Small Axe Racing: Big Healey, BMW E21 & '67 F350

In reply to a_florida_man :

Thanks!

Yep. A Healey with side exit exhaust and I can still hear the tires. I think it was NOHOME who said he's had the same experience with them. Nice but loud.

Hatchet is still waiting for the disc set up to be installed. Part of the reason it has taken so long is that it took me forever to get to the metal store for aluminum to make the brackets. Aluminum has been purchased. 

My goal is to have disc brakes installed by March. We'll see...

Moving along slowly with distractions from Guac and other things. 

When you don't want to spend $70 on a single hole saw.

Guac is the exciting thing in front of my face at the moment especially since I think the first outing of the year for Hatchet is going to be Schenley in late July. I have been making progress though. 

At some point I got the big holes in the middle cut out roughly with a jigsaw.

Next was a lot of work with a Dremel. (and much more after that to actually get the hole big enough).

Finally, cutting the outside profile.

I had to use the Dremel on the caliper in order for it to totally clear the hardware for the bracket but one side is now fully installed with just the e-brake cable to figure out.

Nice work!

In reply to a_florida_man :

Thanks! Driver's side is now done, just need to bleed. 

Elmore and the Healey are out of storage and as his first act, Elmore dutifully pulled the Healey home. The brake pedal in Elmore is super low and I've got an adjustable rod on order. In the meantime, I figured I'd spend 5 minutes replacing the front turn signals that are totally wrong. 

The passenger side has never worked in my ownership presumably because it lived in the ocean at some point. 

As it turns out, whoever put these signals on removed the factory provisions for the correct signals so this all snowballed. It took me, I'd guess, over an hour all-told to get the grille off the truck. The bolts are really hard to reach and I actually had to cut the grille to remove the last one. Because of the over sized rad and PS cooler, it was impossible to get a wrench on the bolt. 

I spent last night making up the first bracket prototype. This one is made intending to tack it to the grille as I don't think the cheapo repop housings will fit if I rivet it like was done from the factory. 

One side done. I went with the tack weld option.

The driver's side gave me a hard time but it's done. 

The headlight bezels had some sharp dents in them. I forgot to take before pics of the worse one but this is the kind of thing I was dealing with. 

I also worked on a couple bent sections of the grille.

When I took the wire wheel to the bezels, I discovered some...porosity. Here's how you aren't supposed to fix this issue.

Should have time to paint tomorrow. 

Is it body shop quality? Sure, I bet you can find a body shop that will paint to this level but you'd probably ask for your money back. 

Check out the fresh H4s though!

Mostly finished. I still need to figure out what bulb size fits in the cheapo signals. 

My wife is a first grade teacher. For a number of years she has helped organize a day where all types of vehicles come to the school so the kids can check them out. For one reason or another I haven't been able to make it until this year.

I can report that first and second graders like race cars and ask great questions about them. 

Related - I spent about 25 minutes attempting to bleed Hatchets brakes and still have just about no pedal with no more bubbles coming out. The way I had to re-route the hard line creates an opportunity for lots of air to be trapped but I ran out of fluid and time this morning before heading out.

The brakes on Hatchet are still giving me fits but I had a meeting yesterday afternoon and it was really nice so I took the Healey. 

I really like this car. 

Elmore received more love this weekend.

Did I get my money's worth out of this needle launcher of a wire wheel? I got one stuck in my chin.

In another thread we chatted colors.  What color?  Is it farm paint?

Looks great.

In reply to John Welsh :

Thanks!

I just went with what was readily available and I liked. Krylon Satin Khaki. 

In reply to AxeHealey :

I really like that the one in my shop has gone away for a while. 

Pete

In reply to NOHOME :

Hah! If you ever catch me working on someone else's Healey, please commit me. 

In reply to AxeHealey :

He has an e-type in the wings that he wants me to do next. Been reading and learning on that thing. While I am sure that I could do it eventually, I don't see where I can bill for the sleepless nights I would suffer while building the car. E-type designers actually hated mechanics and owners for some reason. 

Pete

36 pages and many, many years into this thread and I'm thinking it's time to separate this into three different threads. This really started as a way to document the restoration of the Healey. It also started at a time when I was expecting to RACE the Healey. That idea no longer interests me. I want to keep the Healey as a road car. 

Coming soon; individual threads for Elmore, Hatchet and the Healey.

In reply to AxeHealey :

Where is the Healey thread?

In reply to a_florida_man :

Ask and you shall receive!