Hubs, rear, holder
- by Richard Rowe BVMS MRCVS
- Download this article here
Last summer I was giving a ride to a few very junior members of the pony club at Frampton on Severn when one bright spark asked "what was the clicking noise?" I think that he was more interested in the Chummy than his sister's pony and was only present on sufferance with the promise of a visit to McDonald’s on the way home.
As you more experienced owners will know the noise came from a loose rear hub which we were luckily able to tighten using a borrowed jack and a pair of hoof pincers. On arriving home I was happy to find that any damage could easily be remedied with a little grinding paste.
This was probably helped by Herbert Austin restricting the power and torque of his mighty 747cc engine so as not to frighten the horses.
But I was then faced with the problem of tightening the large nut properly so I looked up the various club mag articles and one method describes making up a circular holder for the hub.
As my Laser cutter and CNC machine were not working and I did not have a handy "a sheet of 5/16 HT steel plate" in my scrap bin I had to resort to some lateral thinking.
I decided that a piece of 1/2 inch ply would have to be used instead and set to, trying to remember my school woodwork lessons with Mr. "Draw a line exactly about 'ere" Meek (he was from Bristol).
With the help of my trusty jigsaw and Makita (other brands are available) drill I soon had a square plywood Austin 7 wheel.
Attached to the hub and with everything cleaned up I was able to easily tighten the large hub nut to the required 2 gorillas of torque.
As the ply wheel was flat bottomed rather than round I could do this on my own, a good thing as my trusty mechanic Ivor Polanski has been frightened off home by Mr Farage and his fellow loonies.
All OK since then but no doubt if we do something silly and energetic for the car, like return to the North Devon run again next year, many other parts will take their turn to fall off but then someone has to be the idiot owner, as it gives the others something to do as they gather round with obscure tools and even more obscure but essential advice.