The Painted Chassis comes Home!

As you can see, my BN1 chassis has finally been painted in my Dads original mix of Healey Blue that he'd researched and formulated back in the 90's.
It's exactly correct for what Healey Blue (BU2) originally was!

A big Thankyou to Jason Stoch and the guys at Jetstream Auto & Custom who did all the metal, prep and paint work on the chassis and body.
They did a fantastic job, putting up with all my fussy requests and I couldn't be happier with the quality and finished results!

Hand brushed undercoating was applied under the boot floor and over the rear axle area, then over painted with body colour as original -
It was once thought that Healeys never had undercoating, but this localized practise of applying it to these specific rear sections only, has been confirmed in the concours guidelines as a production standard on big Healeys from BN1-BJ8 -
My car certainly had clear evidence of it!

The first pieces I rebuilt and reinstalled are the bonnet latch mechanism:

Each piece finished as original, and assembled with white lithium grease for smooth operation...

The firewall blanking plates, being assembled with their original screws, new felt gaskets and new correctly shaped steering column grommets (produced by Roger Moment)

Starting to populate the firewall...

Signal relay box...

Chassis ID tag; polished, hand painted, and re-installed:

D/S inner firewall with new tar paper and restored components...

P/S firewall;
All the screw hardware throughout the restoration was specifically labelled and kept separated in tiny bags throughout the refinishing process so that every screw could be put back exactly where it came from - no guessing!

Gas tank fit in place - not tightened down yet until fuel lines are routed...

Battery shut-off switch installed with the correct factory tag..

This is my favourite part of any restoration:
going through all the organized little bags of restored hardware and setting them out in place, putting each piece back exactly where it goes, referring back to all the thousands of pics and notes I made when I disassembled everything... It makes for a smooth and easy reassembly process that is incredibly rewarding with each "jewel"  I re-install..

Jason also delivered his wife Tina's Bugeye at the same time he delivered my chassis,  I'll be doing some trim work on the Bugeye this week..

It's nice to have some new Healeys in the shop!

Lots of exciting re-assembly work and blog posts ahead as I proceed with this concours restoration!

Until next time -