Driver’s Diaries
Ivan’s XJ40 is back from paint; Gez wrestles with the Landy’s doors; Scott starts the big Healey rebuild; Martyn solves a fuelling issue and Will gets stuck into the Minor van resto.
Last month I left off having wrapped up the bodywork on the E-Type for a while when the Healey 3000’s freshly painted substructure arrived back from the paint shop. To put the big Healey back on the road this year, I’ve agreed on a six-week turnaround with the paintshop to transfer the painted tub into a rolling running shell ready to have all the outer bodywork fitted and painted.
This timescale is hopefully achievable, as most of the parts I need are to hand. So this will be a build of new and renovated parts onto a fresh shell – a lovely experience. Collecting the shell was brilliant and seeing the paint in daylight brought it to life. I’d gathered a few mates and after a bacon roll and car natter at a local greasy spoon, we loaded the shell onto the trailer. After a short drive home interrupted by more tea and car natter, the shell was moved onto the ramp in my workshop.
With the shell on the ramp, the first job was chasing paint out of all the threaded holes. With care being taken around fresh paint, this was a case of using the right thread tap and some grease. This process is quite therapeutic and makes fitting parts later a simple and pain free process.
Next up was fitting the Healey’s pedal box. I’d purchased brand new master cylinders for the brake and clutch, as the old units were way past their best. The pedal box had been restored and I had all the correct shims ready to go. The parts manual is a fantastic reference point, particularly for fasteners. It not only clarifies the type of washer required but the part number describes fixing type (screw, bolt, head etc.), finish, diameter and length. The latter uses a code of one eighth then one sixteenth. So PMZ0305 will indicate a Phillips, zinc coated 3/
8 diameter, 5/ long fixing. As
16 sad as it may sound, it’s quite good fun working through
the list and identifying the correct right fixings.
With the pedal box correctly fastened up, I then moved onto heat and noise insulation. Healeys have a bit of a bad reputation for cooking people in the left hand seat because the exhaust runs very close to the bulkhead and under the left-hand seat. The original heat proofing kit utilised asbestos sheeting on the bulkhead and under floor area but I’d purchased a kit that looked original but was made of a much safer material. For the bulkhead I then used a modern heatproofing sheet behind this to provide double protection.
For the floor pan I applied triple protection by adding a crinkly aluminium heat shield. Hopefully I’ve managed to keep the passenger from overheating, while the car looks completely original. Next up was noise insulation and given this is a convertible, there’s not a lot you can do about wind noise with the roof down, but you can give a car a real quality sound by deadening boom and any powertrain noise, harshness and vibration.
I’ve started this with the application of constrained layer damping, which is a material similar to tar pads of the past but uses a rubberised compound on the back of thin patterned aluminium sheet. Applying this to large panels helps remove vibration and will also add a level of heat barrier too. It doesn’t completely isolate noise, so I’ll also cover it with sound deadening mat before the application of carpet.
I found a great supplier online that offered both products at a reasonable price; it was then a case of cutting to shape and using a bit of heat to ensure it sticks! Next month will be covering engine bay activities in preparation for dropping the overhauled big lump back in.
Healeys have a bit of a bad reputation for cooking people in the lefthand seat because the exhaust runs very close to the bulkhead and under the left-hand seat