Update by Tim Suddard to the
Sunbeam Tiger project car
Oct 20, 2005
We moved the Tiger into our “working” bay of the garage.
Little plastic bags are used to store and organize parts.
The top and rubber seals have all seen better days.
Under the black respray, you can see that the original upholstery color was light blue.
Work has begun in earnest on our Tiger. Normally we like to try and drive a project car before commencing restoration. As purchased, our early (#746) Tiger was whole except the engine had been removed. We easily found an original engine for the princely sum of $400. While we could have easily installed the engine and tried out the Tiger, we decided against this move. The reason, is that the Tiger had had a shunt at the left front corner and we didn’t want to drive the car until it was fixed properly.
So, after thoroughly photographing the car, disassembly has commenced. There is a right way and a wrong way to disassemble a car. The right way is to turn up the XM radio, kick back and relax and slowly work from top down, studying, photographing, taking notes and bagging and tagging everything.
Our initial impressions: first the last guy that worked on this thing was a butcher. The car had a rather unsympathetic refurbishment in the early seventies (the last time the car was touched). Fastener choices included metric bolts, carriage bolts, wing nuts and what ever else was lying around. Fortunately, because the car has been off the road and stored inside since 1975, the mileage is low (41,000) and the chrome is all pretty much perfect. The rubber seals are absolutely shot though, and will need to be replaced.
This all is so familiar! My Tiger was off the road for over 20 years. Kept in dry storage the entire time, there was no rust on the body or frame. The chrome was still in good condition and the seats and interior trim was also OK. A visit to www.paulalmjeld.org will take you to several photos taken while the car was being restored. Now complete, it is a very nice example of a low mileage '66 Tiger.
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