What crazy things have you done with [to] your Healey?

I came across the attached photo and started thinking of the various ways we misused the Healey over the years by using it as a pickup truck. I can recall using it to haul bales of straw. Two will fit in the back seat…and then you’ll be picking bits of straw out of the carpeting for a long time to come. I also used to haul my lawnmower in the boot. Remove the spare, fold down the handle on the mower, and it fits right in, with the wheels sitting between the shroud and the bumper. Tie down the boot lid and you’re good to go. I drove all over mowing lawns for my mom when she was selling real estate. But the craziest was when my dad and I used it to haul two balled trees! That’s my dad and me (with the afro), probably in 1979.

Today, my dad is gone (I miss him…), I have a huge pickup for hauling, and the Healey has been perfectly restored. Hmmm. Those were nice times with my dad, the Healey a bit beat up but well loved, and some creative uses for an old British sports car!

What crazy things have you done with (to) your Healey?

Well, I did let my wife take this photo for a story:

I've used mine as a daily commuter__didn't seem so crazy back in the late 70s__driving from San Francisco to Richmond or Hercules every day to do electrical work in the refineries. Once, I was able to leave the job site early so I could pick up a 2500' spool of 5/16" steel cable from a supplier in The City to use the next day; we were having trouble pulling in a long (>2100') run of 15,000 volt cables (6 individual 500 MCM conductors, plus a couple of grounds) and kept breaking ropes! The steel cable worked, and with that in my trunk, it was probably the best/smoothest that the car ever rode! My usual 40-50 Lbs worth of toolbox & tool-belt also in the trunk (2-seaters have a wonderfully large trunk).

I can remember another time carrying a full__but small__"job box" with a full set of pipe-threading dies, cutter, reamer and a Rigid chain vise between jobs. I still have all those pipe tools, drill motor and index. I'd gone to work for another contractor after being laid off, and when I was called back to work for the former company, the tool clerk wanted to issue me a 2nd job box, but I told him I still had the last one. While they're not something you need very often, I did use the 1/2" & 3/4" threaders putting black-iron air lines in our last couple of garages.

Then there was the time I drove the poor thing into the side of a mountain after leaving an officer's election picnic for the Austin-Healey Club-Pacific Centre, held at Huddart Park in Woodside, California. I don't recommend doing that, but at least we didn't go off the cliff!

After moving to Lafayette, Louisiana in the mid 80s, I again used the Healey daily, including making service calls, and frequently driving it to__and leaving it at__the offshore docks when working out in the Gulf of Mexico. Probably not a good idea to do that anymore either. I was also autocrossing it around that same time, three (3) or four (4) weekends a month, if I wasn't working (this I still highly recommend doing).

Probably the craziest thing done with it this Century, was springtime about a decade ago, my wife and I brought home several flats of flowers to plant in our previous new home. Then five (>5) years ago, the Healey rode top/front on an open transport carrier from Ohio to Florida en route to our current home.

All things considered, and when you get right down to it, I guess it's a mere shadow of its former wild and crazy self these days. Just like its owner.

It appears your exhaust exits behind the driver's door. I did that with a BJ7 back in the '60s because I was too cash-deprived to replace the crimped rear pipes. The resulting exhaust drone nearly drove me nuts at about 60 mph. I remember driving back and forth across Ohio (job in Dayton, girl friend Cleveland area) and stuffing pocket tissue in my ears. That doesn't work. Your car sans eye lashes is pretty nifty, the elimination of the front bumper a definite enhancement.

Admittedly not as much fun as hauling a lawnmower but back in my high school days, my best friend and I took my Bugeye Sprite to a dance and managed to chat up a group of three young ladies, after which all five of us (five!) squeezed into my Bugeye (top down of course) and went for an extended joy ride.

Like many of us my first Healey was a daily driver and in 1962 I drove my 1960 BN7 from Miami to NYC (and back) for a summer job. While the car was fairly new I did not have a tool (other than that in the tool role) or spare on board, nor the knowledge on how to anything much beyond filling a tire. Naturally nothing happened--not even a flat tire.

I haven't had my 100-6 long enough to do anything to wild and crazy...

Unless you count the fact that only the right front brake works, and the transmission cover is off as well as most of the interior, and I've had to drive it across town a couple of times this way due to a move.
Watching the pavement right below you and having the car veer right if you put much of any pressure on the brakes makes for an interesting ride.

Can't wait until the pole barn is done and I can get moving on the project.

back in the early 70's I used to use my 100-6 to haul a floor waxing machine to my jobs doing supermarket floors I had to remove the passenger seat to fit it in. one night on the way home the right rear wheel hub stripped and the wheel and nut left me at 40 mph and sailed into the woods leaving me sliding along on the brake drum. I searched for about an hour in the dark but couldn't find it and called a friend to drive me home leaving the car behind. next morning went back and located the wheel with the spinner still attached but spent the rest of the day searching junk yards to locate a hub with decent splines put it together with a piece of tin can to shim the worn splines and managed to get it home.

Not Healey related, but Jaguar. Some years ago I used my XJ6 to pull Juniper hedge stumps out of my front yard.

Griz

RDKeysor said:

It appears your exhaust exits behind the driver's door. I did that with a BJ7 back in the '60s because I was too cash-deprived to replace the crimped rear pipes. The resulting exhaust drone nearly drove me nuts at about 60 mph. I remember driving back and forth across Ohio (job in Dayton, girl friend Cleveland area) and stuffing pocket tissue in my ears. That doesn't work. Your car sans eye lashes is pretty nifty, the elimination of the front bumper a definite enhancement.

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You are correct; that is the exhaust. When I'm alone, I wear an earplug in my left ear. When I'm with my wife, we wear headsets to talk to each other.

John Turney said:

You are correct; that is the exhaust. When I'm alone, I wear an earplug in my left ear. When I'm with my wife, we wear headsets to talk to each other.

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I have a Stebroe side exhaust on my 64 BJ8 but it was personally made for me as I knew one of the owners of Stebroe . I didnt want it way loud so I had him make the silencer section that fits basically between the outriggers as long as physically possible and it sounds .........well you just have to gear it its still Healey and you do need to raise your voice a bit to hold a conversation but the quality of sound is more than worth it .

When I'm alone, I wear an earplug in my left ear. When I'm with my wife, we wear headsets to talk to each other.

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After going over a railroad track and realizing my original exhaust was too damaged to reinstall, I modified what I had left to exit aft of my door. Although this did look rad at the time, over the years of driving with the side exhaust, I believe I lost some left side hearing (didn't think of using an ear plug at the time). In order to pass NJ car inspection (pretty tough at the time), I had my new wife take the car and for 3 straight years the car passed. On the 4th year, I had to take the car to inspection (wife visiting her family), and the car was immediately failed and I was given a Loud dress-down by the head inspector for having a non-approved and dangerous exhaust. Sexual bias?

Ray(64BJ8P1)

Not what I did to my Healey, but what my "friends" did. When I had my bugeye in high school, I came out of a store to find one friend on each corner lifting it into the back of a truck from a furniture company that one of them worked for.

Healey Nut said:

I have a Stebroe side exhaust on my 64 BJ8 but it was personally made for me as I knew one of the owners of Stebroe . I didnt want it way loud so I had him make the silencer section that fits basically between the outriggers as long as physically possible and it sounds .........well you just have to gear it its still Healey and you do need to raise your voice a bit to hold a conversation but the quality of sound is more than worth it .

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I have the stock muffler from Moss. I can have a conversation with most guys without the headsets, but my DW speaks softly. I lost too much of my hearing in the Navy, so I hope to preserve it by covering or plugging the left ear.

I've been told I'm cray for driving an old LBC a hundred miles from nowhere (and no cellphone service).

Bob_Spidell said:

I've been told I'm cray for driving an old LBC a hundred miles from nowhere (and no cellphone service).

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North by Northwest

Our Baby girl was just born 7/22/17, her first pic home was in the Healey!!!!

I insisted my son learn to drive in my BJ8. Except for an encounter with a lawnmower handle while parking, it went surprisingly well. After that, everything else he drove was a piece of cake. But, I couldn't convince him to take his driving exam in the Healey.

Aero, congratulations.

You are correct; that is the exhaust. When I'm alone, I wear an earplug in my left ear. When I'm with my wife, we wear headsets to talk to each other.

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I'm glad you didn't finish with "I wear earplugs in both ears"

:smile-new: Danny