Austin Healey 1958 'Frogeye' Sprite Restoration

In the back end of 2012 I started restoring my 2013 Frogeye Sprite with a family friend of mine Julian in Whitby.  We are going to get it running, strip it down and re-paint it then redo the interior.

My uncle used to renovate classic cars as a hobby in his teens in my Grandmas garage.  He eventually got a job with Virgin Airways and is now living in Andora.  He had left the shell of an Austin Healey Sprite in the garage with most of the components need for restoration with the car.  After 5 years or so the car got moved down to our farm and was stored at the back of our dutch barn covered in hay.  25 years later, I dug it out and am now almost done with the restoration; it was last taxed in 1983.

After stripping the chrome, bonnet and exterior trimmings off we set to work at getting the engine running.  After stripping it we had some electrical problems which have now been 

 resolved after some hard work and a few favors.

The engine got painted and had to replace the thermostat housing.  The petrol tank was steam cleaned and re soldered and had an inline filter installed into it.

Other engine stuff that was sorted included the carbs, radiator, rocker top, timing chain, fan belt and a few baked pipes.

 Next we started to sanded down the body work.  This took ages but revealed the past colours the car had been which was interesting.  We took out any rusty patches which were not too many in the end.  After this Julian primed the body work. Following on from the body work came the bonnet which was a nightmare.  Julian's skill with a welder helped as he welded two new panels on the front section.

After welding the two little sections back on between the smiley gill face and the indicators we had to prime the whole body.  In order to get to this stage we had to sand the whole car down by hand with dry and then wet/dry sand paper in order to get a smooth finish with no rusty bits on the bare metal of the car, although it was in great nick.   

So, this is how far we have come and have completed:

Engine Running
Under-sealed
Interior Felted
Wheels
Body Sanded
Body Primed
Interior Painted
Electrics Repaired and Organised

Round 2

I now have the car back at home after a waiting a long time to find someone who would be willing to paint the car at an affordable and trustworthy rate.  It will be picked up in the next 2 weeks and the last bit of skilled body work will be done and the painting can begin.

Jobs To Do:

Interior carpets, dash board restoration (massive job), paneling to leatherette and cut, chrome to polish/re-chrome (dead end on the re-chroming), all the electrics to do and bulbs to fit and finally - have a professional check it over for anything engine, brake or body wise that looks rubbish.  A long way to go!!