I'll take a stab at this. Bear in mind I'm an amateur Healey mechanic only,
but I
take a 3-4K trip every year myself, so I've given this quite a bit of thought.
Timing chains on Big Healeys are pretty tough, with two sets of links (there's
a word for this, can't recall if offhand). Properly lubricated, I would expect
them
to well exceed 100K miles. If your car has good compression and vacuum and
is otherwise running well your timing chain is OK. The question is whether
the chain and gears were replaced at your rebuild--they should have been. At
any rate, worn timing gears will affect driveability and will only get worse,
but
I wouldn't expect a catastrophic failure within 10K miles.
Don't know about the life expectancy of generators. I rebuilt mine at about 70K
miles and it was ready--the carbon brushes were getting pretty worn. I'd
probably
at least check the brushes and get the commutator turned down. There is an
oillite (?)
bushing on the end that is supposed to receive a light oil every few K miles;
if you
haven't been doing this then by all means replace this bushing (do it for sure
if
you do the brushes and commutator). Loosen the belt and try to move the pulley
...
if you feel any sideways movement at all then rebuild the generator.
I wouldn't worry about the starter, unless it's been acting up. But I
personally
would at least carry a spare water pump (I always do). My experience is they
are
good for 70-100K on almost any car. You could replace one on the road if you
had to--and it MIGHT give you some warning--but if you've got 100K on yours
I'd probably replace it before your trip (about $80 new and a pretty simple
job).
If you want to, that would be the time to pull the timing cover and have a look
at
the timing gear and chain. There should be no slack (obviously), and the teeth
on
the gears should not be worn to a point.
My (original) starter solenoid gave up the ghost at about 140K miles ... carry
a
spare, this is a half-hour fix on the road.
Carry spare points (you'll probably need to change them before 10K miles).
Good idea to carry an entire spare secondary ignition harness (distributor
cap and plug wires). If you use the stock distributor cap with wirewound
carbon filament (noise suppressing) plug wires you can expect a miss sooner or
later.
Oh, and carry at least 13 spare fuel pumps ;)
bs
********************************************
Bob Spidell San Jose, CA bspidell@comcast.net
'67 Austin-Healey 3000 '56 Austin-Healey 100M
********************************************
Subject: timing chain advice
> Greetings Healeyphiles,
> I have a 65 BJ8 with almost 100k on a rebuilt engine. I plan to do a
> grand trip from Portsmouth NH to the west coast and (hopefully} back. I
>reckon
> with side trips it will be at least a 10k trip. I'm wondering if I should
> have the timing chain replaced before I venture forth. The generator and
>starter
> both have 60 or 70 k since rebuilds. Should they or any other parts be
> rebuilt/replaced prior to this trip. I'll be taking the usual boot full of
>parts
> and tools but I'd rather deal with potential problems prophylacticly if
> possible. Thanks. Rich Antal
|