What are your thoughts on Jensen Healeys in general? I'm going to looka tone this weekend, 57k miles, factory hardtop, '74, seems to be a clean well cared for car. School me, as I've had zero experience with one, but any clean low milage car at a resonable price appeals to me.
You might want to connect with jensenman - oops goes by curmudgeon now - over on the GRM board
A guy in our local British club has a Jensen Healey that he has owned since new. He describes the car as "body by Jensen, engine by Lotus, development by owner." That said, like the Triumph Stag, if the original shortcomings have been taken care of, it appears to be a wonderful car. There is probably a national club you could find online. You might check out this site: http://www.jensenhealey.com/ Get yourself educated and get the car if it checks out!
Quoting Graham Robson from "The Great Book of Sports Cars"... "To no one's great surprise, the Lotus engine developed teething troubles early, and inadequate rust protection soon became depressingly apparent in the unitized structure"... Pretty much like the aforementioned Stag, rust was factory installed, and the engines are crap... The two do have one other thing in common, however... Properly fitting body panels are impossible to find. Kinda sad. Both were, IMHO, very smart looking cars. Unless you can buy the J-H for $1500 or so, and are willing to spend three times that one the care and feeding of it, (I'd bet a months pay that it needs a timing belt and water pump at the least), I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. Cheers, Scott
I like them very much and would love to own one. Super cool rare Lotus DOHC engine and good looks.
But then I'm also crazy over TR7/8's so what does that tell ya.:-)
I know there were problems with the early J-H engines (was it cam oiling?), but the same engine was used in the Lotus Esprit, where it does not have a bad reputation. I figure whatever fixes were done could be applied to the early versions as well.
The engine issues can be sorted and probably already have. Much more exotic than a MG B for similar money.
I know a guy that owned a Jensen GT for years (hardtop version), and I don't remember it being all that troublesome. I thought it was pretty cool and would have bought it if I had known it was for sale.
The problems with the 907 engine in the Jensen Healey are with the sealing of the cam towers and improper servicing. This has been rectified with the new style cam tower seals. The other issue is that you must be sure that the cam belt has been changed regularly. Besides that the engine is reliable and quite a nice engine with good power. The cars are nice to drive and while they can and do rust, so do all other cars from the era.
Find one that is rust free on the west coast that has been cared for and you will have a great driving sports car.
A price for a nice example is between $3,500-$5,000 and I would look in California, Arizona and Oregon.
The club, the Jensen Healey Preservation Society is great and worth joining. The club actually commissions parts to be made and do a great job at supporting the cars.
Do not listen to the "Common Wisdom", as these car be great cars and will not beat you up financially if you buy a good one and there are a lot of good examples out there.
In reply to Andy Reid:
Well, as it turns out the car sold the day before I could see it. Probably a good thing it retrospect, as I can continue to concentrate on my Elan and not get side tracked with another car. I'm too busy to have too many projects, and I'm better off financially with one at a time.
Thanks to everyone on their thoughts.
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