Meet Patches, the 1965 Austin Healey 3000

Patches has come to the shop for a bit of rust remediation. But besides some rust, what is more interesting are the patches that someone has done on this car already.

I gave up counting the patches after 50 or so. There should be a large box of panels arriving from AH Spares in the next month or so with a lot of tin parts. 

Oddly enough, the outer panels are about the nicest I have ever seen. Not a single patch or rust hole to be found with a cursory look. What will be interesting is to see how things line up when I start hanging panels on the chassis. Whoever did the work before actually did a reasonable job of replacing the sill, but did not bother to attach them to the chassis outriggers.

In reply to NOHOME :

Double, double take.  Big fat meats? & LS ?

I think Imma gonna like Patches.

In reply to Indy - Guy :

Yeah thats what im pushing for but it doesnt seem likely 

Wow. 

Welcome, Patches. 

That's a vision ive had since high school. A pro street lbc.

Im watching!

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

I guess you're not as unique as I thought you were.

I shouldn't make fun of someone else's welding work when I haven't welded in 20 years, but it's like they ran out of wire and put those patches on with boogers.

Curious what those rear wheels look like.  Looks like an interesting ride.

Coming from someone who has made a lot of booger welds, that thing's got a lot of boogers.  There does seem to be a good bit of awesomeness lurking within, however.

Sorry guys. but the big tires and LS are kind of a late April Fools thing. The car is going back to mostly a restored car with some period correct mods. ALL of the booger welds are going away and there is a lot of new tin on the way.

My expectations for any of that tin to fit is pretty low, so that will be the fun bit for me.

Pete

Was he going to grind off the high spots when he finished with all  the patches ?

Any idea when the patches were done ?

californiamilleghia said:

Was he going to grind off the high spots when he finished with all  the patches ?

Any idea when the patches were done ?

 

It is not my car so very little history from my end, and I suspect that even the owner is not clear on what the history is. 

I am pretty sure that the body panels are NOT from this car. So what I have put together in my head is that somebody wanted to restore a rusty Healey  that they owned or had just bought, and they went out and found all the solid exterior panels. Then they sent the tub out to be "restored" by the person who did the welding. They were then devastated/overwhelmed by the project and it sat until the current owner found it for sale.

In reply to californiamilleghia :

The patches are just scabbed over big holes in the original tin. There was little to no trimming done. Truly hideous.

Got the rusty floors out and the 4 outriggers that connect the main chassis rails to the sill replaced. There was some concern that the new sills that had already been installed might not be in the right position, but was  lucky enough to find factory drawings showing chassis dimensions; not perfect, but close enough.

This is the condition of the chassis outriggers before I replaced them. Oddly, but lucky for me whoever did the new sills did not bother to weld them to the sill structure.

New stuff in place

Next on the list is a bit of frame repair. There is a 3 foot long section that needs to be replaced on the DS frame rail and a couple of localized spots to be dealt witn. All on top where water gets in and sits. The bottom and sides seem pretty good that I can tell.

Understanding how heavy the engine and gear box are, at what point do they get added back in to pre-load the chassis?  I understand that they did not put the sheet metal on the car with out the engine in place?

This is going to be fun watching it come together!

David

jr02518 said:

Understanding how heavy the engine and gear box are, at what point do they get added back in to pre-load the chassis?  I understand that they did not put the sheet metal on the car with out the engine in place?

This is going to be fun watching it come together!

David

Actually, it will be closer to a nighmare, but then as I have been quoted as saying "Healeys don't cater to cowards". 

Have seen this done and helped when assembled with or without the engine in place and it does not matter as much as the mythology would suggest. It is rather scary that the chassis, for as bulky as it seems, is made of the same 19 gauge metal as the body metal. 

Got a bit done. The rust hole in the main frame is patched in. The good news is that this is one of the rare cases where rust actually happens from the outside in, and what you see is what is bad; the actual frame inside is in very good shape except for where standing water ate in. The remaining perforations will be small patches.

The front footwells were a mess, and since I am waiting for a huge box of panels to arrive from AH Spares, I decided it was a good time to fab those bits up. Relatively simple parts. Most of the time was fixing the mating surfaces that were corroded and or butchered by the previous restoration specialist

CAD pattern

Tin and a bit of eyecrometer level bending

Bit of futzing and fettling and cursing and we are in place. 

"eyecrometer"

i need to get an upgrade on mine.  :-)

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

"eyecrometer"

i need to get an upgrade on mine.  :-)

Sometimes wish I could just give them a couple extra clicks to adjust.

PTSD

It would be interesting to keep track of how many grinding discs and flapper wheels will get used on this job.  

Seems About right haha.  A 3000 is on my bucket list, lower down but still on there.  It would complement my bugeye nicely.  And yeah crazy how thin the frame is right?  When we did the rolls at Icon, the frame was about the same...it's like 2 thin sheet C channels pinched and welded together to make a big box.  Crazy how thin it was

So not your car then?

You are a brave man.  I restored my sold TR6 next to two Big Healeys.  The way that tub is put together makes it difficult to repair, especially if the frame rails are bad.  I've heard that you should repair that with the drivetrain in place, but to me, that's just extra weight displacing panels even more.  The body gaps are rather tight on those (certainly compared to a TR6), but I have faith it will come together.

autocomman said:

Seems About right haha.  A 3000 is on my bucket list, lower down but still on there.  It would complement my bugeye nicely.  And yeah crazy how thin the frame is right?  When we did the rolls at Icon, the frame was about the same...it's like 2 thin sheet C channels pinched and welded together to make a big box.  Crazy how thin it was

So not your car then?

 

Nope, not my car. I discovered that I can do all the fun car building I want and not have to pay for it or deal with maintenance at the end.

In reply to stuart in mn :

Guessing about fifty zip wheels. Three spot weld cutters and ten 40-grit flap wheels. Two small spools of Mig wire and half a tank of CO2 mix. One sheet of 18 gauge sheet metal. All of my patience.

So with the front footwells done and the frame patched up, moving on to the rear bulkhead and ugly torque boxes.

These were even uglier on the other side, so off they came,

The new rear firewall and torque boxes are in place. It was a lot of fun because the supplied torque boxes did not fit worth a damn. The hole for the torque arm bolt was like 3/4" off. 

The oic below shows a 7/16" rod being used to keep the torque box bushings concentric side to side. This will play a big role when I remove the cruddy wheel tubs and try to fit the new ones. In a perfect world, the holes for the torque rod bushings that is stamped into the wheeltub will be in the right place and the bar will slide in side to side. Yeah right.

The little stand tacked to the floor is to aim the rod where it needs to be to go through the PS torque box. I had to move the hole in the box since the people who make these parts are not big on accuracy.

You can see where the old hole was filled and where the rod mushed the playdough to show where I need to drill a new 7/16" hole

Pretty much as far as I can go until I get the wheeltubs and side panels.

Are the front fenders steel or aluminum?

Thanks