 |
Web Hosting by Netfirms | Free Domain Names by Netfirms |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Austin-Healeys.com Resources & Links
| My Former 1967 Sprite
See the British Motor Heritage Trust certificate information from MY old car!! This story related the 15+ year struggle to get my 1967 Mk.IV, chassis number #HAN9L/69437, back on the road. I bought my Sprite when I was 15 years old. Little British cars had been an
obsession for me since when I was about 8 and played around my neighbors right
hand drive MGA. I found my 1967 Mk IV in the local Jackson, MS paper after
looking at every advertised LBC for months. I passed over a TR250, a couple
Midgets, and a MGC-GT (plus a, GASP, Karman Ghia) until I saw the add for the
Sprite. The seeing name Austin Healey alone partially sold the car before I
ever saw it. I gathered up my lawn mowing money, and convinced my dad to drive
my into a not so good area of Jackson, to look at another in a long line of
fixer-up specials. It was a little while before I would to drive my own car, I was just getting my license, so I figured I had time to earn enough money to have a real SHOW CAR. Well, it didn't quite work out that was. I immediately found out in Jackson, MS there were little to no resources open to a teenage to work on a LBC. If only we had the support of say the Mustang crowd. I found a couple of people who gave me advice here and there though, but really I was on my own. Every time I saved a little money I would sink it into the car. I replaced the floors, repatched the panels (unfortunately still bondoed some, but not the inches of it that were there), replaced the upholstery and top, bought a roll bar, and got the car running, abet roughly. Then started the trouble. All this work killed a couple years, and although the car ran, it was far from road worthy. I heard about a guy who was supposedly an ace British car mechanic, who, even though he was working on modern cars, still would work on LBC's on the side. I took the car to him asking him to help me get it on the road before I went to college. He kept the car for six months, and the engine ran worse when I got it back than when I left it. I threatened a lawsuit, and he did get the car running a little better. That was a nightmare, my advice is get plenty of references on any mechanic that works on a British car. Well I drove the car on and off in this shape, still feeling it needed some mechanical TLC. It sputtered a little on cold mornings, and there was what I thought was a typical British oil leak. It ran about 25% of this time the first couple years of college. Then, just before I started my Junior year, the oil leak
started causing my clutch to slip. I was told (by another expert) that it was
probably a faulty After college I lived in a string of apartments, and my jobs has kept me on the road. And there was no time for my Sprite, even if it was with me. My parents, who have kindly provided room for my car, moved it, along with all my spare parts and tools, to their barn in the country. Unfortunately, that really placed the car out of my reach, so I couldn't even visit the car on the weekends I was in home in Jackson. In June of 1996, I found out I was getting a promotion and being transferred to Dallas the following Oct. At the same time I became engaged to my wife. With all this going on, I realized that if I had left the Sprite in Mississippi, I would never have an opportunity get the car back again. So with much finagling, I convinced my company to pay to move my Sprite along with the rest of my stuff to Dallas as long as I got the car to Tupelo, MS (where I was living at the time). They agreed. So after it's long abandonment, I finally had the car with me for the first time in seven years. Well the weather here is really nice, and the days are long, so I decided in April that it was time to get to work on the car. Well, filled with enthusiasm, I decided that the best place to start would be to look under the hood, to which I found that the cable to was seized. After getting the hood opened the first thing I noticed was that the battery was missing. So off to Pep Boys I went. Later, I started to check to see what was what and I noticed something. The distributor set bolts were so loose that the fire should have been erratic at best. After talking to Les Myer at the
PDLJMPR, it was pointed out to me that my
car doesn't really have a rear main seal to leak, just a cap. The problem was
The internet resources seemed over whelming, but I was and am getting a great deal of help from so many people. I recommend that you join the mailing lists, and read them, even if the problem doesn't apply to you. Believe it or not there is a logic emerging to all of this. Well after diving head first into the MG and Austin Healey Mailing lists, and hooking up with the Thursday night #PDLJMPR chat group, I was strongly encouraged to join the North Texas Austin Healey Club, plus both of the national Austin Healey clubs. I tell you that was the best advice I could have ever received. The help and advice I have already gotten locally, here in Dallas, has made the membership dues a small price to pay. Now that I have knowledgeable assistance (the first time anyone who knew what they were looking at has ever looked at my car), we have find a few major problems. First my big problem, is that my wiring harness was nothing but a fire waiting to happen, so I ordered a replacement of from British Wiring (this is an excellent company to work with E-Mail me for specifics). When I was removing the old harness, I noticed that there were several melted wires in there. It seems that I was lucky not to have had a fire yet. Well, after installing the main parts of the harness, I reconnected the battery to check and see if it turned over, and it started, first try!!!! I almost fell down.... So some other things of interest, I bought a new tach, mine was unoriginal, and replaced the bad fender I had put Bondo in with a good one. We are also cut off the rusted through front frame arms that cause the crooked bumper you see, replacing them, and adding new brackets. Unfortunately I had to sell the car in Feb of 2001 as I was transferred again and couldn't justify moving two cars. Now we have a baby on the way so the next LBC will probably be a little larger, but never better than this Sprite was to me. Here were lots of pictures of the car.
|
Patton Dickson's Austin-Healey Pages
|
|
