Meet Patches, the 1965 Austin Healey 3000

NOHOME said:

Now that I have some reasonable panel gaps, need to install a b-post so that I can latch the door and see what newfound hell that provokes!

Of course the new b-post panel has no hardware to attach the latch mechanism, and it needs to be adjustable and yet impossible to get at from the backside. So I dreamed up this little cage to hold a threaded plate. Can't wait to discover why the factory might not have done it this way. Carl?

 

 

If you've ever seen British Assembly lines you'll understand why nothing fits.  The body panels are likely made by one or two places that stamp them out in batches.  Then when sales are better or worse than projected a die intended to make 5000 parts will suddenly be asked to make 12,000 parts.   The assembly line workers are paid piecemeal for assembly so perfection isn't possible.  They may take a big hammer or file to it to assemble it and door gaps wind up being whatever makes the door open or close. 
     Earlier British cars used wood because  it was easier to adjust than steel when 350 parts were originally called for when sales changed it to 1710 parts. 
     Maybe they needed two new sets of dies for that change. Did you get parts from die set #1#2#3? Or reproduction die set #1 or #2?  
   Jaguar used to use 3 different sizes of windshields and 6 different sizes  of rubber gaskets to build a  car.  
   Martin Robbley sells body parts for Jaguars. Their quality is at least Equal to Jaguars. But that's not saying much.  Because the XKE for example probably had 2 or 3 sets of dies  for any series. And none of them were exactly the same. From 1961-1974 there were three major designs with 2 different models, and a total of about 15,000 cars in total.  That's an average of 5,000 cars a year 2 different models and about 5 variations for different markets. American , British, European, Asian, Australian.  
  Look at production numbers for Austin Healey 3000.  Now they were all roadsters but they had to conform to the 5 different markets requirements.  

In reply to NOHOME :

Sorry not 5000 cars a year more like 1200-1300 a year 

Stuff arrived today to move the project forward.

The brake system is in and bled.

Unfortunately, they are not quite working.

The brakes come on, but only at the very bottom of the pedal stroke. I am going to try more bleeding, but it has been both pedal pumped and vacuum bleed quite a bit so far. I have confirmed that the Fooseway calipers require no more fluid volume than the stock master provided, but then again I have no data on fluid volume provided by the stock master cylinder or the dual circuit one provided for this build.

For that matter, i have no documentation on the master cylinder to confirm that the front port is for front brakes and the rear for the rear brakes. Or what the consequences of getting them reversed might be.

In reply to NOHOME :

Knowing you through the internet as I do I'm going to assume that they are, but are the drums adjusted correctly? No initial bite with drums usually says they're not close enough, right?

I also see what I think is a proportioning valve. Could that proportioned wrong?

In reply to AxeHealey :

I keep going back to the master. There is just no "squirt" when I open bleeders to bleed out any air. Just kinda oozes out.  Probably ran a gallon of fluid through the system so far, and whilst it got a bit better, and the brakes do lock  up, the pedal still feels flacid and you can push it to the floor.

The proportioning valve has been all over the place during this effort.  While the rear brakes are set to drag a bit already, I am thinking of going to the point where they are tight and seeing if the fronts can develop the proper pedal feedback/feel.

NOHOME said:

One of the last few task before the tub goes out for paint was to create a brace structure for the scuttle. It seems that Healey have a tendency to shake like a Harley at idle, difference being that the Healey shake comes on at around 50 to 60 mph and can be quite severe.

Not entirely sold that this is a cure, but it might move the magic harmonic to above 65 mph where nobody ever goes with these cars anyways,

Had mine up to 85 last week.... good wheel balance helps.

nbd.

Engine is in and starting to figure out the wiring harness routing. Bit of a mystery since I did not remove the  original one, but for the most part it falls into place near the devices it needs to attach to.  

I transfered the P-clip locations from the old harness to provide clues as to where it needs to go and attach. Still some confusion in places like this.

It has been a while since the last updated. Much of that time was due to the tubular header going off to be ceramic coated.

The milestone to be reached is a running/driving  chassis. To that end we have suspension, steering brakes and clutch. What we are missing is a running engine.

The header and intake has been installed. The fuel system is plumbed and de-leakified. Carbs are set for float level and jet height. We have crank and we have spark. The timing is set to 10 BTDC and the engine has been pre-oiled using a pressure pot until pressure shoed on the gauge and out the rocker shaft.

The only thing left to do is install the dual gauge for temp and oil pressure, and I want to install the refinished dash panel first so that the gauge does not have to be removed and replaced afterwards.







The tubular headers do not play well with the single muffler since there is no easy way to create a flexible section. The "solution" was to weld tubular extensions to the muffler so that it can be bolted solid to the header. The tape on the pipes is so that I could pressure test the welds to make sure there would be no exhaust leaks.

Good to see Patches again. 

Did you get the brakes sorted out?

In reply to jimgood :

Yup, they seem to work. Not sure why it was so hard to bleed the brakes. Will probably do so once more just to be sure.

With the float bowls poised to dump any excess fuel directly on to the tubular header pipes, the chicken part of me decided to make some diversion paths to avoid the extra heat in the engine bay.

In reply to NOHOME :

Holy crap is that the way it was from the factory with the little dump pipes pointed directly at the exhaust manifold????

In reply to mblommel :

 I think there was some routing inwards towards the block. However, the header and custom intake would invalidate that. So this was my solution.

On a more interesting note, the birthing of this engine has been interesting. Manifold vacuum is less than 10 inches and cylinder pressures are 120 psi on what is meant to be a 10:1 engine. Not good.

While the cylinder pressures on the new engine are still a mystery, I did pressure test the intake to see what I could see:

this is a spendy custom manifold from AH spares. Same supplier of parts that have yet to provide a single part that is functional out of the box. Since I know for a fact that the manifold face was flat when installed, my guess is that the flange thickness and material quality are not up to the task and the manifold bends between the two upper bolts. I think this is bad.

Well, forward progress has been patchy to say the least. In order to pursue the low cranking pressures, I needed to confirm the piston height relative to the deck and the chamber volume so that an actual compression ratio could be nailed down. so as they say "Off with her head".

Pistons are about 4 thou down the bore so darn near flush. Chamber volume is 50cc so after some math just under 10:1 compression. Can not degree cam without removing engine but cam lift is a tad over stock so maybe a bit more overlap?  Head is back on now, so next in line is to reinstall the headers and intake and see if some copper sealant will sort the vacuum leak.

The engine is back together and running. Zero change for all the effort to pull the head and investigate,

11 inches of vacuum still but no vacuum leak in the intake manifold

needs 45 degrees initial timing to run smooth and generate the 11 inches of vacuum

cranking pressure is still 120 psi

Did a leak down test to see if the 120 psi was unseated rings. Nope, this thing is sealed up tight.

Learned a new trick from my old friends on the MGB forum...Turned engine over until intake on #1 cylinder just opened up to the point of zero lash. The marks on the damper tell me that #1 is starting to open at 10 degrees AFTER TDC. The manual calls for that event to happen at 5 degrees BEFORE TDC so we are 15 degrees late on the cam timing. So the cam is installed wrong or has some manufacturing error. Unfortunately it is an engine-out job to investigate the cam timing.

Hopefully it's not a hard fix to get the cam timing corrected. 

pres589 (djronnebaum) said:

Hopefully it's not a hard fix to get the cam timing corrected. 

Maybe I am becoming paranoid or cynical, but I have a bad feeling that when the timing chain comes off, the sprockets and chain are going to be in alignment.

I did not assemble the engine, however I have studied the procedure and it would be pretty hard to mess up. The shop that DID assemble the engine still insist that the cam timing is correct as per installation method. NOBODY has any info on the cam itself. 

If I pull the engine and the owner hauls it back to the shop, they are going to remove the timing chain cover, look at the links and dots and either say "Looks good to me" or "Ooops, we were a link off now fixed". If the timing marks are correct, they will send the engine back as is since they did not spec the cam or purchase it and there is no cam card. Then it is up to someone to make this right.

Any chance the balancer has slipped and the timing mark isn't accurate? 

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

Any chance the balancer has slipped and the timing mark isn't accurate? 

That was one of the things that I took the time to check while I had the head off. TDC on the new balancer is spot-on. Its like some fancy SFI balancer so I had my doubts and had already done a quick check with the old screwdriver in the plug-hole test so I knew it was close.

The late valve timing does explain all of the symptoms that we are seeing including the fuel reversion out of the carb when you rev the engine.

The engine is back together. Timing was off by two teeth.

With the timing chain exposed and a degree wheel, I was able to find a performance cam from MOSS that had very similar specs, so I book marked it as the reference cam should it be needed in the future.

What I did not want to see was this note circled in red. It made me wonder if the person who assembled the engine delayed the cam timing so as to avoid hitting the pistons. I did spin it over manually and no issue. Compression test before firing shows that we jumped from 120 psi to 187 psi cranking. Fired engine, berkeleyed around with screws on the carbs and it idles and revs nice.

Vacuum is at 15 inches, so at the very low end of the green scale, so gonna leave it as is and move on to more body assembly.

.

In reply to NOHOME :

solid work with the investigation and resolution.  watching your work on this car has cured me of my desire to build one.  i'll either buy a nice one (HA! Not my M.O.), or never own one.  :-)

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

I suggest you buy a E36 M3 one and suffer through rebuilding it like the rest of us. Totally worth it, I tell you. 

Nice work, Pete. 

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

Hang around, I expect this build still has a few "interesting" twist.