Healey engine color

I have a 1960 BT7 which I am trying to bring back to life. The engine has been rebuilt and it is now time to paint. I have been advised that Healey engines were always painted metallic green. My valve cover is painted dark brown metallic, no evidence of another color beneath, rivets for valve clearance plate and Healey plate look undisturbed and brown paint under them. The cylinder head is red, again with no evidence of any other color underneath. The rest of the engine(bloc, pan, etc.) is metallic green.

Could these be original colors?

Newcomer...Larry Clemenson
clj9@qwest.net

Larry:

The engines were always painted metallic green. There is a pretty good match in the NAPA spray can line. I painted mine using that and it looks pretty good. I will look at the spray can and send the number back on the list. I bet your head has been redone. My block was painted red also. From everything I have read they were all green.

[My valve cover is painted dark brown metallic, no evidence of another color beneath, rivets for valve clearance plate and Healey plate look undisturbed and brown paint under them. The cylinder head is red, again with no evidence of any other color underneath.

BMC supplied replacement engines from the factory in red. So, that is a possibility but I believe that they only supplied complete engines, not just heads.

More likely that the engine has been rebuilt, stripped to the bare metal and repainted. The valve clearance plate was likely removed and replaced during the painting.

Best regards,

Jim Hockert
BJ8 Rallye
Dallas, TX

I keep the BJ8 Model Registry, and have been able to record details of almost 4,000 BJ8s so far. Recently the owner of HBJ8L/30352 (engine 29K/RU/H5130) reported that his engine was painted Healey Blue, just like his car, and it appeared to be completely original. I contacted the owner of HBJ8L/30342 (engine 29K/RU/H5123), also a Healey Blue car, to see what color his engine was. He said it was BLUE, and he had always wondered about that. His engine also appeared completely original. Strange that two cars so close together in VIN and engine number would have such a non-"standard" engine color.

Just to add further confusion...I've seen several of the 4 cylinder engines painted red. The story I heard was that the factory would pull an ocassional engine off the line for testing. This was confirmed by Geoff Healey