Well, did the experiment I talked about. Started her up, ran her for a bit, then shut her down and pulled the wire off the ballast resistor (the one that runs to the tach). Tried starting her again… she would catch once like she wanted to start and then die. So, that tells me initially that the 12v is going through the tach as it should. Or if it’s jumped, it’s not under the hood anyway.

Garage will be cleaned and ready tomorrow… then I can start in earnest.

Small victories… did some more wire tracing last night and found that the reason the temp gauge wasn’t working was because the wire that was supposed to be connected to the sensor was lying down under the carbs. Popped it back on the spade and it works fine. Wish they were all this easy.

Still no tach though. It doesn’t move at all. Am I correct in assuming that if the white/slate wire from the tach to the ballast resistor isn’t connected, the car won’t run? I could just disconnect it and try, I guess.

This weekend I’ll be pulling the calipers off and seeing just how stuck the left front is. At this point I’m pretty much prepared to replace the calipers, pads, and brake lines assuming that the caliper is indeed sticking. If not, maybe I can get away with just the pads and lines for now. The rotors, from what I can see looking through the wheel, don’t seem to be too bad so I’m hoping that maybe I can hold off on them.

Hoping I can get the brakes resolved shortly to at least get me through a couple of months (it’ll be winter here soon and she’s definitely not going out in the snow, I have a Ford Excursion for that!). To give me a bit of incentive, our town has an Octoberfest downtown festival the last weekend in September (go figure) and they do an informal car show on Friday night, just everyone parking on the main drag. Every year they do a featured “theme” and of course this year, ironically, is “British Sports Cars”. So of course I want to get her down there, even though she’s not near show ready. We’ll see if it happens.

Brought her home for the first time on September 9, 2012. First, the general description and details about the car itself: she is a 1974 Jensen Healey MkII. She seems to run pretty well though she idles very rough. Not too worried about that yet. Included with the purchase was the original owners manual complete with foldout wiring diagram (which proved invaluable 24 hours later, as explained in the next paragraph), a shop manual, a Haynes manual for the Strombergs, the original (I think anyway) hardtop which is in pretty good shape except for the fact that someone decided it was a good idea to paint it metallic grey, and all the receipts for the work that the previous two owners had done going back to 2001. Interior is really nice, probably not original. Body is ok… it’s been repainted (red) and mostly solid except for the rails being a little soft and a few soft spots in the floor. That’ll be the winter project.

Now, on the way home I noticed that it wasn’t charging… meter wasn’t moving, but the ignition light wasn’t coming on either. Battery seems to be good (thankfully) and after doing a voltage test across the battery I determined that it was not charging at all. So, I charged up the battery and spent Sunday afternoon between the manual, the car, and this site learning how the Lucan 14037 alternator was supposed to work. The receipts showed it was replaced in 2009 so I was hopeful it was something simple. Diving into it, and scratching my head repeatedly, I figured out that whoever installed the alternator didn’t seem to understand it. Long story short… I pulled out the wiring they had spliced in (with spin on wire nuts, can you believe it?) and basically replaced the three wires with new ones, with new connectors, and actually connected the wires where they were supposed to be connected (the brown/yellow exciter wire was connected to one of the 3/8″ terminals, and the lighter brown wire wasn’t even connected). Put it back together, crossed my fingers, fired her up, and watched the voltmeter rise up to a little over 14V. Whew.

So, that solved, my next step was going to be to investigate why the tach and temp gauge don’t work. Looking at the wiring diagram, I wonder if it’s just a bad connection since if I remember right they share a white wire from the ignition switch.

Meanwhile, I took it out a bit the past two days to play with it a little. I had noticed the car pulled to the left a bit and could hear the pads dragging a bit, so it was no surprise when, today, I hit the brakes and the left front wheel pretty much locked up. Didn’t skid but it was pretty tight. So, it gingerly went back home and into the garage, where it will sit while I ponder just how much of the braking system I want to replace.

I’ll update as things progress.