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With the basic alignment behind me, I mounted the front brakes. As I said earlier, I’m using a Baer brake kit designed for the Wilwood Pro spindles. They are 4 piston calipers with 11 inch rotors.
I considered both Wilwood and Baer kits, but settled on the Baer’s because the rotors are so much heavier than the Wilwoods. The Baer’s are 1.02 inches thick while the Wilwood’s are just .810. Other than that, the 2 kits were very similar. Both would fit under 15” wheels and had the pistons sealed against road grime. The Baer tech I spoke with assured me, that considering the light weight of this car, I could do track days with just a pad change.
https://i.imgur.com/oDC1VoW.jpg
While I was at this stage, I also went ahead with the flex lines and a little plumbing. The hoses are -3 Russel DOT approved parts. It took a little fiddling to come up with a hose routing that would allow full suspension travel and steering without rubbing or kinking, but eventually I got it worked out.
I prefer hoses with female screw on connections on both ends, rather than the hoses that have swaged on banjo fittings. The screw on hoses are usually a little cheaper and they are easier to fit, IMO. You can put a slight twist in the screw on hose to get it to clear things whereas with the crimped on banjo fittings, you pretty much can't do anything except bolt them on and hope you have clearance.
https://i.imgur.com/1D0kdGU.jpg
I also did the front crossover line. This needed to be done before the engine goes back in. Trying to route the line with the engine in would have been much more complicated. Because I had plenty of room to work, I was able to do it in one continuous piece.
https://i.imgur.com/dc47RJM.jpg?1
It made sense to finish the short line from the line lock valve to the front tee while I was making the crossover.
https://i.imgur.com/KAOqEHp.jpg?1
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I am currently focusing on things that need to be done to get the engine and trans back in since I need to get the car off my lift. I have to help my grandson put a new (to him) engine in his truck and I need to pull the trans out of my 46 to replace the flexplate. I don’t want to do either of those jobs laying on my back, but there was one thing that needed to be finished on the rear end before I moved on.
One of the things I got back from the powder coater in the last batch was the rear sway bar assembly. I had to wait until the rear suspension was back in to finish the parts. I didn’t have time to do it before I sent the frame out to be coated.
I originally wanted to mount the bar under the rearend, but that wasn’t really possible due to the exhaust. I had to mount it on top and there is just enough space for it with the body on. Changing it will be a pain, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. The available space dictates what you can do.
The bar itself is a 26” torsion bar intended for a mini sprint car and it just squeezes in between the frame rails. The ends are 1” splined. This bar is ¾” diameter and gun drilled. It is in the middle of the available diameters. The nice thing is, the ends all stay the same, so all you have to do is swap the bars.
https://i.imgur.com/I8VDK1R.jpg?1
The arms do look a little chunky, but that is due to the size of the weld on splined ends that were available. That and I just happened to have the tubing that fit them. They are actually not as heavy as they look. Considering that they will be buried way up under the body, I doubt anyone ever sees them if they are not reading this thread.
The bearings are Delrin bushings that are made for these bars and are off the shelf items. This should make it easy to get cheap replacements in the future. I fabbed the steel housings for the bushings and added a grease zerk. They will get silicone grease too.
This is before powder coat and may be a little easier to see.
https://i.imgur.com/aOUBmUR.jpg
The end links were modified from some type of side by side suspension struts. I have a friend that was doing some R and D work on an electric 4x4 side by side a few years ago. I was at his shop one day and noticed a big box full of these struts. He gave me a big handful of them saying that they might come in handy one day. They worked just fine for this job.
I bushed the large metric hole down to 3/8” and changed the button grease fitting over to a standard zerk. Because they are so heavy duty, these rod ends should last the life of the car!
https://i.imgur.com/4wBZYZW.jpg
The links are different lengths because they attach to the Watts link brackets on the rearend and of course, they are different heights.
I totally forgot to send the lower link brackets to the powder coater, so they will have to go in the next batch of small parts.
Since there is no poly or rubber in the sway bar assembly, there won’t be any lost motion in operation. That should make the bar more effective, but it might make the ride a little harsher.
https://i.imgur.com/KE2SoAu.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/JbR09k2.jpg
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OK, gang. I found several things that I wrote up quite some time ago and never posted. I was sure that I had put them up and went back and checked the thread, but didn’t find them. Sooo, while I’m busy on getting the engine back in, I’m going to post the stuff I found. Keep in mind as you read them that this was all done months ago. The pictures and wording may seem out of order because they are. At least it will give ya’ll something to look at.
Just for a time reference, these posts should have been made after I got the LeMans style gas cap on and right after I took the first batch of parts to the chrome shop. This stuff was done sometime between March and August of 2020. This was during the time my company sent me home to separate the workers due to Covid and it was crazy thrash time for me trying to get the chassis to powder coat. Guess this stuff just got lost in the shuffle. I’ll post the up a few at a time to give folks time to read them. So here goes.
I also found another set of seats and fitted them. The original seats I used were out of a 1995 M series Miata. They have separate head rests (all other Miata's have one piece headrests and seats), fit the car well and look fairly period to the car. However, mine were in bad shape due to weather exposure and I was missing the Mazda seat adjusters. I added some universal adjusters, but they were just ok. The seating was pure sports car in that I was sitting pretty much on the floor with my feet stuck straight out in front of me in semi reclining position. As my back condition has worsened, this position became unacceptable. I doubt I could have ridden like that for very long. I needed a fairly upright position with a little drop to the floor. It was obvious that I had to change something.
I also found out that the M series Miata's were sold in very limited numbers in the US market. The only padding and upholstery rebuild stuff I could find came from Europe, where they were much more common. I had the choice of either getting custom covers made or getting a kit from Germany by way of the UK. Either choice would cost north of $600.
While I was delivering the parts to Tennessee for chrome, I found another set of seats out of an MX5 with a retractable hardtop. They are black leather and the top had protected them very well. There is one minor scuff on the leather that can be easily repaired. I got both seats and tracks for $300. They are much more comfortable on my back and have better bolstering for lateral support. They are not as period looking as the old seats, but I'll make that sacrifice for better long range comfort.
Here are the new seats:
https://i.imgur.com/wnnqHAv.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/eQtg7lC.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/VHYMbsA.jpg
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I also wanted to get some more leg room. I had already pushed the firewall forward a few inches and that helped, but I still felt cramped up. I would have to move the seats back to gain anymore. I needed to do some modifications to fiberglass section behind the seats anyhow, since after I got the body sections aligned, the rear bulkhead section wouldn't touch the floor.
If you've been following along since the beginning, you will remember that I found the rear body mounts were bent down and I straightened them out. I thought this was due to the rearend taking a hit since the bumpers and brackets were bent like they had been in an accident. I don't think this was right. The car had obviously been hit in the rear, but I think that whoever built this car ran into this same issue and bent the mounts down to get the rear section to touch the floor pan.
https://i.imgur.com/1vxTO4L.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/H6nMje8.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/H6nMje8.jpg
Before I could work on rebuilding, I had to get rid of more of the same "horsehair" looking crap that was used as insulation on the firewall. I don't know what type of silicone was used to glue this junk down but it doesn't give up easily. Once again, I had to resort to a stiff wire bush on a grinder to even touch it. It was even better bonded to this part than it was to the firewall.
https://i.imgur.com/RK6CaiN.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/RC3iBUR.jpg
Eventually I got it clean enough to work on.
https://i.imgur.com/y7DBJao.jpg
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The first thing I had to do before getting the seats in, was patch the holes I had cut in the floor to access the new rear suspension mounts I welded on earlier in the build. Not much drama here. Just straight forward pattern making and welding.
https://i.imgur.com/AN3ulhw.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/R93p5da.jpg
I bent a lip on the rear of the patch for a little extra strength.
https://i.imgur.com/meyYVQg.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/daNBqpI.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/fHIPkBq.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/WBUO7pr.jpg
You can see how much extra length I added to the floor here by the notch in the foreground. The vertical leg of the notch was where the original floor stopped. This notch was filled too, but I didn’t get a picture. This may not look like much extra room, but, every little bit helps when you're talking about leg room.
https://i.imgur.com/7F7YOjf.jpg?1
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Here you can see the extra room that Classic Roadsters left behind the rear bulkhead. I’m not sure why they did this, unless it was to have the rear floor follow the contour of the laid back seats. What it did was waist a lot of potential extra room. I could fix that by changing the angle of the rear bulkhead and tieing it into the little extra floor length I had added.
https://i.imgur.com/czsb0Rt.jpg
I also had another issue to correct. The wider wheels were contacting the inner interior tub. They bolted on fine and appeared to fit, but when the suspension was articulated, like one wheel hitting a big bump, the tire would just contact the body. I could fix this by adding a tiny wheel tub. This would allow me to keep as much interior space behind the seats as I could. Besides, trying to go bigger with the wheel tub would cause issues with the fuel tank. I was about as deep in the wheel well as I could get without major surgery.
This is looking up where the tire was contacting the body tub. Not much contact, but any is too much.
https://i.imgur.com/07LVWSn.jpg
Here you can see how much I had to cut out to clear the tire. You can also see the big hole I had to cut to clear the new wider seats.
https://i.imgur.com/aIFG7Gu.jpg?1
This shows the clearance I gained by relieving for the tires.
https://i.imgur.com/pFjEgXF.jpg
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Getting this stuff posted hasn’t been as easy as I had hoped. I switched computers a few months ago and some of the pictures got lost or jumbled up. I’ve had to hunt them down to upload them. Here are a few more of the old stuff.
I suppose I could have dummied up some kind of form and laid glass over it to reform all this stuff, but as I said earlier, I don’t particularly enjoy working with ‘glass. Besides, building the form would have been almost as much work as building out of metal and I would have still had to lay up the fiberglass, smooth and paint it.
Of course, that meant that the new metal parts would have to be riveted in or panel bonded to the fiberglass with adhesive, but that wasn’t a big issue. I decided to just rivet them in and seal the joints. If I have trouble with the rivets loosening, I can always use one of the new panel adhesives to bond them in. I think with enough rivets, this won’t be an issue. Since I would be installing a bunch of pop rivets, I went to Harbor Freight and dropped a 20% off coupon on pneumatic pop rivet gun. Man, it sure does make things quick and easy.
By riveting all these pieces in I could assemble them in sections under the car and I also had the advantage of being able to remove them easily if I ever needed to. Not sure if I would ever NEED to do that, but at least I have the option, and considering how difficult the rear shocks are to access, that option might come in handy one day. Also, the upper link mount is behind the seat bulkhead and that might need some kind of attention one day.
There was one small tool I had to make before I could tackle the sheet metal. That was a tipping wheel for my bead roller. I had to make some odd bends on a few parts that I couldn’t do in my brake. The tipping wheel makes this a lot easier than trying to rig up something on my welding table to do it.
I welded a hub onto a piece of steel plate that was actually an old slug from a hole saw. I almost never throw those things away, since they come on very handy. The hub was some kind of mystery alloy (probably 4140), so I had to bury it in a bucket of oil dry to keep it from cooling too fast and getting brittle from the welding heat.
https://i.imgur.com/sTGMmIi.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ykbLzj7.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/QXJGPqQ.jpg
Then I machined it up and here it is in action. I also made both a steel and a polyurethane “anvil” roller for it to pinch the metal between. I machined a recess in the die and made a custom flush mounting washer that would allow me to tip the flange almost to a 90* bend. I could finish it up with a hammer and dolly. The tipping die also has the advantage of being able to tip curved flanges.
https://i.imgur.com/gOgyIbL.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/20FsWYA.jpg
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There were many small parts required and almost all of the small angle tie-ins had to the curved to fit the existing fiberglass panels. I used the shrinker and stretcher for these. When these go in for the final time, they will get a bead of silicone to between them to seal the joint. I also have some brush on seal sealer that I may use. All of the metal and fiberglass will eventually be covered in marine carpet, so the pop rivets won’t really be seen. Some of the parts were welded together.
I made all these parts out of 18 gauge steel. I had it on hand and I feel a little better having steel between my back and the tire. I rolled a few beads in to give it a little support.
This is the bulkhead that goes behind the seats.
https://i.imgur.com/rrOrZ4f.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Pa7jvcR.jpg
This is the finished inner tub and the filler panels for the seat clearance.
https://i.imgur.com/Vd5RqTE.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/8tztqTt.jpg
The parts that you see in the interior are only a small section. They are actually the inner fenders, too. I made some aluminum extensions to tie the steel parts into the outer fiberglass body section. A rubber lip seal will attach to the edge of the fender and press against the body to seal out road grime.
https://i.imgur.com/5MZHStB.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Wvqoi6N.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/V42OUB8.jpg
I made the fenders in two parts like this because I’m thinking of adding wider rear fenders in the future. There is a company making body parts for this car in limited numbers. The MX version of this body had fenders widened an extra 2” or so. I’ve talked with the owner of the molds and he says he can do just the outer rear quarters. This would get me the wider rear body kit and allow for wider tires. If I do decide to do that, all I have to do is remake the outer sections of the fenders that tie into the body contours.
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Ditto Nice work, and glad to see your working on this, I'm doing carb work on mine today!
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Thanks for the kind words, guys.
OK, gang. Just a quick update. I’m still posting the old stuff, but thought I would let you know where I’m at currently. I just got word that my paint guy has an opening in a few weeks and have decided to get the body painted now, while I can. This has shut the chassis work down for a while so I can concentrate on the body work and prep. By doing this, I can avoid having to tear the car down again for paint. I had originally thought about driving the car in primer for awhile and then painting it, but the more I thought about it, the less I liked that idea. I’ve been working on this thing for so long that when I finally get it finished, I’m not going to want to tear it back apart for paint. So, I might as well go ahead and do it now.
FWIW – The engine and trans is back in and most of the plumbing is done. I’ll get that stuff posted when I run out of old stuff. Now it's time to go attack some more itchy fiberglass. Back to the old stuff.
The MX5 seats mounted much differently than the old seats, which just bolted flat to the floor. The MX5 seats had flat mounting legs in the rear, but the front mounted top a sloped section on the Miata floor. I duplicated this (more or less) by adding an angled piece of flatbar across the floor.
https://i.imgur.com/85Q8Dwg.jpg
The rear legs had locating dowels made into the mounting holes that keyed into the original Miata floor. I decided to keep those since they would help keep the seat in place in an accident and help keep the seat track aligned.
To duplicate the mounting hole in the MX5, I machined some counter-bored bushings that I welded to the floor. The front mounting bolts got some machined aluminum washers that better fit the mounting holes. Of course, I mounted the seats back as far as I could get them, which was the whole purpose.
https://i.imgur.com/nXdAZ4c.jpg
As with any hot rodding, there were a couple of consequences from moving the seats backwards. The first one was that the emergency brake handle was too far forward. This wasn’t TOO hard to correct. I just had to install some more nutzerts and redo the cable adjuster. No real drama, just time consuming.
You can see just how much I gained with all this work. The forward holes are the original mounting location for the E-brake handle. That’s a lot of extra room when you’re talking about leg room. You can just see the seat mounting parts in this picture. Sorry for the crappy picture. I hunted through all the old pics I could find and this is the only shot I could locate of the seat mounts.
https://i.imgur.com/qnGNTZr.jpg?1
On to the second issue and this one was a biggie.
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I had set the seat/steering wheel relationship to fit me during the initial installation, but when my wife sat in the car with the seat adjusted so that she could reach the clutch properly, the steering wheel was too close to her chest. Of course, she IS a little vertically challenged! I’m not allowed to use the “S” word!
I had originally intended to use most of the steering column from the Chevy Equinox that the electric steering unit came out of and just add a simple top section to dress it up. This was the original setup.
https://i.imgur.com/fugbjt2.jpg
It was obvious that plan wasn't going to work. No amount of fiddling with the column position resulted in a location that felt right to both of us and I wasn't going to let her drive it with the wheel too close. Sooooo, I drug (dragged?) out some more of the junk that I've collected over the years and went to work.
At a swap meet, somewhere many moons ago, I had picked up a tilt/telescoping GM column out of a C4 Corvette and it had been kicking around the shop for a while. It was a little loose in the tilt joint and I remember it was cheap because of that. Most folks don't want to tear into one of these columns, but they aren't really that bad, just a little fiddly. I repaired my first tilt GM column back in the 70's and have been tinkering with them in various projects ever since. For the most part, they are all the same inside.
I cut this one down as short as I dared, repaired it and fitted it to the Equinox power unit. Luckily, I have a big box of assorted column parts as well as a few old column tubes and shafts stuck back from previous jobs. The real tricky part was getting the ignition and dimmer switch operating rods cut down and bent to fit and operate reliably. I had to take it apart so many times, that I made a couple of undersize tilt pins to keep from wearing out the holes they go in. The pins are hardened steel and the tilt knuckles are die castings. The pins are a press fit and it doesn't take a lot of abuse to stretch the pot metal knuckles.
This is the "tool" I made at least 30 years ago to compress the spring under the lock plate in a tilt column. When I was younger, I would find a big helper and have him push the plate down far enough to remove the retaining clip, but it definitely works better with the tool. I did have to add a couple of square tool bits under the tool because the legs weren't long enough for the telescoping column.
https://i.imgur.com/XBNxJQ1.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/FncJE41.jpg
For what it's worth, the tilt and tilt/tele columns are pretty much the same from the turn signal switch down. The tele column is just a regular tilt column with the telescoping parts added to the top. That's why they are longer by several inches and this is why I had to make the column so short. The tele column required me to add a couple of square tool bits under the legs of my homemade tool to be long enough, but it still worked ok.
This is how the telescoping lock works. A screw, a push rod and a tilting wedge inside the shaft.
https://i.imgur.com/DlLYXzH.jpg
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This is the Equinox power unit stripped down to the basics.
https://i.imgur.com/yjusx3S.jpg
Here, I'm cutting down the tilt column shaft to mate it to the Equinox female spline section. The old style GM columns use male and female double-D sections sliding over one another for the collapsing feature, but the Equinox uses male and female splines like a transmission output. After welding them together, I realized I could have done it differently and not had any load bearing welds, but I would have had to have another female spline section to redo it and I didn't. Considering that this is on the steering wheel side of the power unit, it should never see any real load.
https://i.imgur.com/vBVhUFt.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/oK4jTiJ.jpg
I had to shrink an aluminum bushing on here to make the alignment boss fit the GM column tube.
https://i.imgur.com/uEPNsgx.jpg
This shows about how much I had to cut out of the column tube to get it short enough. The bottom tube is approximately how long the original Corvette tube was.
https://i.imgur.com/NYsSnsU.jpg
And here it is with a flange welded on and bolted to the power unit. The tube was put in the lathe and the flange was bored and faced after welding to keep everything square.
https://i.imgur.com/ob35b90.jpg
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I also had to come up with a way to support the column in the front. The tube was so short that there wasn't room for the original GM column mount.
I came up with a sleeve over the tube that is thin enough for the operating rods to clear and is tightened with pinch bolts. It hangs off the original upper section of the GM mount. I wanted to retain the break-away mounting wedges that are part of the collapsing safety feature built into all these OEM columns. Without the breakaway portion of the upper mount, the collapsing feature won’t work. I had to shorten the column in two places to retain the collapsing parts, but it all worked out pretty well and should work as GM intended in a crash. I don’t even want to think about how much of an impact from my chest that it would take to get all this stuff moving and I hope I don't ever need to test it! But, I guess any help in that situation would be better than nothing.
https://i.imgur.com/TGujwfT.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/LXwvWLK.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/yHRhGLa.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/pXj1Mbx.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/AV3sDbv.jpg
Here is the finished unit before the steering wheel was mounted. I put a new ignition switch, lock and dimmer switch on so it should last many years before they need replacing.
https://i.imgur.com/GXHZzDS.jpg
Speaking of the dimmer switch, the one I used came on some mid 90's Cadillac's. It has an extra momentary contact added that serves as a "flash to pass" feature on the high beams. That's been common in Europe for a long time, but you don't see it much on older American cars. Nearly all newer American cars have it in some manner.
https://i.imgur.com/VUkfbJj.jpg
This should be the end, but now ya'll know I can't leave well enough alone!:D
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Very custom, you put a lot of work into that.
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Thanks again, guys.
Just a note about the next few steering column posts. Some of this is from the old stuff I found and some of it took place a few weeks ago during the big ice storm we had around here. I couldn’t get to work due to the roads and I still had power. My little machine shop is the only room in my shop that I can heat when it’s that cold, so I finished up some stuff on the column.
After getting the column finished, I rethought my decision to use the key-on-column. I don’t really like the look of them and any 12 year old would be car thief knows how to wreck a GM column in an attempt to steal your car. A pro will use a repo truck to drag it off.
Also, I had to push the column so far forward that it put the key pretty close to the dash. I was pinching my fingers turning the ignition. Nothing to do but neuter the key off the column and go to an ignition switch on the dash, like I really wanted to do in the first place.
Now, I’ve converted several column shift columns to floor shift by simply cutting off the shifter boss, filling the resulting hole and tack welding the shift arm to the tube. No need for that on this column since it was already a floor shift model. I’ve never converted a column to keyless, but I figured the process to remove the lock would be similar. It just meant that I would have to disassemble the column one more time. I did want to keep the column dimmer, though.
After I had the pieces removed, I started by sawing off most of the lock boss. I used my bandsaw for this. I had just enough clearance to get it under the saw guides. Had to be careful here since the blade could gouge the plastic housing easily.
Then I used a grinder with a flap wheel to knock down most of what was left. A sanding block with 120 grit smoothed out the rest.
https://i.imgur.com/3hL14Gj.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Ffti3xs.jpg
I used my die grinder with a burr to funnel the mouth of the lock hole so that I wouldn’t have a sharp edge.
https://i.imgur.com/rAhvPer.jpg
I ran a ¾ pipe tap I to the lock opening to cut some extra grooves for the filler to hold onto. This probably wasn’t necessary as there are a lot of openings in the lock recess, but it made me feel better.
https://i.imgur.com/AoxKvyg.jpg
I filled the hole with “Kitty Hair” type fiberglass filler and rough shaped it with a cheese grater. These factory GM parts are some kind of glass filled plastic or at least they appear to be. Modifying them with more plastic seemed like the thing to do. Actually, I use this stuff to fill the column shift hole when I neuter the shifter boss off. The one in my 46 has held up for almost 25 years, so I’m not worried. I covered the inside of the lock hole with tape to keep excess out of the housing. Then I just packed the opening with filler.
https://i.imgur.com/Ysj7Tdu.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ZXSq0qx.jpg
Then it was just regular body work. Filler, high build primer and sanding.
https://i.imgur.com/Uil5mSK.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/B71csdN.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/aL2KnLZ.jpg
I painted the parts with low luster black engine enamel. This is a low stress part and shouldn’t be subject to a lot of wear and tear. If this paint doesn’t hold up, I’ll shoot it with a gun later.
https://i.imgur.com/iLGZvw5.jpg
The column went back together easier than it came apart because over half the internal parts are missing.
As a side note. I noticed something as I was reassembling the column. The turn signal switch has some auxillary contacts. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before or if I did I never paid any attention to them. They operate just like the turn signal contacts, but have nothing to do with the turn signals. They are not really big enough to drive much load, so they either served as inputs for the ECU or they drove a relay. I’m not sure what purpose they served on the C4, but I can think of one good use for them. They would be perfect to operate cornering lights. Those are small auxiliary lights that come on when the turn signals are on and light up the side of the road where you are turning. They only light up on the side that has the turn signal operating. I’ve seen them on high end luxury cars. If I can figure out a way to integrate cornering lights into the front of the car without looking goofy, I might just do that. At any rate, when I was removing unnecessary wires from the inside of the column, I chose to keep these. Just in case.
https://i.imgur.com/NlC43cT.jpg
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Great conversion. that kitty hair filler is pretty tough. I used it on the 48. Sort of fiberglass/bondo all in one!
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I've been trying real hard to get the body work done and get some paint on, but it seems like life is conspiring against me. Here are some of the holdups I’ve had in the last few weeks. I wish I could say that all I have to do is work on my car stuff, but unfortunately, other things get in the way.
My old 30+ year old B6100 Kubota finally reached a point where it was no longer practical to repair the belly mower. This tractor and mower have been obsolete for a long time. Parts had become an EBAY or salvage proposition and the last ones I got were for a different deck and PTO and had to be remachined to work. It had gotten to the point that I had to work on it about as much as I was able to mow with it. I had to take time off to find something better. That ate up several days, since no one had anything less than 40 HP in stock. Covid has delayed shipments. I wanted a real tractor and not a lawn mower. Better to spend money for a good one up front instead of buying cheapo mowers over and over. That's just my opinion, of course. I already had a big tractor with a loader and bush hog, but when it’s wet, it’s too heavy and really messes my yard up. We are almost a foot over our normal rainfall for this month alone (seems like it's been raining non-stop since the first of the year) and I needed a lightweight mowing machine. I finally located an 18 HP Kubota 4 wheel drive diesel that had less than 100 hrs. I really hated to spend the money on this, since all the yard and home maintenance comes out of my shop funds, but sometimes you just have bite the bullet.
https://i.imgur.com/9OS2bqg.jpg
Then my old shop air compressor died. Well, the tank did anyhow. It developed a pinhole leak last year and I did what you’re not supposed to do. I welded it up. Bad idea (don’t try this at home kids, I’m a professional idiot). It recently sprung another leak, so I decided to retire it. There was no telling how many thin spots it had on the bottom from water and I didn’t want the tank to fail by connecting the dots. I can’t complain too much. I built the old girl over 20 years ago literally from scrap and scrounged parts. I think I had less than $50 in actually cash in it and it has served well all these years. Yes, it looks like a Roadkill reject, but it worked! I almost hate to post a picture of it, since it looks so bad. I use a lot of air tools so I had to take time off to find a replacement.
https://i.imgur.com/BMniKBR.jpg?1
My original plan was to find a good vertical tank somewhere in the 60-80 gallon range and transfer the good motor and compressor over to that. The trouble with that plan was that all I could find were in about the same shape as mine or someone was going to make a smoker out of it. No kidding. I got that answer several times. Gonna’ make a smoker out of it one of these days. New ones were available pretty cheap from Surplus Center, but shipping was outrageous.
Then I found the “Green Giant” on Facebook Marketplace. It is a genuine industrial compressor and has a 3-phase motor. Because of the 3-phase, no one wanted it. It happens that I have 240 3-phase in my shop. I made an offer and the seller took it. It wasn’t all good, though. It was wired for 480 volts, which is typical for industrial stuff, but the internal motor wiring could be easily changed to 240. The motor contactor and overload block had to be changed out because they couldn’t carry the amps and the control wiring had to be redone. NOS and used EBAY parts got this done reasonably cheap.
Originally, it was wired to run the motor continuously with the compressor unloading when the set pressure was reached. I didn’t want or need the motor to run all the time, so I added another control scheme that stopped the motor like most home shop compressors do. I did keep the original control setup for when I get a decent blasting cabinet, since continuous run would be easier on the motor and starter if using a lot of air. I added a selector switch for the 2 control schemes. I even splurged and had tags made for the control switches.
This thing is a monster compared to my old compressor. It weighs over 1000 pounds, stands over 6’ tall, has a 120 gallon tank and was originally rated at 34 CFM@175 PSI. I’m not sure how many of those CFM’s it still delivers, but I will say that it doesn’t seem to take any more time for it to fill the big tank as my old compressor did to fill it’s 35 gallon tank. I don’t think my power usage will be higher because it hardly ever runs and if I close the discharge valve at night, it doesn’t lose much air, if any. I did lower the cutoff pressure to 150 PSI since the regulator I had on my distribution piping wasn’t rated to handle any more. Because it’s vertical, it doesn’t take up much more space than my old compressor. I got rid of an old unused plasma machine (broken) I had sitting beside the old compressor and didn’t lose any floor space. The best thing is that I got it all done for less than I could have bought cheap Chinese compressor from Lowes or Home Depot. It should outlast me.
https://i.imgur.com/FTnBEut.jpg?1
https://i.imgur.com/irgnSz1.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/CCxUxK8.jpg
Now let’s get on with the car. (Hopefully)
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I 'd say that wasn't so bad after all, thumbs up
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Mike, I guess I'd say that you did a great job turning a bag of extra sour lemons into a nice pitcher of Lemonade! Nice find on the Kubota, and recognizing the features of the big ol' compressor that let you modify it to work, too!
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That compressor is a beast!
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Somehow, amongst all the distractions, I have managed to get most of the body work done.
I had hoped to be complete and in primer by now, but the more I looked over the old fiberglass, the more stuff I found to fix. Let me start by saying that body work is not something that I really enjoy and body work on fiberglass I like even less. I view it as a necessary evil since I really can’t afford to just drop it off at a body shop with a blank check. Also, around my area, there is only one shop that will actually work on an old car seriously. The last person I know of that used a local body shop waited for YEARS to get his car finished (5 comes to mind). All the shops focus on insurance jobs because that’s where the quick and easy money is. Old cars are just something they work on when there is nothing else to do and that is almost never. I don’t guess I can blame them for making money, it’s just that they usually tell the old car guys that they will get right on it and then shove their car into a corner where it just sits, half finished, for months and months.
I can generally do a passable job on body work, but I’m definitely an amateur and it seems to take me forever to get things right. I have a tendency to sand too much and have to redo a lot, but over the years I do seem to have gotten a little better on that front. I just haven’t developed that fine feel for the surface that most pros have. I just don’t do it enough to gain the experience. I have learned that guide coats are my friend, though, and keep a spray can of black sandable primer handy.
I have altered my plans for paint. I have come to realize that trying to move the body parts to the body shop for paint, move them back after paint and store them without somehow messing them up will be practically impossible. My plan now is to finish the body work, seal it with epoxy primer and then shoot some primer surfacer on it. Then I will shove out of the way in the shop and finish the chassis. Once I get the front and rear body halves back on the chassis, I will sand the primer. That way, if I screw something up, it will just be primer and can be fixed easy. Then I can just drive the car to shop for paint. The extra time will also give the surfacer plenty of time to cure and shrink.
Here are some of the spots that I have had to do. The busted right front fender was the worst. The tire contacted the fender flare HARD, cracked the fiberglass and shattered the gel coat. Long splits radiated out across the fender flare. The were numerous places where the gel coat split along the edge. Everywhere you see a sharpie mark, the gel coat was damaged, as well as a few more than didn’t show in the picture.
https://i.imgur.com/L2lQQsi.jpg
This is the backside of the damaged area. You can see the white section where the glass separated as well as the shattered gel coat.
https://i.imgur.com/nwRoW7b.jpg
I started the repair by roughing up the back side with 36 grit and grinding almost through the glass to the gel coat. Then I laid some new glass on the underside of the fender.
https://i.imgur.com/VtwMeS2.jpg
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Then I ground off the gel coat and ground through the bad glass to the new glass on the backside. Next was fresh gel coat and a skim of polyester glazing to get the shape just right.
https://i.imgur.com/vHKBOzS.jpg
Here you can see where the fiberglass cracked all the way through to the backside. No repair would have held up if this isn’t fixed.
https://i.imgur.com/56wNMzT.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/q7bxQRv.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/A2QFShw.jpg
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I'm with you on the not liking body work, slapping bondo on my fenders right now. I hate fiberglass, every time I've messed with it I screwed it up. Good luck with the endless sanding!
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I think you're right that knowing when to stop sanding is a talent that comes from experience, and that it's got to be kept fresh. A friend was prepping a Torino for paint, and after priming he blocked it and found a few small highs & lows so he skim coated them, sanded "smooth" and primed again only to find the same spots again, and again, and again. I think he turned three or four gallons of primer into dust on the floor!
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Yep! Been there done about the same thing. When I was doing my 46, there is no telling how much K36 I used. Way too much, that's for sure!
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Bodywork, awesome! That kind of work is no fun for me, but it will sure be fun seeing your spider get closer to the road!
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There were numerous drilled holes in the body, too. The builder had installed mirrors forward on the fenders. I know that they are considered a classic sports car thing, but I find them utterly useless as a rearview mirror. The field of view is too small and it takes 2 people to really set them correctly. One person can do it, but you’ll wear yourself out climbing in and out of the car. I will be mounting the mirrors on the doors. I filled the holes and covered the repair with new gel coat.
https://i.imgur.com/YBNLoky.jpg
The trunk hinge holes had to be filled as well. The original holes looked like a rabid beaver had gnawed them out. The hinge barely covered them. I tapered the holes on both sides and used short strand fiberglass filler and a little glass cloth to patch the holes.
https://i.imgur.com/3sFO78m.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/5b8Fre2.jpg
I shot myself in the foot and created some pretty big places that needed repair when I used a plastic brush attachment on an air grinder intended for stripping surfaces to try and remove some of the silicone that had been slathered all over the body as glue. I had to repair those spots. The plastic brush gouged the gel coat, but the silicone refused to give up! I finally found the right combination of a medium coarse wire brush in a cordless drill that stripped the silicone right off. I swear I wish I knew the brand of the silicone that was used. It was some hellaciously tenacious stuff!
Also, there were several places where the doors had gouged the gel coat. The door gaps were set way too tight. I have opened them up, but the damage had to be repaired.
https://i.imgur.com/SiPWYju.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/q5Uab5z.jpg
Here is a shot of the front. Every light colored area was a repair. There is some glare in this picture around the grille opening. There were holes for driving light wires and leather straps for hood hold downs, as well as gel coat repairs. The gel coat repairs were from driving over something like a parking lot divider.
https://i.imgur.com/T0Bpmlk.jpg?1
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I suppose I should talk a little about my use of gel coat. I wrangled with whether to use it or some of the available fillers. I read as much as I could find and talked to a couple of guys that had done some fiberglass repairs on street rod bodies. They said that if you don’t put gel coat back over the bare glass, you run the risk of having the repair print through the paint eventually. That agrees with a book I have on composites. Printing apparently doesn’t always happen, but it can. Gel coat gives a homogenous surface for the paint and filler to lay on so that everything expands and contracts at the same rate. I experienced printing on some Harley Davidson saddle bags many years ago. I sanded through the gel coat and just used primer over it. The repair could be seen through the paint even though the primer was sanded smooth. Some body men on the internet claim that certain brands of fillers can be used over raw glass, but I wasn’t willing to take that chance.
The gel coat I used is from a company called Total Boat and is intended for repair work on boats. It has wax in the mix just like the fiberglass resin that comes in the repair kits. The wax migrates to the surface as the resin is curing and insulates it from air. Resin and gel coat will not harden properly if air can get to them and will remain tacky for a long time. If you order some, be aware that it is available without wax, too. If you’re doing mold work, you don’t need wax since the fiberglass insulates it from air. Professional fiberglass people use PVA (polyvinyl alcohol) as a mold release and to seal the top surface from the air while curing. They don’t use wax in their resin, it’s mainly added to resin for repair work only.
https://i.imgur.com/dCHxLZw.jpg
I also bought a tub of silica filler (also from Total Boat) that can be added to the gel coat to thicken it. Gel coat is thin and trying to brush it on anything but a horizontal surface doesn’t work very well. You add the silica to thicken the gel coat as much as needed. I kept a some in a cup near where I was working and added as needed. Just small warning about the silica. It's very fine and fluffy. It will dust up the air quickly when you are trying to get it into the gel coat. Probably best to wear a dust mask.
https://i.imgur.com/7royeJf.jpg?1
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This is the meager collection tools I use to sand and shape my repairs. I made these many years ago. The blocks are just wood with sticky sand paper that is used on a DA sander. I use these for the majority of my shaping and only use rubber blocks to blend right at the end. I was cautioned long ago about using rubber blocks causing imperfect surfaces. I had an experienced body man recommend using nothing but hard blocks for shaping. The cheese grater is used to rough shape filler before it completely sets up. Saves a lot of sanding. I rarely use power tools for finish shaping, since I wind up taking off too much. Hand sanding lets me work slower and sneak up on the right contour. I’m not saying this is the right way to do things, but have found that it works best for me and my skill level. A pro can use a DA sander for fine finish work, and I have one, but have only had success with it for rough work. It is simply too easy for me to go too far with one. There again, it’s an experience thing.
https://i.imgur.com/Hkq0tkM.jpg?1
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I did have a few setbacks during the body work. One was the hood. I bought this hood off of an individual on another site and I’ve had it for a couple of years. The hood my car came with has fake louvers molded into it and the I wanted the one with the original Healey scoop. That hood was an option when the kits were sold.
The hood consists of a top and bottom section that is glued together to form a rigid structure. As I was fairing the glued seam out for paint, I noticed that the bonding was failing in several places. It was literally crumbling and coming out in large chunks. Some of it was stuck solid, while other areas split with almost no force. It looks like whoever glued this up, just used fiberglass resin with no actual glass fibers added of any kind. I can only guess that where the parts actually touched, and were roughed up to expose some fibers, they stuck hard, as they should. Other areas where the gap was larger, the resin just filled the space with nothing to reinforce it. As with gel coat, resin with no glass is brittle and that is just what happened here. I attempted to separate the parts so that I could reglue them, but didn’t have any luck. I was destroying the glass in the areas where it actually bonded, but that wasn’t enough area to hold the parts together except for display purposes, IMO.
I plan to open the fake hood scoop for fresh air intake and that will, most likely, expose the cavity between the hood sections to internal air pressure at highway speed. This would be constantly flexing that glued joint. I wasn’t willing to take a chance on the hood partially or completely blowing apart on the road. Even if that didn’t happen, there would forever be pieces of the old resin crumbling off and ruining the painted surface. Even short or long hair fiberglass filler (kitty or tiger hair), on a properly prepared surface, would have been way better than the crap job someone did on this thing.
Here are a few shots of the old hood.
https://i.imgur.com/NuFFwnW.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/HBMOFgD.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/IAhANd1.jpg
Luckily, there is a fellow in Oregon that has bought all the molds (that were left) from the last manufacturer of this body and he has recently started offering replacement parts. I called him up and ordered new hood sections. They weren’t cheap, but at least when I glue them up, I will know what is holding them together. I will be using a modern panel bonding epoxy to glue mine up. The downside is that I will have to wait until I get the body back on the chassis to actually glue them up. The body sections are pretty flexible and I have them resting on wooden stands. I’m sure they are not exactly as they will be on the chassis, but close. If I glue the hood up now to fit the body as it rests, the contours may not match up. The hood sections are pretty flexible themselves and could easily be twisted out of alignment.
And here is the new hood sitting on the body. It fits well enough, but I want to try and get it closer during the glue up.
https://i.imgur.com/2I7QlKM.jpg?1
https://i.imgur.com/nWNmt2c.jpg?1
As a side note, the parts guy told me he had received several body parts that were already glued up along with the molds. Nearly all of the parts were glued up as I described. Resin only, making them unusable unless repaired. Apparently, the last manufacturer of these cars cut a lot of corners toward the end of his business. More on that later.
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Very nice work and thanks for the info. Funny you should post this. I have had regrets of selling my vette and just recently I found another 69 shell. It has some spots where the bare glass has been setting exposed and repairs will be need. The gel coat is one of the items needed to make repairs to it if I decide to further my project hoar. :LOL:
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40, I actually looked at a 69 Corvette roadster before I bought this car. It was a 350/4 speed car with a new top. Trouble was the guy wanted way too much money for it. Paint was bad, interior was totally shot, and the bumpers were pitted. I didn't even get to check if it was numbers matching. He was asking Barrett Jackson money. No thanks. Good luck if you get it.
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Here is some more body working fun.
I redrilled the trunk (boot) hinge holes and remounted the lid. I did get lucky and drilled them correct the first time. I thought I might have to drill them out a little to give me some adjustment, but they dropped right into place. I replaced the old pitted and cracked hinges with some new reproductions.
https://i.imgur.com/W2KS4eW.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/rGvEeNv.jpg
I also replaced the latch handle with a new one. The light colored spot is where a big chunk of gel coat had popped off. I re-gel coated the spot and reshaped it with some filler. It was in a bad place to sand and an odd shape to boot. I had to break out my contour gauge to get the shape right.
https://i.imgur.com/vjoVRBD.jpg
The lid also had several areas where the gel coat had popped off along the edge. Those places got new gel coat. Places like this are where the silica thickener comes in handy.
https://i.imgur.com/0ggMBbg.jpg
I said I would talk more about Classic Roadsters apparently cutting corners toward the end of production and my trunk lid looks like it was a victim of that. My lid is only a single thickness of fiberglass and I have always thought that was odd. It is pretty flexible even though it is a heavy layup and had sagged bad where it follows the contour of the body. I could have added rubber bumpers like a hood rests on and corrected the sag, but that seemed like a band aid fix. During a conversation with the parts guy in Oregon, I asked about the trunk lid and he confirmed that it was supposed to have an inner liner bonded on. That would make it a structure like the hood and much stiffer. As far as I know, the parts like the doors, hood and trunk lid were bonded at the factory, so that means my parts weren’t finished before shipping and sent out with the inner liner missing.
Parts guy will be laying me up an inner trunk lid and shipping soon. Sure is nice to have these parts available. Otherwise I would have to try and locate someone with an unfinished kit that wanted to part it out. I might as well do it right the first time before the car is painted.
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It's great watching you do the right things for this car Mike. The thought comes to mind about all the other ones out there that haven't fallen into the hands of a skilled and dedicated owner that are just languishing under a pile of debris in the garage fulfilling the mythology of "kit cars are junk". If a caring craftsman happens upon them they might get transformed into auto art, but alas, you're the unicorn (in a good way).
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Thanks for the kind words, Bob. I'm glad that folks are enjoying this trip down the rabbit hole.
I agree with what you said about all the unfinished kits most likely languishing away in garages or barns. I read and hear folks at shows talking all the time about there being no affordable cool cars to hot rod any more. That's true if all you're looking for is a '67 Fastback Mustang or a 1st Gen Camaro or a host of other cars that you see on Barrett Jackson going for scary five figure prices.
I've never quite understood why someone would pay thousands of dollars for a rusted out hull of a car and then spend thousands more buying and installing repair panels. Most of those cars are never going to be worth what you have to put into them.
Many kit cars truly are junk, but there are a few with real potential. Of course Cobra's are always going to be cool and there must be hundreds of those unfinished out there since they have been copied at least since the 70's.
There were MG TD kits made with Pinto engines and suspension. TD's have a long history of being hot rodded. It was very common to see an American engine swapped into one in the 50's. Take one of the front engine kits, swap in a V6 or hot modern 4 banger and you would have a fun, cool car that you wouldn't see a dozen of at every car show. There is still a lot of stuff available for those cars.
Another would be the 356 Porsche replicas. They are the only kits that could truly pull off the VW power thing because they were little more than factory hot rodded VW's to start with. But, how about swapping in a real modern Porsche drive train? Or maybe a hot Subaru turbo, if you could work out the cooling? It would be a genuine rocketship and the California Speedster version looks killer.
All it takes is a little "out of the box" thinking. I learned this from following the hot rod exploits of Lil John Buttera in the car mags when I was a kid. If there was ever an out of the box car guy, it was him.
Thanks again.
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With most of the body repair work done, I moved on to some modifications I wanted to do.
As I’ve said before, I’m taking some of my styling cues from the rally cars that came out of the Healey Factory Works. Some of those cars had oil coolers installed and had air holes for the cooler cut into the chin below the grille opening. I wanted them on my car to go along with the rally car theme.
I have seen pictures of several cars with the cooler openings. I don’t think there was a real standard opening, but most seem to have two oval holes with a solid bar between them. I have the dimensions for this type of opening that was on a Healey Factory car, but when I tried to lay them out on my car, they didn’t look right. The proportions were wrong. This has to be because the Sebring body is wider and has a taller grille opening than a real Healey.
I had to resort to covering the chin with masking tape and trying several different looks with a Sharpie to find something that looked right to my eye. I would lay out a pattern and then walk about 20 or 30 feet back and see what it looked like.
I finally settled on two openings 2 ½ x 6 inches with a 1 ¼ bar separating them. That looks about right compared the pictures I’ve seen. Kind of makes the car look racey, I think. I have some stainless mesh that I intend to make protective inserts with.
I’m not sure I will actually add an oil cooler, but do plan to glass in some mounting pads for one. Even with no cooler, they will allow more air through to the radiator and AC condenser. My radiator is as tall as I could mount and hangs below the grille opening. Even with a cooler, the extra air will still make it to the radiator, even if it’s a little hotter.
Here's a before and after.
https://i.imgur.com/T0Bpmlk.jpg?1
https://i.imgur.com/dr9kwbv.jpg?1
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Yes!
That really does look as though they're meant to be there.
And yes; it does add to the 'Rally Car' theme.
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Thanks Johnboy.
While I’m discussing the front end, I might as well go back to some of the old stuff I was posting before I got started on body work. This goes back to my final mockup, before I tore it down.
I have never really liked the grille that Classic Roadsters put in these cars. Here is the original grille that came in my car.
https://i.imgur.com/o8Uok7D.jpg?1
I had originally intended to just add some more bars to the CR grille and run that. I even made a mesh grille, but didn't really like it in the end. I kept looking for other options. Every time I found an old junk original Healey grille on EBAY, I would buy it, if it was cheap. Cheap parts don’t show up often on EBAY, but if you wait long enough, something usually turns up. The cheap parts more often than not need repair work, though.
I looked at the original 100-4 grille, but it was too radically different than the opening in the Sebring. I bought an original 3000 grille next. This would have been a late model grille with the vertical slats that the Sebring grille was trying to mimic. I probably could have made the grille work with some tweaking, but the chrome surround was a no go. The original Healey opening is slightly smaller than the Sebring and the front contours are different enough that it would have taken a lot of cutting, fiberglassing and reshaping to make work.
The next grille that came available was a 100-6 part. The 100-6 had horizontal slats with scallops and only had a chrome “eyebrow” over the opening. The lower part of the grille opening was framed by a simple round rod that was bent to the contour of the opening. The only parts on EBAY were the actual slats. This looked like it might be doable. Here is a picture of a 100-6. This grille was also used on the first one or two years of the 3000 designation, too.
https://i.imgur.com/6Znk38i.jpg
When the grille came in, I was pleased that it was wide enough to cover the opening. It wasn’t, however, quite tall enough. The Sebring opening was made larger most likely to keep the proportions looking right for the widened body. The 100-6 grille had 10 bars. I figured out that if I added one more bar, I could get it to work out. I reasoned that the lower grille trim should be easy to fabricate out of aluminum tubing. The main problem was the upper chrome eyebrow. The 3000 grille surround is actually two parts and the upper section of that looked pretty close to the shape of the 100-6 upper part. I tried it out and found that didn’t quite fit, but looked like I could tweak it and make it work. I wasn’t sure just what I would have to do to, so I sent it out to be dechromed.
In the meantime, another pretty decrepit 100-6 grille popped up on EBAY and I bought that one to get the extra slat that I needed. I should add for any collector types that might be reading this, the grille parts I used were in very poor shape, so it wasn’t like I was cutting up valuable parts.
The 100-6 grille is made of thin brass sheet that is stamped into the scalloped slat, chrome plated and then riveted to 3 vertical bars to hold everything together. I drilled out the existing rivets. These should have been solid rivets, but they were ordinary pop rivets on my parts. Someone had disassembled this one before. The rivets are hidden so it really doesn’t matter. I have to say that the slats cleaned up so well that no rechroming will be needed, just a good polish.
I made new longer vertical bars and incorporated one extra slat and reinstalled the pop rivets. I was pleased that it fit the body opening just as it should.
https://i.imgur.com/WlcEZpM.jpg
When the upper eyebrow returned from being dechromed, I set to work reshaping it. It took a little shrinker and stretcher work, as well as some plain old hand twisting, but I finally wrestled it into a reasonable shape to match the Sebring body. I did have to fabricate some folded sheet metal “clamps” that slip over the body opening and eyebrow flange to help hold it to the opening flange.
The lower trim I made out of ½” 6061 aluminum tubing. I milled a slot down one side that was approximately the same as the lower flange on the grille opening. Then I made a cardboard pattern of the open shape and transferred that shape to a piece of scrap plywood. This gave me a male die to form the tubing around. The whole process actually went a lot easier than I thought it might. After a lot of trimming and hand tweaking, the trim piece snapped into place very snuggly.
https://i.imgur.com/OvErV4J.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/XxF5VwC.jpg
With the whole shebang assembled, I think it gives a reasonable impersonation of the original 100-6 grille. Here is a shot of the front end. Also in this picture are the 59 Healey Sprite bumperettes that I fitted. These are the same parts that the Healey Works fitted to most of the factory rally cars. Not shown in this shot is the lower driving lights. I made some mounts, but can’t seem to locate a picture. I may not have taken one. Most of the rally cars had some kind of low mounted auxiliary lighting. I really want a couple of Cibie Oscars with the white plastic covers. They would be perfect period correct parts. I’ll keep looking for some, but they are very expensive. Everything has been rechromed since this shot was taken. You'll also notice a wire mesh headlight cover. I'm still on the fence about them. They're not hard to install, so if I decide I don't like them, they remove easily.
https://i.imgur.com/OdpG4qj.jpg