24th – 29th April
2017
And a side trip through Wales !
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| View over London from The Shard |
We had been planning this trip to England
for some time – It was my old (!) school chum John’s 70th birthday,
and we had booked the trip many months ago because I had planned to be there
for his 60th in 2007, but that was when I was having my bout with
throat cancer, and I wasn’t able to travel.
So there was no way we were going to miss his 70th !! And now that our foray in the 2019 Peking to
Paris (going to call it P2P from now on) is planned, it was an ideal
opportunity to take some time to hunt for sources of the spare parts we need
for the Healey. Our search was to take
us up to Pontefract near Leeds, so we set aside a week.
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| The excellent BMW |
During our time in UK, good Lotus Club
friend Winno has lent us his E36 4 door BMW M3 to get around in, and although I
have never really driven BMW’s, I have to say this car is a stunner. This rare version has 4 doors which makes it
so much more usable, and yet it has amazing power, that means that accelerating
up to speed when entering a freeway is a huge grin-inducing experience. This car made our entire trip so enjoyable,
so big thanks due.
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| Pat Moss's Works Healey |
First stop was AH Spares located in
Southam, Warwickshire. This is one of
the main Healey parts suppliers in the world, and sells just about everything
you can think of. They do not do work on
cars – They just sell spare parts. And
while you may think Austin Healey’s are old and not often seen, there are vast
numbers of cars around the world that are still maintained, raced, or otherwise
used, and they all need spares ! (A
total of over 72,000 big Healey’s were built in the various models between 1953
and 1967.) AH Spares is just one of the
suppliers, but possibly one of the biggest dedicated solely to A Healeys. In their showroom they had an ex-works car
signed on the roof by driver Pat Moss (Stirling’s sister), and then they had
mock up cars made from spare panels and parts so you could see just some
of what they had. And then there were the cabinets with plenty
of parts on view – Let alone the huge stores warehouse behind ! I looked at new wire wheels, bigger fuel
tanks, oil sumps, 5 blade radiator fans, spot lights, skid plates – You name
it, we discussed it, for an hour or two.
We discussed springs and shock absorbers – “Would that be new or
refurbished you are looking for, sir ?”.
What a place !!
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| 72 spoke wire wheel |
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| 5 blade plastic fan |
After taking copious notes, I felt I had a
pretty good idea of what we could get from them, and Janet had been sitting outside
in the BMW for 2 hours reading a book, so it was time to get moving, and we
headed off to Pontefract, up north.
Driving around England is very difficult as a foreigner (even though I
was born there) because one has no idea of how long it will take to get
somewhere traffic wise. Locals know that
you should never travel on this road or that one, or never go through such and
such a town because the streets are so narrow, causing jams, but us foreigners
have to just blindly follow our Garmin and hope it doesn’t try to take us
through the middle of Birmingham in rush hour ! As a result, we weren’t sure how long it
would take to get to Pontefract, but I wanted to get as close as possible so I
could be at our next appointment (at Northern Healey Centre) early in the
morning. In the end, we got all the way
to Pontefract quite easily, and checked into a nearby Premier Inn, where we
enjoyed a good meal and beer or two before turning in.
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| Unloading Healey chassis |
Next morning it was off to Northern Healey
Centre. Mark Boldry of the Classic Car Clinic here on
the Gold Coast, an accomplished Healey man in his own right, had given me Paul Grogan’s name, and he turned
out to be an absolute gem. He has competed
in a previous P2P event, albeit in a Peugeot, and he has also competed in many
other extreme rally type events around the world, and as a result his knowledge
on the specialized preparation required is boundless. And his workshop is equally amazing –
Albeit it the exact opposite of AH
Spares who we visited yesterday. Although he used to handle spare parts, Paul
has now actually decided to curtail this, and is focusing more on vehicle
restoration and even the construction of totally new Healeys for
customers. His facility is a jumble of
chassis, panels, parts, huge steel presses, and people working on cars and
engines. To be fair, they were putting
in a mezzanine floor to increase work space, so much of the upheaval was caused
by that. Additionally, a customer was
delivery a Healey 3000 chassis for restoration, and that took up
some time and
space while it was unloaded and moved inside.
Overall, NHC is very much a work shop, involved in some incredible work,
and it was a joy to be there and to see such incredible restoration and
manufacturing work going on. And it is
not limited to Austin Healeys either, with various Land Rover parts also being
made !!
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| New chassis under construction |
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| Chassis detail |
Paul himself very kindly set aside a couple
of hours of his busy schedule to discuss what we needed to do in order to
successfully complete the P2P, and he was a veritable mine of information. We went through everything – Photos of his
past rally cars, his P2P Peugeot, and then specific things for the Healey on
the chassis and the extras (like fuel tanks, stronger parts, suspension, wiring
etc). He was so helpful, and is also
trying to find an uprated 5 stud rear axle for us, some steel wheels, and
several other parts, as well as giving me contact details of various people who
might be able to help us further.
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| New car being created |
After a while Paul had no choice but to get
back to work, and he left me to wander around his factory – Most useful was a
full chassis reconstruction that I was able to photograph and study, looking at
the places where additional strengthening plates can be inserted to improve the
rigidity of our chassis. Overall, an
incredibly instructive morning, and I left with my head buzzing with
information and facts that I now need to translate into action on our own car !
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| Delightful drive through Wales |
Now it was time to visit some of Janet’s
relatives, and then head home through Wales where we planned to visit some Overlanders
who I had met on my trip through Canada and the US in 2016. As I got in the car, I asked Janet for the
address of her relatives that she had told me were in Chester, so I could enter
the details in my Garmin. When I asked
for the name of the town, she said “Chesterfield”……..Chesterfield ????? That’s nowhere near Chester, and is in
totally the wrong direction !!!! Oh
dear !!! Long story short, we made it
to Chesterfield for a late lunch, and then had to head off again to N Wales,
although we didn’t get there till late in the evening. But that is another story and is detailed in
my normal travel blog.
Now lots of work to do working out which
spare parts to buy. Some of them are big
and heavy, like axles, springs, half shafts etc. These items we will need to ship as cheaply
as possible and will take a month or two to arrive. Smaller parts can be sent by courier cost
effectively, and we can therefore order as required as they arrive pretty
quickly. Shock absorbers look best
from the USA where original units are refurbished, while we are still searching for suitable
wheels. We would like to use steel disc
wheels that were used on some factory cars in the ‘50’s, but these are proving
hard to find. We feel that disc wheels
will be much stronger for the rally than wire wheels. The alternative is to fit 72 spoke wire
wheels, but there may be an interference problem with the drum brakes – The
original cars ran 48 spoke wheels, but these are just not strong enough for the
P2P. More research required.
Lots to finalise yet. Ashton is coming up for the weekend on the 13th
May, so we will try to finalise the key parts order then. In the meantime I will start stripping the
car down so we can find out what we need to do to the chassis, seats, roof
etc.
Stop press.
One of the big items we needed was a stronger 5 stud axle. Paul Grogan had found one, but it ended up
that the owner decided he needed to keep it.
We had found one in the USA but it was just the casing, and we would
still need all the internal - half shafts, differential etc, But last week Ashton managed to find a
complete one in Sydney, although the vendor wants our original 4 stud axle in
return, so we have to take that off the car fairly quickly so we can complete
the swap and can start work on the new one to refurbish it before
installing.
One of the big issues on this rebuild is
that when the axles / wheels etc are off the car, it is basically not movable
as I cannot load it onto the trailer. So the preparation work has to be divided
into first getting all the suspension, wiring etc done in my garage and getting
the car back to mobile, then I can load it on the trailer and take it for
welding of the chassis, and fitting the side exhaust etc, which will require
the car to be on a hoist. Going to be a
logistics exercise – But then that is what I am (or used to be) good at !!
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Ashton & Giles welcome any visitors, support, and comments as we prepare for our Adventure !