Rumpelstiltskin the Healey 100-4

Got the analog fuel leaks back from the fixorometer dude. Seems to have done a thorough job of re-bushing and re-building the poor things.

These cars are hilarious when it comes to the complexity of every system; going through the throttle linkage, there are over 50 parts that make up the linkage from the pedal to the throttle shaft. About 20 of them are wear points!

For some reason, I have the linkage mixed up so that the return spring actually opens the throttle, gave up around midnight trying to figure that out.

What is the purpose of the crossover pipe between the carbs near the cylinder head?

759NRNG said:

What is the purpose of the crossover pipe between the carbs near the cylinder head?

Smooths out the vacuum signal to the carbs by blending the two groups of cylinders.

Hmmm, how is that addressed on the MGB?

759NRNG said:

Hmmm, how is that addressed on the MGB?

Same deal only it is a one piece cast manifold.

What you need to understand about Healeys is that the factory did not pass-up an opportunity to make things complicated.  The While the MGB intake manifold is one piece, the Healey version has 15 individual components to get the job done. One of them being a gland-seal that is NLA. It's like Healey was Chapman's evil opposite when it comes to mechanical design "Add parts and complexity". 

The Healeys are nice cars from a Style perspective, but pretty indefensible from an engineering point of view.

Picked up the rebuilt calipers. Faster than MOSS and less than half price to have them rebuilt with all new parts. $160 Cnd for both calipers and done faster than MOSS could ship them out the door.

In other news, the Minion and I set out to haul this back for friend. It is a 1948 Ford F1 that the Minion had done a 302/C4 conversion on about 5 years ago. It came back on the market for a bottle of Weisers and was quickly adopted by a friend of ours.

What would an old car road trip be without a breakdown, so in the middle of a  80 mile return, we paused for a new fan belt. Luky for us, it broke down two doors away from a NAPA store!

With the 302 the truck makes for a nice driver (if you can tolerate a few rattles from 1958 door hardware) and for the short time it was on the freeway at 60 mph, it had no trouble keeping up. At 3000 rpm at 60 mph, I would want to drop the rear from a 3.73 to a 3.27 or so just for a more relaxed cruise.

Wow ...surprisingly rust free... kool  PU

God just pissed on my parade...Buddy just called to tell me that while we were off collecting his new truck, his house was burgled!

And I see where the language filter does not filter singatures!

Had to redo the two front brake lines and then bleed the brakes. Using a vacuum bleeder, the brakes feel great.

Since the job kinda demands that the car be drivealbe back to home base, lights and other stuff might be a good idea. So after a bit of berkeleyery while I tried to understand the all-white-wire homemade harness, this happens

With a bit of luck, this might run this weekend.

Soon gone and on to what really matters......uh what was that again????..my Dad's p1800 in need of a thorough thrashing......er that wasn't it.......oh the MOLVO!!!! YES that's why i keep pushing this  thread to the top!!!

Did not get her running this week-end. Still trying to sort out a coupler from the new tank to the fuel line. Seriously, for pretty much 1k Canadian dollars, I expected plug and play. Instead, some thrid grade chinese kid that was building the tank had to pick this particular fitting out of a box of random threaded tubes, and call it a fuel out let fitting. Might have to find a person with a lathe to fix this. Even MOSS who sells it has no clue as to how to attach a fuel line. 

The other issue is that I have no spark to the plugs. If I measure from the distributor wire side of the coil, I get ground all the time regardless of if the points are open or not. I also get a continuity reading from the coil terminals to the coil case. 

The good news is that the turn signals now work...after a bunch of electrical head scratching ( home made harness with all-white wires) I took the flasher unit off and beat in on the bench a few times. Works a charm now! 

At that point I went in for Thanksgiving dinner.

Brute force wrenching always has a spot in the tool box....

Soooooooo close!

Fixed the spark issue. Turns out the points were totally coated in who knows what after 23 years of sleep.

Finalized the tank install and poured in half a tank of gas. Sadly, it would seem that the pump is no longer up to the task.It wont push fuel up to the carb for some reason and shuts off after a few seconds. Aftermarket pump, so not sure what to expect and it has sat for 23 years.

The good news is that when I use a syringe to squirt fuel down the carbs, she firs right up and runs smoothly for a few seconds while not making any bad noises. Ran out of time last night, but will scrounge around the stock of old bits to find another pump.

Not the pump.

Anyone see anything wrong in these pics?

Your floats have floated away

fixorometer dude called ......said he has your floats

Are the needle & seats Viton tipped?  Or have then just been bashed into place?

RoddyMac17 said:

Are the needle & seats Viton tipped?  Or have then just been bashed into place?

The needles are the Viton tips. Why both are stuck I don't know, but quite possible that shipping is not kind to the devices.

All seems good for now, but I confess to being worried about this happening in the future.

Probably a blessing that it happened to both carbs, because it was easy to say the problem was fuel related. Had one worked, the car would have run, but run poorly and it might have taken longer to figure out the issue.

Is this a common problem with Viton needles?

I don't think it's a common problem, but I do recall the mechanics at the shop I used to work at refused to use both Viton tipped needle & seats and Grose Jets.  They much preferred genuine SU needle and seats.  Personally I've only ever used the genuine SU N&Seats and haven't had any issues.

I can tell you that Burlen supplied these needles and they are Viton.

If I look back over 40 years of playing with Brit cars and SU carbs, I would say that the one thing they never figured out was the needle and seat game.

Apologies for the lousy video but the hurricane conditions meant that the phone was trying to focus on the swaying  trees rather than the  Healey.

first run after a 23 year nap is encouraging. Still a bit of tunning to go, but no huge alarms.

So what happened with the needle and seats?  And where are the floats?

noddaz said:

So what happened with the needle and seats?  And where are the floats?

The floats on the Healey are not attached to the lid; they just float up and push on the curved legs and actuate the needle.

I actually have it in writing from Burlen that the Viton tips getting stuck is not that unexpected. The good news is that they claim that one the tips taste fuel the propensity will cease.

We shall see.