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Hi All,
Figured i would have a bit of a play and see how this picture posting malarky worked... For the benefit of you on dial up thumbnails all round
Firstly a couple of pictures of the floppy flywheel
The CAD model is all done and i am in the process of doing the drawings. CAD systems are not brilliant at displaying imperial fractional units so its taking a little while.
Secondly a curiosity purchased not too long ago...
This is a three bearing crank case BUT it is a high frame chassis version - look at the position of the clutch stop lug. It is the correct crankcase for late vans (still high frame and chrome rad well into 1937) and 'standard' engined nippys (as opposed to the sports version)
Austins made high and low frame versions of both the two bearing rubber mount and the three bearing engines. The main difference is the vertical position of the rear engine mount relative to the rest of the engine. The idea being to keep the transmission in a straight line (hence also the two different lenghts of the drop link from the ball joint on the torque tube of the rear axle)
Be warned!! The high frame crankcase can be fitted in the low frame chassis with additional packing under the rear engine mounts. THE LOW FRAME CRANKCASE WILL NOT FIT IN A HIGH FRAME CAR. This is the cause of late box saloons with the nose piece casting colliding with bottom of the hole in the radiator shell (unless the hole is enlarged), it also makes it near impossible to remove the flywheel cover and there are often issues with the propshaft joints touching the floorpan etc.
YOU CANT TELL THEM APART BY ENGINE NUMBER the production overlapped here there and everywhere.
The easy way to tell them apart is by the clutch stop position. On the high frame crankcase it is blended into the flange for the starter motor as shown above.
On the low frame crankcase it is a separate feature like this...
I think my dad may have explained this in a bristol club news letter last year but it can never hurt to do it again with pictures!!
Excellent, photograph skills tested and put to good use!!
Regards
Rob
Yes, these new photo skills allow me to show just what a hooligan I must have always been! 
These two pictures were taken fifty-one years apart. The first only last Friday, in the AE, at the Goodwood Charity Track day.
The other, in the Cup Model, was taken in 1955 at Heston Airport (now part of the Heathrow complex).
What enormous fun it all is. 
Mike 
AE Chummy at Goodwood 2006
Cup Model at Heston 1955
A bit to add to the three bearing crankcase curiosity: the same "earlier" dimensions for the mounting lugs were also used on some of the stationery and (perhaps) marine engines. I have one of these. It has an "AND" prefix reather than the "M" with a four figure number. Perhaps it'll finish up having a spin in my box one day!
Ron
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Indeed Don, where IS Doctor Doom, and for that matter the good Reverend and his girlfriend have been missing for some time also.
I do hope that the world goes well with them all, and that they continue to enjoy rude health.
Mike
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Hi Ruairidh,
Yes, it does seem as if I have a non-standard one piece windscreen! I believe that my car was involved in an accident and ended up in a ditch back around the late sixties, there is evidence of this on the chassis, and radiator shell, and it may well have lost the original screen at that time. I think that it may well be a box screen grafted into tourer up-rights. It all works as it should, though I seldom open it.
The car was all put back together by one James Witton, in Norfolk in the eighties. In passing did anyone know James, I believe that he was quite active in the movement at that time and seems to have owned three Sevens for a period.
Mike
Steve,
Good of you to recognise YW 214 aka 'Bunny'
I knew this car back in the late forties, early fifties, indeed I cut my driving teeth on it. It belonged at that time to my very good friend Colin Hoile who was most generous with the use of it. We had many adventures!
Colin’s parents gave him the car in I think 1947 for his birthday. I am fairly certain that he was only the second owner. The car was know as ‘Bunny’ as there was a rabbit mascot on the radiator cap in those days.
Subsequently he sold it to another friend of mine, Geoff Greinig. Geoff later had it restored by a guy in Chessington who took it completely to pieces and made patterns from which a number of replicas were produced. End of topic.
The mention of Ashstead does not really come into the picture save that Geoff had it garaged with one Peter Dawes there for some time. Peter used to use it. The car was originally red not brown, with black wings. The bonnet sides were red also, and not self colour. The oil pressure gauge I fitted to replace the standard oil button.
Ultimately Geoff put it into auction, and I believe it must have been Adli Halabi who purchased it – for quite a lot of 'then' money!
So far as to say that it was EC’s personal car might be stretching the facts a bit. Colin knew EC quite well. Geoff met him, and corresponded with him, and on one occasion took him to see the car whilst it was being restored. Whilst it was still in Colin’s ownership it was driven around Goodwood at the Festival of Motoring in 1963 by EC accompanied by his wife. The picture in Chris Harvey’s book (p.175) was taken, probably at St. Mary’s, on this occasion. I attach a further picture which I took some ninety seconds later when he had moved round from St. Mary’s to the Pits.
As recently as last evening I spoke to Geoff, sadly Colin is no longer with us, and never was there any mention made by EC of having previously used the car. Indeed, Colin used to drive Bunny for everyday transport and thus attended Goodwood (as a marshal) in the early days with it. EC was also a Steward at Goodwood, and no mention was ever made of use or ownership to my knowledge. I cannot believe that such a fact would just have slipped by.
It is perhaps pertinent that the Cup model was announced in 1925 whilst Bunny was a product of 1928. I suspect that EC would have been on to later things by this time.
The car appeared at Beaulieu in 2003, owned by Graham Smith of Halifax. I have neither heard nor seen anything since then.
I am sorry if this diatribe disappoints any one, but those are the facts from someone who was about, and involved, at the time.
Mike
Rob,
Me again jumping in where angels fear to tread.
Looking at the pictures of the flywheel modification from 2006 - how does the flywheel flexible mounting resist the no doubt heavy clutch spring pressure, especially as the fixings have to be thinner than the clutch lining. I would have thought that there could be some strange movements here and a tendancy for the whole thing to collapse?
I suppose if still working after six years the mountings must be OK 
Tony
Location: Melbourne, Australia
