[Healeys] AH 100 Front & Rear Suspension

[Alan Seigrist]

Tadek -

Two things:

1) Most healeys I have seen have very solid king pins.  Before going through
the trouble to rebuild your king pins (fixing them is a big pain in the
butt), check and see if your king pins are worn to begin with.  If there is
no back and forth lateral movement on the king pins, I'd leave them alone,
they hardly ever wear out if the car is regularly driven and somewhat
regularly maintained, and it looks like your car was well taken care of.

2) If you are looking for guidance on how our cars were built and painted
from the factory, I would HIGHLY recommend that you get this book:

http://www.mossmotors.com/Shop/ViewProducts.aspx?PlateIndexID=29492

If you were to buy one book on the Healey, it should be this one.  This is
one of the best restoration books I have ever seen for any car, it is
excellent and will answer 95% of the questions you may have on what's
original and what's not.  It will tell you how the suspension was painted,
with pictures.

By the way, your suspension looks very good.  One piece of advice, do not
buy hard polyurethane bushings for you car, they can wear out your
suspension (the rear A arm is shorter than the front, the bushings need some
give).  If you buy a urethone bushing, get them from Noltec because they
sell soft bushings:

http://www.noltecsuspension.com/

The blue bushings they sell are perfect for use on a street car, and keep
the suspension nice and tight.

Best Regards,

Alan



On Feb 14, 2008 6:27 AM, Tadeusz Malkiewicz <tadeusz.malkiewicz at plusnet.pl>
wrote:

> Hello there,
>
> I think I have managed to take the front suspension apart and clean it. It
> looks somewhat like this:
> http://picasaweb.google.com/Volvo1800S/HealeySuspension
> (the right side at least)
>
> The suspension was still on the original bushes I believe:
>
> http://picasaweb.google.com/Volvo1800S/HealeyDismantling/photo#5163589772396
> 868226
> made by METALPLASTIK....
>
> I will be getting soon to the rear suspension.
>
> I have a few questions though:
>
> 1. There seem to be kingpin kits available on the market - are they all
> the
> same? I plan to get it from AH Spares, but wonder if it's ok...
>
> 2. What was the paint used on:
> - suspension parts
> - shock absorber arms
>
> Was it powder coat? Gloss? Semigloss?
>
> 3. The nuts and bolts - were they silver cadmium plated?
>
> 4. Is there any way to take out the brake adjusters in the front? (I would
> give them for plating, but I am not sure I there is an easy way to take
> them
> off...)
>
> 5. I do not have any workshop here that would have the correct reamer for
> Austin Healey suspension.. What are the correct dimensions for reaming top
> and bottom bush? Or maybe someone has a reamer somewhere being useless??
> :-)
>
> And now for the rear suspension:
>
> 6. Does anyone have a picture of original (or restored as original)
> picture
> of rear suspension and brake parts?
>
> 7. How were the leaf springs treated in the rear?
>
> That's all I can think of for now.... Many thanks for all help..
>
> Tadek