Category Archives: December 2006

Chapter 35 Restoration Assembly, Week Two 12/24/2006

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Because of family schedules we celebrated Christmas (gift giving) on Christmas Eve this year, so Monday, Christmas afternoon was devoted to garage work on the Healey. I continued with the installation of the Dynamat Extreme and finished the right side pedal assembly box. I will wait until a little later to finish the dynamat in the interior. The blanking plates were next: one plate with screw clip nuts for the right side master cylinders, 2 plates to cover the steering shaft holes for RHD (one in engine compartment and one in the interior), and finally two plates with the hole for the steering shaft grommet on the left side of the car for LHD cars (again one in the engine compartment and one in the interior). I painted all the flat washers and screw heads for the plate installations.

Blanking Plate 1

I then fastened each of the hot air outlet interior door assemblies and thebulkhead flange bezel. Followed by the fuse block, the double clip for the clutch and brake lines from the masters to the fluid reservoir, the flasher canister and the new flasher relay.

Bulkhead Flange Bezel

 

Vent Doors

Fuse Block and Oil Gauge Line

Well, it is a new day and I am ready for some new challenges. I will get started on the battery cable from British Car Specialists and the wiring harness from British Wiring, Inc. I pushed the harness through the firewall grommet from the interior and separated the strands. I decided to focus on the under car runs first, so after jacking up the car on stands I installed the harness wire that goes to the boot for the fuel pump, fuel sender and rear lights. I skipped the clip attachment to the bump box until I have the rear axle in place.

Wiring Harness 4

Wiring Harness 5

Next I shifted my attention to the battery cable. I got it in place and quit for the day. Tomorrow will be dedicated to connecting the harness under the bonnet and in the boot.

Battery Cable 1

Battery Cable to Starter Solenoid

Harness left side

Wednesday was a good day. I started with the harness on the left side of the car. I secured the harness in the engine compartment with the appropriate zinc fastening clips and connected the wires to the fuse block, the flasher canister, connected and then threaded the dip switch mini-harness through the firewall, connected and threaded the mini-harness for the wiper motor through the firewall, connected the eight wires to the flasher relay box, and connected the front lamp pigtails and routed the harness through the front of the car.

Fuse Block & flasher

Flasher relay

Then I shifted to the right side of the wiring harness. I modified the voltage regulator box to accommodate wiring for an alternator. This is done by cutting out the connectors in the back of the box and then connecting the three brown wires to the same post, and the two yellow wires together to another post.

Harness front view

I then connected the harness to the starter solenoid, and routed the wire down the right side support. Feeders to the ignition, alternator, brake switch, and heater blower route off of the primary harness.

Voltage Box

Harness Right Side

Solenoid Wiring_2

I finished the afternoon installing the battery master switch in the boot. I heard complaints from too many about the original switch so I changed to a modern variant and modified it to fit in the original housing.

Battery Master Switch

Boot Battery Cables

Boot Wiring

I then connected the ground strap, added a few rubber grommets, and routed the wiring to the back of the carwhere a rear lighting harness was connected and fastened with two zinc clips. All-in-all it was a productive day!

Back to the garage the next day, I installed my modified horn brackets and the horns. These are not the proper horns, but at least I got them painted the right color. I used Duplicolor E8800957 “Seattle Silver,” a Honda color, I believe.

horn brackets red LH

horn brackets red RH

Horn painted

They used metric 7mm bolts. Then I installed the little bracket for the bonnet release, the remote control rod support bracket as well as the hydraulic fluid reservoir bracket.

bonnet release rod bracket

fluid reservoir bracket

The bonnet hinges were the next items to install. I greased the clevis pins and used stainless split pins.

Bonnet Hinge

Two big items in my storage bins were the Smiths heater blower and the Cape International interior heater I will be using to upgrade the heating system in the car. The Cape unit, in addition to improved heating efficiency also has a two speed fan. More details are available in the Heating/Cooling section of the website. I went ahead and installed these two items just to make a dent in my storage container!

heater blower 1

Cape heater 2

One thing I wanted to get done early in assembly before tiny spaces got crowded was the installation of the wiper motor assembly rubber grommets. These are a pain to get in, but a little liquid dish soap and muscle did the trick.

Wiper Motor grommets

Chapter 34 Week One 12/18/2016

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Even with all the restoration books I have read, and with all the e-mail exchanges, no one prepared me for the fact that I would develop a phobia about touching the car now that it has finally arrived! I am afraid to touch the thing for fear of scratching it!

My plan is to begin with the brake and fuel lines, then move to some of the interior dynamat installation followed by the electrical wiring harness. Along the way I am sure there will be diversions to other bits and pieces. I will try to be disciplined about this process and avoid the temptation to just start attaching pieces to show progress. Although I am confidant that I will succumb to that diversion from time to time!

It seemed entirely appropriate that the very first components to be installed should be the two production identification number plates on the firewall. These were produced by Clarke Spares and Restorations. The original ID plates had to be shared with them before they would produce new plates.

Number plates

I.D. Number Plates

Then I began by chasing the threads on all fixed nuts throughout the car to eliminate primer and paint before securing fasteners. Just that little job took about 2 1/2 hours.

chasing threads

Then it was on to the hydraulic lines. Fuel line first, followed by the brake junction and the brake lines and the line to the clutch master cylinder. Having drilled all the mounting holes after the frame arrived from Martin, this job moved along very quickly.

Fuel line 1

Fuel line 2

brake pipe union

Brake line 2

Brake lines at union

Front brake lines

My first two diversions were the horn brackets and the air intake flange. These were installed next. Then came the firewall rubber grommets, and again this job was made easier because I had pre-fit and numbered these at an earlier stage.

air intake flange

Horn bracket

rubber firewall grommets

I moved on to beginning the process of controlling interior cabin heat and improving sound insulation. Fred Wescoe produced an excellent piece on interior insulation that proved very helpful. Making your Healey Cool Fred Wesco .

Our cars originally used a tar paper product and jute under the carpet for this purpose, but contemporary products provide much improved insulating qualities. On the advice of others I decided to use a product called Dynamat Exteme that has a very sticky adhesive rubber type surface on the underside and a foil surface on the top. After making patterns from butcher paper the individual pieces were easy enough to cut just using scissors. They were then carefully applied and rolled on with a wallpaper seam roller. Aluminum tape was used to seal all of the seams. All of this produces a nice looking appearance that will hopefully keep the heat down in the cockpit.

The installation of the first piece of the dynamat extreme went under the car, below the driver’s seat and above the muffler insulation panel. Then the stock insulation panel was secured using the six studs through the floor.

Dynamat Extreme 1

Muffler Insulation Panel

I then moved on to the interior of the firewall and to the driver’s side footwell. I used an awl to find the holes in the interior floor and to make holes through the dynamat material.

Dynamat Extreme 2

Dynamat Extreme 3

Next I fastened the insulation panels in the engine compartment.

Engine Insualtion panels