Projects The Dead end Thread - My '34 Austin Ruby Project

Thought it was about time to document the build up of my '34 Austin Ruby project. Labeled it "dead end" because at some point in time it will veer off the track and not be Hamb compliant and will leave everyone hanging. Enthusiasm for working on the T coupe has vanished for now and in an attempt to not just twiddle my thumbs all winter, I dragged the Austin back into the garage. This is a car that has many attempts to try to come up with a workable (something that fits) drivetrain and suspension. Seemed safe enough to try doing some bodywork instead. Been avoiding that due to the stress cracks in the fenders. There is that rolled bead along the edge wrapped around a stiffening wire; something I have never tried before. Upon reviewing the situation, it isn't that bad. The right front fender has a bad crack, but whoever fixed it welded it; not some ugly brazed affair. The right rear fender has a real ugly repaired tear and the back edge looks like the bead was worn out due to dragging on the pavement. Learning time.
As far as the drivetrain blues, my last attempt was putting in a Geo Metro 3 cylinder hooked to a Suzuki Samarai transmission which was going to go to a much narrowed Ford 9" with 4.56:1 gears. With the current situation of high gas prices along with the Canadian government's carbon tax, I'm rethinking this. Not so much as to how much gas this puddle jumper will consume but rather the cost involved with rebuilding all those pieces and locating the ones still needed. China has all sorts of low speed mini electric cars and the driveline parts can be purchased cheap. When i get to that point, this hits a dead end.

 

You know that firewall is just itch'n to be set back!

 

I bought this car back in May 2011 when I spotted it at the Red Deer swap meet. I knew right away what it was because i remembered a feature on one in Rod & Custom No.11 in 1980 when it was no longer a magazine but just an occasional publication. Always was intrigued by small cars. Showed it to my wife who said "buy it". Can we say impulse buy?
The article said the car had a narrowed Datsun 510 front suspension. Those cars have McPherson struts so I knew that the technical details were wrong and I was on my own as to how to proceed. Next, I bought a crunched Miata since I figured, small car, rear wheel drive; should be a good drivetrain. Took out the tape measure and discovered that the engine was way too long and the track width was way too wide. To fit the engine, I would have to recess the firewall; something I didn't want. To keep the cartoon small car character, I wanted the car to be able to seat 4 people - like when you see 6 clowns climb out of a VW bug. Ended up fixing up the Miata; great car.
The original front suspension is beam axle, transverse spring, and wishbone; like an old Ford but different enough to deal with. Since we are hot rodders, it must be lower than stock and the Austin axle's front spring goes almost all the way to the spindles so it doesn't "drop" in the conventional way. The way the Brits do it is to drop the center into a smile and get the drop via a flatter spring. I didn't want the hassle of sending the axle over to the UK to get that done. I had high hopes when Accurate Mike had his Anglia axle dropped and hoped that when dropped would be narrow enough for an Austin. Nope. This car is way smaller than an Anglia!
Next engine attempt has been a Geo Metro 3 cylinder. This one fits if I recess the distributor through the strange box on the firewall. To convert it to rear wheel drive, I bolted the engine to a transmission from a Suzuki Samurai. The current idea is for a drivetrain that is even less Hamb friendly so I might not ever get there.
This brings me to where I currently am; trying to figure out where to go. I started with a car that didn't have engine and transmission. Someone obviously tried working on this car and gave up before me. All the nuts and bolts are hopelessly frozen and are weird. Sae sockets don't fit nor do metric ones. Either its a loose fit or I hammer them on. When a bolt snaps off; I consider that a victory. All the bolts have a fine thread. I'm pounding out dents until I figure out what to do.

 

You need a set of Whitworth tools... Most of the stuff out of the UK in that era had Whitworth hardware, not quite SAE or metric. And while the thread pitch looks the same, it isn't. IIRC the pitch is 5 degrees different from SAE. A SAE bolt will start, but will break off if you try to tighten it.

 

Yep Whitworth. Another fine example of wondering why one part of the world did one thing and another part something similar but different. You could probably remove them all and tap for SAE.

 

Or try to track down a set of 32nd increment sockets. Proto used to make quite a few, I've got the 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29 and 31 sizes. I can count on my fingers the number of times I've used any of them but they were handy then...
But for the Whitworth 1/2 and 9/16 sizes you need that wrench.

 

I knew about the Whitworth wrenches. Had a set way back when I was trying to build my BSA chopper. Looked in the old toolbox and they weren't to be found. Trying to make do without them since I don't think I will need them when I replace the fasteners with something better. Right now, I'm trying to get focused on what to do. Don't want to totally disassemble the car since cars take up way more space when apart so decided to work on the fenders. They really aren't that bad; the worst one being the right rear one. This is where I will learn how to make the flexible shape pattern that Wray Schelein does from the fender on the other side. There is also the problem of the the rotted out frames on the quarter windows. Didn't know how to fix them so I came up with a brilliant solution - eliminate them like on later minivans; just make the glass larger, get the glass made up with the glass shop making holes for the hinges before they send them off to be tempered.

 

For the front end......get a dropped tube axle and narrow it to fit. Use a shorter spring or 1/4 elliptic.

 

My brother found the Whitworth sockets so I might as well get a set of combination wrenches. Anyhow, I am concentrating on working on the fenders. To make the flexible shape patterns, I needed to find a source for the low tack transfer tape. Saw this video from Cold War Motors where Scott made his pattern from masking tape so that is what I did; I had this real poor quality masking tape that didn't stick that well so that was perfect for the job. Didn't have any plaster powder to kill the stickiness off the backside of the tape so I found an unopened box of baking soda in the kitchen that had a best before date of 2014 that I don't think my wife will miss. I didn't do a "great" job of pounding the dents out of the good fender before making the pattern but it is way better than the bad fender. Kyle from "carter auto restyling" uses a bullseye pick often in his videos and I think that would be a good tool to have since my aim isn't that good for picking at the low spots from the back side with a hammer and hitting the dolly at the same time. Looked online for an affordable bullseye pick and the best price I found was at KMS tools that have a bunch of stores in western Canada, but of course, out of stock and backordered. Going to cut apart this dead stove from my rental house for sheet metal for the fender patches. It will take some time before I do anything really interesting.

 

That’s a great car! Keep the updates coming.

 

I have seen another Austin Seven (albeit a 'special' rather than a rod) fitted with that motor/trans combo, seems to work really well. Are you set on using a Ford 9" rear end? Not only rather heavy for your application, but that big Hypoid offset is a relatively big power sapper too with a small motor.

A Frogeye Sprite (Bugeye Sprite on your side of the pond) rear end might well work without being narrowed and should be strong enough to deal with that 3 cylinder motor's torque, this rear end is a light unit -the drop out centre section is cast Aluminum. A wide range of Diff ratios are available for this BMC (British Motor Corporation) 'small car' rear end from 3.7:1 (fitted to the Riley 1.5 sedan) right through to 4.9:1 (Early Morris minor van/pickup) IIRC the Bugeye had a 4.2:1 Diff from the factory, the same as 1963 onward Morris Minors -the Minor axle is about 4" wider than the Bugeye unit, so would almost certainly need to be narrowed for a Ruby.

 

The choice of narrowed 9" was simple. It was there. It was cheap. I remembered big school busses with huge differentials powered by 283's so this is a variation of that idea. Anyhow, that was plan A....

 

When I was building my Austin Eight I ran into all those strange Whitworth fasteners, but I didn't have much trouble as it seemed almost all the time some SAE or Metric tool I had in my toolboxes worked OK. And by the time I'd gotten a new engine, trans, front and rear suspension done, there's not much left to be of concern now.
I also have always been infatuated by small cars with American V8 power. Even a mild V8 engine in one of these little British cars will make for a lot of fun. My fairly modest SBC in my A8 is likely under 400 hp, but it puts smile on your face anytime you mash the pedal.

 

SUBSCRIBED

Check out my Anglia project where I narrowed a nine-inch housing with only a lathe. page 2
I turn a wooden plug with a centered flange to align the ends for welding; then smash out the wood plug. Simple.
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/attic-anglia.704777/page-2

I like the use of the electric motor. Having taken a ride in my son's 580 HP E-car the sky is the limit as far as performance in that thang, space limitations notwithstanding. You can still keep it traditional looking with relatively carefree driving.

 

Didn't cut up my junk stove for sheet metal yet due to all the snow that melted and turned to ice. Would probably trip and hurt myself trying to haul that so patiently waiting for a change in the weather. Also know of where I can find junk fridges for sheet metal. Learned that from watching Ernie Adams on various videos. He builds his incredible dwarf cars from old fridges. In the meantime, I took off the doors to see what needs to be done there. On the bottom edge, there is wood visible that the door skin attaches to. I might replace this with steel or try my hand at working with wood. Don't really like wood though, it doesn't weld good.

 

Make it out of steel.

Wood is for hammer forms.

 

I am now venturing onto new territory for me - wood. I had never really looked inside these doors before because some previous owner nailed on galvanized sheet metal door cards on. It isn't pretty inside. Rotten wood under the rusty bent up door skins. I had considered doing wood repairs because I was given a bandsaw and a table saw but now realize that steel is the way to go. The wood isn't even good enough to take patterns from. Time to make templates and do some imagineering.

 

British water soluble steel, termite hotel, what else could go wrong? Keep posting, this one is interesting.

 

The structure inside your doors seems relatively simple to re-engineer in steel. I would start with the door jamb, where the hinges attach. If the body contour at the rear edge of the cowl is good use it to make a pattern to form the front door jamb. mount the hinges and reinforce locally as needed. Make amother rear door jamb where the latch mounts (I'm assuming it is not a suicide door. Reverse the process if it is.) Connect the two jambs with bottom and top pieces of the approprite length and flanged to accommodate the door skin and you're nearly there. The most difficult part will be if the door has a crown and character embossments. That is where much of the hand forming techniques will be needed. Good luck.

 

Not a lot to report. I'm still being held hostage by the ice in the streets not melting and my truck that wants to just spin on the ice so no free sheet metal yet. Once I removed the wood at the base of the doors, I found the metal parts to be much better than I anticipated. The door latches are missing parts and I can't find repro parts for them. The Speedway catalog shows latches that look good but when I called, they were backordered. Searched online and found the same ones at Farm Parts Store. Not only did they have them in stock, but they are available here in Canada so the shipping is a better deal. Once they arrived, I noticed that they are made in the U.K. How appropriate. Here is how they look compared with the original.

 

The snow just won't go away so I drove the car over to where the junk fridge was and came home with the fridge door so I at least have enough sheet metal to patch a fender. Fridge sheet metal has this embossed texture so I'm using the back side for the front side of my patch work. Cut the metal to the shape of my flexible shape pattern and started bending it over my leg. Found out that this isn't as easy as it looks in the videos so back to what I know about making patch panels - make them as small as possible; way less to deal with. I cut off the worst part and peeled the edge off the stiffening wire. Now I have to weld up the wire so that the fender keeps its shape with the missing piece gone. Should be able to haul the empty acetylene tank to the welding shop with the car since the truck is still out of commission until the ice melts.

 

Refilled the acetylene tank and am glad that I rarely do this. Too much money involved. Also went over and used a friend's bead roller to run a bead in my patch panels. Tacked them in place and it looks like I will have to do a bit of lead sculpting in order to make the look good so I will have to learn to do that too. As I've grown older, I see that my gas welding skills aren't what they used to be. Time to try doing tig again.

 

I see that you mentioned Wray Schelein in your article. I met Wray when he had his shop in Connecticut. He has since moved his shop to Charlton, Massachusetts. Wray is extremely talented, and I see that you are using some of his methods to repair your fenders. I wish you well in your endeavors. Wray is an excellent teacher, and holds classes to learn his methods. I never took any of his classes, but Wray always made me feel welcome in his shop.

 

I've been gas welding for 60 plus years so that is my go to method. Your fender repairs look fine, they just need some hammer and dolly work. I left mine on the car when I fattened them so I would not lose the shape, but since I was changing the wheel opening I needed a flexible shape pattern for the front like you did for the rear of yours.

 

After looking at your work, I reconsidered gas welding. Actually, my gas welding skills haven't deminished; I was looking at my poor mig tack welding job. Zapped the fender and kept blowing holes due to the metal not being that clean. This is on the front of the rear fender that had fatigue cracks. Couldn't clean it good since it was a bit spindly. Clamped the pieces together with vice grips and it tacked together way better with the torch. Still haven't done much with the tig. It is like Maxwell Smart using the "dome of silence". It never works but I keep on trying. It is a cheap welder made in China that I keep modifying. The latest problem is in the patch cord from the foot pedal. There are 5 wires in that and they are such a small gauge that they keep breaking where they are soldered to the 7 pin connector plugs at the ends. Now I have ordered new connector plugs and I will try bigger wire next time.

 

Stick with gas welding, much easier to hammer and dolly.
Use washer and dryer cases instead of refrigerators. Old filing cabinets too - actually find old ones for good steel, if they're avacado or dark brown you're on the right track.
Doors, if you have a door still assembled, get it fitting the body and get dimension for hinge / latch / window mech. If not you'll have to reestablish these. Body should be squared up on frame on mounts you wanna use. Get the metal door frame tacked up and fitting the body then do your skins - it's still a lot of fitting.

I try to keep to 2 areas at a time, if I stall out on one I move to other until both are done. If you go after everything at once the scope of it all is discouraging.

I really like the small British cars. Have looked at what it would take to build one and agree, the width is a challenge if looking for donor parts.
Rough info from internet - Austin is 40 inch track width, even geo metro and Ford festiva are 55, subtract a few inches per side if you manipulate wheel backspacing, still not there. OT, I drove a 1990 Ford festival with 5 speed for a year - cool little car, rev'd like a motorcycle, 13" wheels from a Mazda helped the look a lot.

 

I think an OT '69 Opel GT is the closest production front axle assembly that will work. They have a transverse leaf spring design similar to a Corvette. Vega artillery wheels will also work.

 

I'm surprised that people are actually reading about project. Thank you for the suggestions for my front suspension but I will ignore them since the track width is a mere 34". Yes - narrower than a sheet of plywood. I have my "get booted from the Hamb suspension" in the works.

 

I just went out and threw a tape on mine ('36 ARQ, same series as yours) and it's ~40". A little wider in the rear. I'm confused. Mike

 

My '33 has no chassis, but it is 36" inner fender well to inner fender well.