One of the bigger projects in the workshop right now is the rehabilitation of this 1967 Austin-Healey 3000. It has a colorful history and has been with the same owner for over 40 years. That same owner began restoring the car himself a few years ago. We will be taking over the metal, body, and paintwork from here. Delivery of a chassis anticipated for April 2020.
Stage zero involved media blasting the bare chassis/body in the rotisserie.
50+ years of paint, seam sealer, glue, and rust are coming off here.
Fresh bare metal. You can’t leave freshly blasted metal untreated, so we use a product called Afterblast, which prevents flash rust on the surface for a few weeks.
The Lancia Fulvia 1,3S engine bits are back from machinist and starting to go back together.
The Fulvia’s narrow-angle V4 utilizes a cast-iron cylinder block, sandwiched between an aluminum head and crankcase. It is shown above in a cleaned, pressure-tested, and freshly machined state. Because this motor overheated, the block was resurfaced and overbored.
This a stock Fulvia crankshaft. Steel, counterbalanced, and beautifully machined.
Here is a photo of the crankshaft, nose pulley, and flywheel in the machinist’s dynamic balancer.
We found a set of NOS Lancia cast pistons for this rebuild. Before installation, the entire set is balanced for weight and each piston is matched to a cylinder bore.
Here are the connecting rods.
Lancia designed their connecting rods with additional weight on the big and small ends. These steel pads are designed to be ground down in order to balance each to rod one another.
Pistons and rods wait to be assembled while I set the piston ring end gap.
The camshafts, rockers, and rocker shafts were worn beyond spec in this engine. So we had to source new rockers and rocker shafts from Italy. We had intended to refurbish the camshafts here in the States. However, the cam grinder we contracted to do the work had a tremendous backlog and was unable to repair the camshafts. A big thanks goes out to fellow Lancista, Paul Vanderberg and his shop Vere Lancia in the Netherlands – they ended up sending us a pair of new camshafts on short notice.
Heads on. The oil pump is on. The timing case is assembled. Here we are dialing in the camshafts. The factory marks should only be used as a reference point, and the cam timing should always be set with a degree wheel and dial indicators to measure valve lift and piston location.
A quick fabrication job reinforcing a set of 1960-70s Saab 96 control arms. We added some plate steel to the lowers per the Saab Sport & Rally Manual and TIG welded the pivot points.
“Heat to fit”
We also had to repair one of the suspension uprights.
This 3.4-liter inline-six is being reconditioned before it is reunited with a left-hand drive 1955 Mark VII M. An interesting example equipped with a factory sunroof and a 4-speed manual gearbox. The engine showed signs of previously being overhauled but hadn’t run for over four decades.
Here is the bare cylinder block with all oil and cooling plugs removed. It is fresh from the hot tank. Photo courtesy of the talented machine shop.
Really no need to redesign your 50 year old packaging when its this good.
Measuring the ring end gaps. Piston ring gap is critical.
The Hepolite pistons had little to no wear and passed a close inspection. So, we gave them a new lease on life.
Here is a simple piston pin puller. The 1/2″ felt ensures the piston doesn’t get marred-up while the pin is being drawn out of the press-fit in the piston and into the aluminum tube. Works great.
This internal passageway in the connecting rod delivers pressurized oil from the crank to the piston pin. A pipe cleaner, brake clean, and compressed air work well to remove decades of gunk.
The crank was magna-fluxed to ensure no cracks or other damage was hiding. Fortunately, the journals were within spec, so it only required micro-polishing before being reinstalled with new standard size bearings.
Short pieces of hose over the rod studs help protect the cylinders and crank journals during assembly.
A few thousandths off of the mating surface brought the head back into spec. New guides and valves were installed. Photo courtesy of the machinist.
The DOHC XK cylinder head dates back to the late-1940 and came in many iterations. In 1955, the factory painted B-type heads Duck Egg green (and, later just light blue). Camshaft installation and valve clearance are being finalized here on the workbench.
Confirming any timing marks before the cylinder head is reunited with the block. For whatever reason, Jaguar (counterintuitively) uses the front most cylinder as #6, and the cylinder closest to the firewall as #1. The camshaft drive unit is assembled prior to the cylinder head on the XK engine, and each camshaft sprocket uses a splined hub to properly set the cam timing. The entire camshaft drive on these early XK engines is different compared to other DOHC engines from the period. Unfortunately, I had to put the camera down.
