big Healey engine number question?

[tlthorne]

One of my projects is to build a vintage racer out
a big Healey parts car, most of the sheet metal is
gone(so a nice aluminum replacement can be made to
save weight!)
The engine number is 26D/ R /63752/H looking in
the Moss catalog and the Clausager book i dont see
any reference to the "R" any ideas?
Thanks!
tt
20 miles east of stl.mo

 

[John Loftus]

The "R" stands for Overdrive

But doesn't the number read 26D/RU/H/63752 ?

The U was for floor shift, the H for high compression

26D was for the separate maniford engines introduced in October 57. H488863 was the first and H77766 was the last. All these figures come from the Austin-Healey 100/100-6/3000 Restoration Guide by Gary Anderson and Roger Moment. A great restoration book by the way.

Cheers, John

 

[tlthorne]

Thanks John,
it does have overdrive, i dont see a u on the ????(forgot what you call the strip of metal?) maybe the stamper missed that one, but arent all A/H floorshifts? but i guess this came from Austin engine works, so they had there own code?

tt

 

[John Loftus]

tt,

Yes, all the Austin Healeys (100, 3000 anyway) were floor shift (although the gear shift moved around a lot before settling in the middle!)

Quoting from the Restoration Guide, "The engine serial numbers for these cars were still shared with engines for Austin and Wolseley sedans (though non of these had the separate manifold or dual carburetores) so they were not sequential." So BMC was building column shift engines at the same time.

I have a BJ7 engine tag that reads 29F/U/H 3359 which means it was non-overdrive (although one was fitted later)

Let us know how the vintage racer project goes.

John

 

[Scott Brunkhurst]

The "U", I believe, actually stands for center shift. Your car probably has a side shift, therefore the missing "U".

SB