1973 Jensen Healey Restoration - Part 15

1973 Jensen Healey Restoration - Part 15

Part 15- Powder Coating
By Greg Fletcher

Costs For The Last Month: $606

Back from the powder coating shop, my parts all look so nice I'll almost hate to put everything back together. Powder coating is expensive, but the results are so impressive. The bumpers were the big ticket items this month, just those are $150 each to coat. Hmmm, too bad that back bumper was twisted and I didn’t notice it until it came back! It's bent enough (length wise) that I can't seem to untwist it and make it look normal, so I'm again looking for another rear steel bumper. Nice waste of $200, maybe next time I can find a rat hole and save money on gasoline. I also had the bonnet prop and water brackets re-zinc treated for $45. This cleaned out my money from the sale of my previous Jensen, as I still had some of that cool cash stashed away (the new owner paid me in hundred dollar bills, rich uncle died, money in wall kind of stuff- anyways, it was tough to see the last of that cash go).

Another 4 hours one recent weekend sorting nuts and bolts, again. This consisted of dumping the big, oily plastic bin, from the 13242 previous owner, and cleaning off the big globs of oil and grease and figuring out which bits go on the engine and which don't. I was reasonably successful in returning many a nut to it's happy home. Remaining nuts and bolts have been sorted and subdivided into small boxes for later annoyance. The front bumper was being a problem too- the right side mounting bracket had been bent and re-welded (and a hack job of it) in the distance past. This prevented the bumper from reaching the correct height on the right side. It was about this time I realized that I had 2 right sided rear bumper mounts (grrrr) and only bottle of pinot left! Things were not looking so good. I found some needed NOS brackets for $43. Other miscellaneous parts include a front crank seal, throttle cable, front brake rebuild kit, distributor 0-ring, oil pump gasket (that funny, thin one that will seize your engine if you use the wrong thickness) and of course, Hylomar. Many moons have been spent in cleaning old nuts and bolts. Having gone this far, I'm not about to just put back rusty, crusty, thirty-year old fasteners.

A bead blast cabinet would be ideal, but I don't have room for one and a compressor. Instead, I use the poor-mans bolt cleaner, the Dremel Motor Tool with wire wheel attachment. It does a nice job with small parts, I'd be lost without it. Since I do have most all of the fasteners, I'm making a supreme push to use all the original stuff that came with the car. Now all efforts are being directed toward the engine and transmission.