Forgot to take pics last night.
Rebuilt calipers and fresh DTC 60s on the E21. I don't like the condition of the pins and clips so I've got new ones coming tomorrow. PennGrade 20w50 on it's way too.
Pulled the drum off the Healey. It seems that the shoes are contacting the backing plate. I shifted them around and put the drum on. All good. Once I got the wheel on though and had rotated it a number of more times, the sound came back. At that point it was late and I was really hot so I went home.
In reply to AxeHealey :
Shoes are always supposed to rest against the backing plate. If you meant to say shoe edge rubbing the drum "head" to use the musical analogy you need to gently bend the back plate away from the drum. Probably only needs a few thousandths. This will also improve the pedal feel after re-adjusting. Common issue.
In reply to TurnerX19 :
Hm. No, I meant the backing plate. They seem to be just touching at the corners near the adjuster. I thought those felt-tipped stand offs were to keep them off the backing plate. That said, I didn't check for any marks on the inside of the drum. I'll take a looksee next time.
Woke the E21 up today and brought it home. I had been intending to hit the track day at Nelson's this week but I've now decided against it. It's running awesome and driving well but, you know, that oil leak didn't fix itself. I'm signed up for the NEOhio Solo in a couple weeks and it'll be fine for that but I could see a full day at the track push it over the edge. I don't want to have to do the rear main in a rush between Wednesday and the solo.
On top of that, I'm taking all next week off. Haven't had a real vacation in a year.
Continuing Elmore's summer workout program, he helped drag the Healey to the painter this morning for the rockers, driver's door fix and a final buff. I still haven't had the chance to troubleshoot the brakes further and the painter is a LONG way away so I decided to play it safe and tow it.
Per always, Elmore handled it like a champ. I'm starting to feel/hear that the front suspension working its way towards needing a refresh. Hopefully that can be a winter project.
every time i see it, i like the blue on the Healey more and more.
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
Thanks! We're really pleased with it. I'm anxious to see it with the rockers painted.
The factory never offered a blue like that on Healeys. I think they were mistaken.
It really is a wonderful color. It looks just perfect.
Can you remind me what color it is and why you chose it?
Much appreciated! I have to agree that the car wears it well.
The color is called Oslo Blue. It was originally a Porsche 356 color but has recently been a PTS choice on a handful of GT3s. I wanted specifically to not use a Healey factory color. There are some very nice ones but I like to be different. The world also does not need another ice blue, olde white, red or BRG big Healey. I don't remember how I narrowed in on old Porsche colors. It was between Oslo and another (not blue) color that I can't even remember. I was mostly sold seeing it on a 356...
and then completely sold after seeing this car.
In that pic the color, to my eye, has a good bit of green in it, which I like. But I also think it's cool that it can look very blue at times like the pic of the Healey on the trailer or the one below.
I'm sure there's also just variance in the actual color as it's an old code with little reference. I think our car ended up more on the blue side but I'm pleased either way.
Admit it. You painted it that color to go with the truck. I like it.
In reply to JoeTR6 (Forum Supporter) :
Hah! You got me. Elmore is an influencer.
Yet another awesome weekend with the Miata crew. I was pleasantly surprised with how ChampCar, and really most of the competitors, were treating the whole COVID issue. No problems with the car in tech on Friday.
Only thing was we literally waited for 2 hours to get through the line. I guess ChampCar is working on a new system and it slowed them down a ton. At least the waiting room was nice.
Both of my stints on Saturday were red flagged. Both red flags were cars the went off track and rolled. One happened 4 cars in front of me. A very fast Integra went off after the kink for some reason, hit the access road and went end-over-end. The driver walked away but the car was pancaked. Later in that stint (my second) the right front wheel bearing/hub assembly went. We had to go yank a hub off another one of the Miatas but we were back in time to catch the checker.
A friend joined us on grid Sunday morning.
Every time I go out, I'm getting faster. I was catching/pulling away from even the fast cars through 1,2,3 and the section after the kink but man this car has no guts. It's frustrating passing people through 12 and 13 just to have them walk right by on the straight. Frustrating but also tons of fun. I know my worst part of the track is Oak Tree. I tend to turn in too soon and keep it too tight. I broke into the 1:23:8s this year and our fastest driver turned a 1:23 flat. I have, by far, the least amount of experience of the guys on the team. I'm happy with my progress.
Sunday after my last stint I got to just chill and watch some racing.
I'm taking this week off as "vacation". Yesterday I changed the oil and washed the E21. Fresh 20w50 PennGrade just to have used a non-crush copper washer on the drain plug. Yay.
My plan is to grab a new catch pan from the parts store, drain the fresh stuff into that, put on a good crush washer and toss it back in. SCCA Solo this weekend.
Swapped out the washer with a crushable one in the E21. Probably only had 1/2 qt go into the brand new drip pan. It went back into the car and it doesn't seem to leak. We'll see how it does under some stress on Saturday.
I also... waxed the hood... Why? Yeah, no clue.
Got these pics from the painter. Picking it up Friday or Sunday.
He also said that some of the black paint (POR-15) on the sills peeled off with the masking tape. He'll fix it but it scares me a bit for the rest of the frame. We'll just store that fact in the place in my brain where things go to die.
NEOhio Solo was a success this weekend. Hatchet ran great and didn't leak out of the drain plug. Woohoo! I'll need to do some investigation as to how much leaked elsewhere but it seemed pretty dry. I mean, with 7, sub 30 second runs it shouldn't leak much.
My buddy brought out his killer 4000. They looked pretty good on grid together.
Elmore ran great on the way there. It started right up to move the trailer at the end of the day. Then after getting the car loaded it started up but ran like crap. I went about a mile and it didn't clear up. Pulled over. Two NEOhio guys saw me and stopped, very nice. Thought it was a stuck float, wrapped on it. Nothing. Not too far from home so I decided to limp it back. Revved up fine but wouldn't idle, backfiring through the carb, and was running hotter than normal. Slammed the trailer into the driveway, stuffed Elmore in the garage and called it a day. Tonight I went out, checked the needles and seats. Fine. Started it up and heard a lot of hissing...
Big ole vacuum leak. Now it's smooth again.
Picked it up from the painter this morning. Meant to get more pics but it took longer than expected and I needed to get moving.
With the minor maze the trailer will have to be maneuvered through to park behind the shed (two 10 ft. gates, up a small hill and past a few trees), I figured I should work up a front hitch for Elmore. It needs to be removable.
There is a big...crossmember I guess, riveted to the frame below the bumper.
I ordered a bolt-on hitch receiver, I believe it's meant for the front of some Dodge. There were zero dimensions so I took a chance.
I see two options and would love opinions from anyone watching.
The bottom two holes hang below the face off the crossmember with the receiver pushed all the way up to the bumper.
The first, and most desirable option to me, would be to drill a hole on each side in between the two existing holes in the receiver plate, trim off the corners/existing holes and mount it to the crossmember with two bolts.
The second would involve welding a big bracket to the crossmember that the receiver would then bolt to (and through the crossmember).
I would make the bracket out of the hefty c-channel that used to be part of Elmore's rear bumper, obviously removing the diamond plate skin.
The trailer is the one pictured further up on this page. It's quite light although I'm not sure what exactly it weighs and the tongue weight is such that I can lift it up really without thinking about it. The trailer will never have anything on it.
Does anyone have major issues with the two bolt method?
I don't see any trouble with it, you know you're not going to use it to move a giant camper trailer or something huge
Nope. Worst case, you later change to the other method. But, i think you're going to be fine in your use scenario
Thanks guys.
I actually just came back to this after thinking that I could also weld a triangle piece of plate perpendicular to the face on the back side of the crossmember to make option one even more feasible. Should get rid of any downward flex.
Credit MS Paint and the touchpad mouse for the squigglies but you get the idea.
Speaking of the trailer, it's been getting some love. Put in a new 7-pin connector and ripped all the old wiring out. Last night, partially in the dark, I threw on one side of the new lights.
Because it has no wiring or lights at the moment (they haven't worked since I bought it anyway), I'm kind of going at the refresh backwards. I'm going to get all of the new lights on, wired up and working and then, probably next summer, knock down all the surface rust and give it a new paint job.
No pics but I got a lot more done with the trailer - the entire taillight circuit is wired up which includes the new side markers I put on. I wired a couple of the side markers in series... really hoping that doesn't come back to bite me and I needed to ground them individually. We'll see. Today is supposed to be the only nice weather day this week so I'm going to try to spend a bit of time at lunch and then this evening running the brake/turn wires.
We drove the Healey twice this weekend. It's running awesome. Oil pressure and temp were perfect on both trips. We had one emergency stopping procedure that was successful but the brakes really do need to be bled further. As for the noise in the left rear, I'm still tracking it down. Haven't had the drum off again but I've been trying to pay attention to when it happens (i.e. all the time, not when the brakes are on, etc.) but it's difficult when I'm also trying to pay attention to everything else on a car that hasn't been on the road in forever.
I need a new license plate light as well as something new for the rear crossbar but everything new works. I'm thinking tomorrow for our date night, I'll rope my wife into figuring out how I hastily wired up the 7-pin on Elmore. My daughter always requests taking "Blue Trucky" to our take out date night dinners so it'll probably be out of the garage tomorrow anyway. Yes, COVID means that our daughter crashes every date night instead of like 3/4 of them.
My wife and I both ended up with some killer headaches last night so digging into Elmore wasn't happening. I did take the Healey out though thinking maybe it would fix the pounding. It was a great ride but it didn't fix the dome.
The pinion seal is leaking like a sieve. It seems like the trans is leaking too. Overdrive isn't working. The noise in the back left definitely goes away when the brakes are depressed. I'm just really enjoying actually driving the thing so much that I can't get myself to work on it.
AxeHealey said:The pinion seal is leaking like a sieve. It seems like the trans is leaking too.
If there's no oil under it, there's no oil in it. True statement.
I'm just really enjoying actually driving the thing so much that I can't get myself to work on it.
This is something I constantly struggle with on the Healey.
Had to finally replace the water pump last week, Once I did the job, I was embarrassed by how badly it needed to be done...
Went for a ride.
Felt Better.
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