100-4 restoration advice

[WaltCasten]

You know, the Anderson/Moment book was basically just a re-write of the Concours Committee's Originality Guidelines, with photos. Well, the Guidelines have been much improved and expanded and updated with new information in the years since the A/M book was published. You can buy a copy of the Guidelines from the Concours Committee for a mere $30 (I believe that was the price the last time I heard it). Click here for the contact info to buy a set.

AWESOME! Thanks Reid. I have contacted Mike about obtaining a set.

I both agree and disagree with your comments. Regarding, re-chroming pieces, that depends at least partly on what one is having re-chromed. My experience with having heavily pitted parts re-chromed is not good. They looked good at first. But before long, the pitting reappeared and I then bought reproduction parts anyway. Maybe pot metal is the worst for this. Just today, I ordered a set of new trunk hinges from Britain for the BN4, instead of having the old pitted set re-chromed. Live and learn.
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Cool, let us know how that works out for you. I did the exact same thing for my BN2, ordered the PREMIUM trunk hinges from Britain because the originals were heavily pitted. The body shop installed them and low and behold, they bound up / bottomed out with the boot lid still open about 3" at the back. I got to pay for 3 or 4 hours of extra labour for the body guy to feddle with them, drive the pins out, grind away the plating and material for clearance, etc. Yes, I should have sent them back and got another set but that whole process of receiving, returning, receiving another set that is only marginally better, returning those, was so long in the tooth by that point I told him to just make them work.

 

[healeyblue]

The hinges probably bound up because they put the left on the right side. Some people think the hinges are unisex but there is a slight difference. Once the "body" guy ground the hinges for clearance you would not have been able to tell there is a right and left. I have seen this before and the binding he experienced is the key clue.

 

[Duane_Rhynard]

The hinges probably bound up because they put the left on the right side. Some people think the hinges are unisex but there is a slight difference. Once the "body" guy ground the hinges for clearance you would not have been able to tell there is a right and left. I have seen this before and the binding he experienced is the key clue.

+1

On the originals, the part number and orientation are stamped on the inside of the hinge (See below.)

 

[WaltCasten]

I can't see this particular guy making that mistake given how many British cars he has restored, but this was several years ago and truth is I do not remember all the details of that particular issue. I also thought that if you had them on the wrong side, the trunk didn't even come close to closing, meaning it was a 10-12+ inches open when it bound up.

This trunk hinge discussion is getting far afield from my original point of the poor quality of repro pieces. Headlight rings with incorrect profile/incomplete plating that need to have the inner lip relieved to go over the buckets with screw holes in the wrong place so the rivet doesn't sit at 12 o'clock, "premium" side spears with sink marks, repro grille surrounds close to 1/2" too short, OD escutcheons with cartoonishly incorrect fonts, etc. Those are just a few of the others that pop into my head.

 

[blueskies]

Thanks for the warning on the reproduction hinges. I do hope the new hinges will work well and look good. I certainly have had more than one issue with reproduction Healey parts. The worst was the grill surround parts for the BJ7; when the two parts were fit together, a raised and rough weld on one part - with chrome plating over it - immediately scratched the other part. When installed, the scratch shows. I expected better, especially considering that the surround parts cost well over $1000. What surprised me more than the poor quality of the parts was that the vendor made no effort to address the problem.

But re-chroming also has its issues. On the '58 Corvette, for example, the grille teeth were re-chromed with the most expensive show quality option. Within about two years, the pitting came through the fresh chrome. The car then received reproduction teeth, which fit well and look good.

 

[PHulst]

The car then received reproduction teeth, which fit well and look good.

Corvette Central started out by reproducing those grille teeth. Those are still some nice parts 40 years later.

 

[blueskies]

The reproduction trunk hinges referred to above arrived. They have no part number marked on the two parts or sleeves that they come in, and there is no RH or LH marking on the hinges. I cannot detect any difference between the two reproduction parts (unlike the original parts) and believe that they are intended to interchange from one side or to the other.

One hinge seems fine, but the second one has two quality issues. Even before installing the hinge, it will not open fully. There is not sufficient clearance between the two parts of the hinge for it to open more than about half way before it binds. To fix that would require removing the pin and filing or grinding down one or both of the pieces to create clearance. That would destroy the chrome finish on that part of the hinge. A second issue with the hinge is that one of the threaded bolts is not threaded far enough down the shaft to fit the nut on as far as it needs to go. There really is not enough space to use a tap/die to extend the threads.

I contacted the seller (one of the usual companies that sell Healey parts) and am still waiting for their response. Even though one might not expect that these replacement hinges equal the quality of the originals, they should at least open fully. How do issues like this make it past the quality control people?

 

[CraigC]

Blueskies, the hinges for a Healey trunk cannot be the same on the left and right sides. The reason is simple. They sit on a curved surface but the hinge pins MUST be on the same centerline. If the hinges are symetrical, that will have the hinge pins pointing upward toward the center of car and this will cause binding. I just went down and measured the distance from hinge pin center to mounting surface. On the outer side of each hinge, the distance is approx .600". On the inner side it is closer to .540". In rough terms that is 1/16" difference. I would suggest you measure your hinges. If the measurement is the same on both sides of the hinge, and not different by approx 1/16", those are not Healey hinges.

 

[blueskies]

Blueskies, the hinges for a Healey trunk cannot be the same on the left and right sides. The reason is simple. They sit on a curved surface but the hinge pins MUST be on the same centerline. If the hinges are symetrical, that will have the hinge pins pointing upward toward the center of car and this will cause binding. I just went down and measured the distance from hinge pin center to mounting surface. On the outer side of each hinge, the distance is approx .600". On the inner side it is closer to .540". In rough terms that is 1/16" difference. I would suggest you measure your hinges. If the measurement is the same on both sides of the hinge, and not different by approx 1/16", those are not Healey hinges.

Craig, What you say makes sense. The original hinges that I have (badly pitted) have RH and LH marked on them. Both of the new repro hinges appear to be identical (except for the manufacturing defects as described above) and have no markings or part numbers. They are selling them as Healey hinges. As mentioned above, one binds and will not open fully, even before installation on the car. So much for thinking that things from Britain are better quality!!!

 

[CraigC]

Out of curiousity, did the supplier have separate part numbers for left and right hinges or did they only list them as a pair?
For what its worth, the fact they came from Britain, doesn't mean they were manufactured there.

 

[blueskies]

Out of curiousity, did the supplier have separate part numbers for left and right hinges or did they only list them as a pair?
For what its worth, the fact they came from Britain, doesn't mean they were manufactured there.

They had them listed as a pair with no part numbers. Still waiting to hear back from the seller; almost twenty four hours since I contacted them.