1934 austin nippy

The Not so Nippy, Nippy

We’ve just welcomed this beautiful 1934 Austin Seven Nippy into the workshop for some engine repairs. The current diagnosis is that it needs an engine

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Austin Nippy Engine Ready

We’re delighted to announce that our little 1934 Austin Seven Nippy engine has been fully restored. We’re currently awaiting the fly wheel and clutch to arrive but otherwise the engine is ready to be fitted back in!

Austin Nippy’s Engine Refurbishment Continues

The Austin Nippy engine rebuild has continued with our knowledgeable engine specialist Ady.

Ady has been working to cut the valve seats, re-bore the engine to take new pistons, white-metaled the conrods to suit the crank shaft, re-profiled the camshaft to fix any imperfections and laid out all the parts ready to place them back together.

Austin Nippy’s Piston Problem

Our 1934 Austin Seven Nippy had an issue with rattling pistons that were needing to be bored. We’d sent the components off to Coltec to be pressure tested and bored so that the liner and piston sit in the Austin engine better.

Open Heart Surgery For The Austin Nippy

Our 1934 Austin Seven Nippy is currently undergoing some open-heart surgery for its precious engine. We discovered a crack in the clutch so both the clutch and the flywheel have been sent away to Norwich Brake and Clutch who specialise in Edwardian and Victorian motors. We’ve also sent the rest of the engine off to Coltec.

The Not so Nippy, Nippy

We’ve just welcomed this beautiful 1934 Austin Seven Nippy into the workshop for some engine repairs. The current diagnosis is that it needs an engine rebuild as there seem to be some oil issues. Our aim is to troubleshoot the engine, identify the exact faults and advise the customer on what to do next.

The Austin Seven Nippy was the brainchild of Herbert Austin and Stanley Edge than run from 1922 to 1937. Despite only 682 models being made, the Austin Seven Nippy was responsible for helping motorise Britain, with the car providing the same footprint as a motorcycle and sidecar whilst still offering all the advantages of an automobile.

The Nippy clever abut simple engineering is based around an ‘A-frame’ chassis which is equipped with an all-round leaf-sprung suspension. The earlier models were fitted with just a three-speed manual gearbox whereas the later models, including ours, has a four-speed gearbox. This small and brisk sports car benefits from a lowered centre of gravity making it an amusing and ‘nippy’ drive.

It’s fun to see a car with a cranking handle such as what this Austin Nippy has. Although it was commonplace for cars at the time, it’s always interesting when we get one in the workshop. The cranking handle manually turns over the engine acted as a backup. It functioned much in the same way as bump starting the car. Cranking handles slowly phased out of car designs, often with the levers ending up in the toolbox as a last resort.