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A Major Milestone

red57

Jedi Knight
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I thought I would share my major milestone. Over the years I have gotten a lot help and insight from the forums and I know I really like seeing other folks’ projects, so thought I’d share. I know some of you have done a major bare chassis rebuilds and know just how much work and frustration is involved – particularly if you are an amateur who believes in doing it all yourself like I do.

Brief backstory on the car, it’s a 1960 BT7. I hit a deer with it at about 50mph in October ’87 on my way home from work one night (was my DD) – flattened the front shroud & fenders, folded the hood backwards over the windshield, bent the frame, partially collapsed the right side scuttle brace that angles down to the shock mount.

At the time I had a ‘57 BN4 in my shop with a dead motor. So I pulled the 3000 motor and put it in the 100-6 and parked the 3000 in the corner of the garage. I started racing the 100-6 10 years later in ‘97 and enjoyed over 15 years of successful, incident free racing, but at the 2013 SOVREN July Historic races in Seattle, my 100-6 was taken out by a fellow that subsequently forfeited his racing license because of the serious wrecks he caused – unfortunately too late to do me any good!

The 100-6 was worse off than the 3000, so I drug out the 3000 and started work (the 100-6 is now the one stashed in the corner of the shop).

So it’s now just a couple of weeks shy of 8 years since I last drove a Healey! That’s why it feels like such a major milestone…… 8 years.

It finally runs!!! This week I put brake fluid in and bled the brakes and clutch. Water and water pump lube, filled the accusump and pressurized it and ran about 3 quarts of oil thru the engine to make sure everything was pre-oiled. Gas in the tank and filled the float bowls. I finally started the motor at about 3:00 Thursday afternoon 6-17-21 and was able to get the cam & lifters bedded (½ hr. at ~2500 rpm). Then on Friday I was able to re-torque the head and adjust the valves, set timing, and do the initial carburetor settings.

Saturday I actually drove it outside under its own power and took some pictures and celebrated the end of Phase 2. First time on its feet in 8 years, sorta forgot how short these things are 😊.

Hopefully not more that another year or two to finish. I’m sure there will be lots of bugs to sort out but I’m a happy camper right now.

This project can be broken down into 4 Phases:

Phase 1 was the cutting and replacing rusted and/or bent structural metal and body patch panels and piecing together the front aluminum shroud, straightening the frame and getting all of the body panels to fit,

Phase 2 was painting the chassis and assembling the mechanical, hydraulic, electrical, and plumbing systems,

Phase 3 will be final body work, panel fitting, paint and assembly,

Phase 4 will be the interior, top, tonneau.

Dave
 

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Congratulations on your workmanship and perseverance. I hope some of the fun is in the journey.
 
Congratulations on your workmanship and perseverance. I hope some of the fun is in the journey.
ME : TOO
That looks great!
But : RED57
U did not say any thing about da deer , did it live happily ever after.--LOL
 
Rob, It's a stock re-cored radiator with a custom top tank to clear my scoopless hood. I first did a fiberglass version on my BN4 25 years ago and just made this steel one last winter for the BT7. So, reverting to stock only requires a stock radiator and stock hood.
 

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Congrats, Dave! Looking great. How about sharing a list of your modifications? I know I am interested and I expect others would be too.
Lin
 
Great story. Congratulations on reaching a significant milestone on your build and all the best on the rest.
 
Congratulations on your workmanship and perseverance. I hope some of the fun is in the journey.
Thanks vette, I know you do your own work and appreciate your comment - it did take some serious persevering at times :smile:. For me, a lot of the fun and satisfaction is definitely in the journey and is nearly as important as the destination.
Dave
 
ME : TOO
That looks great!
But : RED57
U did not say any thing about da deer , did it live happily ever after.--LOL
Not sure but I think the deer was fine... It was a very rural area and after dark. It crossed the road in front of me at a full run so front shoulder at left headlight and hind quarters at right headlight. Both headlights were instantly smashed so it was pitch black as I slid to a stop and no deer to be found, shrug.....
Dave
 
Congrats, Dave! Looking great. How about sharing a list of your modifications? I know I am interested and I expect others would be too.
Lin
Hi Lin, A brief list of modifications:

Bored .030", Carrillo 3 ring forged pistons, stock rods polished and balanced.

Piston crown oilers ala diesel engines to reduce piston dome heat

Nitrided, straightened and polished .020 under crank and Polymeric Dynamics coated inserts.

Accusump oil accumulator, 3 qt. w/electric valve to pre-oil before starting

DWR 8 cam & bucket followers with Smith Bros. pushrods.

Flowed iron head with chambers for 9.5:1 compression ratio.

Triple HD6 carbs assembled from bits so all float chambers are on front side and throttle & choke linkages are based loosely on early 3000 setups

Kirk Headers with 1 ½” primaries, stock mild steel muffler and 1 ½” tailpipes side exiting behind the rear tire (somewhat copied from Steve Thomton’s EFI car)

Two UEGO wideband AF gauges, one in each header collector

Aircraft EGT gauge with probes in each header primary so can monitor each cylinder

Trying out a PCV system flowing thru a catch can based on ideas from the forums – still at R&D/testing stage

Lightened stock flywheel drilled for BJ8 diaphragm pressure plate

Smitty’s bellhousing kit with Toyota W58 tranny, freshly sealed by tranny shop

4:10 rear with Quaife torque biasing differential (from race car - will probably upgrade to 3.54:1 but will keep the Quaife)

Early 3000 front disc brakes with DWR ‘replacement’ calipers (uses BJ8 pads)

Jag rear disc brakes with proportioning valve

Koni tube shocks all round

7/8” front sway bar,

500# front springs/new stock rear springs with correct zinc liners

Hood without hood scoop and 100 windshield

Dave
 
Dave:

That was what I figured would be the case for the Deer.
 
I was going ask about what appear to be some kind of sensor lines going to each cylinder based on the pic with what appears to be a braided hose on the passenger side below the up and over clutch Hydraulic line .
Do you have a 6 reading EGT gauge for each cylinder hidden somewhere
 
Interesting road wheels you have on there. May I ask where did they come from? I'm assuming that you still have the original Healey axles and hubs. Are they lighter than the Healey 5-lug steel disc?
 
Interesting road wheels you have on there. May I ask where did they come from? I'm assuming that you still have the original Healey axles and hubs. Are they lighter than the Healey 5-lug steel disc?
Yep, stock axles and front hubs. The wheels are Dan Gurney designed wheels made by Western Wheel back in the '60s. I've seen ads for them in old Hot Rod mags from the early/mid '60s. These are 15x5.5 and were somewhat popular aftermarket wheels for Porsches. However, the Porsche application won't work on a Healey because the bolt circle is metric and just bit off from the 5" circle of the Healey hub.

In the 13 or 14" size (not sure exactly which) they were the LAT (Los Angeles Tigers) option wheels for racing Tigers approved for SCCA racing in the '60s.

I got lucky and found them on eBay about 20 years ago.

I don't know what the stock steel wheels weighed but these weigh about the same as a set of same sized Minilite-type I have.

Dave
 
I was going ask about what appear to be some kind of sensor lines going to each cylinder based on the pic with what appears to be a braided hose on the passenger side below the up and over clutch Hydraulic line .
Do you have a 6 reading EGT gauge for each cylinder hidden somewhere
Good eye,
Yes, I have an aircraft EGT gauge with 6 probes. The gauge can be set to display steady on any one cylinder, or sequentially display each cylinder for 2 seconds, or set to always show whichever is the hottest cylinder. I normally have it set to display the hottest.

Seems like silly overkill but several years ago when I was racing I had problems going lean at high revs. I melted pistons a couple of times and warped valves and seats several times so I invested in twin UEGO air/fuel gauges and the EGT so I could collect all the data you get from a dyno (except HP & torque) so I could make needles that didn't go lean.

I could never afford to pay someone to set up things for me and there is no dyno in my area, so I found this gives me the info needed to DIY (living in a very rural area helps with the road testing part :smile:)

Without going too deep into it, I had metering rods in the SU pistons (read Des Hammill, How to Build & Power tune SUs) instead of the dampers and was able to measure exactly how high the pistons were rising at full throttle for any given rpm. I did this in 500 rpm graduations (1000, 1500, 2000, etc). That allowed me to know exactly where the needle was whenever it was lean so I could polish it a bit and make it richer at that station. The EGT was useful because, even though I had trouble finding absolute upper limit temps, I did speak with a few old-timers around the track who said I shouldn't go much above 1300*F. Most of what I read about aircraft suggested not going above 1500*F (I didn't have this gauge when I melted pistons and wasn't interested in melting some to learn the limits..... Anyway, since I had all this stuff and I'm running a different cam and my engine is now very close to stock that even though I won't be racing anymore, I installed it all so I will be able to dial it in when I finally get to drive it.

Dave
 
Rob, It's a stock re-cored radiator with a custom top tank to clear my scoopless hood. I first did a fiberglass version on my BN4 25 years ago and just made this steel one last winter for the BT7. So, reverting to stock only requires a stock radiator and stock hood.
Thanks. The scoop less hood is quite good looking.
 
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