The day after the initial drive I decided to torque the head down and see if that had any impact on the water weeping situation.  I couldn't do that without removing the rocker shaft as I couldn't access the head bolts with it in place.  I then adjusted the rockers and started the engine.  It was much quieter although I suspect that one of the rockers isn't perfectly adjusted.  The head bolt still weeped water though at quite an alarming rate.

I contacted John who thought it might possibly be water coming up the stud thread rather than from the head gasket and suggested removing the offending stud and applying a sealant to it.  Having thought on it for a week I have decided to remove the head, remove all the studs and apply sealer to the lot.  This is my easter task.

A good day.

I started by fitting the prop shaft.  I am conscious that I do not know what way round it goes though so I didn't hammer over the locking tabs, I will check first.

I then checked the timing to see if I could get it running a little slower on tick over.  I later discovered that I hadn't tightened up the distributor.

Then the first attempt at driving the car:

I discovered the wobbly distributor and then this:

I used an old toolbox to lean against and sat on some bits of wood as I don't have a seat yet so the ride was probably a bit difficult to judge but I did get some initial thoughts.  The suspension and steering work nicely.  The engine needs some proper fettling as the revs are too high and the engine is making a hell of a noise.  The clutch felt soft, too soft;  I am already wishing I had installed a new one.  The brakes need a lot more bite.

It felt good though, really good.  It is almost exactly ten years to the day since I started working on this 100 and I have now driven it.  That is great stuff.  I am a very happy man.

So feeling happy with myself I get the car back in the garage and start one of those jobs I've had on my things to do list for ever, drilling out the bonnet hinges to fit a clevis pin.  Whilst doing that I start to look around and then notice stuff:

Basically I have got weeping going on everywhere.  Well it feels like that.  The engine looked like it had done 80 000 miles not a few hundred metres.  I have a set of core plugs but I think I'll try bashing the existing ones in a bit more before I replace them.  I also think I'll try and tighten the cylinder head down and see if that can stop some of the weeping.  Sometimes it feels like one step forward and 2 backwards, but not today.  I have waited 52 years to drive a Healey 100, happy man.

Last weekend I filled the brake system with fluid.  It should have been quite straight forward but it took ages.  My easy bleed system is very old and needed a lot of TLC to get it running.  I then realised that the rear brake bleed nipples were too short to reach past the rubber boots that sit on the outside of wheel cylinder.  I took a trip to Mini Spares to buy some longer nipples which helped but they were still too short.  I know I should have waited at this point, gone and bought some super long versions from eBay before filling the system but I didn't want to so I pressed ahead.  This meant taking all the handbrake connections off and refitting them afterwards, oh well.  The fluid went in well and the pedal feel is ok.  I did buy some longer nipples in the week and will fit them at some point but for now I have brakes.  I also fitted the rest of the handbrake cable system and that seems to work well enough.

Ahead 4 Healey's contacted me to say that my temperature gauge was back from the repairer which is good.

Yesterday I started by filling the rear diff with its oil.  The fill plug is on the underside of the car and so I rigged a funnel and tube up to allow me to fill the system efficiently.

The first lot of oil to go in was so think it took ages to work its way through the funnel/tube so I put some thought into it and decided I should warm the oil to make it more fluid.

I needed 1.28 litres of oil so the kitchen equipment was out again.

It took 2 and a half hours to fill the diff but it is done.

I then took the distributor out and checked the timing again and eventually got the engine running well.  It still ticks over way too high but it is good enough to drive the car which is my main goal at the moment.  

I had a more detailed look at the overdrive.  The videos I've been watching show that the ball bearing in the overdrive housing that sits on top of the control rod should jump up a little when it is engaged and mine does.  However, before I could measure it the solenoid stopped working.  I was inclined to leave it until much later and this was the final straw.  Once the car is finished and driving I will take the prop shaft out and spend time on this but until then I will forget about it and move on.  It'll be a good project in a year or two.

Whilst the engine was running some oil dripped off the rear shock onto the pipe and this generated a lot of smoke.  I need to replace that shock which is a shame as it is a chunk of money to replace, oh well.

I then removed the front off side engine mount off and replaced one section of it with one that I had modified to allow the rubber to line up with the engine mountings on the chassis more effectively.  

Now all I really need to do is fit the prop shaft and drive the car.  That is next weekends project.

I fitted the freshly painted handbrake and then grabbed the cable that came in the original box of bits way back when I bought the car only to discover that I need a bracket between the cable and the pivot lever on the rear axel, oh.

I removed the front section of the differential to fit the required two thin shims.  I read somewhere about making a bracket to hold the diff still while it was tightened, I used a piece of angle-iron which worked well.

That was it for the day, not much to show for it.

Whilst running down the list of tasks I have to do before I attempt to drive the car I started the day by ordering some oil for the differential and rear axel.  I then ventured into the garage and tried to put the track rod ends into the track bar that I had shortened last week and of course the threads were stiff as anything and the ends too long to go all the way in.  I spent a lot of time running them backwards and forwards to ease the threads and then cuts the track rod ends 5mm shorter.  This process damaged the paint on the bar so I had to repaint it.

Then I turned my attention to the handbrake which is one of the few original comments that I haven't yet worked on and it needed some work.  Really I need to have it re-chromed but I haven't the money for that so I rubbed it down and painted it silver apart from the section of the handle that one holds when using it.  It was quite enjoyable.

Having done the handbrake I was idly sitting around thinking of things to do whilst paint was drying and noticed that one of the core plugs had a blister on the paint.  When I touched it the paint burst and water came out which must mean the core plug is not sealed properly.

I am kind of glad that it is this specific plug that has gone because I can easily access it.  Some of the others would cause a real problem.  Naturally I am going to forget all about it for now.