Happy Holidays!

Well another Birthday, another Christmas, and another New Year have come and gone!

We celebrated my 40th this year on Dec 21st, and as I reflect back on the past year I have to say I think it was the best year yet!
I've got so much to be thankful for; my beautiful, loving and supportive partner Catherine, my thriving business, our lovely home, healthy lifestyle and great friends we've made here in Victoria BC,  - and of course all the progress that's being made on my Austin Healey project:    -coincidentally, my cars body number is in fact 1221 (my Birthday)

I stopped by Jetstream a few weeks ago to check out their progress, and as you can see they've been doing lots of hammer/dolly work to work out all the dents and distortion to the front fender...

I also dropped off some new rear bumper/frame members to replace the badly distorted ones on my chassis -

I also received a pair of freshly re-chromed original bumpers and over riders in the mail from my friend Curt Arndt.
Since my car came with some incorrect 3000 style ones, I needed to find some of these proper original 100-4 bumpers.
Unlike most repro's out there which are too straight, these original bumpers have the correct profile that follows the shape of the body correctly on the back bumper.

The over riders are also originals re-chromed, and have the distinctive flat tops instead of the rounded tops that repros have...  Beautiful pieces I'm excited to have found! Thanks again Curt!

Also new in the mail, I received my new complete wiring harness that I'd ordered from Autosparks UK back in the fall.
It's all nicely cloth woven as original and comes complete with the overdrive harness, headlight pigtails and all the connector hardware

My new set of standard size pistons, rings, and all new bearings have arrived from Autofarm, I'll be ready to reassemble the engine very soon!

I started going through all my fresh chrome and silver cad plating the other day, reassembling some of the components and finishing them off as necessary. I noticed that my original boot lid stay rod has a date stamp on it of 1953:

I carefully sanded and painted the lower half of the emergency brake handle to achieve a nice fade between the chrome on the upper end of the handle and the zinc plating that was on the lower handle - this is how these looked originally, but it's hard for a chrome shop to just chrome just half of a piece, so I had to sand and paint the lower part myself before re-assembling..

For my Birthday my Mom, Lyn, ordered me a copy of the new Healey book that is set to be released this coming January.
I am very excited to read this new book as it contains lots of new details to the story, as Donald and Geoff Healey's personal archives and factory records have been released, and combined to tell the stories.  - Thanks Mom!

Finally, I just picked up my freshly rebuilt gearbox from Tom Munro! Tom did a beautiful job rebuilding the gearbox and overdrive unit with all new seals, replacement bearings, and a full set of replacement gears and syncros!
Tom left no stone unturned and tested everything including the overdrive to make sure it all works properly. Thanks Again Tom! - and thanks again to Trevor Parker for selling me a second set of gears and parts to use in the rebuild!

I made up a new set of rubber spacers for the shift lever mechanism and reinstalled the lever...

I also repainted the overdrive ID tag with black paint over the brass lettering...

I got a new clutch throw-out bearing, as well as a new pivot shaft and bushings...

I also got a replacement gearbox front plate with a proper seal installed in it from Michael Salter,

I'm very pleased to have the gearbox all done and ready to go, it looks as good as new - another big step closer!

I expect to be getting the head and block assemblies back from Mid-Island Machine in the next few weeks, so I'll be able to reassemble the engine next -

Until next time, stay tuned!