I've been distracted, it was impossible not to be:

OK, so I was 50 in the summer and my lovely wife asked me what I wanted for my birthday the very same weekend that I had discovered one of my neighbours owned a classic BSA so I flippantly said 'A motorbike'.  She replied, what a good idea, what type would you like?  Now I would love a classic bike but the Healey is struggling already and the thought of it being sidelined by a bike was too much so I started to look at newer machines and eventually ended up on a Triumph Thruxton.  I went to test ride one a few months back and liked it but it wasn't just meaty enough.  Then I discovered the new 1200cc R version and the rest is history.  I collected it three weeks ago and have it already run in.  I love it.  Of course it hasn't helped the Healey that every weekend I want to be on it but today it rained so I opened the garage door again.

Actually I should talk about yesterday first.  My wife, Wilf the bulldog and I went to the annual Rawles open day.  It was fantastic as it always is.  One gets the opportunity to roam around their premises unhindered and it is fascinating.  I always hope there is a 100 being worked on but the last few years there hasn't been which is a shame.  Anyway, lots of people drive out there for a free burger, coffee and a chat so it becomes a classic car show with predominantly Healeys on show everywhere.  It is fantastic.  Now I always like seeing other peoples Healey 100's because it calms my nerves a little on what is acceptable.  One of the things that has sat on my mind a little is that my shroud doesn't have a return for a rubber trim where it sits up against the doors.  John (Healey 100 register fame) tells me that this isn't uncommon but every car I have ever seen has had them; until yesterday:

I desperately wanted to open the door and see what the trim looked like but I couldn't see the owner anywhere to ask so I settled for some pictures.  I got the gist though and it settled my mind wonderfully.

Note: the sunshine, it was lovely.

So back to today.  Too wet to ride the Thruxton to a posh cafe for a slap up breakfast so I made a bacon sandwich and opened the garage door.  Now, next week is half term and we are not going away so I am determined to borrow the puller tool off my panel beater pal, Rob and have a go at the shroud.  Having procrastinated by clearing up the garage I realised that the only thing I could do in advance of that is bolt the shroud back to the front chassis mounts so that it is fixed and therefore less likely to move when the pushing/pulling goes on.  I got down to check that the shroud was in the centre of the chassis legs when looking at the bottom of it and noticed the mark I had previously put to signify the centre of the shroud.  Something went off in my mind and I got the laser leveller out and set it up.  I then started to measure from the centre of the shroud to various points on the right hand side and was able to establish exactly how far I need to pull the shroud to get it even.  This felt very satisfying.

I marked the required measurements on the shroud and then moved on to the grille.

The last time I tried the grille on the car it was a nightmare because the shroud was being held in a position that forced the grille aperture to warp a little.  But because I have moved the shuttle the shroud now sits move comfortably on the car and the grille fitted wonderfully.  I couldn't help but notice how dull it was so started to clean it.

I rubbed and rubbed with wire wool and got bored and gave up.  I'll have to do it bit by bit I think.


When I took the grille apart I discovered that some of the studs that mount it to the grille surround were broken.  I set about trying to find suitable studding to repair it when I discovered the exact same threaded bolt in my stores, complete result.  I set about cleaning up the original studs then mig welded the bolts to the grille before cleaning it all up.


Broken studs:

Repaired stud:

I enjoyed today.

It was sunny in North London today so I got the car out and started measuring.  I decided to take off the wings and shroud so that I could weld the bulkhead top panel back on.  Once done I put it all back  again.

When I look at it from afar the car looks reasonably ok, there are no massive issues and if it was all painted in a lovely shiny Healey Blue colour then I am confident it would look great.  The wheels are vertically aligned which is great news.  The near side shape is still out though and I think I can improve on it so I am going to have a go.  I will need to borrow an old slide puller from my panel beater friend Rob and hopefully I can do that in the next week or two.  Will keep you posted.

I managed to visit John last week and collect a new shock, well a refurbished one that is.

I enjoyed talking with John and as usual learnt a lot about the workings of shock absorbers.  In the second photo it is easy to see the extra length of the arms on the suspect item.  Apparently it isn't an MGB one though.  Anyway, back on the car and the wheels look to have much better vertical alignment although as it was raining I was unable to take the car out of the garage, maybe tomorrow.

Back from holiday and on to the car.  I start by procrastinating again.  I just spend ages looking round it to decide what the way forward should be.  I have the panel that sits on top of the front of the inner bodywork that supports the shroud resting in place having previously removed it.  The shroud is mounted along with the wings.  I have the shroud twisted slightly so that the front is in a more neutral position when compared to the chassis rails and bonnet brackets.  From the front the car looks good.  Both lines created by the shroud/wing joints appear even and go in similar directions when looking from a distance.  The near side looks good.  The off side is not good.  The wing looks too short and possibly is.  Also, the rear of the shroud that is in effect the cockpit edge is out from the door edge by about 1 to 1.5cm.  The area just looks wrong.  On looking round for other potential causes for concern I notice that the shocks appear different.  I remove them and when I place them on the work bench it is obvious that they are not the same.

I consult with John, once again and get the impression that one of them is probably from an MGB.  I am off to see him again on Sunday to rectify this issue.  It does mean though that I am unable to proceed with the car for the time being.  So I turn to the engine.

Whilst on holiday I discover that it is generally the done thing to carry out a modification to the rear oil seal carrier when engines are refurbished.  I am not sure if this has been done to my engine so I need to get to the area in question by removing the clutch cover and plate.  Once done the flywheel was removed and I took a picture to post to the forum (AHEXP.COM) to establish if the engine has had the treatment.

I write this in sunny France.  I kid you not, my wife and I are doing a house swap in Aix-en-Provence for 4.5 weeks.  It is lovely.  The people whose house we are living in are going to drive to England and stay in our place in London.  They haven't left yet which could be odd but it is isn't.  Catherine is visiting family in Corsica and Alain is working deep in the bowls of the house.  We are living in an annex which is quite separate to their main living quarters.  Essentially my life consists of eating bread, cheese, meat and drinking coffee & beer whilst reading.  It's a hard life in the sunshine.

So why am I writing this you may ask?  Well my wife met me in Nice on the south coast of France, a long story which I will skip for now.  I drove the TT down from London at the weekend.  It should have been a very chilled drive, roof down, sunshine, empty roads (they really are empty in France) and nothing to worry about apart from 6 weeks off work.  However, the French customs officers had a strop on following Brexit and terror attacks so kept me (and everyone else) waiting 4 hours extra to get through the port at Dover.  This meant that I had 600km to do to get to the booked hotel and I wasn't starting out from Calais until gone 16:00.  Now the French have a rather generous speed limit of 130km/h but in the interests of a Saturday night I sat at 150 all the way.

After about 300km I noticed the familiar sight of a Healey 100.  I also realised that I wasn't catching it very rapidly.  When I did catch it I realised that it was going about 110km/h with two people in it which seemed very fast.  I couldn't help myself and leant out of my car and waved like mad at them.  The lady driving had a very cool scarf on and the two of them had an intercom of some description.  They looked very cool and very happy.

I did later see two French Healeys in a service station but no more on the road.

It was fun.

Well it is fair to say that I have been a little laid back on the car front lately.  Mainly due to the intensity of the end of year push that every teacher experiences in the run up to the GCSE exams and the half Ironman in Staffordshire last weekend.  Well the exams are over and the Ironman completed so the car has slipped back into focus.  I tided up the edges on the bulkhead top panel that I removed last time and sat it back on the car.  I then fitted the shroud and established that I can move it around a little so I bolted the wings on along with the wheels and take it out of the garage to have a god look from a distance.

The shroud sits in a different position now; the lower front edge looks more evenly spaced between the chassis legs and the same is true of the bonnet aperture and the bonnet mounting brackets.  That is all good.  The wheels look better, the nearside still sits further out than the offside  but not by much and I suspect that when I address the shroud it could well take care of that, still all good.  The issue is that the offside wing is now a little too short, not good at all:

The wing is now 1 inch shorter that the shroud

This is going to take some pondering as I don't want to make a whole lot of changes to the wings and then discover that I need to do it all over again at some later stage.  Essentially, the top panel is sitting on the bulkhead at an angle so there are potential issues everywhere I look at from lining up the aluminium cockpit trims that sit on the shrouds and doors to the position of the dash panel.  Fundamentally though it looks healthier so I am happy with the development, I just need to think far and wide on the implications.

So after a period of lots of intense procrastination I finally made it back into the garage.  This isn't actually the truth, I have been in the garage lots but I have been working on anything but the Healey as I can't work out what to do with the misaligned front end. So with all my excuses used up I get back to it.

Easy start, welding the front chassis section back on that supports the shroud and radiator.

I go through the rigmarole of measuring everything again to see if it is out of line and decide that I need to do something about the bulkhead and specifically the top panel, like cut if off.  So I did.
Now obviously I have yet to put it back so I am well aware that I have done the easy part but it still felt positive.  Next week is half term and I am hoping that I can get a bit of time on the car.