Austin Healey 3000 aluminium gearbox covers

The original factory issue centre-change Austin Healey 3000 gearbox, or transmission, covers were made of steel or fibreglass, and carpet covered. Don knew an aluminium cover would be lighter and far more aesthetically pleasing, and much easier to clean if left as bare polished metal.  

As with all racing cars Don already knew that owners of competition cars would place great emphasis on component weight and the practicalities of using it in a track environment. The solution was definitely polished aluminium, which would also look great in vehicles already stripped of carpet. In fact, it was racing driver Roly Nix that first approached Don (after his Emblem days, when he helped look after Roly’s collection of racing cars) about such a thing… and then other Healey racers John Chatham and Denis Welch quickly followed suit. At the time, these guys were the best Healey racing drivers in the world. 

It’s worth noting that these initial gearbox covers were made on the back of a quick chat. There was no internet, no camera phones, and no advanced design software (at least not in the workshop!). Don was given free-rein to create the pieces, based on his proven expertise and attention to detail – and his working knowledge of the car itself.
 
It’s that hands-on experience of the car that ensured Don could produce an accurate surface profile to accommodate the gear-stick, floor-pan, transmission tunnel housing and bulkhead. The cover basically has to fit snugly in amongst all those parts.

On the back of that flurry in the late 1980s and early 90s, Don (and now DMark) has had enquiries from all over the world based purely on photographs, and has made at least 20 polished aluminium Austin Healey 3000 gearbox covers.

As is often the case with older cars, particularly classic track cars, many of them have had a lot of DIY or custom work done to them over the years… some of questionable quality and workmanship! So it can sometimes be hard to marry up the original bulkhead and floor pan to a new gearbox cover when each car is likely to be slightly (or even very) different in places. 

To mitigate any major issues, Don ended up settling on a standard design that he knew was the best ‘overall’ fit he could provide, and left the final tailoring to the customer upon fitting to their cars. On occasion, though, Don would handle the fitting his workshop, as it’s not a simple task for the uninitiated.

The first few Don made were free-hand, based on an original gearbox cover. Later, Don had a fibreglass buck made, that standardised the design and the shape so that the replacement covers were ‘a known quantity’. Thanks to Don’s experience making and fitting them, they remain a significant improvement in the original, shape-wise and aesthetically.

The buck has enabled Don and DMark to produce covers more easily, and with precisely the same profiles. The buck allows us to form the metal (lightly hammering and planishing) and to ‘push’ against it when polishing and finishing. We can also clamp and offer up/position sections together much more easily during construction. The buck is sturdy enough to clamp, too.

The cover comprises five main sections of aluminium, not including the inspection lid and flanges. We’ve also incorporated a neat inspection cap, for checking oil level and quality.

We finish Austin Healey 3000 gearbox covers to the same degree and quality as we do any other beautifully crafted piece of metalwork, so it involves the usual DMark process of using a multitude of abrasive pads and discs, right up to a pristine reflective polish. We also provide a brushed satin finish, achieved with a soft-fleece rotary cylinder and our powerful straight grinder, which we also think looks pretty good.   

One customer’s gearbox cover didn’t even reach his car. It took pride of place elsewhere as a ‘piece of art’ because he loved it so much and preferred it as an artwork. Well, they are very pretty pieces…

It was inevitable Don would eventually be asked to look into a version for the side-change 100/4 after the success of the attractive 3000 centre-change version. But apart from two produced while trading as Specialist Historic Panels in the early 1990’s, Don and DMark have not made any more. Maybe we should have invested in a buck at the time. Maybe we will?

These gearbox covers have proven to be a direct catalyst to attracting new customers with completely different projects. They’re functional items, but they look great, and give potential new clients genuine confidence in our abilities and transferable skill-set… before they’ve even got in touch with us about their project. 

We’ve had several enquiries that begin with praise for our Healey gearbox covers, and then ask us for a meeting about an entirely different kind of project. 

To find out more about this project, or to discuss yours, get in touch.