Good evening all. I'm currently engaged in building three engines and I would like them to look as near as possible as they did when they left the factory. Were the block and head painted or left as cast? Over the years I have comes across a number of crankcases that have evidence of a silver finish - were they painted? Any advice would be appreciated.
Best regards
Stuart in Staffordshire

In Rinsey Mill's "Original Austin Seven" he says "Engines fitted to cars were normally left with aluminium castings bare and the block and head enamelled black; the cooling fan was painted red". My personal preference is for matt or semi-matt black rather than full gloss. Owners of air cooled motorcycles of the period often used to use cylinder black - a matt finish which slightly improves the cooling. Starter motors and dynamos were sometimes cadmium plated, which is frowned upon these days due to its toxicity - silver paint makes a usable substitute. Tinwork like the tappet cover, sump and flywheel cover etc I guess were originally black too.

Location: New Forest, Hampshire

I'm also interested in the colour of the paint used on the cylinder block and head when they left the works. I remember in the sixties nearly every block, head and even hubs that I acquired as spares had traces of green paint on them. Was this the origin of BMC green?

Location: South Manchester

Over the years I have come across several marine Seven mag.engines ( and still have two ). In all cases the crankcases have been painted green - and a green which is identical in all cases. Was this common practice to counter the effect of sea water etc?

Location: Melton Mowbray - Pork Pie & Stilton country!

Hi ,john , I have lost count of the no. of engine s I have built. But I use a product by hammerite ; Bike "pot black " high temp,one coat satin black ( one coat ,added graphite for cooler running.)for block. brush application. I paint the manifold with Kurust . it looks good but soon wears off...

Location: HQ Ferring

Re the quote from Rimsey Mills about Austin Seven aluminium fanblades being always painted red - is this really a fact? I've seen probably hundreds of fans both magneto & coil and very few have been painted red (and no proof this was originally done). If it is a fact, how come dozens & dozens of owners over the years have gone to the trouble of scraping off the paint & if restoring "as found" why didn't they re-paint the blades red again? I'd have to say most of the few fans I've seen painted red were the four-bladed type, so maybe some truth there. Anyone with definite (and I mean definite) ideas? Cheers, Bill

Location: Mount Eliza, Melbourne, Australia

How can an idea be definite?

Bill
My two bladed fan is red, but as you say there is no way of telling if this is original or not?

Steve

My vote is red fan blades... If I reflect on it most I have come across were red, so if I do one red it is! in many cases it is just a repaint in that colour.

Location: HQ Ferring

I have two, 1934 two bladed RED fans, they both came with a car I bought in 1961, one on the engine the other in a box of spares. I had never repainted them until about three years ago when I tried to match the same red colour, after I had scraped off the layers of road dirt/oil film on them. At the time (1961) the blades had that patina so sought after now......

The blade and the the box of spares has been with me since 1961, mostly tucked away in my late fathers garage, untouched, until he passed away in 2003.

The other blade was on the engine when the car went walk about in 1972, taxed for 6 months in 1974 and then a long holiday at Ray Walkers until sold at Probate in 1998. 4 owners in quick succession until 2003 when I managed to get that car back complete with original engine and fan blade - it had a knick in one of the blades from an accident I had back in 1964, I still have the scars too - inappropriate use of a tool so I know it's the same cr4ppy fan blade.

Location: Near Lands End

I can confirm that the one-owner 1936 Ruby that I had back in the late 1960s had a red two-blade fan, but I have never come across a mag or early coil engine with a painted fan. Early engine bay photos would appear to indicate an unpainted fan, but I am aware that certain film emulsions rendered red as a pale grey, so that doesn't prove anything...

Thank you Mike, you've reminded me - now that I've re-read my other submission, I meant to write magneto and EARLY coil fans. Sorry everybody for the omission. As said, my experience of red blades is more with the 4-bladed type, which was more an Export model thing from fairly early on. Cheers, Bill

Location: Mount Eliza, Melbourne, Australia

Bill, I am too young to give first hand information about what happened pre war, but I am old enough to have been able to buy new spares from my local Austin dealership in the early 1960s. Eventually they sold all their "new old stock" to a friend of mine. I can clearly recall this included some red painted two bladed fans. Of course, this doesn't prove that the original equipment in 1929 was finished in the same way; I imagine much of the old stock dated from the late '30s or later than that. There weren't any NOS blocks, so no idea about the colour of those!
Regards, Stuart

OK Mike but I acquired spares all over-they couldn't all be ex Army. Whenever I parked the Seven in town I'd come back to find a message under they wiper "phone this number I've got some spares you can have". I was round at a Seven friends (he's had is Seven since 1963) house this week and there in his garage is a box of inner hubs-the one non rusty one was BMC green. Was somebody in the northwest repaiting Seven spares green?

Location: South Manchester

The red paint could be blood from a previous owners sweat or knuckles..Ooch!

Good evening all. Firstly thanks for the advice concerning engine finishes - never thought to look in Rinsey Mills. On the subject of green paint this week I was preparing a 1931 RN rad shell prior to re-plating and the inside of the shell was painted green - well applied over clean metal. Finally fan finishes, some year's ago Mick Kirkland and I attended an auction sale at Cheltenham Racecourse. In the sale was an RP which was untouched since the day it left the factory - even down to the original Dunlop tyres and rubber tunnel mat. It showed how little paint Austins applied to the body although the wings were well finished, enamelled? The fan was red, being commented on by a number of onlookers.
Best regards
Stuart in Staffordshire

Stuart - A RP saloon would not have had an EARLY coil engine fitted, and who's to say the first owner didn't paint it himself? My only experience with "guaranteed originality" was when I uncovered a shed full of brand new A7 spares, vintage & post-vintage, at the rear of a breaker's yard in a Newcastle suburb. The shed hadn't been opened since before WW2 (the key was missing for the padlock, so I took the door off at it's hinges). Many old-timers may recall me selling/giving them most of the stuff - it was 1977 - and taking some back to Oz. I still have a couple of the fans (one of each) and neither are painted red or green. We may never resolve the poser. Cheers, Bill

Location: Mount Eliza, Melbourne, Australia

There is a reminiscence in print somewhere - in one of the A7CA Mags? - about the man with the job of painting the fan red being persuaded to put a dab of red paint on a visitor's dog.

Location: Cheshire

See page 5 of A7CA mag. 1991B (mis-titled as 1991C).
And it wasn't the dog's nose.

As follows from the A7CA Magazine 1991C p5:

PAINTED PARTS
One afternoon in the early 1930s, when the "Seven Horse" track at Longbridge was humming along, a bosomy, purple-clad Duchess style VIP was being shown around. She had brought along her very large, pure white standard poodle dog, - you know the sort, all pom-poms and clipped. This dog on its lead trailed along behind the party in its stately progress.

Now the purists among you will know that the Seven had a red fan blade, and this was painted by a little, tough Brummie called Alf who, as the finished cars left the end of the track, slapped a coat of red on the blade with a large brush. The apprentices decided upon a quick whip round which produced 10/- and it was suggested to Alf that the dog's appendages would be much enhanced by a splash of colour. As the party passed his work place the dog was given a quick whack up the rear end with the red brush and this caused some hilarity, especially among the women trim workers who were a rough lot. The cause of the laughter was soon discovered and a big row broke out, headed by Mr. Saunders, the Head of Security, who happened to be in the party. Alf by this time had been tipped off to go and hide in the toilets. Saunders said that he would clean off the dogs tackle and took him to the paint shop. There, with the dogs head tucked under his arm he slapped a big handful of cotton waste dripping with thinners on the offending parts. The dog didn't take to this and in spite of having his head tucked under Saunder's arm, managed to twist round and bite his leg vigorously. At this, Saunders let go and the dog set off up the Bristol road at a lick. Saunders had three weeks on the box with dog bites, and Alf, when they found him was all innocence.

Seven Up

Colin - I do recall this story well and also know that the same story has been attributed to just about every motor manufacturer of the time. With the Austin story it said "early 30s" which doesn't mean necessarily that fans were painted on the magneto or early coil engines? I was once told that the larger Austin models in the 20s had painted fans but for cost reasons the Sevens didn't. Anyone know of this? Incidentally, a search of 20s magazine photos has yet to find a painted fan, but all seem to have head and block painted black. Cheers, Bill

Location: Mount Eliza, Melbourne, Australia

As an addition to above, which will no doubt please mac, sandy, et al:- I have now found a Light Car & Cyclecar road test of the 1933 models which shows 2 views of the engine department and it seem clear that the fan is painted. I still haven't found any evidence of same on any early cars in photographs. Cheers, Bill

Location: Mount Eliza, Melbourne, Australia

Hi Bill
In terms of hard evidence, contemporary road test reports would seem one of the few sources of reliable information - the cars shown are production models and new. Pictures taken by the factory of specially prepared chassis, or contemporary factory illustrations might not reflect production, and original photographs of cars even a few years old might no longer be as they left the factory.
Regards
Colin