First Time on the Road in 26 Plus Years!

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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.