Much to my surprise I found that Pino had signed this one and written an interesting bit of philosophy in his own hand. It said, in Italian:

Pino Morroni
Detroit maggio 1978
alla facciaccia di tutti i maghi del telaio di tutti i Walden mel mondo

Made in Warren, MI Click to enlarge

The best translation I’ve heard is: In the brazen face of all
the frame sorcerers to all the “Walden’s” of the world..

I’m not sure what he was trying to get at, but knowing that Pino was usually disappointed with the way his ideas were generally received, I suspect it’s a rebuke to them.  That’ a purely WAG on my part. Any other ideas are welcomed.

Here’s what the wonderful little jig looks like. The legs are off and its sitting on the floor, but you get the idea.

Pino Morroni frame jig 1978

Just a fun piece of cycling lore for all.

DP

Well, if you say “no” they go somewhere else.  I made arrangements to go look at the car some 30 miles from my location. If I recall correctly I took a friend with me. He was Dan Pendergraft, somewhat of a Healey expert and definitely a Healey racing expert from his experiences with the Healey Challenge series. Here’s one of many links, BTW that’s Dan’s #106 at the front http://healey.org/content/category/10/97/243/ or maybe Phillip Coombs.. can’t tell for sure.. I’m sure I’ll be hearing from one of them…  Ok, it’s not Dan’s #106, his was RHD and no driving lights. Ergo it must be Phillip.. #105

When we arrived we found a pretty sad looking mess. The fenders were held on with duct tape, for instance. It was a right hand drive car. On the positive side it was mostly all there and it had a louvered hood, but no cold air box. We thought that perhaps it was from Jamaica and had made its way to FL. We suggested the owner (Judy) send off for a heritage certificate from the UK and see what we could ascertain of the cars history.

In the meantime we arrived at an agreement and loaded up the “stuff” and had it hauled to my shop for complete tear down.

Start of an odessey

In the meantime the Heritage Certificate arrived and we were all very pleasantly surprised to learn the car was the 2nd factory 100M built. So it went from a desirable Healey 100 to a very sought after factory hot rod! Needless to say our plans of ending up with a nice “driver’ changed to a more aggressive  restoration since the car had suddenly more than doubled in value.

Here is Dan studying the car after it was at my shop and some basic steps had begun.

Ready for the long haul

Rough stuff

Well, I wanted to replace floors and sills and a bit more than Judy, but there was a budget in place so I did as much as I could get away with and no doubt wanted a better result than the customer at this point,  but she still wasn’t as convinced that the car was “that” valuable.

Here, I’ve replaced door hinge panels, trunk floor, bulkhead bits, battery access area and much more and sent it to a body shop/painter who Dan thought would do an economically credible job on the body work.

Judy&Dan at delivery to body shop

Here’s a series of progressions though the body and paint work.. In the meantime I was busy with the engine and trim and interior items…

pieces parts

In the paint booth

Rolling chassis

Back to my shop for assembly…

engine bay and electrical s going in

Engine in, starting to look like a car again..

Bumper back from the plater, lights, windshield..

Here’s another customer and his wife examining the nearly done car. BTW, the Heritage Certificate indicated that the car left the factory as a left hand drive. That change was made early on if you’re wondering..

"Is it safe to drive?"

Well, I’ll just cut to the chase.. Agatha, as Judy named the car, has been a star at most of the shows and conclaves she’s attended.

Judy is a dedicated owner and has become active in several car clubs and become a “gearhead” through her association with Agatha.

Here’s a highlight for Judy when she won a top honor at the San Diego Conclave and Gerry Coker told her that if he’d had his way he too would have used more chrome like we did with Agatha’s rebuild.

Gerry Coker congratulates Agatha and Judy

Thanks to Judy for her pictures she supplied for this entry. dp

Judy just sent this followup note that she wanted included…

The 150 S had three 2″ HD8 SU carbs on long individual intake manifolds and the 9:1 high compression hemi- head. Some were 3.4 Liter displacement and some were 3.8L All had 4 wheel disc brakes, a first for Jaguar cars.

Here is a bevy of XK 150′s in front of my shop, the red ‘S’ roadster, a black 150 ‘drop-head’ or convertible in US parlance, and a white ‘fixed head’ or coupe if you like.

Customers Jags-3 XK150's on the same day!

(  Click once or twice on pixs to enlarge)

The black DHC is one I am just finishing up a multi-year restoration on. Perhaps I’ll finish documenting  it in the future. Today’s entry however regards the red roadster and its mechanical ills.

The car presented with a lack of power and a lot (!) of valve tappet racket. These engines are of twin overhead cam shafts which act directly on the valve stems with an inverted bucket, the lash (valve clearance) adjusted via variable thickness shims or discs between the bucket and valve stem.

Visual inspection after removing the cam cover (exhaust side-where the noise was) showed nothing and compression reading were within normal expected at cranking speed. Now, its not too uncommon for the exhaust side to have the sleeve that the buckets reside within to move from their factory interference fit depth setting.  Clever aftermarket plates are sold to sit on the vertical exposed face of the sleeves to hold them stationary in the head. So, I ordered a kit and installed it, but it made no difference in the racket. Sigh.

Bucket sleeve hold down plates

The picture above is after the head was removed. Since the hold downs didn’t fix the problem, I informed the owner that the head would have to be removed to see what was going on. I ought to buy a boroscope , but even then the head still has to be pulled to repair it. These triple carb cars require quite a bit more time to take apart as the inner engine compartment panels have to be removed and the fuel system piping and filters are a nightmare.. Try counting all the nuts that were removed, polished and replaced!

Well to make a long story short, the offending cylinder/valve was a wallowed out valve guide and do I mean wallowed out. Here’s a picture. Compare the guide diameters..

The guide in the middle is nearly half again the size of the adjacent guides.

As it turned out all the exhaust seats, guides and valves were replaced. I also installed new intake guides and 2 intake valves, did a 3 angle valve job and resurfaced the head. might as well do it right when its apart.

From the picture below its also clear to see that the cosmetic condition was rough and the customer requested that the entire engine compartment be detailed as best as possible with out removing the engine and other major assemblies.

A rough idea of the "before" picture

As you can see there was a lot of corrosion/oxidation on all the aluminum and the paint was badly degraded and the block was painted a GM orange at some point in the cars past. UGH!

So the customer wanted everything polished and painted..which meant dis-assembly and rebuild of the carbs and manifolds…

One of the big SU's and the aux. cold start "carb" and piping.

After nearly a full day of standing in front of the polishing wheel, here are some of the finished bits..

Still have the carburetors to polish..

here’s the area prepped for repainting parts of the firewall and radiator surround..

Takes longer to mask than to squirt some paint...

And finally here is what it looks like now…

More than a couple hours of work..believe me!

So after restoring the air filter assembly and painting the under side of the hood (bonnet) it was looking damn nice and needless to say the car ran like a scalded cat.

Cost? More than the customer wanted to hear, but it was what he’d asked for and he did get some frequent flyer points from his credit card company.. :~)

Dave

Click once or twice on photos for close ups. Use back arrow to return to text.

My customer bought it in 2006 thinking it would be a pretty easy job, well, no. Here’s a picture or two of the original condition.

Engine compartment

Multi layer rotted top-dried out leather interior

Body on the way to media blaster

Engine and gearbox out

Restored chassis

Rebuilt head

Previous brass welding repairs

The rear half of the car had sustained a lot of damage and was poorly repaired and heat distorted from all the welding, so the entire body was cut in half behind the driver’s seat.

New rear clip

The new rear was fabricated down in Chula Vista, CA by new found friend Jorge. More on Jorge later. The fenders are still missing as one was a terrible fit. The original rear end en toto was shipped to Jorge so he had a good “pattern” to work with. Apparently there were differences with the FHC, the Roadster, and the Drophead.

Underpinnings

A shot of the dirty, from the body shop dust and wet sanding, of the new dual exhaust and the missing automatic transmission, which was replaced with a Jag manual and Laycock Overdrive.

Before

After

Engine compartment

As you can see the car is now black..  I installed the engine and running gear after painting the engine compartment beforehand. Some of the new harness was also installed, so the painter could easily move the car under it’s own power. The compartment was also pre-painted so the painter could simply mask off the entire area and not over spray everything in sight. I’m currently working in the corner installing more harness and fuse block bits.

OK the corner or correctly the fuse block, wiring strip connector, voltage regulator, and cover (sans the hold down stud and nut) are installed. For some reason the fuse block won’t sit flush on the one rear/right corner. I looked at the original (before dismantling) pictures and there was no fastener there then either.  Odd..I think. I’ll spend some time there when I get back to doing the “details”, right now I’ll push on with the front half of the cars electricals.

In this next shot the headlight buckets and adjusters and all are installed. The re-chromer’s shop still has the bezels and a whole pile of other stuff.

Lighting almost done in front..

Backside of the instrument panel

Well, this should be fun… There are still about 9 pieces of the full wiring harness to install.

Got it whittled down a bit today. Only 5 sub harness bits left to go.. here’s with a flash and without a flash..

dash wired and functional

in the dark...

It’s been about a week and as the chrome parts are trickling back from the plater  (Triple Plate in WA.) I’m getting the lights all installed and wired and functional.

The rear boot lid was a real problem to both fit and make the latch and lock work again.

boot lid and chrome bits

and here’s the front. In both photos the bumpers are not fully attached, if you’re curious about the angle…

front end, chrome and lamps

Rear end of the 150 all done…except for the interior of the boot..

finished rear end chrome and lights

The steering wheel was a mess. They, I believe, were originally enameled completely. the hub, the spokes and the rim. I don’t mean paint enamel either, its the hard baked ceramic like finish. Well, this one was totally devoid of the original enamel. After soda blasting the paint off there was nothing but the most porous metallic surface I’ve ever seen. I tried to paint it with straight black Imron, but the thousands of tiny holes just caused an air bubble mess. So, it was blasted clean again and sent to a powder coater, who after two coats made a nice job of it. The old rim wrap is back on to protect it while the car is at the upholstery shop. The Bakelite  ring around the horn ring really looks better than the camera flash makes it appear.

Adjustable steering wheel assembly

This next one was a bit of a challenge. The grille originally had a lip of some sort cast into the bottom inside edge that acted as a safety catch should the main latch fail. No one wants a bonnet bent over the windshield.  Anyway, there was no easy way to weld anything to the newly chromed grill.. note (do this stuff before sending to re-chromer) so I had to fab a catch. Using 5/16” tubing I cut and brazed together a hanging loop from about the grill’s midpoint, where it had a drill-able spot on the bonnet. Then it drops down in a smooth V like  shape and catches the latch on the pan behind the grill… Pretty neat and it barely shows..

Safety catch

The next day or two will be used to install some noise deadening blanket material. Then the customer has a remote located radio, requiring an inverter for the positive ground nature of the car and lastly the speakers which also need to be hidden some where in the vicinity of the two rear jump seats..

The side glass and vent wings and chrome is in. New fuzzy velcro in the guide channel. The amp and inverter for the hidden “Secret Radio” is installed.  See it?

interior shot

Set back…

Cracked glass.... Not acceptable

The project leaves tomorrow for the upholstery shop. I’m planning on driving it the several miles there. Need some cushions to sit on and someone to run interference as the seat belts aren’t exactly installed yet..

Well the car has been at the upholstery shop for a couple months now. Mostly it’s been a fight to rebend and fit the wood pieces that were badly warped.. the new stuff fits worse in many cases… here where it is today..

dash is done

more required on the top..

Stay tuned..much more to come……

The project car recently returned from the “top shop” a couple weeks ago. They have completed most of the work, but the trunk (boot) is still unfinished and two side kick panels in the cockpit are needing panels to be made. We are unhappy with the fit of the top at the windshield header, but I’ve come up with a simple solution I hope.

Here are pictures of the interior so far.

Leather and Wilton wool

nearly done

Click on this one!!!

The new wheels and tires are on and the front end aligned and new rear springs have it going down the road indescribably well.

As soon as the remaining upholstery work is complete, it will go back to the paint shop for flaw and incidental flaw repair and final buff out. Then, my friends, I’m afraid I will have to turn it over to the rightful owner. A dark day indeed..for me…

SF Concorso bicycle display

Though the bikes were not judged this year, the organizers indicated that they would be next year. the bicycle entrants were however each given a Directors Award  ribbon for our time and expense. Of course we were treated to VIP credentials and privileges.

A highlight for me, as I am also an avid sports car owner was a chance to mix it up with Sir Sterling Moss, arguably one of the greatest race car drivers of all time. Here I  have Moss on my left, a D-Type Jaguar and an OSCA MT4 in front of my “54 Austin Healey 100. I won’t mention what our speed was in the photo to protect the innocent.. ;~)

Too much fun!

Here is my “winning” entry:

Me as a happy camper

In addition to my entries there was a Columbia ordinary, a Bates, a Cinelli, and a Guerciotti.

Here is the link to the official Concorso catalog: http://www.santafeconcorso.com/2011_flipbook.html

Many thanks!

Dave

PS if you missed the IQ magazine article it is here

Framers and visitors:

Finished and ready for the San Diego bike show… It’s pretty sweet if I may say so myself..

I was in a hurry and took the pictures before I’d properly adjusted the handlebar positions.. so I’ve already been chastised for that..

This is the low trail design that Martin Manning (bike geometry 101) suggested that I try. This falls below the 2″ threshold and I must admit that it feels very light. The idea is that it will be less twitchy at lower speeds but still very stable at higher speeds  due to the team weight (mass).

Haven’t had a stoker on it yet, but due to initial feeling I see no reason for it not to be as predicted. It’s a 74.5 degree head tube if you all are wondering.

OK, if one looks at the pictures you’ll see that the captain’s bars are at the same height as the seat.  I don’t know precisely what the dynamics of this arrangement set up, something akin to over-leverage, Suffice it to say that after I flipped the stem over to a slightly negative rise the oversteering issue disappeared and the tandem handles like a dream.

In respect to the short trail design, I suspect that the major tandem suppliers don’t do this to protect themselves from litigation arising from neophyte owners with little or no tandem experience.

Hope you all approve.. have a great weekend

dave

Click on to enlarge-return arrow to escape

tote that load

sure is green

lotta rake

pretty Turquoise bits

adequate stoker space

Price yet to be determined…

I’ve had a few days between projects to dust off some old stuff and try to tie down things that have gotten away from me. Because of interest from some of the CR bike list I’ll post this today and add others details as I am able.
This first one dates from 1989 and and may be one of the oldest surviving records.
It is Carolyn Donnelly in the midst of her US senior woman’s Hour record ride..

Donnelly Hour Record ride

5 km 6:40.61 Carolyn Donnelly, Colo. Springs, CO, 10/29/90

10 km 13:31.15 Carolyn Donnelly, Colo. Springs, CO, 10/29/90

20 km 17:12.40 Carolyn Donnelly, Colo. Springs, CO, 10/29/90

1 hour 44.028 km Carolyn Donnelly, Colo. Springs, CO, 10/29/90

50 km 1:08:26.24 Carolyn Donnelly, Colo. Springs, CO, 10/29/90

This next one is from a recent Velo-News article, no doubt about Lance.
 Nevertheless, on his elbow is New Mexico's own Noah Kaufman.
click on to enlarge.






US Junior squad

L to R:  George Hincapie, Noah Kaufman, Lance Armstrong, Chann McCrae and Bobby Julich.
 Pretty neat old picture.
 Here is one of Noah and relates to my association with him and his parents.

Noah and his medal
The interesting thing here is that they both used the same bike. In the picture of Carolyn

the seat post can be seen as all the way down, and in fact I vaguely remember sawing some of
the seat tube off at the top..This next one is Jane Marshall, who has just won the Moriarity

NM Record Challenge 40K for senior women. Jane went on to the National squad and I believe

she was in the Olympic road race with the then local rider Janniel Parks.
Jane Marshall Gagne
This is a unique bike from the last one above. I think it was sold off to another local rider.

The red and white paint jobs were all shop team equipment.

New World/US record- Kent Bostick

Above John and I are holding Kent up moments after the 100K record. He was, ahh…tired..   Also in the photo is Bruce, who was the manager of the Springs velodrome… Don’t remember where Fred Cappy was that night.. Sorry about the photo, has some water damage-hell it’s been on my refrigerator for 20 years ;~)

Here’s another from 1989. It is John Frey and Kent Bostick.
I think this is the meet where Kent set the US 100km record, which also still stands.  Kent’s 100K record was 2:09:11 which bested Ole Ritter’s record by 20 minutes!

I don’t recall John as having used this MAX tubed funny bike for his Hour ride. I’ll look for that picture. Also its a film photo so it’s a problem to reproduce herein. Click on photo for a better size..

John and Kent around 1989

Picture at the Colorado Springs velodrome..

49.97KM per Hour

There’s John and the Hour bike and ride.. and the last one for today is the crowd around John after the record

ride. The 150 is the lap count around the 333.3m track. It was one of the times the bike was re-badged in accordance with Ten Speed Drive contractual PS. If you can tag anyone, please leave a comment. His record was 49.9 Kilometers .

Victory crowd

OK kids now we’re getting down to it, here’s a rare shot of the bike store team..

Squadra Harvard Bike House ABQ. NM circa 1990

and and even more rare shot of the backup team..

NM Velo

Here are a few shots from the start line at the Record Challenge Time Trial in Moriarity.. not sure if this is Jennifer or Janelle?

two of John Frey warming up and at the start line (nice bike..)

Shaklee sponsored rider

go!

Here’s Gabe Aragon.. he got his National jersey with a tandem time trial ride with Desi Brown from the shop team.

lil Gabe Aragon- nice kid!

This looks like Robbie Quinlan..

Maybe ? Robbie Quinlan on a Bruce Gordon (NM) tt bike

The next are from a Tuesday crit in town.. this is Brian Belew on

George Tapley frame..

in the lead..

the pack..

sprint for a prem

That maybe Bart Bowen at the front, I see Frey and his green rims…and several Harvard guys in the hunt..next up is Jim Warsa

Waz

Wow, another oldie.. Frey with his (probably) first win at Moriarity Challenge or the State TT’s ? Early “flintstone” disc wheel. You could hear it coming a mile away, heavy too..

1st "funny bike" and 1st place for JF

Here is a link to a recent NM Sports magazine article about the Record Challenge history: http://www.nmsportsmag.com/2011/fall/

pages 24 and 25..

Here’s one many years later with Ten Speed Drive Rossin funny bike..

~6500 feet above sea level

Another cool pix- Frey and Rod Bush on my first tandem at the Red River Century. JF and Rod still hold the national tt record for a tandem..cool.

togetherness

One of the team sponsors and accomplished frame builder from Albuquerque–Bruce Gordon.

Bruce and Steve Hegg

An ad hoc 4 man TT squad..

Bostick, Frey, the late John Stenner and Hegg

J. Stenner and his very nice Pinarello. John was hit and killed by a motorist. Very tragic.

John Stenner

here they are in action…

Flying

and I guess by now some are wondering about me.. this is about 2006.

impatient with the cameraman

here’s another rare photo of me actually in a race, note the Sidi clown shoes and the Bell helmet on young John Castillo behind me..

downtown crit 1980 something..

and here’s Frey doing his best to hammer the chasers at a local crit.. enlarge to really see the power he had..

Human power!

here’s a look at a very small mountain bike I made for a chick I was in lust with.. 24 inch wheels! Wish I had a better picture of it. It was really neat. I don’t have any pictures of the girl.

tiny MTB

Here’s Frey (again) this time on one of my full sized MTB’s. My signature brass P is just visible on the head tube.

mud puddles

and lastly today a really out there paint job that was requested by a female customer..

Columbus SLX and Campy Chorus

More to come..

It is Columbus EL tubing.  Has some sheet metal fairing/gusseting, has a 24″ front wheel (which needs to be cleaned up), it has a gazillion holes through it (which should pique the ire of some on the CR list) and it has an eccentric BB. This last feature was an attempt to make some adjustment in seat tube angles for different riders. It added a lot of weight, but was located well below the axle line, so it added some noticeable stability with a lowered center of gravity. And note the skirts on the fork tips.. This was done after wind tunnel tests showed the air flow went up the blade instead of remaining in a horizontal flow..

Here ya go…

fork detail

still ready to go

with flash enhancement

last one- click on to enlarge pixs

I’ll put this in the running for making the trip.. Perhaps a vote is in order as the showtime nears.. dp

I got the 14 foot ladder out and got his bad boy down off the wall the other day. It was so filthy with dust that I’d forgotten it had a pretty cool fade paint scheme.. This one was used exclusively for track record breaking. The most notable is Kent Bostick’s  100 kilometer record. Like some of the other “record” bikes this record is 20 years unbroken, partly because the UCI has stopped doing a 100K event and second is because riding 60 miles at full bore is a really tough challenge, though the popularity of brevets would indicate otherwise.

Kent’s time is 2 hours, 9 minutes and 11 seconds  about 28 mph average! In comparison the UCI record held by Ole Ritter was 20 minutes slower.. Kent, you the man!

Here’s some pictures:

Time machine

It is Columbus MAX tubes, Cinelli cast BB, Zeus track dropouts, streteched Kevlar disc wheels (supplied by Scott & Vickie Gordon), Shimano drive train (supplied by Shimano-Wayne Stetina, Continental Olympic and Panaracer 26″ front tubulars  and a very early CF seat post. The whole package was 15 pounds.

seat "lug" aera

early aero bars

a pretty handsome "working bike"

This next one is a little different, but one that caused both great angst for me and great satisfaction.

The complete story of the bike is in an earlier blog post if one cares to go back a ways.. I’ll try to link to it before I run out of time tonight. Here:

To make a long story short, this is still after 18+ years the National Tandem TT champ.. and here are some pictures of how it’s set up now for riding with anyone who’s daring enough to trust a half blind captain…

The first green machine

It’s all Columbus MAX tubing except the oval boom and the middle seat stays which are fork blades as I recall.

close quarters for stoker

Adjustable stem reach

I got this from Pino Morroni. It’s part 3TTT and part Pino and is very handy for fitting different riders. Also a stayer brace is added to stiffen the bars, which as tandem riders know can deflect a bit with the mass at hand.

More funky Porter forks..

More choke holes and skirts.. what on Earth was I smoking?

I worried that the Max chain stays weren’t up to the job so I added a second set of stays..

Captains seat tube area

Captain's BB and lateral joint

One of the stiffener tubes can be seen in the boom tube. One can click on the photos to enlarge them, then use the “BACK” arrow to return to text..

Stoker's BB and a tangle of tubes

and lastly for those of you curious about the handle bar stem another shot for you..

Pino's handy work..and 3TTT

I’d like to have another of those MAVIC headsets.. a real work horse..

that’s it.. Dave