I managed to get the engine on its side so that I could remove the sump and have a look.  I can clearly see that there is no pump installed, no anything in fact.  I'm surprised by how simple it is, it is just a cavernous space.  On the good side it looks like the con rods are new as well as the pistons.  I can only think that this means whoever paid for the rebuild took all required steps and paid a considerable amount of money.  On the not so good side the oil pump doesn't have the drive shaft, I hope John has one.

 I noticed this hole on the rear end of the crank and wonder if anything should be attached to it?

Other than that I have been away for a few weekends and unable to do much so apart from some striping and painting of small items it is on a go slow.

Sunday dawned with the knowledge that I had to finish attaching the fuel pipe and start the installation of the wiring loom whatever else happened.  The kitchen table came in handy to lay the pieces out for inspection.  I was surprised that the loom was in so many separate pieces because the overdrive harness is sold as a separate item and had I assumed that this was because it was the only separate part of the loom, but it is not.  I don't understand why that is sold on its own now, oh well.

It took some puzzling because the white with purple looked identical to the white with brown but I got there in the end.  I'm hoping that this mistake was down to the poor quality of light in the kitchen early in the morning.  It turns out that the centre section of the loom is rather small which pleased me as that is all that needs to go in at the moment.

I did actually go into the garage and started by fitting the throttle pedal and the light dip switch.

I was then able to install the rest of the throttle linkage which went well.

I then removed it all as I have decided to install the engine without the linkage in place.  Next up was the middle section of the wiring loom and securing the fuel pipe.  I installed 4 rivinuts and the job was done in minutes.

So having done the list of things that had to be done prior to the engine install I turned my attention to the engine.  It was a lovely day so I took the car out of the garage and carefully slid the engine away from the wall.  It has been a long time.

I started by cleaning off the easily accessible surface rust and then started to look at what I had.

The first thing I noticed is that the sump is only held on with a few bolts.  I found the rest in a tub containing engine parts.

I removed the distributor and realised that the drive gear that should be on the bottom of it was not there.  I knew that I had a few engine items in one of the original boxes that came with the car and recalled one piece that could be the missing part and after hunting I found it and realised that it was.  I'm not sure how to fit it though so that will be a job for John when I see him next.  The whole unit doesn't go together logically, the gear drive has two ways of joining the distributor and I clearly need to know which one before installation and the drive for the rotor arm comes apart and clashes with other parts.  I need professional help on that.

I also removed the housing for the rev gauge and was surprised to see that there was nothing in the engine to actually drive it.  I started to think now and realised that the oil pump that is in a box at my mother in-law's house was supposed to be installed in the engine, I had always assumed it was a spare, thank heavens I never sold it!

I retired to the sofa to dwell on the day and work out a way forward.  The service manual is surprisingly light on information on the distributor, I can only presume people do not take them apart.  It has more on the oil pump and so I feel ok about that.  I was rather conscious that I have not read the engine section of the manual at all, it was rather interesting and left me feeling like it was quite simple, lets hope that is the case.

I now know that I need to check the oil pressure relief valve as well because I can't assume that it is installed.  I am going to lay the engine on the rear end plate and remove the sump to see if anything else is missing and then hopefully install the oil pump and oil strainer, assuming that is, that I have all the parts.  It will be exciting to see what it all looks like when I first remove the sump.  I was pleased to see the rocker arms and valves all looked in order when I took the rocker cover off so hopefully it will be likewise for the sump.

It's Saturday night and I'm in garden having a beer whilst wondering where the week went?  I'm also a little disappointed that I didn't take any pictures of the Orchard Restoration Open Day today.  Well that isn't actually correct as I took loads of the engine bays of 2 Healey 100 cars that were there and kindly had their bonnets up.  There were lots of 3000's as is usual but the 2 100 cars were very helpful.

It was a lovely day out.  A good drive into the depths of Sussex and a few hours talking geeky shop with Healey owners.  It was nice to see the engine bay and realise that they are pretty simple, I really shouldn't have that many issues, famous last words.

I did get some time in the garage and started by cleaning it up a bit.

Before 

 After

Whilst cleaning up stuff I cleared out the rear of the car and tried the tyre into the space for the spare wheel and was delighted to see that it fitted nicely.  One day there will be a lovely shiny spare in there.

The tank in it's final resting place complete with a rubber strip on the underside to prevent metal to metal contact.  I went to the local plumbers this morning and realise that I need to do a little soldering on the tank outlet pipe to get the thing plumbed in, two steps forward and one step back!

I started work on the throttle linkage and rubbed down and painted the rods and then striped and cleaned these lovely looking rod ends.  It was a very nice thing to do.

Started cleaning up the brackets that I have collected for the engine bay and came across this item which attaches on the front of the glovebox tray and then I presume just loops over the inner body work.  Can it just do that?  I mean, no bolts or screws at all?  Feels wild.

I have trial fitted the throttle assembly a few times and am about to go  for it properly tomorrow now that everything in painted.  However, I have been conscious for some time that the rods go very close to the engine so it would surely make sense to fit it after the engine was installed.  Today at the Orchard open day I took this photo which shows how close the rod goes to the engine and made me convinced that I should install it after the engine is in.

I noticed that this Healey had the shroud riveted to the inner bodywork, something for me to pay attention to when I am at that stage as I had no idea it went that way