Post 17: Front & rear suspension, wiring and fuel

17 December 2017:  Almost a year since this project was kicked off, a year seems a long time but it went fast - need to add up all of the hours put in so far!  Here we are though nearly Christmas, sitting listening to Christmas songs and thinking when will I get to drive the car?


It doesn't look like I will make that extended target of getting the wheels on before Christmas but I have put two or three heavy weekend shifts in since the last update which has moved the car on considerably.  Included now is the front and rear suspensions, front is still minus the kingpins which are being reamed and the rear needs some new axle nuts.


The suspension parts were sent away to a local company for blasting and powder coating.  In all instances the parts have come back like new so well pleased with that - I just need to make sure I don't spoil them!  There is a lot of sanding though to removed unwanted paint but that par for the coarse I guess.


Merry Christmas, enjoy the images. . . .


Rear axle & bump stop

Rear axle installed with brake cylinders

A look through the axle cavity - missing nuts for the differential!

A top view of the axle installation

View from beneath the car - now with the differential - nuts found!

Front suspension in place minus the kingpins

Front end is developing

Battery disconnect installed and battery cable poking through ready to connect

 

Fuel pump installed and connected to transfer pipe

Closer image of the bulkhead

Inside the car - steering column

Front end development

Post 16: Inner body paint completed. Right hand drive conversion brake & clutch pipes

26th November 2017:  Almost the end of November, inner body paint completed and happy with the result, in fact I thought it would be worse than it is but I was only really interested in the underside and engine bay as everything else is covered later.  At least the car has a good coat of paint on it, in fact several from the etch primer, stone-chip , primer, and finally the top coat.  here it is!

Finished topcoat

So, in my head I thought that Christmas would be the point when I reached the inner body paint - I am about 5 weeks ahead of that - true I haven't done the front and rear shroud yet but I have a plan for them - they are pretty poor so it is going to be interesting to see if I can salvage them - I hope so!.

I need to get the car to a built state to move it to Beaulieu to get the new hardtop fitted.  To do this I need it on its wheels, with the shrouds, engine and window installed.  Why because each roof is made to order and it has to be fitted so on then. . . .

This weekend the last in November I decided to start the climb from the body to this built state so target for the weekend was to refit the brakes lines, fuel lines and battery cable.  Nothing is easy so started with the brake lines. Brake lines take a while as you cant just put them back on they have to be cleaned and painted black!

As I am converting from LHD to RHD this isn't as easy as refitting I had to modify them.  I couldn't find any decent images of how the RHD car was setup so have used some poetic license to re-create the lines.  Was straight forward, had to move the reservoir too, but took ages to get it all aligned.  I have included images here for reference.

Re-working of the clutch & brake master cylinder pipes

Re-working of the clutch & brake master cylinder pipes

Re-working of the clutch & brake master cylinder pipes

As a function of re-routing the brake and clutch pipes I also had to temporarily fit the steering box, also a new one as it needed to be converted, and the throttle linkage, the throttle linkage is fun - will detail that next time,  and battery cable as they are all in near contact with each other.  I also installed the overdrive kick-down switch and the heat shields - enough to be going on with - sorry fuel pipe.

Some progress - heat shielding, steering column & brake piipes

New heat shields installed

Close up of brake pipes



All together a worthwhile weekend.  Also fitted the front dampers and bump stops as Mike brought then around after cleaning and painting them.

Front suspension dampers going in

Post 15: Body in Paint - Top coat final spray

22 November 2017:  Well it did not take long from the primed state to get to a painted body so not much to say really - I just sprayed!  Here are the pictures and yes it is Navy Blue although to be fair I am having difficulty sometimes to distinguish it from black but I guess that's my eyes!

 

Post 14: Body in main primer

17 November 2017:  Still November, working hard to get the body completed for Christmas.  A little more sanding today and then on to the priming stage.


Decided to do the whole body in one go.  Got a bit messy with the paint again, maybe should have done it in stages but it has come out alright I think. 

 

Post 13: Body in base etch primer

12 November 2017:  November now and it is starting to get close to my original estimate that I might be finished the inner body by Christmas 2017, so time for an assessment against that target:

• Inner body is now welded, sure I have a small job to do on the left front shotgun but I can do that until I get the body off the jig.  Welding has been a real trial, learned a lot from it, hope that I have got the all the panels aligned sufficiently to make it all work later.  Wings and doors did actually all fit a few weeks ago so there is hope.

• From that point cleaning the body was really hard, especially the engine bay, really hard work!! but done as much as I can - think it is OK.

• Next was to spray the bare panels with primer - this was fun and new.  First time with a spray gun too - how do you get paint out of the tin without creating a mess is beyond me!!

• I felt I should put some stone chip protection under the floors and sills, in fact every where it might get chipped from road debris.  I bought ready mixed Gravitex and used the spray gun again - I think the paint needed thinning a bit to do that but I got away with it.

So, as you can see below in the images I am getting close to finishing the inner body.  All of the suspension parts are dismantled and sent away for powder coating - looking forward to getting them back and getting some paint on the body.


Hope to get some of the under mechanicals back on before Christmas but lets see how far I get. Enjoy the images.

View of engine bay

From the front

Underside of the car after e-primer - from front

  

Underside of the car after e-primer - from rear

 

A look at the engine bay - difficult to paint this!

 

Underside again but showing the stone chip - I may have gone overboard!

Post 12: Body Clean & Paint

28 October 2017:  A little bit more progress made this weekend (End of October) The floors went in fairly easily and then the sanding and cleaning began.  End result is I think a good resulting, body is now primed up to the bulkhead.
Next stage is to take on the engine bay!

Almost completed the e-primer - rear view

Almost completed the e-primer - front view

Almost completed the e-primer - rear seat pan

Inside the cabin looking at the bulkhead area

Post 11: Rear Axle Cavity

20th October 2017:  Well, I don't know where September went and most of October too.  There have been holidays, days out to see other Healey and battles with metal!


The Sills, Doors & Wings.

Getting these right is challenging.  Firstly I had a go at aligning all this stuff whilst the car was still on the jig.  This proved impossible so I lowered the car onto axle stands that were located in alignment with axle centre lines - this helped a lot.

A view of the wings and sill aligning during install

A parts had to basically be aligned before welding any of them - tricky but done for both left and right sides, so the wings had to be repaired with panels and the sills worked into the shape of the body.  I say that because the outer sill panels modifications to get them to align.  I looked at a lot of other cars before I cut the sills as it just didn't seem to align.  However looking at other cars seems lots of them don't align in any case - hoping that with the work done that when I finally get them on the car they will align ok.


Body Clean & Paint


Once passed this point it was then down to cleaning the rear axle cavity out in preparation for painting.  I took it all the way back to metal as I couldn't be sure of the paint that was remaining once I removed the dirt - I didn't get a picture though, clearly too eager!  I did get a couple of pictures once painted so take a look - is OK I think.

e-primer half way down the chassis

e-primer half way down the chassis

Post 10: Boot welding update

13th August 2017:  It is August now and the boot floor is just about completed.  Here is a reminder of how the boot used to look.

A mess this was - wasn't confident!

Was in a bit of a state!

After the clean up - even less confident there is hardly anything left!

Not really much left of the boot then post cut and clean!

After lots of work and manufacturing of parts I am happy with this

Here is what it looks like after lots of welding..  I hope you agree that this is more like it.  And finally - first bit of paint goes on the car, well primer at least.

First time using the spray gun - happy with this too

It's very clear to me having been welding now for several months that the healey company were not that interested in rust proofing their cars.  To be fair, I don't think any other manufacturer was any better at rust protection in 1959 either! For example the boot floor is laid directly on top of the box sections of the rear chassis - it would have been impossible to put any paint on these surfaces so no surprise that they rot.  I have protected these areas now and then sealed all routes so that water cant get to the surfaces so should be ok going forward.

 

Here's a video walk around.

Post 9: Sills updated July

8th July 2017:  July now and the right side is now welded.  This took a lot less time than the left side and I found the work easier.  One casualty,  my welder died but I have a new one!  

Check the video update.

Post 8: Left Sill Update

June 10th 2017:  Well its now June 2017 and I have been busy on many things, new clutch in sons Ford Fiesta, going on holiday and generally not working on the car but I have made some progress since the last update.  Check the video out to see - now have the left sill and foot board welded in place.


Plug welding was more challenging that I thought to be fair, I boldly told my mate that I was confident I could weld good steel to good steel and that I was worried about the good steel to rusty steel - but it didn't turn out that way to be frank.  My trouble was that I purchased a hole punch to help me create the holes but the hole size was just too small and I have to open up the holes to get a good weld.

Post 7: On The Rotisserie

30 April 2017:  Yes that right, Clint is attached to the Rotisserie! a quick Video.

I was left with the inner shell complete with the front and rear suspension, steering and a few brake pipes before this week end.  First job was to construct a left rear bracket to mount the rear rotisserie fixings too, was expecting this to take a while and it did BUT once competed then attaching the jig was straight forward, ably assisted by Mike.


After lunch, scavenged together from the debris in the fridge, we progressed to removing the rear axle.  I don't know how this is done in service and frankly I don't want to do it again as it was really hard work - nothing was easy to remove and sliding the axle out was heavy work.  We did however manage it and have it safely stored. 


Mounting to the car to the rig came next and with lots of jacking and winding later the car is mounted as you can see in the video.


Sunday - a new apprentice arrived, shocking though that number one son (Rob) was out of bed at 9am, but ready he was without being called too!  It was good to see him tackling the front suspension, learning about Left & Right! I hope he had fun, I think he enjoyed it anyway and it was good to have company and helped a lot - cheers!


Car is now almost ready to start the journey ahead.  To be fair it is a bit daunting what I have taken on, the car is well messed about in places, just need to focus on each job I guess, one at a time.  Almost completed my parts list though for phase 1 which centres on lots of panels, around 25-30 of them plus some I will manufacture myself and a new steering set to move to RHD.

Post 6: Pressure wash

22 April 2017:  Its been a few weeks since last blog, have been busy on the car and been away so where have I got to the?


Cleared the engine and all other items from the body, left just the front and rear suspensions so I can move the car about.  Car was very dirty so today we had a go at pressure washing the body to remove the dirt.

The car came up reasonably well, lots of holes and rot to remove - see some of it in these images.

So after all this effort I changed my attention to starting work on the jigging required to mount the car to the rotisserie.  First step is to make some door strengthening jigs. I could have purchased some but thought not!  One consideration was to make some bars that could be adjusted as I want to have the option to "jack" open the door gap.  Any way this is the end result after an afternoons work!



Next time I will be mounting the jig structure to the front and rear!