I spent a few days painting and absolutely loved it.  I even like the colour now.

Naturally I have started to procrastinate.  I spent a lot of the week working on the Triumph (I have attempted to make the spoked wheel tubeless by sealing the spokes, I fired the tyres today and am awaiting a proper test but so far so good) when really I should have done more on the Healey.  I have the engine mounts fitted and have replaced the flywheel.  Next job is the clutch and then to connect the gearbox.  Once done it is time to fit the engine.


The reason for procrastinating is that I don't really want to take the car off the trolley but I don't think I will be able to get the engine in if I don't.  Oh damn, time to procrastinate some more.

On Sunday I managed to get the car out and access the engine, I removed the sum and fitted the oil pump.

I decided to grind the sump down and paint it.  I had bought POR15 in Austin Healey engine green some time ago.  It reminds me of the colour of my Action Man clothes and tanks from childhood days.

Now you may wonder why I have two oil pumps in pieces.

Well, when I went looking for the green paint I opened this plastic bag in the boot of the car and discovered a complete oil pump with a drive shaft.  I couldn't believe it.  I had been hounding John for ages to pick up the oil pump drive shaft and I had one all along.   I sent him an email asking if I can send it back, he was remarkably cool about it.  It means I have a spare oil pump housing which I will sell when the funds get painfully tight.

Today I turned my attention to the core plugs whilst waiting for the sump paint to dry.  Now I have been watching YouTube videos for ages on doing this as I have never done it before and it felt a little daunting.  At one point a few months back I saw an American fitting core plugs to a tractor and he used a funky looking sealer in addition to the plugs themselves; I liked the look of it and found via eBay that I could get some for not too much money and did so.

First one in.

Hammered with a punch to secure.





























One side completed and looking good.  This was a satisfying job.





























This was the American sealer, it is very mean if you get it on your skin.

I took the Triumph to see John this morning and it was a lovely ride to Hitchen from London via lots of country roads.  It was, as it always is, a please to be with John.  I collected the oil pump drive shaft and some bolts to connect the gearbox and engine together then headed back.

In the garage I built up the oil pump but didn't fit it as it was raining (August in London) so I couldn't take the car out of the garage to get at the engine.  I turned my attention to the fuel pump.  I couldn't get it going at all at first so forced the points with a screw driver to get it working.  Having established that it did work I then spent a lot of time working on the various settings to try and make it better.  I discovered that if I loosened the bolts that hold the base of the pump to the diaphragm then it worked really well.  I'm leaving it at this stage for now and will investigate it a bit more later on.

Back in London and in the garage at last.  It should be noted that the schools GCSE results were good so I can spend a week in the garage in peace.

I get in the garage  today and empty the stuff that had been stored there such as the dogs bed and so on.  Then I sort the bike out; this is very important.

OK, so I am fat following a long period of eating and drinking too much so I need to do some exercise in addition to going on a diet.  I haven't used the bike for ages, easily over a year.  So I needed to clean it and service it.

Job done then onto the Healey.

I started with the exhaust manifold for some strange reason.  I have no idea why but I modified the plate that John had given me and then painted it.  I also cleaned up the threads of the studs on the manifold.

I then looked at the petrol pump.  I needed to get my computer into the garage and study in detail the various files I have on the pump.  I eventually got it sorted.

Once completed I tried to test it only to find that the battery was flat, blast.

Tomorrow I am off to see John which should be good.

Being a teacher makes this a difficult time of year to work on the car.  At the end of June and into July there are several events that occur that mean that I am away from the garage at weekends.  And then comes the holiday itself which entails at least 4 weeks away.  This is, naturally, very enjoyable but absolutely useless for the Healey.  I have made myself useful though by bringing the manual with me and scouring the internet for research on all things Healey.  Healey6.com has an amazing amount of information for example and I am about half way through the 480 pages of Don Hardies Healey 100 information articles.

The other thing I have done is see John about some of the parts I need and agreed to see him again when I get back to England in a few weeks.  I have also ordered a load of odds and sods from AH4H so that when I get back I can get on with the engine clean up and install.  The order includes a set of core plugs which is somewhat frustrating as I know I have them but cannot locate them anywhere.  What troubles me about that is the likelihood that other parts exist with them wherever they are; I haven't exactly got a lot of storage space though so I am foxed by it.

On my last post I mention that there is a hole in the bock that looks like something should be placed there and indeed something should.  I discovered from the AH-Exp site that a tube goes there and I do have it, so that is good.

I ordered about £150 worth of bits from AH4H and have about £300 worth of stuff on my shopping list for future orders but I have no more money as I still owe John some for the bits he has supplied.  I guess I'll be ordering stuff every month for ages now.

The plan is:

Fit the oil pump and get the sump back on
Paint the engine
Install the engine
Finish the dashboard and fit that
Finish the fuel system (i.e. the feed from the tank and the fuel pump)
Fit the gauges
Fit the wiring
start the engine

Simple plan.  How long will that take I wonder?  On the basis that I need at least 3 months to save up for the bits I know I need I guess I could set a target of Christmas for it.  Perhaps I can have a stainless steel exhaust for Christmas?

But for now it is back to the research and the dreaming, happy days.

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.