• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Louvers

Share this page

Thanks Rick. I'd still be a square 1 if not for the drawing and contact you sent me. Most of my time is spent thinking things like " hmmm, how can I best do this without a milling machine"? or "I know I bought a pack of cutting wheels a while back...but where did I put them so I would always know where they are?" The worst was figuring out how to use a Drill Doctor bit sharpener because every one of my 342 drill bits was dull beyond belief. I dont even know how they can get so dull... Probably the best advice anyone ever gave me about doing sheet metal work is that there are no rules. You do what makes the metal go where you want it and don't worry so much about having the correct tool out of the Eastwood catalog...although that really helps sometimes. There are some amazingly crude (technologically that is) videos on YouTube of beautiful sheet metal work being done. I promise to finish this thread with either an acceptable louvered bonnet or photos of the pretzel that was my bonnet. At least if am successful I can say the bonnet strap cost more than the louvers. Although...I think I have some old leather and I know I have some hole punches somewhere....
 
roscoe said:
Thanks Rick. I'd still be a square 1 if not for the drawing and contact you sent me. ...
Click to expand...

All the thanks should go to Kent Lacy whose drawing it was, I was just the middleman. Kent, a 100M concours guy, was immensely helpful to me when I did my V8 swap and I turned to him for help in laying out my hood louvers on my BJ7 as I wanted to mimic the 100M pattern.
 
Just an update. Until I cut out the bonnet support/ former I was telling myself I could back out of this project but now I am comitted (or is it that I should be comitted?). Rather than muck about with the spot welds at the edges, I just cut it out and will MIG it back in when done. Here is the layout finished, the next step being cutting the slits to start the forming process. I'm using a Dremel tool and a .020" thick cutting wheel that is a non-reinforced wheel. If you've ever used these you know they break if you look at them wrong and they wear down quickly. I'll go through 2 and a half wheels per slit but it will give me the narrowest cut I am able to make. I bought out the local hardware store's supply. They are about 5 bucks for 36 in a package. I think I'll run silent for a bit until I have something that looks like a louvered bonnet.

IMG_20180124_150052084.jpg
 
Hi Jon,

I really appreciate your commitment now. It brought to mind " Commitment and Involvement are like ham and eggs; the Pig was Committed but the Chicken was Involved."

I happened to be visiting a friend with a BJ8 who had louvers set in his bonnet. I asked how he did it and he indicated he purchased 2 strips of 1 wide pre-made louvers back in the '80s and cut the bonnet to weld/tacked the strips in place. When he sent the car for body work and paint, the strips were finished in and painted. His louvers were well formed and each louver had a small roll on its edge (don't know if that is concourse accurate) which I assume increased rigidity.

Just some reporting,
Ray(64BJ8P1)
 
Last edited:
Ray,
I suppose if I opened the Moss catalog and saw some louvered panels for this I might have been tempted but I almost think it would be as much if not more work to do it that way. I'll know for sure in a week or so once I start punching louvers. Maybe I'm strange but I like doing sheetmetal when it starts out looking fugly and becomes something you look at and say " hmm, not so bad". Doesn't always work that way sad to say.
 
"... each louver had a small roll on its edge (don't know if that is concourse accurate) ..."

My factory 100M's louvers are straight cut. AFAIK, no BJ8s came from the factory with louvers so it's owner preference. You might get dinged a half-point or so--for having louvers--if you did have it judged at concours, though.
 
Jon,

I very much appreciate your perspective as it is no different from mine. I don't know if its more or less work but, as I see it, each of our Healeys are unique and no 2 were ever manufactured the same. When my Healey was delivered, I had a unique piece of angle iron that heled the forward point of the accelerator rod....I guess they ran out of the plastic piece and wanted to move the car over the finish line. I often wondered how any Healey could be considered or compared to Concourse when so many were delivered with unique components, colors, or conditions.

Bob, I hate to contradict but, if the owner is telling the truth, a BJ8 was ordered with a louvered bonnet and delivered from the factory in England with it. He later toured England and Ireland before shipping it home. He had an accident during the tour and the bonnet was replaced but he showed me a picture of the car in front of the Factory. I admit it was the only BJ8 that I know of delivered with louvers but, who knows.

Jon, I look forward to seeing your finished project and hearing your efforts and issues as I am considering placing a few louvers across the rear of my bonnet .

All the best,
Ray(64BJ8P1)
 
"Bob, I hate to contradict but, if the owner is telling the truth, a BJ8 was ordered with a louvered bonnet and delivered from the factory in England with it. He later toured England and Ireland before shipping it home. He had an accident during the tour and the bonnet was replaced but he showed me a picture of the car in front of the Factory. I admit it was the only BJ8 that I know of delivered with louvers but, who knows."

No problemo. I've just never heard of it or seen any literature. It would have to have been a fairly expensive 'one off' mod; maybe Jensen did it before they mated the skin to the frame. Wonder if any of the concours judges would have knowledge of it; if not, the owner would probably need some pretty convincing provenance to not get dinged (but I'm not a concours judge, so don't really know). The rally cars all seemed to have had side vents; you'd think they'd have used louvers instead of, or in addition to the vents if they were available.
 
RAC68 said:
Jon,



Bob, I hate to contradict but, if the owner is telling the truth, a BJ8 was ordered with a louvered bonnet and delivered from the factory in England with it. He later toured England and Ireland before shipping it home. He had an accident during the tour and the bonnet was replaced but he showed me a picture of the car in front of the Factory. I admit it was the only BJ8 that I know of delivered with louvers but, who knows.


Ray(64BJ8P1)
Click to expand...

Interesting story, Ray. I wonder if the car was actually ordered through the Donald Healey Motor Co, who delivered "personalized" cars to order. Can't see the factory messing about with one-off bonnets. Having a BJ8 hood louvered can be done without removing any underhood bracing as long as the pattern is kept to the center of hood bulge. Of course, never wanting to do the things the easy way and wanting my louvers to run the full length of the bulge, I had to remove all the bracing.
 
Hi Rick,

I must agree and I also don't see the factory doing a one-off but back when I had this conversation I did not question and or even thought to question how/who he ordered his Healey from. Please don't misunderstand, I see my special part to be something the factory did just to get the car over the finish line and there was no special order. In fact, I my order was made back in 1963 for a BJ7 and I received a call in April of 1964 from the dealer that they received a BJ8 and would I accept it or still want the BJ7. When ordered, the BJ8 wasn't yet introduced.

Although I do try to keep my Healey's impression consistent with original, I am not concerned with being 100% accurate with original. As far as I know, Concourse reflects 100% consistent with published officially documented specifications and special one-off factory origination is not a qualifying condition. Am I wrong?

Ray(64BJ8P1)
 
Hi,
could anyone share the dimensions of the Dies? Are there any photos in the Healey Archives known, that show making the Louvered Bonnets? Low production quantity, but did the tooling setup punch all louvers in one shot?
 
There are some photos earlier in this thread. The one that Ray sent in looks to be something that was either an original die or one that a machine shop made. That is the only way to get absolutely uniform louvers. With the dimensions given previously in this thread you could have someone make a die or buy one from Mitler (they do make a 5 " die that is probably very close to what the 100Ms used). There is also a photo in one of my posts of the simple female die I made that I am now using with enough success to make me happy. I made my own forming hammers for use in a 2X aircraft rivet gun and using my female die can make a louver in about 2 minutes, once a slit has been cut. On close inspection they will look a bit rougher than the punched louvers but so far I am pleased and will end up reassembling and painting my modified bonnet. I've stopped for some coffee (probably a bad idea) but should finish this afternoon and will post a photo of the unpainted job.
 
Coffee did the trick, finished up sooner than I thought. Here are some photos that are the rough louvers . I still have a little hammer and dolly work to do to even out the crowns. A byproduct of hammering these out is that the metal inbetween each louver actually gets stretched a small amount and that also need to be shrunk back down although I could leave it. I've tried it both with and without using heat and it is such a small amount that it almost makes no difference so I'll cold work everything. The edge of each louver also needs to be touched with a file.

20180127_150006.jpg20180127_145802.jpg
 
Thank you very much for taking the time to photo and explain your process. One question have I, do the louvers ever allow a mist of coolant or oil to fog the windscreen?
 
elrey said:
Thank you very much for taking the time to photo and explain your process. One question have I, do the louvers ever allow a mist of coolant or oil to fog the windscreen?
Click to expand...

I know at least two other owners with louvered hoods who have answered "yes" to that.

Don't mean to rain on any parade - I think louvers are cool, too. They remind me of 1930s racing cars; Mercedes, Auto-Union, Alfa Romeo, ERA etc etc.
 
Last edited:
I'm sure if you had a coolant or big enough oil leak it could happen but I don't believe you'd ever see what might normally come from the crankcase breather. I think it would just depend on whether or not your engine was oozing more than normal. Come to think of it you might get an earlier warning than if there were no louvers. I once had the brass plug at the rear of the engine block oil galley blow out and I never knew it until my oil pressure needle started bouncing around. When I turned around to drive home ( I was just past the end of my long driveway) I saw a very obvious oil trail. I suspect there would have been oil on the windscreen with louvers but maybe less oil all over the engine bay. What a mess.
 
I've had both coolant and oil hit the windshield of my BJ8--with no louvers--from a) a blown water pump and b) an improperly installed valve cover gasket, so, yeah.
 
Back
Top