Tigers East/Alpines East » About the marque

Hillman Parts

admin — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:07:56 +0000

Tips for Minx Series parts, most taken from postings to the Hillman Listserve.*

The information has no guarantee of any kind, implied or otherwise.

Hillman Series Minx Replacement Parts and Interchangeability Information
www.charm.net/~pdbragg/whatsahillman/parts.html

Check out the rest of this site for more about Hillmans.

We currently have no active link to this list serve. If you have the info, please use the contact form to let us know about it.

Thanks

Michael King Photos

admin — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:19:52 +0000

MKing-63-SII-01

1963 Series II

MKing-63-SII-04

1963 Series II

MKing-63-SII-03

1963 Series II

MKing-63-SII-02

1963 Series II

MKing-65-SIVGT-01

1965 Series V GT

MKing-65-MKI-01

1965 Mark I

MKing-65-SIVGT-02

1965 Series IV GT

MKing-66-MKIA-02

1966 Mark I Alpine

MKing-66-MKIA-01

1966 Mark I Alpine

MKing-66-MKIA-03

1966 Mark I Alpine

Humber Photos

admin — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 19:26:14 +0000

Photos courtesy of Robert Jaarsma

Humber

Humber on the left: There’s a Humber snuck in at the left

Amtrak AutoTrain Sunbeam Poster

admin — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:32:33 +0000

Poster now available.

There are, in fact, two different posters with our same beloved car pictured. (Not sure why they show up here in different sizes. Both posters are 24 x 18″)

to Orlando

toWashington

One, we showed you first, is captioned Washington, DC to Orlando, FL, and has palm trees waiving in the breeze. You can get that one here.

The other has the skyline of Washington in the background. Get that one here.
Both are just $5. each with an additional $8.95 for ground delivery.

Do you need one? Or both? Want to see other Amtrak posters? Click here

Sunbeam Tachometers

How do I know my Tiger is real?

admin — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:13:42 +0000

A visitor asked: How do you verify that a Tiger is for real and not a fake?

The easiest way to identify a “real” Tiger is to determine if it has been authenticated by the TAC process. If the car has been TAC’d, you’ll find a numbered decal behind the cubby (glove) box. TAC stands for Tiger Authentication Committee; a group of inspectors using inspection criteria to authenticate a Tiger body shell as being original (i.e. produced on the Jensen assembly line).
The STOA has a list of currently authenticated Tigers.

Many Tigers have not gone through this process yet so you are now left to your own visual feature assessment. It’s too complex a process to get into here. What I would like to do is put you in touch with a knowledgeable owner in your area. Please advise general area where you need support and I will provide you with a contact person.

Or join our Forum and poke around to see if others have had similar questions. You don’t have to be a club member to take advantage of the great info being shared in the Forum.

Sunbeams in space?

admin — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:51:25 +0000

According to John Grunsfeld, the astronaut on the Hubble telescope repair, owning an Alpine qualifies one as an important life experience for astronauts. Check out segment this recording of Car Talk. The reference is at 5:50seconds. [ed note: I think the original broadcast of this show was on June 6, 2009]

Here’s the link to the rest of the converstations with and about John Grunsfeld and the Magliozzis.

Hershey Vintage Hillclimb: SUNBEAMS steal the show!

Hershey Vintage Hillclimb: SUNBEAMS steal the show!

TigerTom — Sat, 23 May 2009 20:31:34 +0000

Anybody know what year this was?

A sleeping giant legend returns. The Hershey Hillclimb was held for the first time in 32 years the weekend of 20 and 21 April. Thirty-year or older race cars ascended the 7 tenth mile scenic service road to Hotel Hershey. Although rain showers were in the area they stopped each day to provide a dry run with lots of course cleaning by corner workers. Many where heard to say things like, “I don’t even sweep my house or shop this clean.”

The “HILL” has been shut down for 32 years and used as a hiking and nature trail. Hershey Executives recognized the value (both $ and community partnerships) by recognizing the potential of an event that was very successful in the past. In it’s heyday, the Hill had over 215 entrants and an estimated 10,000 spectators for a weekend.

The inaugural Hershey Vintage Hillclimb (HVH) was stolen by Sunbeams, an IMP, an Alpine and three Tigers ascended the famous hill. There were some really neat cars running, Lancia, Allard, a 1926 Pontiac Oakland hillclimb car, Porsche, Sunbeams, Aston Martin, Healy’s, Volvo, the aromatic acoustically challenged two cycle Saabs, and many others. Did I mention Sunbeams?

The red Series I Alpine, a local PA car owned by Frank Troxel, was raced for the first time in about 30 or more years. It was previously used as an F production hill climb and/or road race car. The IMP is an East coast favorite owned and raced extensively by Rick Rose at road races and hillclimbs. The IMP was always a successful race car having been a dealer sponsored (Beck Foreign Cars, York PA) The car is prepared to the latest race technology and is always a crowd pleaser along with the driver. It is a very fast IMP, and quick car until it hits a tree. Rick gets the dubious honors at the inaugural Hershey Hillclimb of being the only car to be extracted from a tree and drug home. And Rick still had a smile on his face. The Hill is that much fun.

The long distance award goes to Curt Bowland who towed is BRG street drivable quick C-production type race Tiger from near Chicago. That’s about a 1/3 of the way across this US of A, folks. Now that’s dedication to the marque and a lot of effort for 50 second thrill. This was Curts first hillclimb. His expression related to a comparison of sex for the first time., When Curt got off the hill, he was Beaming all smiles and puckered up after coming down from a high.

Geof Byrd brought his bright eye sucking crowd stopping yellow race Tiger from VA along with his trusty side kick, Co-driver Gilbert Grable. This too was their first hillclimb. There is no rush like flogging a Tiger up a narrow twisty road with trees on the edge and bringing it back in one piece. Both Geof and Gilbert managed to keep its brilliance in tact while pushing the limits of physics all the while turning respectable times from years past.

The crowd favorite geewiz wow pucker factor car, Fastest Time Of the Day and breaker of the hill record by over two seconds was…you guessed it, a red and white Tiger driven by Merlin Miller. Merlin has driven this Tiger on other hills and East Coast racetracks. The car is an engineering marvel closely resembling a SCCA GT-2 car. But more importantly, is how Merlin drives. He makes a Tiger dance with a fluid smoothness and balance of a ballet dancer by rear steering the car with his go pedal. It is a visual rush that even captivates the spectators.

Sunbeam racers did our marque proud. Both the drivers and cars stole the crowd’s attention. One even garnered its way into the record books as the fastest car ever beating out all the Vettes, 600HP purpose built vehicles, Open wheel formula cars, Porches, etc. . Out of 61 entries we had more Beams than MGB’s, Healeys, Porches, VW’s and other popular marques. The bar has just been set. The Hershey Vintage Hillclimb and Sports car show date has not yet been set but a late April date is being considered. The new record challengers have to break a Tigers record and the Sunbeam spirit from racers and spectators alike.

Ever notice Sunbeam drivers always garner spectators’ attention. Must cause that extra Beam they all have.

Tiger Transmission Locks in Gear

admin — Tue, 19 May 2009 11:42:03 +0000

Author unknown

My 1965 Tiger Mk I locks in gear, the shifter won’t move. It usually happens in city traffic when shifting up and down several times. All at once it just locks up, but I believe it’s almost always in 3rd gear. I usually just coast to a stop with clutch in or continue in third until the engine dies. If you just wait a while, jiggle it a lot, and oh yes, cuss a lot, it magically comes loose again until it happens again. I cannot reproduce the lock up by trying, so I can’t show it to a mechanic. Examination eventually located the culprit; the gate mechanism at bottom of shift lever.

This gate mechanism has slots that require a pin to be properly aligned (as determined by shift lever position) causing the selected lever to be actuated. This gate is what forces us to shift in the classic “H” pattern. However, we are sloppy shifters and shift like a “Z’ when going from second to third. The end result is a worn and sloppy gate which allows the shift lever to actually try and select two gears or not completely disengage one gear before going into the next gear. Ok, so what’s the fix?

Simple, sort of.

Remove shifter.
See other tech tips.
Send to a repair specialist like Dan Williams in Franklin North Carolina.
Or, disassemble yourself, repair the gates, replace the pin and install new bushings most worn parts are available if ordered from local Ford dealers.

The Harrington LeMans

admin — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:09:17 +0000

by Tony Inzana

The Sunbeam Harrington LeMans, which some of you remember appeared in our newsletter as a Road & Track road test reprint several issues ago, arrived officially on the English motoring scene in December, 1961, at the Earls Court Motor Show of that year.

Take a normal Sunbeam engine and chassis, tune the power unit to a knife’s edge and add as pretty a body as you’ve seen–and the result is the Sunbeam Harrington LeMans, the loveliest-to-lock-at new small car to grace the roads of this country for sometime…

One of the surprises of the show can be seen on stand 74a. It is the Sunbeam Harrington LeMans, which, say the manufacturers, ‘comes straight from one of the worlds greatest motor races’.

And in fact, it did. The Alpine’s and for that matter, Rootes greatest success in competition took place at LeMans in 1961. The results of that one race not only brought Rootes an indeterminable amount of publicity, it introduced as a direct descendant, a new British sports car–the Sunbeam Harrington LeMans.

Based on the Sunbeam Alpine which won the Index of Thermal Efficiency Award at the 1961 LeMans 24-Hour Race (considered the 2nd highest award to outright victory, it recognizes the car ,with the highest overall average mileage for the duration of the race at the highest average speed). The 1.6 litre Harrington LeMans had an entirely new body styling and a highly tuned, high performance engine. It was manufactured and produced by the specialty coach builders of Thomas Harrington, Ltd., of Hore, Sussex, England with the approval of the Rootes Group.

The LeMans evolved from a series of coachwork conversions and modifications that Harrington was performing at the time on the Alpine. These examples, known as Harrington Alpines, were usually customer ordered and correspondingly designed to specific individual purchases.

They offered the flexibility, comfort, styling, and increased cockpit area of GT Coupe to Rootes’ existing Alpine roadster body and chassis. This was accomplished by having a customer purchase a standard Alpine, arrange either through the Rootes dealer or privately, through Harrington, for the car to be delivered to Harrington’s (which in fact was also an independent Rootes dealer). Once there, working to customer request, the car would be converted to accept the chosen GT body styling, either opening rear window hatch with the trunk spare wheel access inside or fixed hatch with trunk access through a half-lid located below the rear window. In some instances, both the hatch and lower lid would open for access. The framing for these modifications was completely of wood with the actual body material being fiberglass. The mating of the roadster steel body and, the fiberglass took place along the waist/rear fender line of the Alpine. Back as far as the windscreen ‘A’ pillar and the doors, the construction was pure Alpine. By overlapping the steel with the fiberglass from-aft of the doors at the ‘B’ post and running the roof line down into a newly designed sharply tapering tail the resulting effect was both structurally sound as well as pleasing to look at.

On these earlier Harrington Alpines the rear fin was retained. It was from this style that the LeMans car came. The production cars were further available with optional engine preparation in three stages from 83 to 100 brake horsepower. In addition, the complete interior was redesigned and available with numerous options and combinations to the customer. Harrington accomplished everything throughout the conversion with the exception of engine tune which was consigned to George Hartwell, Ltd. of nearby Bournemouth. The Harrington Alpine was available to Rootes Dealers and was often ordered as a finished car to sell, as presented, to off-the-street buyers. Harrington themselves would offer cars such as these in their showroom having them available to sell as well as to display and promote their coachwork conversions.

It was with an eye to this obvious experience and success that Rootes chose Harrington to build the body for their LeMans Alpine entries of 1961. The LeMans cars, numbers 34 and 35, went one step further in design by incorporating recessed head lights and a molded wraparound lower grill and apron to the GT styled coupe roof and rear treatment of their sister Harrington Alpines. The finished cars are reminiscent in many ways, to the author, of scaled down editions of Aston Martin coupes of the same vintage.

The success of Number 34 is history as it not only won the Index of Thermal Efficiency but was 2nd in its class and 16th overall. The value of this success was considerable, both for the Rootes Group and Harringtons themselves; and it prompted the decision shortly afterwards to market a production version of the LeMans car. The result is the Harrington LeMans.

The LeMans differs considerably from the Harrington Alpine bodied LeMans Alpines that actually ran in the race. The body was restyled to better incorporate the roof/tail line of the earlier cars by removal of the fins. This allowed the rear fenders to blend more smoothly with the line of the sloping roof. Clusters of horizontal rear tail lamps on the cut-off back replace those previously mounted in the fins. The optional opening rear window hatch becomes standard, allowing for trunk/spare wheel access through the open hatch and deleting the necessity of the lower trunk lid. The opening hatch has a remote cable release from inside near the driver’s shoulder.

Inside the car, the normal seats were replaced by well made and shaped Mirco-cell bucket seats. Behind which are two very small occasional seats of the “GT” variety common today. The backrest for these seats fold forward to provide a greatly extended luggage platform that was impressive particularly for its day (you must remember that in 1961 the small GT sports car as we know it was non-existent and in many senses this was the first, well before the GT6 or MGB/GT and even the XKE). Beneath this compartment, and reached by lifting a trap door directly below the rear window, is the spare wheel, jack and other tools plus additional storage space.

Quality of workmanship was commendable considering the handmade adaptations necessary. The fiberglass roof is of a rough early type “grainy” fiber which is fitted and placed solidly and is free from movement. The result was quite attractive and offered a definitely more finished appearance compared to the earlier coupes and separated it, except from a direct frontal view, completely from the Alpine roadster.
The power unit of this new car, as advertised, was tuned to the “precise” specifications used by the Rootes Group for the car which lapped the LeMans circuit for 24 hours at an average speed of 91.4 mph for 2194 miles on a total of 122.5 gallons of fuel, with only 9, repeat 9 minutes off course for fuel stops. Its average consumption was 18 miles per gallon. The engine developed 105 B.H.P. at 6000 rpm at a compression ratio of 9.5 to 1 or some 19 h.p. more than the normal production of the Series II Alpine at 5000 rpm. The LeMans torque is eleven pounds above that of the Alpine at 4500 rpm instead of 3800.

The engine modifications involved were considerable. A special lightweight flywheel and competition clutch were fitted, and these were balanced as a unit with the crankshaft. Valve operation was controlled from a high-lift camshaft, and assisted through stronger valve springs, while the breathing was altered by enlarging and polishing the inlet and exhaust ports and changing the choke and jet sizes of the two downdraft Zenith carburetors. In addition the Laycock-deNormanville overdrive was available in modified form to operate on all four forward gears. Other mechanical features included a heavy duty brake booster supplied by Clayton DeWandre, larger front roll bar, and an oil cooler. The cars came equipped with Dunlop RS5 radial tires.

The interior was given deluxe trim treatment with numerous interior combinations available including 3 differently styled door panels, the Micro-cell seats were unique and special made for the LeMans, a Carloth wood rimmed steering wheel was supplied by Les Leston of England with a matching walnut veneer dash and gearshift knob.

O.K., with all this, why am I just now hearing about this Rootes entry to the wonder car contest of the early sixties? Who knows exactly, certainly the car wasn’t that far ahead of its time (note the previous mention to numerous GT introductions in successive years).. And according to the English releases, the car was destined for export immediately. One answer might be the price, originally marketed in England for 1495 Pounds, and over here at between 3995-4200 Dollars. In 1962 that would put it in the same league with Alfas, Porsches, Jags, etc. and considerably above Rootes own Alpine along with the MG’s and Triumphs. It was definitely bucking stiff competition in a market segment that Rootes was new to, but then again Rootes had always been forced to go against the competition with its more refined, less ‘roadster’ image sports car in the Alpine. And this was really quite a jump in styling, it was the first of its kind and had the benefit of its LeMans success.

The car didn’t lack for publicity as it appeared on the covers of Road and Track, Car & Driver, and Sports Car Graphic in this country. Initially the dealers were crazy to obtain the cars and yet why the void, why no cars now? As far as I can see this is probably the key, what it all came down to was on the basis of all this acclaim and notoriety, when the dust settled, there were just no cars to take advantage of it. People didn’t see and what they never saw they never bought. Except for dealer demonstrators and a small number of individual orders, mostly from U.S. servicemen who had seen the car while abroad, there just was no follow up.

Actually this same condition plagued dealers again under similar circumstances when the Tiger was introduced in New York 2 1/2 years later. .There weren’t any available to sell in light of the tremendous response given the introduction. Essentially then, the LeMans died on the vine. From initial production in October, 1961, of random cars from the Alpine assembly line to late 1962 only the above mentioned examples plus the magazine test cars appeared in the United States. And when deliveries could finally begin to be expected, the conversions were ceased in early 1963 without any apparent reason and even less publicity.

Automobile Quarterly gives a figure of approximately 200 cars produced, which appears to be supported by Mike Taylor’s new book on the Tiger. Low figures indicate possibly as few as 150-175 units. Existing numbers would be anybody’s guess. I would put the percentage of remaining cars at around 20%, optimistically, of those produced. There is also an undetermined additional number of Harrington Alpines to consider which were available concurrently with the LeMans in England through 1964 (or thru the Series IV Alpine), and there is one Harrington Tiger, (that we know of). In any case, a whole lot less were produced than either Rootes or Harrington, envisioned and -. not very many by any standard.

Bulletin 67-44: Alpine V, Minx VI & Arrow New Oil Pressure Relief

Eric Smyder — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:42:27 +0000

NUMBER: 67-44
DATE: 3-31-67
GROUP: Engine
SUBGROUP: Oil Pressure Relief Valve

MODELS: Alpine V, Minx VI & Arrow
SUBJECT: New Oil Pressure Relief Valve

A new steel relief valve assembly was introduced in production from the Chassis Numbers shown below, having a thick fibre sealing washer under the head of the relief valve.

Alpine V – B.395 012220

Minx VI – B.006 045731

Arrow – B.051 006069

Should you encounter complaints of oil leaks from this fibre washer, it is recommended that the existing washer, approximately 1/8″ thick, is replaced by a thinner washer, 1/16″ part number 5058200. After fitting new washer, tighten relief valve to 15 ft. lbs. DO NOT OVERTIGHTEN.

Check for any signs of damage to the threads of the relief valve and body; replace where necessary. This new washer will be introduced in production in the near future.

The new valve can be installed on up-to models by including the filter base, part number 5058202.

T. H. BULLARD
Manager – Service & Parts