Healey Sports Cars

New headlights showed up today... some may hate them, I wanted to do something different (shocker)... car will be red again, reason for the color. 

I have two LED headlamp bulbs in my Rambler..
And two enhanced-output Xenon H4.
The low draw and high output makes LEDs attractive in a classic where the generator is small.

These all-LED units used to be eye-watering in price. Hopefully yours were made in the USA...
Will be interesting to see how the output stacks up against a conventional unit.

As to the look... why not. They're, umm, the wrong shade of red, for my car but I reckon they'll look great on yours.

Only thing with these décor units..... when they fail, will it be possible to buy a replacement, or will it have to be two new ones.

Ivor

I'm positive they were made in China unfortunately. For $120 shipped to my door with all the wiring required, I couldn't really complain. After constantly moving, etc, my old lights were busted and I wanted to try projectors on the little car. I have some in my camaro and I love them. Hopefully I can get some good progress on the car today...

Hopefully your weekend was more productive than mine. Between honey do projects and running out of welding wire, I didn't get nearly as much as I wanted to accomplished, but still, I'm kicking the can in the right direction and progress is progress right?! Got the spot for the master cylinder cut and now I just need to clean up the underside and cut the pipe I snagged from my parents farm and I can weld that on the underside. I also got the final pieces to sleeve the rod for the steering and that will be done as soon as I get my welding wire here. Lastly I added a brace to the frame and I'm going to build a removable support brace for the frame area between the trans and the engine. I got sick of dealing with moisture in my air lines so I got a refrigerated air dryer. Going to build a cart setup for it once my welding wire gets here.

The compressed air dryer was easily one of the better investments I've made so far. Got it hooked up, also replaced the glass viewing window and the work gloves... cleaned out the vacuum filter. If I sifted out the debris from the sand it would be perfect. Either way, it was a night and day difference. After about 30 minutes, a valve cover that was covered in thick oil and paint, etc was almost done. After I was finished with 30 minutes of constant compressor running, and a torrential downpour going on outside, I layer into the desiccant filters to see what they had in them. Not a speck of moisture. Zero humidity in the lines.

It's remarkable how soon air becomes damp. Been using a compressor to change the valve stem seals on my AMC 327, and despite starting with a dry tank it didn't take long for water to appear.
I'm sure that many paint jobs are doomed in that way, microblistering,

Ivor

Been dealing with a lower abdomen issue so haven't gotten nearly what I wanted to get done finished... pulled the rear-end out, going to rebuild the brakes and look everything over before cleaning it up nicely. The rear shocks were horrible... pushed in and out with no effort. They will get replaced, hopefully with some double adjustable  QA1s, if I can figure out what I did with them from another project. Also, car sitting on 4 x 4s on top of wheel dollies so I can roll it around. Don't worry. First thing tomorrow I'm going to build a rotisserie so I can rotate it and treat the underside with the attention it deserves. More to follow, I apologize for the slow progress


phot upload

Precursor for what's to come...




Using only stuff I have laying around, except for the upgraded harbor freight wheels so it will all roll easier. More to follow... probably better to just post up the finished product

The grass certainly doesn't grow under your feet.
That will be sooo much better than lying underneath.

When the car is upended, does one need to brace the door openings to keep if from hogging?

Ivor

Well... pretty long day here but I got a lot done, and despite my best efforts, I didn't injure my self in the process. Got the other part of my Franken rotisserie welded up and started jacking the car way up and supporting it with tires. All went well until I realized that the arms were too narrow on the rotisserie carts and left the car very prone to tipping, which it almost did. Scratch that...

New way I have it set up now is very stable and rolls around easy. Makes the car very easy to work on. I'll get around to modifying the rotisserie stuff later so I can roll it on its side and get the bottom easier on a later date.




Also started cutting rivets and welding the holes up. Want to really clean everything up nice. Got a lot done on cleaning up the new steering setup but I plan on getting a ton more done tomorrow on that front.






Also got the new latch setup that I'm planning on using to latch the area by the windshield on the thomas denner hood. Going to take some fab work but no big deal I guess.




Lastly, I'm going to redo all of the brake lines and reroute them so they are hidden better and run cleaner. Plus, it was a great excuse to buy a new tool...




More to follow tomorrow...

Just realized it had the wrong image posted of the setup holding the car up. The image up there is when I was jacking it up and decided against the front rotisserie setup till I modify it.

So decent day today, got some free time and got a few things roughed in on the car. First thing was narrowing the radiator basket at the bottom so that it fits the radiator tighter. Radiator IA about as tight as it can be to the steering rack after I moved everything around. It all fits though, after a lot of fabrication.






Next was working on lowering the master cylinder setup so that it would fit under the front end... square tubing cut and notched did the trick. It's all just roughed in now so excuse the mess, still have a ton to do but you get the idea...








More to follow soon... I'm beginning to hash out a plan for fixing the front end to the car.

Got serious about traction and not having to constantly fix the front end after it raises off the ground and slams down... got the parts I needed as well for the raise and tilt function on the front end. Going to start hammering that out this week.

I got some work done on the little car... started on the mounts for the raise up then tilt forward feature on the front end. I'm probably making it over complicated but I want it to have plenty of adjustment in it, be sturdy as hell, and not flex.










The all thread will have a plate welded on the bottom and that will go in between the bolt in the heim joint. The square tubing will be slit so that all thread can ride inside it and stop at the top of the tubing. The tubing will be bonded to the front end via other plates on the tube and panel adhesive. Hopefully that all makes sense.


Doc, you would appreciate my "Safety" house shoes... while I was plasma cutting, foot started getting hot. Found out later why when I flipped the shoe over. I guess I stepped on a piece of the hot slag. Didn't go all the way through thankfully.

Maybe this will explain better what I'm thinking as far as the raise and tilt function... it's not finished but getting closer. It has to raise up before tilting because I would have to cut a ton of the bonnet towards the windshield area if it just tilted since the blower setup is so tall. This will help me not have to cut it more hopefully. We'll see I guess. After I get all the front mocked up, before I do the panel adhesive, I'm going to rough out the hinge assembly on the cowl so I can make sure everything is kosher before making it permanent.





Obviously everything is just roughed in right now so don't beat me up too bad on the work 😀