A Road Trip to LeMans

[HealeyRick]

Ends in a DNF. A good read, though with nice pictures: https://www.automobilemag.com/featu...ving-an-austin-healey-3000-mk-iii-to-le-mans/

 

[John Turney]

 

[Keoke]

A good read-

Yep Thanks for posting

 

[Michael Oritt]

The author said "The parts required to fix our Austin Healey 3000 Mk III came to $40 (unknown to us at the time, he simply welded up the fitting), but the result of the pipe failure was a DNF for our road trip to 24 Hours of Le Mans"

For want of an oil flex line he did not make his destination and while this part does not commonly fail this is not the first time that I have heard of this happening.

When I set out for Conclave in Lake Tahoe, CA from MD in 2002 I made a list of parts that were potential trip-stoppers and might be hard to obtain in the hinterlands. If they were not too big and/or expensive I put them aboard.

This inventory included coolant hose sections; fiber gaskets for the SU float bowls and overflow tubes (I have Le Mans carbs and they are a bit different than those on standard 100's); carb floats, jets and needles; a distributor with drive dog attached; a head gasket; a tire tube (hard to find the right ones any more); wheel and clutch cylinder repair kits; a water pump; a couple of vee-belts and of course spare bulbs. Plus other stuff, including an oil flex pipe. Plus the necessary tools to install the parts and a shop manual.

It's quite amazing how little space all this takes up and since I replaced the two 6-volt batts with one 12 I picked up some additional storage space, plus a Tupperware container under the spare holds a lot of stuff. It is all still on board minus a few bits that I have used over the years.

In fairness I should tell the rest of the 2002 story: After Tahoe I continued west to Monterey and then took a left, intending to visit my children in LA. Somewhere around Lompoc 2nd gear shed one or more teeth (my 100 is a BN1 equipped with the three-speed box). Even with the overdrive it seemed like it would be a long trip back to MD with only 1st and 3rd gears so I wound up at Smith Brodie's shop at Thousand Oaks and a couple of days and a number of $$ later I continued on south with a Toyota 5-speed transmission. I made it back to MD with no problems and though a major component (transmission) did fail I was very fortunate that it happened within reach of a replacement part that I was luckily able to afford to buy.

I'm not sure of the lesson here but in any case I still have that flex pipe on board and the 5-speed was a definite nice modification, if unplanned.

 

[Gearhead_Garage]

I found a round tub that fits under the spare in my BJ8. I can fill it with spares and never think about it until I need it. Others have mentioned that the space under the battery is also a good place for a parts stash that will not impede on your lady's clothes stowage.

 

[Michael Oritt]

Glenn--

I meant to say "under" rather than on top of the spare and have edited my earlier post to correct that misstatement.

As I am sure you know the boots in four-seater Healeys don't hold a lot of anything beyond sand or ping pong balls and most people put their bags, etc. behind the seats. OTOH two-seater Healeys really do have tons of useable storage in the boot. Also there is no floorboard in the 100's and there are a couple of handy spaces in the corners of the boot that will accommodate a surprising amount of stuff, esp. if it is in soft bags, etc.

I am sending you a PM....