I have to report that I lost a wheel, (right front) while driving a BJ7 back in
the mid 70's.
As a college student at the time and using the Healey as a daily driver (and
often nightly between bars :) ), I am really lucky it happened during
daylight hours on the expressway surrounding Atlanta. I was traveling in the
second lane (of 4 at the time) at about 65mph...slow for Atlanta traffic.
Without any warning....noise or steering play or anything...it came off and the
rt front came crashing down on the rotor. Somehow, I got over to the shoulder
leaving a groove in the payment from the rotor digging in. After surveying the
situation...no knock off or wheel..I walked back about an 1/8 of a mile and
found the knock off. The threads were severely damaged. I walked back to the
car dropped the knock off and then walked ahead to find the wheel. I found it
about an 1/8 of a mile ahead. It had rolled that far, jumped a guardrail and
rolled 50 feet in the woods! So, I rolled the tire back, jacked up the car,
mounted it and added cardboard to the spline to help the knock have something
to "bite" on. I continued on my trek home...about 6 miles...stopping every 1/2
mile or so to retighten the knockoff. Successfully making it home, I surveyed
the damage. The rotor had worn down flat in two spots and the worst one was
missing about 3/4'" of metal! The spline was still in good shape so I
replaced the knock off (with a used one, of course) and the rotor and was on my
way again. Needless, to say, I checked them regularly after that incident. I
still wonder why it came off, the knockoffs were all on securely and I had
logged 100's of miles since the tires were off and rotated.
Other stories with that BJ7 include running out of gas..on numerous occassions,
overheating in downtown Atlanta in the summer and having a condenser go bad.
But those are for another day. We all have Healey stories to share.
John Homonek
1959 BN7 (complete restoration almost finished)
1974 Jensen Healey
|