Intro new member BN7 with 289 project

[3000bn7]

Best picture I have of the finished rack install. You can just see the lower U joint.
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This shows the upper steering shaft. This is from a TR3 which presented a few issues for the steering wheel, more to come on that.
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[3000bn7]

We had a steering wheel hub that we wanted to mod to use an E-Type wheel. I was having a hard time getting them to mate and an original E-Type wheel probably should not be cut up. I cut the spokes and turned the OD and stopped there about 5 years ago.
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These next 2 are current, just taken, our welding friend helped to convert wheel center to adapt to a better wheel for the Healey.
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For now this will work well. I still want to make the trafficator work. Since we have a hollow upper shaft we can run the wires through the U-Joint and wrap them to allow them to go with the steering rotation. We need to add a deco piece to the center, maybe an old shift knob logo piece. Steve put the horn and blinkers on manual switches for now.
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[3000bn7]

The 1967 289 engine getting a 'rebuild'. It was blue but we decided it should be black as it would have been earlier. It ran very well when we first bought the car so it should run much stronger now! The Erson chrome valve covers are OK but we have some nice aluminum Ford Racing items that should look better.
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A bit of Ford geekout here. This Rotunda engine crane was bought from a local Ford dealer that was closing in about 1980. We split the cost, I think it was $275. Rotunda was the tool division of Ford that sold to dealers. Fun to use it on Ford projects. The first pictures in this thread show the car in that dealership building when it was rented by Steve in later years. He found records in the attic of cars bought by his grandparents.
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[3000bn7]

The driveshaft tunnel had been hacked pretty badly so we ordered a new one from Norman Nock's company. It requires mods for a 2 seater. This shows the old tunnel cut out and the driveshaft and new emergency brake cables. The emergency brake uses small drum brake shoes inside the brake discs.
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[3000bn7]

We decided to use a dual circuit brake master cylinder. Shooting from the hip a bit on the bore size since the Wilwoods are not offered in too many bore IDs.
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We took a stab at changing the motion ratio of the brake pedal to compensate for the larger bore of the master cylinder.
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[3000bn7]

Another effort by the mad TIG welder, Chris. We were gifted an aluminum fuel tank that had the pickup damaged in an odd way. Chris fixed the problem and then welded a block that can mate to the fuel system through the trunk wall. This car has a mechanical fuel pump so it is pretty simple from here on.
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They drilled into the pickup for some reason without realizing it was angled, so they drilled through the tube and it was sucking air.
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[HealeyRick]

Project is coming along great.  I grew up in Middleborough and a guy during the '70s put a 289 2bbl and C4 into a BJ8.  He won many a street race and inspired me to do my Nasty Boy in later years.

[3000bn7]

Thanks for following along. All the cars we knew in younger days were very stock. I think we had heard of a Healey with a Chevy V8 in Easthampton but never saw it!

These show the cooling system, we used a dual pass radiator with 2 fans. Fits pretty well and should work well. I hate the fan noise from a stock [Healey] fan so this should be nice. I have one of the later fiberglass fans in a BJ7 and it is much quieter.
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[3000bn7]

This is a bit off-track but I wanted to give a shout-out to Chris, our buddy who helps so much with welding. The guy is really talented and committed. He builds these incredible cars, works hard and is raising a family! The link below goes to a video showing his recent build.

https://www.google.com/search?q=godzilla+swap+1968+mustang&client=firefox-b-1-e&sca_esv=f07dd38fdcfe8355&sca_upv=1&biw=1420&bih=834&tbm=vid&sxsrf=ADLYWIL-QLCwUaasCvxE6m9K5KacLtQ6MA%3A1718631574428&ei=ljxwZsTbGfaf5NoPgJSH4AU&ved=0ahUKEwjE_vjD4eKGAxX2D1kFHQDKAVwQ4dUDCA0&uact=5&oq=godzilla+swap+1968+mustang&gs_lp=Eg1nd3Mtd2l6LXZpZGVvIhpnb2R6aWxsYSBzd2FwIDE5NjggbXVzdGFuZzIFECEYqwJIlBpQ7g5YhRhwAHgAkAEAmAFHoAGaA6oBATa4AQPIAQD4AQGYAgagAqkDwgIEECMYJ8ICBhAAGAUYHsICBhAAGAgYHsICBxAjGLACGCfCAggQABgHGAgYHsICCBAAGAUYDRgewgIIEAAYCBgNGB7CAgsQABiABBiGAxiKBcICCBAAGIAEGKIEwgIKECEYoAEYwwQYCpgDAIgGAZIHATagB4Ig&sclient=gws-wiz-video#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:43702066,vid:8Z2IRMP3MY8,st:0

[3000bn7]

The exhaust that came on the car was pretty weak but we are putting it back on to be able to run it and do other debugging. Headers look to be homemade which is pretty 'period' cool. I like the small dia primaries because the ports are tiny on the stock iron 289 heads. They got beat up a bit over time and distorted during some repair attempts and welding practice on our side. The flanges should be able to be straightened and used short term.

I only have a picture of the RH side header and no pictures of the piping. I need to get some, it is pretty funny. There is an almost 90 deg bend below the collector on one side. It ran well and sounded great though!

If you look at one of the steering posts you can see the top of the LH header installed.

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[3000bn7]

This has been quiet over the summer. Steve bought a building that needed attention so that was the priority. We have gone down a few not-very-intersting rabbit holes. The car never had wipers after it was built in CA and we need them here for inspection these days so we are digging into that. A friend in Westport has taken many Healeys apart so he donated a few wiper motors and a friend of Steve's also donated one. Out of the 3, one is working, so I am going to clean it up.



Steve reminded me that the rear reflectors were weird from the original build. I was already in the process of fixing a similar issue on a BJ7 that was lightly modded many years ago by a friend and bought by us a few years ago. He put some lights in that spot but they don't look good. I have some 12V LEDs that seem to fit nicely into the proper reflectors with a bit of minor surgery. I ordered 3 more reflectors from Sports & Classics, fingers crossed that the are correct looking.

[3000bn7]

We decided to buy proper headers for this, the old ones would not seal. As cool as they were being from the original old school build, they were pretty hopeless. Knowing that headers would require mods, they actually fit in pretty well. The outlets are right over the frame, that will be solved with some clever welding and fab by good old Chris....

[3000bn7]

Most of the little stuff is done on the left side. Spring rates will be the big area of interest once the car can be driven. I chose the front rates a long time ago based on a stock Healey, which is will probably be too stiff. Time will tell.

[3000bn7]

Another update on the left front with brakes installed.

[3000bn7]

Installed travel limit straps on rear axle.

[3000bn7]

Right front together. Right rear needs final assy, and then it can go on its wheels.

[HealeyRick]

It looks like your header outlets are positioned like mine were, right into the frame rail. In order to have the pipes run over the top of the frame rail, I had to have the outlets re-welded to 90 degrees. Even still it's a tight fit.

[3000bn7]

Rick, yes, well need some close cutting to get them to turn over the frame. We'll be using V- band clamps there.



Future exhaust system, at least the front part.

[3000bn7]

Really nice progress on modding the headers. We'll probably want to add some clearance to the frame before final prep and paint. Driver's side:



Driver's side



Passenger side:



Chris angling for hazardous duty pay! This was about 7 hours of work over 2 days. 7 hours for a pro that is...

[HealeyRick]

Yep, that passenger side fits exactly like mine. The things you have to do if you want to route the headers over the frame.

[3000bn7]

Sitting on its wheels for the first time in a long time. We replaced the 100# rear springs with 150#. Time will tell what it wants, but for now it is one step closer to being able to test it. My goal was always good suspension travel for back road driving which implies reasonable spring rates with good damping control. The cobra center-laced wheels look pretty good, they may fit without much body interference.

[3000bn7]

Up in the air showing suspension travel. I would like to see more droop in the rear, the limit straps probably need to be longer.

Major pain putting in the sparkplugs, the headers were designed for the later small plug size and that space is super tight in any case. Body needed to come back off the put them in! I'll be seeing the car this weekend, hopefully running, so looking forward to that.

[3000bn7]

We had a productive but frustrating weekend, got the brakes and clutch bled but it was a major project. All of the copper-nickel lines were leaking at the fittings. We ended up replacing them with steel. I think the flares end up too large since the material is softer.

The clutch is too stiff, we have  concentric slave cyl with a 3/4 master cyl. We ordered a smaller master to see how it works.

We started it briefly to see how the new/old exhaust sounds. The carb leaked like crazy at the accelerator pumps so that was also short-lived, but it sounded good.



The car has BJ8 seats, we placed one in to be able to work the pedals.We will need to shorten the steering column a bit to get more space.

[HealeyRick]

I like the Cobra-laced wheels. I have GT40P heads, which makes installing spark plugs with the headers a real joy.  You're making great progress. I found installing the driveline the easiest part. It was all the stuff that came afterwards that took up about 80% of the time.

[ag1234]

Impressive skills, Art. Regarding hedder/collector/frame issue, perhaps "wedge cut" primaries at flanges, allowing to swing up and outward, reweld.
                                                                                            Cheers, Art.