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.