John -
You are correct.
Tricarbs use the late grille, which means the opening
is different to MkI cars and before. I have a franken
shroud on my early BJ8 and I think the left side up to
the grill opening is from a Mk1 or before, the
curvature for the bit between the bonnet and the
grille doesn't quite match up (the older cars are
thicker like you said) and my body guy had to do a lot
of work to make it look normal when it had to be
repaired after an accident. It still doesn't look ok
to me but no one else notices!
Cheers,
Alan
'53 BN1 '64 BJ8
--- John Snyder <johnahsn@olypen.com> wrote:
> Hello List,
>
> A few days ago I posted a message, looking for a
> good tri-carb front shroud.
> These are relatively rare because of the limited
> number of tri-carbs made. I
> was looking for a BJ7 or BJ8 single light shroud to
> graft the rear of my
> shroud onto.
>
> Two very well respected, knowledgeable Healey people
> wrote back and said that
> a tri-carb shroud was exactly the same as that of a
> 3000 "MK1" of 100-6. One
> even said that the factory parts list did not show a
> different number for the
> tri-carb shroud. I checked w/ a third person who is
> not only a Healey expert,
> but also a tri-carb expert. He insisted that the
> shrouds are different.
>
> Then I did what I should have done in the first
> place. Took a piece of 3/32"
> welding rod 5 1/2" long, bent 1" 90 degrees at each
> end, and used it as a
> caliper to measure the width of the shroud between
> the hood opening and the
> grill opening (the area that the tri-carb expert
> said was different) on the
> following cars. These cars are mine, and I know
> them well. 1960 BT7 -
> original paint, unrestored, never hit in the grill
> area; 1962 BT7 MK2 - just
> finished a ground up restoration, shroud never hit
> in the grill area; 1961 BN7
> MK2 - ground up restoration last year, never hit in
> the upper grill area; 1961
> BN7 MK2 - never hit in the upper grill area, but
> hammered many other places.
>
> Results: The tri-carb shrouds are 1/4" narrower
> between the grill opening and
> the hood opening. 2 15/16" vs 3 3/16". Very hard to
> detect by eye, but 1/4"
> is a lot when you are trying to fit the oval grill
> piece (w/ eyebrow) in.
> Still looking for a tri-carb shroud :-)
>
> John Snyder
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