I'm thinking of buying one of these (a '52), can anyone please advise on what items, in particular, to look for please? The car in question, on paper at least, looks to be in good order, so I don't expect to find any major problems, but having no previous experience of this car I would like to be able to home in on the more, er, 'interesting' areas.
Any other comments on the marque in general welcome.
Thanks.
Paul C.
Paul,
Look at:
Seeking an 1967/8 AH 3000 BJ8 series 2 myself if anyone has one gathering dust in their garage !
Andrew Mawson
The message from snipped-for-privacy@cix.co.uk (Paul Cohen) contains these words:
It is over 25 years since I sold my 55 BN1 so I can't recall very much that might help but FWIW a few random observations.
First best check the date. I thought they were introduced in 53, not 52. I am fairly sure the prototype was shown at the 52 Motor Show as a Healey which wouldn't have left much time to get the production started in 52.
The BN1 (and possibly the BN2) gearbox was a 4 speed box designed for a steering column gear change. Healey blanked off first gear and fitted an overdrive. His floor mounted gear change was a bit of a bodge in that it had the higher gears to the left (ie mirror image to the normal layout) and as it was easy to deblank the unused 1st gear some at least came so modified. The overdrive should only work on the top 2 gears but (again with mine at least) the safety lock didn't work so was available on all gears to the detriment of he transmission.
Ground clearance was (allegedly) a problem with all the big Healeys and certainly was so with the BN1. I managed to hole the sump on a completely inoccuous dip in the road but that might have had more to do with 15 year old shocks than the road.
Rot that I remember was confined to the thin tin. Boot floor and sills particularly but also the car floor and rear wheel arches.
Like many sportscars of the era you don't get side window, just plastic sidescreens that spike into the door. I always drove with at least the offside one out and can't recall any buffeting as a result but we all had much lower expectations of car comfort 30 years ago. A friend of mine at the time with a six pot (BN4?) never ever used his hood.
Roger
Thanks very much Roger and Andrew.
Paul C.
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