I want to emphasize that all I am doing here is cataloging what I’m finding as I disassemble this particular car and I am in no way suggesting that  this information will be accurate for other Austin Healey 100s of this era.

The dash consists of 2 aluminium pressings. One I call the Dash and the other, which is attached to the Dash I call the Instrument Pod.

The Dash

The Instrument Pod

The Instrument Pod is mounted onto the surface of the Dash and attached using screws inserted from the rear.

Here are some background points:

  1. The back of the Dash is a dark brown with some small areas at  the ends having been over sprayed with black (The reverse of the front of  the Dash oddly. More about that here ).

2. The Dash has been apart. i.e. the Instrument Pod has at some time  been separated from the Dash and the rubber strip which is meant to act as a seal between them is missing. (I’m  absolutely confident that the safety gauge has never been removed from the  car and pretty sure that the  Dash itself has never been removed from the car. Because the safety gauge has a liquid filled capillary tube running from it to the radiator the Instrument Pod almost certainly has never been moved more than a few inches from its installed position).

3. As every part of the front of the Dash has  black primer which  has been sprayed over with a brown paint (primer?) which is consistent with the rest of the paint on the inner body,  I think it is fairly safe to conclude that the Dash has never been stripped to bare metal. (The outer surfaces of the body have been stripped bare and on them light grey primer has  been used).

4. The last paint applied to the Dash was a silver/blue colour which was very poorly done in that there is no paint up over the top of the Dash where it is hidden from view by the rear lip of the front shroud.

The Dash appears to have been painted red originally as can be determined by studying the image below of an area adjacent to the grab handle on the right side of the Dash

Close up of of the paint layers on the Dash.

The next image is from the area of the Dash at the top of  where the Instrument Pod is installed.

Paint layers at the Dash to Instrument Pod transition area.

Of particular note is the gloss black which was the top surface of the  Dash under the Instrument Pod.

When Peter Svilans and I first looked at that black we thought it may be a dark blue, but we have concluded that it is definitely black.

There is no sign of red  under the part of the Dash originally covered by the Instrument Pod or anywhere on the Instrument Pod itself.

Paint layers on the Instrument Pod

The grey on the instrument pod  (1st coat on top of the medium brown primer) is different from the blue/grey (Healey Grey?) that I have concluded was the original colour of this car.

Although most of the original interior was missing from the car some remnants remained and they clearly confirm that the interior was trimmed in dark blue.

This one really has me scratching my head as the conclusions that I have come to are completely out of line with what is “accepted” as the usual.

Anyone who hasn’t fallen asleep so far and would care to comment your thoughts are very welcome. Please comment using the button below.

I’m particularly interested if anyone can suggest a sequence of painting events which may have created this combination of colour coats.

There has been much discussion about what colour the frame and inner body of these early cars was originally.  Many owners have reported finding that the frame and inner body, and for that matter the insides of the outer panels, were painted a “chocolate brown”.

There is no question about that on this car.   It was black!!

I am aware that the colours do not display well in all of these photos but ‘m pretty sure you will get the idea.

This is what the inside of the rear shroud looked like. Black!!

This is what was under the asbestos heatshields. Black!!

I have discussed this subject with one expert and I believe he has an good  explanation. “The factory, probably Jensens,  painted everything with a cheap black paint that probably faded to a dark brown colour over the years. ”

I  found that chocolate brown paint on parts which could be described as “sub-panels”, namely the dash and the gravel guard.

This is the inside of the dash. Chocolate Brown!!   (some repair required here)

But, here is the interesting part.

This is of the corner of the inside of the dash…Black over Chocolate Brown!!

 This definitely poses a bit of a problem for the “faded to dark brown” theory!!!!

P.S.  I would like to make the intent of these posts absolutely clear.

All I’m doing here is trying to document and publish my findings on THIS PARTICULAR CAR which I want to restore to as close to original delivery condition as possible.  In no way is this intended to upset the concours “applecart”.

I am not trying to imply that any or all other early Austin Healeys should have the same characteristics…This is what I found on #174 and that is all.

I have disassembled a lot of Healeys, starting way back in 1976, and I’m pretty experienced at determining what is original and what has been monkeyed with.

To prevent any confusion if I’m not sure that the characteristic I’m describing was on this car when delivered I won’t post it here.

Michael S

THE FENDER VENT CUT OUTS

First is the strange way that the vent holes have been manufactured (that’s if you do actually  “manufacture” a hole).

This is how they looked before cleaning.

The first thing that is odd are the little cuts at either end of the vent hole. This is what one looks like close up from the inside.

My first thought was that there had been cracks at the ends of the cutouts and someone had run a small saw down the crack and “stop drilled”  it but that just does not make sense.

1. I have never seen cracks appear at the cutouts on a BN1 or BN2 fender and considering that this is a low mileage car that’s pretty unlikely.
2. The cuts are almost the same on both fenders and only one, the rear one in both cases is “stop drilled”.
3. On one of the cuts, unfortunately the photo is not good enough to show, the cut runs for about 1/2″ then does an abrupt 30 degree turn before continuing another 1/2″. Try doing that with a hacksaw!!
4. As can be seen in the detail picture the cut edge of the cuts, and for that matter the entire cutout, is quite rough with shards remaining in many spots.

It is almost as though the holes were cut out using a primitive water jet system….but in 1953!!! And, if they were using some sort of cutting tool,  it looks as though they started at a drilled hole and then moved in to the area to be cut….why not start inside the line?

Anyone got any idea of the tooling or technique used to make these cutouts?

THREE PIECE FENDERS

The other oddity is the construction of the fenders themselves.  Each has been made from 3 separate pressings.

There is a weld running vertically at the top of the wheel well.

and another, also running radially near the bottom of the headlight.

These welds are some of the finest production ‘”butt hammer welds I have ever seen!!

I surmise that the manufacturers were still developing their manufacturing techniques and, although rather labour intensive, this is one system that they considered using.

Anyone else come across BN1 fenders made this way?

When I broached the subject with one expert whose opinions I respect greatly, he was pretty sure that the reason that the name “Healey Grey” has been listed on Heritage Certificates is the source of information for those certificates. He gave the following as the reasoning:

2. I have record in the Hundred Registry of quite a few early cars logged as being painted in “Healey Grey”, and others in “ Healey Blue”. They seem to have used the two terms back and forth to mean the same thing, though some we know had no metallic content, while others had.

3. The naming of the paint on the build cards as Healey Blue or Healey Grey goes well into November of ’53 (with Body numbers into the 700’s) with a few of them specifying non metallic while most do not make the determination. So it definitely wasn’t a case of sequential evolvement of the paint, but seemed to be randomly making use of metallic or non metallic and not stating the difference on the build cards.

I think that reasoning is very sound and was prepared to accept that this car was painted Healey Blue aka “Ice Blue Metallic” until I started looking a little more closely.  I carefully sanded through the paint layers on the rear shut face of one of the doors and this is what I found.

I believe I was very lucky that no one had taken the time to strip this area of the car down to bare metal  and that what was revealed is indeed a true history of the paint jobs over the last 59 years.

Here is what I think happened with this car:

The panels, like the chassis from John Thompson Motor Pressings, were painted in black chassis paint probably by Dowty Bolton Paul before shipping to Jensens.  (On this car the frame colour is definitely black not “chocolate brown” as others have described theirs. Chocolate brown however is indeed evident on the back of the dash and under the gravel guard).

Jensens did the assembly and once that was finished they blew in the areas where the black had been damaged with red oxide primer before applying the finish colour to all the outer surfaces, the door shuts and presumably the inside of the boot and bonnet.

My bet is that this car was sent to a dealer and didn’t sell, possibly because it looked a bit dowdy next to the Healey Blue ones,  so the dealer gave it a quick Healey Blue paint job to move it off the lot. That is just conjecture on my part but having worked in dealerships in the ’60s I know that in New Zealand they weren’t above painting a new car completely when the customer wanted one in a different colour!!
Some time later someone decided that they wanted the car in white so it got a total exterior grey primer then white paint job, over what was there,  including blowing in the wheel wells over the previously unpainted black frame paint. The white extends right up the door face so it is unlikely it was a “add white coves” job.
Next someone decided to do a Healey Blue with red interior so they stripped the outer surfaces completely down to bare steel applied a grey primer then a coat of Healey Blue which is why Ice Blue Metallic over grey primer is all I was able to find on those surfaces.

I took the door to a guy in the paint business I have known  for years  and he picked it right away!! He said it is an old  Ford colour Spinnaker Blue. He mixed some up and it is absolutely identical to that non metallic blue/grey so, unless someone can convince me that this car was not that colour originally,  that is the colour it will be when I finish it.

Any comments would be more than welcome.

I purchased this very early Austin Healey 100 a few years back with a view to either restoring it or racing it. The serial number is 142618 making it the 174th production car which left Longbridge on 25 August 1953.

I know almost nothing about the history of the car other than it was sold on eBay to the person from whom Blair Harber purchased it in 2006.

Based upon the type of rust damage it would seem that the car has not spent any road time in the Northeast.

Upon close examination it turned out to be a very solid car for one that is almost 60 years old!!

Unfortunately the main floors and trunk floors are rusted through, probably as a result of water being trapped in the carpets and under the fuel tank and the seats and  most of the trim, many of the electrical components, the boot lid and the gearbox and overdrive are missing.

The odometer indicates 15636 miles so I figured it has probably done 115K miles or maybe even 215K miles but, as I disassembled the car, it became quite evident that it had probably not done 100K miles as for one thing,  the pedal rubbers had a relatively small amount of wear.

Some other things that I came across that have me doubting that the car has done 100K miles are:

1. Very little wear on the shackle pins for the rear springs
2. No play in the king pins and no indication that they had ever been rebushed.
3. All original tie rod and side rod ball joints none of which exhibit any wear or signs of ever having been adjusted.
4. All the original bolts mounting the original front shocks and very little indentation under the mounting bolts on the shock bodies.
5. All the original washers and special nuts on the front anti roll bar and for that matter all of the rest of the parts I removed.
6. No play at all on the clutch or brake pedal pivot shaft.
7. Virtually no body damage and certainly no signs of collision damage that had been repaired.
8. Very little wear on the door latch slides or the door hinges.
9. Differential backlash within original specifications.
10. Very little wear on the wire wheel splines.
11. All the original bolts in the engine mounts indicating that it had probably never been removed.

I will know more when I start stripping the engine as that is the real indicator.

Some of the things that make me suspicious that the car has done more than 15636 miles are:

1. The angle adapter for the speedo cable has a  broken cable section in it so the odometer has not been working for at least some time.
2. The battery cables had all been replaced with huge gauge cables and the battery had apparently be relocated to the trunk.
3. The heater had been taken out and re-mounted on an aluminum plate. I can only imagine that this was done because someone could not access the lower heater mounting nut with the engine in place.
4. The car appears to have been painted 3 times over the original paint. (More on that later)
5. A cracked right rear shock ear that had been repaired using a reinforcing plate.
6. One rear spring has been replaced.
7. Some natty stainless steel washers under the 4 screws attaching the shroud to the frame at the front of the hood opening.

The dis-assembly of the car is now complete and the body shell is back from Techno-Strip ready for the reconstruction to begin.

During the diss-assembly I encountered a number of interesting “features” which I intend to highlight in upcoming posts.

Among these are:

• An interesting history of the paint on the car dating back to its original colour.
• A wonderful record of what I believe are the original fasteners used to assemble this particular car.
• Front fenders which are different in several ways to any I have come across before.

The Red Part is the Post

If the windshield has been fitted to a car that has been winter driven in areas where road salt is used it is very unlikely that you will be able to remove the screws without at least some of them breaking off. I have never had much luck removing steel threaded fasteners from aluminium when corrosion of this type has occurred. It seems that the aluminum forms aluminium oxide which swells into the space between the steel and the aluminum and jams the fastener completely. Heating usually works when you have a steel in steel situation but it is seldom successful when aluminium is involved. Try as you may the end result is usually something like this:

A Typical Broken Off Screw

This presents a serious problem. These screws are right in front of your eyes when seated in the car and any type of repair which alters their installed appearance becomes very obvious.

One option is to drill and tap a new hole either just above or just below the broken off screw and then drill a new mounting hole in the windshield frame to suit, easy, practical but UGLY!!

For many years we seemed to have enough spare windshield posts from which we had managed to remove all the screws to just fit a replacement, unfortunately, those days are long gone and now we have to resort to a repair.

I have tried to very carefully drill out the steel screw with progressively larger drills until, hopefully, the root diameter of the screw is reached, with the drill right on center, and the thread can be pulled out like a spring. This just doesn’t work. Even if you manage to get to the correct diameter on center when you try to pull out the remaining thread it is very brittle and will not come out. Usually you don’t even get to that point before breaking off a drill bit inside the screw as the drill breaks through the bottom of it.

After many attempts I finally came up with what has proved to be a satisfactory if somewhat labour intensive method of saving the day!! this takes patience and a steady hand but, with windshield posts becoming harder and harder to find, it is worth the trouble.

You start by drilling small (1/16″ dia) holes around the entire perimeter of the broken off screw to a depth of about 5/8 “. Try to avoid drilling right through and definitely avoid breaking off drill bits as you do this.

You Can Get Aboult 8 Small Holes Around the Broken Off Screw

Once they are all drilled use a slightly larger bit to increase the size of the holes until they start to run into each other. Again proceed carefully and be careful not to break off any drill bits.

Enlarged Holes Will Start to Run Into Each Other

Once this stage has been reached use a small pin punch to tap the broken off screw sideways back and forth until it becomes loose in the hole and can be lifted out with needle nose pliers.

A Little Patience and The Broken Screw Can Be Removed

Once this is done you need to find a flanged 10/18 Rivnut. These are usually used to install a threaded nut into sheet metal and are available at most good hardware stores.

A Flanged 10/18 Rivnut. (This one as a 10/18 screw in it.)

The outside diameter of the flange on these is usually about 7/16″. This is too big for our purposes so I usually mount one in my drill press on a piece of threaded bolt and with the drill press running run a file on the edge of the flange to decrease its diameter to almost nothing resulting in a flange of just under 5/16″ outside diameter. At this stage I often roughen up the outside of the Rivnut barrel to assist with adhesion of J B Weld used in the next stage.

Rivnut Drill Ready for Filing Down

Once I’m happy with this I drill out the ragged hole in the windshield post to  5/16″  diameter.

Done correctly this will leave just a thin wall of post on either side of the hole.  Next slide the Rivnut, flange first, into the hole.

The Flange Has to be Small Enough To Fit Into The 5/16" Hole

The hole has to be deep enough to entirely accommodate the modified Rivenut.

When The Hole is Deep Enough The Top of The Rivnut Will be Flush With The Post Surface

The next part is easy.  Remove the Rivnut and mix up a small batch of J B Weld and put a little into the hole taking care to ensure that it coats the sides and the bottom.

Smear a little grease on a  long 10/18 screw and thread it into the modified Rivnut, be careful to ensure that no grease remains on the outside surfaces of the Rivnut  (The ones your roughened up).

Smear J B Weld on the outside and bottom of the Rivnut and push it into the hole then, using a small screwdriver as a spachelor, squeeze as much J B Weld into the hole around the Rivnut as you can get in.

As a precaution, to ensure correct positioning, you can install the side section of the windshield frame at this stage but make sure you put a smear of grease on the surface where it will contact the J B Weld.

A few hours later, after the J B Weld has hardened, you can use a file to remove any excess adhesive. The J B Weld is an excellent surface for painting and, if you have been careful not to break through the wall of the post, you can even get away with polishing the post and nothing of your repair will show.

The Delivery Side Under Construction

I ended my previous post at the point where I had decided to use an automotive radiator for the delivery heat exchanger and my buddy Dick Paterson was good enough to give me one that he had had custom built for one of the iterations of his rally mini “Betty”. This was duly installed and I’m glad to report that the system operates exactly as designed and, after a few minor teething issues is proving to be very reliable.

After operating the system for most of last winter, during the finishing of the house interior, I finally got to install the tubing under the main floor, which is “engineered” hardwood over plywood, during the later part of this summer.

The "Engineered" Hickory Flooring

I had originally intended to attach the pex tubing to the underside of the subflooring with plastic staples which are sold for this purpose but after thinking about it for quite some time decided that I would be better off with heat transfer plates. These thin aluminium plates are about 24″ long and 6″ wide and have a groove pressed into them wherein the pex tubing is located. The  plate is nailed or stapled to the underside of the subfloor between the floor joists which serves to hold the pex tubing as well as fulfilling its task as a transfer plate. After installation the entire cavity between the joists is filled with insulation which prevents the heat from traveling down and heating the ceiling of the room below.

TRANSFER PLATES – “My logic”
When I was originally researching these systems I came across a number of discussions on the benefits of transfer plates. I originally sided with the “nays” who maintained that putting an aluminium plate in the cavity under the floor, but above the insulation, would make no difference to the amount of heat to which the floor was exposed and therefore would make no difference to the amount of heat that the system could deliver for a given water temperature.
After long deliberation however I decided that the plates could indeed make a difference because a large portion of the outer surface area of the pex tubing would actually be in contact with the aluminium plates. Where this contact occurred I figure that the aluminium will quickly conduct heat away from the outer surface of the pex tubing thus creating a larger temperature differential across the plastic of the pex tubing. As the flow of heat is proportional to the temperature differential there should be a faster transfer of heat.

Installed Main Floor Tubes With Transfer Plates

Whether right or wrong I opted to use the transfer plates and the system delivers a very even and comfortable heat to the hardwood floor surface.
For the entire house including the garage there is about 3000 sq. ft of heated floor which used about 2800 feet of pex tubing.
I run both the input (boiler) and delivery closed systems at 10 p.s.i. This is mainly to ensure that any leakage can be detected and to aid in eliminating any air bubbles from the systems.

The Delivery Side Completed

Elimination of air from systems of this type is very important because the impeller type pumps used to circulate the water will not operate if air gets into them. To ensure that all the air is out of the closed circuits in my system I have installed two Maid-O-Mist bleeders one on each system; in fact the boiler came equipped with one when I bought it.

These quaint little devices have been around for decades and are simple, inexpensive and very reliable.

The major teething problem was caused by my failure to realize that the surfaces of a new concrete tank, when first filled with water will leach lime into the water causing it to become seriously alkaline!! Copper radiators, and oddly the solder used in their construction, does not like this alkalinity and rapidly dissolves !!!!

The Doomed Nissan Radiator

This initially became apparent when the input side of the system started to loose water resulting in an ongoing loss of pressure in that circuit. After checking everywhere for leakage I decided that the leak must be inside the storage tank so I cooled the system down and drained the tank to check. Sure enough my Nissan radiator was leaking like a sieve. I had a new heavier core custom radiator built by York Spring and Radiator and installed in late in September. I refilled the system and just to be sure purchased a pH meter to check the tank water. It would seem that the initial fill and drain removed all the lime as the tank water has remained absolutely neutral (pH 7) since this repair and there have been no additional leakage problems, in fact I have not had to add water to either of the closed systems for several months.

Of course the original intent of this system was to save heating costs by using low (off peak) electricity to heat the house. Unfortunately this has not, as yet, come to pass. Hydro One, our local supply utility has been very slow to implement the TOU (Time Of Use) metering system that they were required to install and are probably not going to actually activate the Smart Meters until the final deadline date of summer 2011. In addition to this the provincial government, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to increase the price of “off peak” power by 20% thus eliminating a large portion of the incentive to switch to TOU pricing. Read about that here.

A further complication is that I was unaware of the large difference between Rural and Urban “delivery” charges.  My original calculations, used to compare the relative costs of fuel oil, propane and electric heat, priced our “all in” rate at $0.112 per kWh.  With the changes now the actual rate, for the volume we use will be nearer $00.1918 / kWh before HST!!!

When the TOU actually comes on line this will decrease to to around $0.17/ kWh but that is is still a 50% increase over the rates that my original inquiries revealed. The nett result of all this is that using electricity to heat the cottage, even with the TOU pricing will be more expensive than oil or propane.

Fortunately, although the advantages of the storage system would be lost, the system can quite easily be converted to use a different fuel as the boiler is the only “electricity specific” component of the system.

In my next post I will explain the control systems I have installed for the heating system.

From the time I was inducted into the family Judy and I watched the adjacent Northcott property and dreamed of one day buying it. Eventually, after some 30 years, it finally happened and we ended up with half an acre of waterfront property next to sister Jan and brother Charles.

Unfortunately within those 30 years the cost of lakefront property in Muskoka had risen some 15 fold and we have ended up with a huge investment in an asset which is only of use for about 6 months of the year at best. This is because the cottage started out as a typical un-insulated summer residence in the 1940s and, despite the huge amount of money spent on “improvements” and additions by the previous owner can still only be used during the warmer months.

We have considered all sorts of ideas as to what would be the best thing to do with the place. The property is very small and a new “Development Permit By-Law” has meant that one can only build a house of about 700 square feet on the lot without applying for a by-law amendment.
However, after much to-ing and fro-ing, and although we can hardly afford it, we have decided to demolish the existing structure and build a new four seasons dwelling.

For me a major consideration for the new home is how to heat it. There are lots of pine trees on the lot which provide plenty of shade in the summer but completely eliminate any possibility of solar heating. As there is no natural gas supply in the area unless I intend to stay there all winter and stoke a wood stove our options seem to be propane, oil or electric heat.
I spent quite a bit of time studying geothermal systems but the capital cost and marginal return on investment just did not add up.
Pretty early on, after hearing and studying Ontario’s new Smart Meter plan I decided that off peak electric heat was the way to go.

The Smart Meter plan for Ontario will deliver electricity at the rate of $0.042/kWh + + during the off peak hours of 11.00p.m. until 7 a.m. The actual cost, when other variable charges are included works out to $0.0612/kWh which works out to be almost exactly the same cost as natural gas. A very good energy cost comparator which can be used to calculate this here.

Of course the obvious problem becomes how are you going to heat your house when you can only use electricity for the purpose between 11p.m. and  7a.m.

I decided this could easily be done, and has been done, by storing the heat some way. There are several options for this, everything from bees wax to rocks but, considering that we were into new construction here, I decided that water was the best storage medium for our circumstances.

I figured that something around 900 gallons of water heated to 80°C would store sufficient heat to keep the house up to 22 °C for 48 hours and keep the house above freezing for almost 6 days in the worst conditions that we get in the area (your results may vary).

Once this decision was made the next question was what to use as a tank. I studied this in detail for a considerable period and after looking at plastics and stainless steel decided on concrete. Brooklin Concrete who operate a manufacturing plant near the cottage were able to supply a custom modified oil separator tank for just over $1000 which was ideal. This type of tank, unlike their septic tanks which are clam shells with a seam in the middle, is a tank with lid construction thus eliminating any concerns about sealing the joint. I got some special concrete to concrete silicone sealant which they inserted between the lid and the tank and they delivered the tank when the foundation was poured.

The Heat Storage Tank Being Lowered Into Place

We set the tank on 6 inches of special high load bearing polystyrene foam and will add 6” of similar foam around the walls and over the lid once the installation is complete.

The next issue was how to get all that heat into the tank during the off peak hours. Although the house has excellent insulation (R55 ceilings R48 walls) it has a lot of windows so the heat loss is fairly significant. The worst case heat loss would be around 60,000 BTU/hr but we figured the normal winter heat loss for the building will be around 25,000 BTU/hr so if the energy had to be loaded into the tank is 8 hours we would need to heat the water at the rate of 75,000 BTU/hr or about 22 kW.

Note: If we happen to be there for a prolonged period during atrociously cold weather we will have a Vermont Castings high efficiency wood stove and a propane fireplace to supplement the electric heating.

We only have a 220 volt service so 22kW works out to 100 amps. Various options were available to do this including pool heater or perhaps a bank of hot water heaters but the ideal one was an electric boiler. Luckily a search of Kijiji and $500 turned up a slightly used Monitron EH25 boiler which was ideal for the job. It turns out that one issue with electric boilers is that of corrosion of the cast iron boiler when oxygenated water is heated for a prolonged period. This is termed an “open” system and is not recommended by the manufacturer Slant Fin. Additionally the manufacturers of the required circulating pump would not guarantee their product if it was used in an open system.

With all my experience in the automotive field I felt that this problem could easily be solved by replicating an automotive cooling system for this circuit. One of the things we had discovered when testing engines on a rolling road was that a car’s cooling system efficiency could be improved enormously by spraying water onto the radiator during dyno sessions. I had a Nissan Stanza copper radiator especially modified and that was installed near the water tank to act as a heat exchanger.

22kW is only about 30 BHP and the radiator of a Nissan Stanza could easily handle that in a liquid to air installation so liquid to liquid should be no problem. An expansion tank was also included in the circuit to maintain the required 4 – 5 p.s.i. required at the circulator pump inlet to prevent cavitation at the temperatures we would be using.

I purchased all the parts and spent a happy day cutting and soldering pieces of 1 ¼” copper pipe to produce this.

The Electric Boiler Installed and Piped To The Storage Tank

After testing all the joints for leaks and having the electrician wire up the electric boiler we bled out all the air pressurized the system to 7 p.s.i. and fired the system up. After about 3 minutes the boiler, which starts up in a sequence to prevent sudden electrical loads on the supply, had the water in the supply side circuit up to 90°C. So far so good.

The output side of the system will consist of 3 zones. The first zone will be the basement with 5 loops the second will be the main floor, also with 5 loops and 2 loops on the third zone which is my garage. The basement was easy. First a two inch layer of Styrofoam was laid on top of the compacted sand floor. On to this was laid reinforcing steel mesh after which the positions of the partition walls were marked out and then the oxygen barrier pex tubing of the 5 zones was attached to the mesh with plastic ties.

90° one inch conduit bends were used to protect the pex tubing where it emerged from the concrete directly below the first zone manifold. The manifolds I purchased from PexSupply in Farmington, NY together with the pumps and various other parts. Although I agree with supporting local merchants as much as possible when I was quoted prices of 250 -400% higher than those in the U.S. the limits of my patriotism are strained.

The Mr Pex manifolds are a thing of beauty and very simple to use. They have integral throttling valves and flow meters for each loop which should greatly simplify the final tuning of the heating system.
Once the concrete basement floor was laid over the heating loops I gathered all the parts together to build the delivery side of the system. This was considerably more involved but a couple of days of cutting and soldering pipes had a second radiator installed in the top of the tank and connected to one Honeywell mixing valves, one Grundfos circulating pump and one Mr Pex manifold for each zone.

The size of the second radiator is something that I’m really having difficulty calculating. I have talked to a number of people in the heat exchanger business and the general consensus seems to be that a radiator immersed in a tank is not likely to be able to absorb enough energy to heat the house. Most seem to think that a plate heat exchanger is the only way that I‘m going to get this to work. I have given the subject an enormous amount of thought but I have decided that I just don’t have enough information to make an informed decision. Perhaps someone out there in cyber space has a computer program that will model heat exchanger performance that they would just love to run my numbers through.

For the present I have installed the distribution side manifold and intend to run the system to see what happens. After all several people told me that the input side would never work with the Stanza radiator but it seems to perform admirably.

In my next posting I’ll let you know how it works out.

Upon reflection this was the ideal engine to suffer from the dreaded recession. The exhaust valve was about the size of my thumb nail and when in operation it would run flat-out until the snow was cleared.
I popped the valve out, ground a few thou off the tip of the stem reinstalled it, fitted a new head gasket and the snow on my driveway was soon heaped at the side.
So exhaust valve seat recession does happen, but not to Austin Healeys, MGs and Triumphs.
Anyone need a new MGB head? I have several.

Austin Healey 100 – Austin Healey 100/6 & 3000

Austin Healey Sprite & MG Midget – MGA - MGB 

Triumph TR2 – TR6 – Triumph Spitfire -  Triumph TR7

Please read the fine print below.

The parts in these lists are all available at the time of posting, however as you will see the quantities are typically very small and they are sold on a first come first served basis.

If it isn’t on the list, I probably don’t have it although it may be worth looking through the list of unprocessed used parts in the link at the bottom of this post.
The inventory is arranged by section and I will be working my way through these sections over the next few months and will post the lists as the work is completed.

Working alone each item takes about 4 minutes on average to dust off, check, price and restock; with over 6000 part numbers I’m looking at about 400 hours of work. I start going cross eyed if I do more than 4 or so hours a day and I’m only able to do this in my spare time so it is going to take a while, be patient.
I will post a message on the Healey newsgroup as each list is posted

THE FINE PRINT

Not everything is new, although most is, but all the used parts are in a condition such that they are ready to be installed and used.
The prices are listed in the last column and should be very competitive.
ALL PRICES ARE IN $US.
The minimum order is $US100 before discounts.

I am offering the following discounts.
$200 – $500 of product 20% discount.
$500 – $1000 of product 30% discount on the complete order.
Over $1000 of product 40% discount on the complete order.
These totals are cumulative so if you have already ordered $500 worth of stuff from the earlier lists, remind me, and everything thereafter is 30% off unless you send a $1000 order after which everything is 40% off, however the $100 minimum still applies.
I’m also open to offers on the lot…
Shipping and handling is extra. (Handling is typically +20% of the shipping charge and covers the cost of picking the parts, packing them and delivering them to the post office).

I can only offer postal service for the present and I do not take charge cards.

I will accept Paypal payments but, I charge a 4% premium because of the outrageously poor exchange rates they offer.
US funds cheques will secure your order until they clear and money orders MUST be INTERNATIONAL MONEY ORDERS, domestic US money orders cannot be cashed in Canada.

HERE ARE THE PARTS LISTS(They are in Excel Format)

Austin Healey 100

Engine Parts

Ignition Parts

Cooling Parts

Fuel Parts

Clutch Parts

Gearbox Parts

Austin Healey 100/6 & 3000

Engine Parts

Ignition Parts

Cooling Parts

Fuel Parts

Clutch Parts

Gearbox Parts

AUSTIN HEALEY SPRITE & MG MIDGET

Engine Parts

Cooling Parts

Fuel Parts

Clutch Parts

Gearbox Parts

MGA PARTS

Engine Parts

Ignition Parts

Cooling Parts

Fuel Parts

Clutch Parts

Gearbox Parts

MGB PARTS

Engine Parts

Ignition Parts

Cooling Parts

Fuel Parts

Clutch Parts

Gearbox Parts

TRIUMPH TR2 – TR6

Engine Parts

Ignition Parts

Cooling Parts

Fuel Parts

Clutch Parts

Gearbox Parts

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