Healey Sports Cars

I just joined here, this project has been underway since 2007 with a recent burst of effort. I'll post some of the history and slowly bring it up to date. This is the car as purchased in CA by the PO. I bought the car in MA as a shared project with an old friend who has the shop space and skills to build the car.

It had a 289 with automatic trans. The interior was badly done. Our plan is to restore the appearance to classic Healey spec and build the mechanicals to modern spec.

We discovered that the motor mounts had cracked the frame and needed to be redone. A few close friends that were helping with high level fab stuff are big time drag racers so they suggested using a motor plates front and rear. We did this but finally decided to go back to more conventional mounts.

This is the more conventional motor mount we ended up making. We kept the mid plate to add stiffness to the cowl area, just clearanced it for the bellhousing. I don't think I have photos of this, but during the discovery and repair of the frame damage from the poorly done mounts, we slid 2x3 square tubes inside each frame rail and plug welded them along their length to both strengthen the frame and also make sure the mounts had a secure foundation this time. The old mounts were just rectangular tube welded to the top of the frame.

The front suspension is now a coilover design. The expert TIG welder I mentioned made the control arms from CrMo tubing using jigs that I made. I designed with 1 deg of negative [instead of +] camber and the same 2 deg of caster that the original design had. I kind of wish put in more caster after thinking about it for 10 more years!

We used the Healey spindles. We tried a Mustang II spindle but it would not with with the space available.

Nice car! Welcome to the forum!

I should go back a bit. After the cracked motor mounts were discovered and the frame inserts were in, a few more repairs were in order. Some simple floor and sill repairs. The sills were reinforced with 1x2 square tubing inside.Our 'frame table' is an old lift that was removed from a longtime Ford dealership. The chassis was welded to this while all of the fab and repairs were being done.

Those with sharp eyes will have already noticed the rear frame mods. Our first attempt/idea was to create the dipped frame like a BJ8 has to increase suspension travel.


It was pretty obvious this would have limited benefit so the current build is to make the frame go over the rear axle.

Scott, a late Thank You for your welcome and comment. Back to business, a bit more detail on the rear frame area showing the 4 link suspension.

Upper angled bar mounts for axle housing,
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Just for fun, a picture of one of the several distractions that came along to drag this project out. Corvette 327 with 3 carbs, crazy widened body for the rear axle.
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This is the read end, a narrowed Ford 8". I found what was probably the last Currie aluminum center section. It is built with a Tru-Trac LSD. This is a Torsen style differential. 3.5 gears.
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Bearing end being prepped for welding.
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Rear assembled
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Back to the front. We bought undrilled Wilwood rotor hats and drilled the to mount the splines. Worked great. Nice vented discs on both ends.

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Looks like my memory is poor, I guess these were redrilled, not undrilled to start with.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/2024 11:09AM by 3000bn7.

Very cool project with a lot of nice fabrication work being done. Can't wait to see more progress. I see you are in MA. Whereabouts? I'm on the North Shore.

Rick, thanks for your note. I am in SE Mass, Car is in Western Mass. I have a small machine shop here as part of my business that I can do some of the smaller parts along with design work. I put the front part of the frame in CAD to work on the suspension. This was an early attempt to use Mustang II spindles, doesn't work because of the large kingpin angle and where the upper control arm would need to be.
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[attachment 23301 MIIspindle.jpg]



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2024 11:34AM by 3000bn7.

I am the 2nd 1/2 of this BN7 build. A little background, my name is Steve. Art and I have been great friends since we were 10 yrs old!! Almost 54 yrs later, here we are still messing with cars like we did when 16 yrs old. I’ve been a self employed car guy since I left college in ‘82. We both had big Healeys when we were younger. Back when you could buy them for extremely short money. This project has changed a few times over the years. I’m happy to say, that it is running again after 23 yrs. I have car at my home shop in Western Ma. The plan moving forward is to get the car roadworthy and driving for this season. If all shakes out as planned, car will get torn apart for proper chassis painting and detailing this coming winter. The body may or may not get done at that point. The focus is going to be on chassis and drive train. I will post updated pics as soon as I get a chance. The car build is much further along than what has been posted.
Steve

We did need to cut into the shock mount area to make space for the coilovers.
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A taller structure was added for the upper shock mount.
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