failings of the search facility finding them is not always easy. As suggested it would be brilliant, although extremely time consuming if a board of noted experts could sift through the vast knowledge pool that has been posted here, then extract and compile that information as the 750MC did with the Bulletins to create the Special Builders Guide and Companion.

Location: Auckland NZ

Why is it better for a new member to search for an existing answer rather than ask the question and get answers?

I like to read questions and answers - that's how we learn.

If everyone simply found old answers the forum would dry up and die.


This is a wonderful forum with great people, if you are too busy to answer then leave it to others.

Location: Derby

I use the Search facility regularly then Bookmark what I need from the results.
A wealth of information available 👏👍

JonE,
Looks as if I will have to have another go at either a website or spend time with getting to grips with Wordpress.
More videos and photos will be added, and I would very much wish for the contents to be easily viewed.

Geoff - Latest video added to my 'Rejuvination' thread.

Location: South Norfolk - Next to Suffolk