Born as a 1934 low frame chassised Austin 7,and therefore probably a Ruby, Albert, as this pet project has been dubbed, is slowly evolving into
the road going racer he is intended to be.These pages are the chronicles
of that evolution, hopefully culminating, in the not too distant future, with an on-line video link of the firing up and driving.
See picture below of Albert as set up upon work resuming in1998, when his owner returned to New Zealand from the U.K. with some exciting goodies.
Much more info. & updates to come, so press ctrl. D now and come back
regularly....
Cheers
Albert's Builder.
As a pile of spares no longer needed by my Father for his 1929 RK Saloon restoration, a great journey began for me and Albert. I at the tender age of Eleven and Albert ... well he was hard to date back then consisting only of a '32 prop shaft, a Ruby wheel, radius arms, brake drums, generator, a front axle, and pre-Ruby steering wheel and column.
It wasn't long before these bits were joined in the pile on the garage floor by a couple of 16 inch Ruby wheels and some very sad stub axles off a trailer.
At the local VCC spares a number of Austin 7 wheels had turned up. A matching pair of rolled edge 16 inch wheels took my totally unknowing eye and were purchased for $10.
Upon returning home and inspecting more closely, it was discovered something wasn't right - these wheels had an extra half inch offset. I still have no idea what they are actually off. Check them out on the Quiz pages and e-mail me your suggestions.To this day, with now 3 sets of offset rims, these 2 are by far the best condition.
Two more of these wheels were bought at the next Canterbury Swapmeet - but they were different - these 16 inch rolled edge wheels had a curious taper to the well. In fact the well disappeared on the opposite side to the valve hole. See these wheels on the Quiz pages also.
Next the front axle was sent to Fairweathers Engineering where Ray, a local VCC member did a great job of bowing the front axle on a jig made a few years before for a Nippy replica.
More history will be put to print from my diary as time goes by, but for now keep up to date with current work.
