healeyarchaeology

First Time on the Road in 26 Plus Years!

2009-03-19T17:15:00.001-07:00

Here is my Healey, a 1963 BJ7 #20040, driving down the alley behind my house in NE Wisconsin. I drove it a few blocks and realized that it needed some more work. There were several loud CLUNKS and the brakes were pulsing upon application. I'm in the process of getting new rotors and figuring out the CLUNK. The seering is kind of tight too.

Driving Lights Brackets

2009-02-03T16:14:00.000-08:00

Here are some picture of my driving light brackets that I made today. The first post is of the brackets when they are ready for paint. The last two are from straightening, sandblasting and cutting.
I split a couple of old mangled bumper brackets in half this morning and straightened them out. I then cut the outside 3 or so inches off. Then I welded a 1 ½ inch piece on the end of the bracket and perpendicular to the bracket. This looks just like what some Healey places sell for $115 or so per pair. Now a little paint in body color to blend them in and I’m done.

Moss has Lucas style for $100 each, the 5 inch spot light type. But, I could order from The Cape and get 5 inch Lucas SLR576 lights for approx. 85 pounds or $118 US. I think that the latter would be the better choice. I plan on running a driving light relay and switch system, not hooked to the high-beam wire.

I’m not going to have a bumper on the front for a while. It ruins the lines of the Healey in my opinion. I will run rally bumper over-riders on the back.

New Healey Acquisition HBT7L1472

2009-01-15T14:36:00.000-08:00

This is my newest acqusition, HBT7L1472. I got this in Septemebr of 2008. I have described this car in other posts of my blog. I bought it from my buddy Karl. He lost interest in it. He had another kid, then got shipped off to Iraq for over one year. He is safe at home now, but doesn't have the time that it takes to work on a Healey. We picked this car up in southern Iowa. It had been sitting for years on it's frame rails in an apple orchard. The acidic run off had totally destroyed the two main frame rails. The rest of the car contained the usual Healey rust for a Midwest car.
I have all of the body panels and seats for the car, plus a bunch of new parts, trim, brake calipers and more.. The engine is rebuilt as is the gearbox and OD. The suspension is all new except for the springs. The car is sitting on a frame that we made from scratch out of 1/8" x 3" x 4" square tubing. I have to really work on the door gaps and finish up some welds and grinding, but a lot of really hard work has already been done. But, there is surely more hard wrk to come. As soon as my 63 BJ7 is finished, I will dive into this car. It is going to be Healey blue over Old English White.

More Healeys From My Past

2009-01-15T14:11:00.000-08:00

This is my brother's 1963 Healey 3000. He bought it from a Donald Knutt in West Des Moines in 1969 for $425. It was smashed in the left rear from sliding on ice and hitting a brick and concrete pillar. It was a light metalic green then he had it painted BRG. He sold the car in 1974 while attending graduate school at the University of Iowa to a guy and I'm not sure, but I think that his name was Don Meyer. The serial number was 19,669. To this day, we don't know what ever happened to this car. My brother had this car for five years while he was in college and he drove this living piss out of it. It had to have a rebuilt engine, carbs, brakes, constant body work and more because he drove it so hard. He always had four, random brand tires on the car that were totally bald. He says that he took the car up to and over 100mph almost every day. He also had 48 spoke wheels and was constantly getting used wheels in slightly better condition than what he currently had. Eventually, he got some 60 spoke wires and they lasted a couple of months longer than the 48s. To change a tire he would always lay the wheel down in the driveway, then drive up over the edge of the tire to break the bead and get the tire off of the wheel to change it. Then go at it with tire irons. I have fond memories of riding around and helping work on this healey when I was a kid. I had hands skinny and small enough to reach up under the dash to put a heater hose back on the heater. In one of the pics I can be seen in the back jump seat. When my brother had the car it ws in two accidents. The first one is when the neighbors car, (a 1970 Ford LTD), got knocked out of park by a litle kid climbing around in it. The car the proceeded to back out of the steep driveway and onto the street and roll down the steep street where my brother's Healey was parked. The huge barge of a car rolled right up onto the back of my brother's Healey. The shroud was only minimally damaged, but the top and fender were ruined. The second accident happened in 1970, when my brother saw a long blond-haired, hippy chick in super-short, blue jean cut offs and a halter top hitch hiking. He promply braked and swerved over to pick her up and a motorcyclist was staring at her as well and rear ended the Healey and went right up the shroud at the tail light/reflector area. The guy was ok but pissed that he trashed his motorcycle. My brother was pissed that he trashed his Healey and didn't get the hippy chick to ride with him.

Healeys of My Past

2009-01-14T13:29:00.000-08:00

These are the Healeys in my past. The dark blue one is a 1959 100-6 BN6. A friend of mine Jeff Fields bought it in October of 1982 from Don Nauss in Emmettsburg, Iowa for the princely sum of $840. The car was not rusted at all accept for the rear doglegs. It came with new wheels and tires. We got the car running in about three days. No rear fenders, no rear lights, no bumpers and no seats. We wired the doors shut with some bailing wire and hit the road late at night. We took the Healey west of town late at night at hit 110 mph. What were we thinking? We rebuilt the engine and gearbox a month later. We rebuilt the gearbox on the floor of my apartment in college in Iowa City. We were hammering the main shaft and bearing into the casing on the floor at 2:00AM when my roomates pounded on the door and said to keep it down. I eventually got evicted from the place. In 1983, my friend Jeff sold the car to a guy in Austin Texas who was from Germany and he planned on taking it back to Germany. I have not seen the car since, but I will find the serial number and post it here soon.

Healey Coming Together March 2008-January 2009

2009-01-13T10:51:00.001-08:00

Well, I have had a lengthy hiatus from this blog. A lot of work has happened since last March. I installed Dynamat in the cockpit. I put in carpet from Heritage. I put in a vinyl panel kit from Heritage as well. My leather seat kit is from AH Spares. I took the upholstery to a professional to have the leather seats covered and much more. I covered the rear seat back in leather by myself. I installed the windshield in the best of the three frames that I have. A piece of wood fell off of a shelf and cracked the windshield that I was going to use so I had to use a different spare. Bummer! I installed the windows in the driver side, weather-stripping and inner panels. I covered the dash and dash top. I wired the headlights and put the buckets in. They still don't work. I don't know why. I installed the rear trunk latch. I can't get it to latch and have ground and worked on it for hours on end. I got a Lempert steering wheel made out of English walnut. I got my chrome bits (grill surround, door tops, handbrake, cockpit surround, door handles, fender spears and more) rechromed by a local chroming shop south of Green bay. Very resonable prices. They did a great job too. I installed the grill surround and the best of the four grills that I have. I put together four extra carb and manfold assemblies which I will eventually swap out and see which one I like best. I have two triple carb set ups and I'm working on assembling a 2-inch carb set up. I installed a high torque gear reduction starter motor that works great. I pulled the gearbox and installed a special oil seal from Moss. It wasn't too bad but I never could get the damn little rope spring attached. A lot of cuss words flew that day, some new ones were invented too. The biggest item that I got were four, chrome 72 spoke Dayton wire wheels. SWEET!

Anyway, it has been a very productive year on the Healey and it is looking awesome! It took a lot of time and a lot of beers to get to this point. As near as I can figure, it I could have had another MS degree in that amount of time and outlay of cash. I also figure that I consumed something like 7665 beers in that amount of time. That is three beers a day for seven years. At approximately one dollar per beer that is $7665.00. That is more than I paid for my first three Healeys put together- $600, $125 and $625 which total $1350.00. I paid $4500 for this 1963 BJ7 back in January of 2002. So, $4500 plus $1350 equals $5850. Therefore, I have consumed more money in beer than I have paid out in initial purchases of Healeys. I’ll drink to that!

Karl's Healey: Started May 2001, Finish?

2008-04-06T19:34:00.000-07:00

These are pictures of my friend Karl's Healey. I found this car on the internet in May of 2001 in SE Iowa. I told Karl about it and we made a road trip to from Wisconsin to Iowa to pick it up for $500 sight unseen. We were in for a rather unpleasant treat. The car had no engine, no gearbox, no interior, no gauges and a bunch of other parts were missing as well. The car was a basket case. We towed the car back to Karl's house in Milwaukee, WI and started the disassembly. The frame was so badly rusted that the Healey had a swayback like an old mare. The Healey had spent the last 20+ years of it's life on it's frame rails in an apple orchard. We disassembles the car in one afternoon. The rust was so bad and Karl was distraught and ready to haul the entire thing to the dump. Instead of dumping the Healey Karl accepted the encouragement from me (he was drunk at the time) as well as a couple of others to build a frame from scratch. Karl bought a couple of 4 inch square box tubes. We cut the box tubes and rewelded them together We then welded the original x-brace into the center of the tubes. Karl welded new sills, rockers, outriggers and finally, the original front and rear inner sheet metal assemblies. The entire process took miles of welding wire and tons of grinding wheels. The car is almost ready to start these days as of April 2008. These finished pictures are four years old now. Karl got distracted as he and his wife had a second child and then he got shipped off to Iraq for one year. He is now safely back and this beast should be on the road by summer of 2009.

My Healey: Buying and transporting home from Cumming, Iowa Jan 2002

2008-03-18T12:55:00.000-07:00

The name of this blog came came about because I am a professional archaeologist and an amateaur at fixing up and restoring Austin Healeys. I see my 1963 Austin Healey as an historic artifact. An artifact embodying the 1960s. Made in England in June of 1962 and likely landing on the western shores of the United States in the fall of 1962. The Cuban missle crisis was going on at this time. My car has a plastic badge 1963, which according to the Anderson and Moment was only installed on Healeys coming into the west coast.

All of the Healeys that I have owned (since 1978) were rusted out pieces of shit that looked like I dug them out of the ground. My first Austin Healey was a 1957 Austin Healey 100-6 BN4 with the dreaded two-port head. It was a rusted out dog of a Healey (read oil PSI of 12) that my brother and I picked up from a farmer outside of Charles City, Iowa in June of 1978 for $600. The car had been driven in the barnyard Grand Prix and had dirt clumps jammed up into the fender wells and chicken feathers and shit in the trunk. I think that it doubled as a chicken coup for several years on the farm. Even cows had rubbed up against the body and removed (through hide abrasion) some of the ugly-ass orange paint. The farmer never worked on anything on the car without a claw hammer and a pair of vise grips. Every nut and bolt was rounded off. When I tried to remove the nuts and bolts later I always had a propane torch and liquid wrench in hand, even then most of them snapped off. As an enthusiastic 19 year old, I drove the car to college in Iowa (even in winter) and the brakes sucked so badly that I always had to pump the pedal for a block before I had to stop. I never could get all of the air out of them.

All of my Healeys have come from Iowa. My friend Karl's BT7 also did, as well as my brother's 1963 BJ7 and my 3 other Healeys. I found this 1963 BJ7 #20,040 Healey on the internet at Hemmings for $4500. I'm starting to think that all Healeys go to Iowa do die until some poor idealistic sap with visions of grandeur rescues them. Here the Healey doesn't look too aweful. Initially, I was caught up in some dillusional thinking, "hey, just a little bodywork, fender dog legs and some paint and some clean up and maybe I could have a decent driver". WRONG! As the pictures will soon bear out.

A truckload of Healey parts, a blizzard and disassembly begins!

2008-03-18T12:45:00.000-07:00

The 26-foot long truck full of Healey parts mingles with my domestic crap that I moved from Iowa City, Iowa to Wisconsin. Karl looks somewhat bewildered at all of the rusty Healey parts. Karl and I were the second set of Healey rebuilders to get the large parts lot to complete our cars. These parts were originally part of a "quick sale" before a divorce in eastern Iowa back in 1992. My Iowa friends Tim and John rebuilt their Healeys (a 60 BT7 and a 62 tri-carb) from parts scavanged from this lot in the 90s. These pictures don't even begin to show the real nightmare of a story moving these parts entailed. It was March 1st 2002 and a huge snow storm was coming in and we were trying to load the truck and beat it. We lost the race. We drove out of Iowa City, Iowa at 25 mph all the way to Beloit, Wisconsin. I could not see out of the truck's windshield (1st picture) as it was covered with ice. From there we went on to Karl's house in Milwaukee. This four hour trip took 12 hours and I almost went off of the road dozens of times. Had that happened I had a contigency plan to abandone everything in place and jump into Karl's SUV.

The other pictures show the last time the Healey rolls for a long time. I fired up a generator to give us some electricity to work by as the storage facility had none. We tried to start the engine before we disassemble the car to see if it might run and to see what the oil pressure was. We could not get it started and gave up. Good thing, as we later found that there were several mouse nests inside of the ports of the cylinder head. My friend Karl is pictured helping me in the dissassembly process. Karl has a 1960 BT7. He found it in an apple orchard in SE Iowa for $500 in 2000 and it was rotten to the core. We made a new frame for it and reassembled the inner sheet metal and outer panels on it. It will be on the road in 2009.

The Healey starts to get taken apart, January 2002!

2008-03-18T12:37:00.000-07:00

A cold storage bin facility in NE Wisconsin in January is not an ideal place to disassemble a Healey. My friend Karl came up for the weekend and helped me take the car apart. He was even willing to lie down on the cold cement to undo the gearbox bolts. I had to reward his sacrificial behavior with steaks and good whiskey.

Healey disassembly, rust and mouse shit!

2008-03-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

frame repaired, painted with suspension mounted

2008-03-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

rear clip, frame and repairs

2008-03-18T10:29:00.000-07:00

The first picture is of the frame painted with the epoxy primer. The second and third pictures are of a frame dent-puller apparatus that I made. I would tack weld a bolt to the bottom of the frame rail and then put a stiff piece of steel box tubing over the bolt with a piece of wood at each end and then thread a nut over the bolt and tighten it down. If I put just the right amount of tack weld onto the bolt, the bolt would break loose just when the dent pulled out. I would then carefully grind the old tack weld off of the frame. Initially, the bottom of my Healey frame had more waves then the ocean from the ham-fisted POs jacking up the car, but when I was done it looked pretty straight. You can see the swiss-cheese outrigger in the picture. These all got replaced.

The next pictures are of the frame after it got media-blasted. I painted it with a PPG self-etching expoxy primer after that. The frame is now in my newly moved into, old body shop in late 2002. In the second picture, I was trying to adust my new welder and the ugly weld on the front was ground off and redone cleanly. There was not actually a weld on that spot. I figure that when my chassis was being built, the guy who was welding the chassis went out to lunch, had a few pints, came back to work tanked and forgot where he had left off. I suppose that this hypothesis is as good as any.

The next picture is of a wheel truing jig that was inspired by Jack Daniels and constructed with a wire-welder and an angle grinder. I have taken it upon myself to asign it a BMC Service Tool Number of 18G6787K.
The other picture shows the rear clip in complete disorder.
The other pictures are of the frame mounted on saw horses, which I kept making beefier and beefier to hold the rapidly accumulating weight of parts. Aside from the outriggers, pretty much only the tops of the frame rails were rusty. I cut the tops off, inserted lots of extra steel and welded inside and replaced the tops with heavier gauge steel.

The 26-foot long truck full of Healey parts mingles with my domestic crap that I moved from Iowa City to Wissonsin. Karl looks somewhat behildered at all of the rusty Healey parts.

sand blast area

2008-03-18T10:19:00.000-07:00

My garage is an old bodyshop that I rented for $250 a month. I also stored all of my domestic stuff, work supplies, books and research tools in the garage because my girlfriend (wife to be), whom I lived with, insisted on renting an apartment the size of a damn shoebox.

That is my 1966 Cobra replica in the backgrund just before I repainted it. The body shop was probably about 13oo square feet. I found that I could sand blast some of the old paint and bodywork off of my steel body panels with a lower pressure and a shallow angle of the gun. I had to rewire the shop for 220VAC then I ganged two 5hp compessors together to get enough air volume. I used very fine silica sand. I did not get any panel warp at all. I made a beach with about 2500 pounds of sand. Unfortunately, the beach is located in northeast Wisconsin.

panel stripping and paint stratigraphy

2008-03-18T10:12:00.000-07:00

Thes epictures show the panel stripping and all of the paitn episodes. My Healey came painted white, was painted red twice and then finally painted BRG. I swear that the last paint job was done with a bucket of paint and a broom. The aircraft stripper that I used is nasty stuff and I always wore an OSHA aprooved mask and did it outside. The insdie of the rear shroud picture shows the original number from the factory. I do not know what is corresponds to but maybe somebody can tell me. The BMIHT certificate indicates that my car was built June 18-19 1962.

panel stripping and floor fitting

2008-03-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

The Healeys door were actually in real nice shape. No rust in the bottoms at all and very straight. It must be all of the layers of paint that protected them over the years. The boot lid was in great shape too. No rust whatsoever and pretty straight. The bonnet had a layer of survafe rust but was no big deal. The bonnet was actually tough to work with to get to fit. I had to tack weld a couple of cracks in it. No big deal. But, lot and lots of sanding and filling. I knock the filler down with an air file then used a 16 inch long sanding block to get it smooth and flat. Also, the edges of the bonnet come so damn close to the edges of the shround I'm afraid that there will be paint abrasion. I bought an extra bonnet on Ebay ($26!!, what a score) last year and it fits the same. Oh well, I guess that they just fit tight or my shroud has expanded.

Old repairs, panel and part fitting

2008-03-18T10:05:00.000-07:00

inner sheet metal and panel fitting

2008-03-18T10:02:00.000-07:00

wheel well and trunk repair and installation

2008-03-18T09:59:00.000-07:00

rear sheet metal replacement and fitting

2008-03-18T09:53:00.001-07:00

This was without a doubt the hardest thing I have enver done on a car on my life. I removed the rear sheet metal to remove rust and repair. The refitting with new panels and one new wheel arch was a nightmare. To compound problems, the sheet metal didn't fit well. It took me two years off and on the fix the situation. I will never remove the rear clip from another Healey. I will repair in place. I would have been better off starting with a block of solid steel and grinding and carving away everything that did not look like a Healey.

2008-03-18T09:50:00.002-07:00

engine installed

2008-03-18T09:50:00.001-07:00

Here is a picture of the engine and the gearbox OD combo. My engine was all original with the 2 1 3/4 HS6 SU carburetors but I bought a set of 3 inch carbs and manifolds. I got the tri-carb exhaust manifolds with the huge lot of Healey spares from Iowa. I'm just trying these on for size in this picture. I will fire up my car on the 2 1 3/4 carbs and then go to the triple carb setup. I also have a triple carb setup for 3 1 3/4 carbs. I also have a couple of other complete or near complete SU carb setups with manifolds including a couple of 2 inch carbs off of an old Jag.

The picture of the gearbox and OD complete and rebuilt, painted with Healey green paint and then clear coated. This is actually a spare BJ8 gearbox and OD. I have the original BJ7 gearbox and overdrive with new gears, bearings and syncros but have not had the time to rebuild it as yet. I will rebuild it next winter and then swap them out.

2008-03-18T09:47:00.000-07:00

body work and assembly 2004-2005

2008-03-18T09:45:00.001-07:00

These pictures are of the Healey body work stage. Before I applied an lightweight putty I did all of the bodywork myself using an assortment of hammers and dollies to get the panels as close as I could. This part was actually kind of fun. Where metal had been stretched on the steel panels, I used heat shrinking techniques. I tried to hammer the dent out as much as I could then used a shrinking hammer, propane torch and a wet rag to quench the area and shrink it. I was careful as not to get the metal too hot. It worked well but took a long time. It helps to have two people do this task. I didn't have many dents on the Healey to contend with. Also, I did not use any heat on the aluminum.

I absolutely dread this stage of restoration. The application of putties and primer and sanding until my fingers are bloody bones. The yellow is a Marson high-built primer with low-shrinkage. It is catalized and sands really easily. I eventually switched to a NAPA 1422 high build catalized gray primer. I like it a lot. I always put too much putty on and then end up sanding it all off. I probably went through 4 gallons of feather-light putty with 80% ending up on the floor, 10% ending up in my clothes and lungs and the remaining 10% ending up on the car. I also used an Evercoat catalized spot putty. I know that my shop is pitted, but it was part of my strategy to keep my wife from coming out and bugging me.

2008-03-18T09:43:00.000-07:00

jamming and final bodywork Feb 2008

2008-03-18T09:36:00.000-07:00

These pictures show the towing of the Healey out of my garage and trying to get it onto the trailer. We had an ice storm the day before then it snowed on top of the ice. Four of us pushed it on the ice up onto the trailer and it wasn't easy, but then nothing about this car has been easy. This is just one more struggle out of a mountain of struggles over the past six years. My brother in law Joe (the guy with red hair) painted the car in his paint booth. He did an awesome job. He restores old Boss and Mach I Mustangs so he knows all about dealing with old cars and the hassels involved.

We used a PPG Delfleet paint. I acually bought a base coat/clear system last year but decided against using it in favor of th PPG acrylic paint. It is really nice paint and flows out great. We used a slow reducer to get it to flow out too. I would use this paint again and recommend it to anyone. The added benefit is that when the car gets nicks and scratches I can touch them up and blend them in much more easily then a base/clear system. Obviously the pictures are not in oder here, I don't know what happened. But the finished pictures are in my new garage a 2 1/2 stall with another 2 stalls right next door. The garage has a huge heater, steel paneled walls, insulation, large attic for more Healey parts and a beer frig, no bathroom but it has a drain in the middle of the floor.
I will be posting more pictures of the rebuilding process soon as well as pictures of my new awesome chrome that is hand-dipped by local Wisconsin hillbillies. Pictures of extra parts (for my next Healey), soda blasting carb parts/manifolds and polishing.

towing home on ice!

2008-03-18T09:30:00.000-07:00

Here is the Healey loaded up on the trailer in front of my brother in law Joe's shop. I drove this beautiful Healey back to my garage with my $500 rusted out Toyota truck. I was sliding all over the road on the five mile journey. It was reminicent of the truck drive from Iowa with all of the Healey parts six years prior to the day.

getting the doors to line up sucks!!!!

2008-03-18T09:21:00.000-07:00

one part paint, two parts beer

2008-03-18T09:17:00.001-07:00

more bodywork and paint

2008-03-18T09:11:00.001-07:00

In the first picture my brother in law Joe scrutinizes his paint work. In the second picture Karl scrathes his head about how to get the doors to line back up. One of Joe's bodywork helpers took the hinges totaly off of the doors to jam the doors. It had taken me days to get them lined up correctly. DAMN! ANyway, we got them back on and lines up close. I probably had these doors off the car 100 times in the past six years. The last picture, Joe and Karl are masking the Healey. Masking the Healey actually took longer than shooting it did.

2008-03-18T09:06:00.000-07:00

2008-03-10T17:18:00.000-07:00

2008-03-05T19:08:00.001-08:00

My 1963 Austin Healey 3000

2008-03-05T17:55:00.001-08:00

These are pictures of my 1963 Austin Healey 3000. This is the fourth Austin healey that I have owned and not likely to be the last. The other Healeys that I have owned were from the years 1957, 1959, and 1961. I picked this car up in Cumming, Iowa just 15 miles south of Des Moines in late December 2001 for $4500. The car spent the last years of it's life in Polk County, Iowa and was last registered in 1983. The car is number 20,040. I have the British Motor Heritage Trust Certificate as well. All of the numbers match. The car entered the country in California in 1962. The car was a basket case when I got it, even though the initial inspection and pictures did not reveal the lack of integrity for the car. The car has since undergone a complete frame off restoration since January of 2002. The car has consumed vast quantities of grinding wheels, miles of welding wire, gallons of primer, wheel barrows of cash and lastly, barrels of beer to complete. The pictures should say it all.