The BN1 resurrection begins today.

[simon1966]

I have owned my 54 BN1 since the early 80's when as a young lad in my 20's. I had decided I was going to build a kit car. Very specifically a Porsche 550 spyder (The James Dean car) based on a VW chassis. I had begun in earnest the search for a suitable Beetle 1600 donor car. My Dad and I visited a small auto museum in Cornwall where there was a 3000 of some kind on display. I fell in love and immediately started my Healey search. Not having a great deal to spend, I ended up with a fairly rough 100. I drove it for a long time, but eventually a move to the US placed the car in storage and their it sat.

The car is now in Illinois , where it has continued to sit for the last decade, today will be the first day in many where the cover gets pulled off and I start to take stock of where things stand and where things need to go? I am going to take a lot of photos of today's activities, because in many ways this is like a barn find! It really will be the beginning. A plan will start to formulate and no doubt I will draw upon your expertise as I move forward. Photos later as I document what happens!

 

[BigGreen]

No better place to find a project car than in your own barn ;-)
What a good choice to store the car instead of selling it
Good luck !!

 

[Healey_Z]

Sounds like a great project, please share the pics here too!

 

[Bob_Spidell]

Congrats on your excellent taste in automobiles. As an aside, I will be passing through Cholame--the place where JD was killed--in my BJ8 next weekend. My neighbor, who is fighting cancer has asked me to take him on a road trip and that town is on the way back.

My dad an I are about 2/3 through restoration of a BN2. You'll hear this from others--and may know this already--but take LOTS of photos of the car during teardown. Unless you've restored several Healeys, and at least a couple 100s, there is so much minutiae and detail--most of which is different than American cars--you'll wish you had photos of every square inch of the car. We didn't take enough, and I regret it almost every time I work on the car. Also, bag and label all fasteners--the 100s use quite a bit of BSF and other oddballs.

 

[bighealeysource]

Hey Simon,
Congrats and welcome to the madness, oops I mean the Healey restoration world ! The forum is great for asking questions and getting many answers back, just a gold mine of info. I would also highly recommend you join the Austin Healey Club of USA so you can get access to the great restoration series of articles done by Roger Moment, one of the gurus of the Healey world. It's all online and about 40 articles worth of info on restoring a big Healey from the ground up. Well worth the $40 0r $45 annual cost. I belong to both clubs and they both bring a lot to the party but Roger's articles are only available from USA club as far as I know. Good luck and post pictures.
Regards,
Mike

 

[Keith_M]

Simon,
Welcome to the forum! You'll find some very knowledgeable and helpful people here. To echo something said in a previous post: take lots of pictures - you won't regret it. I took more than I thought I would ever need, and I didn't take enough. I found I was often missing that one angle I needed.

Oh yeah, and post some of the pictures here. We all love pictures.

Keith

 

[simon1966]

Thanks for the eoncouragement.

Not much to post at this point, but here is a teaser shot as she gets revealed

 

[RandyHicks]

Simon, glad to see you getting started. Love to see the pictures.