New Member - SE Virginia - with a "barn find"

V

varodder

Bronze forum user
Messages
33
I am also new to this forum although I have lurked on this and other Tiger oriented forums for a while. I have been a member of the HAMB forum for quite a few years (same username) and have found these entities to be very entertaining and helpful.....and I've also met quite a few nice people on them:).

I have recently acquired a 1965 Mk 1 Tiger that I have been coveting for a long time. This car has been sitting in a protected shed since 1982. I first became acquainted with this car back in 1968 when the older brother of one of my high school buddies bought the car from its original owner (who I also met years later). I first got to drive it in 1969 when I was a senior in high school. What a treat that was. It had been modified for autocrossing and had Goodyear Blue Streak race tires on the LAT 70 wheels as well as a lot of other hop up goodies. The car was sold in 1971 (for $1000!) when the owner wanted to step up to a formula C race car. The third owner lived next door (who I have also known since I was 15). In the late 70's I bought the house next to him and lived there for around 8 years. The car was parked for about 5 years (while I was living next door) until I talked the owner into getting it out of storage and running again. This lasted a couple of years until he lost interest and put it away again (1982). I did get to drive it a couple of times before he put it away. He kept the car for 41 years until I was able to talk him into selling it to me a few weeks ago. He decided that at 89 years of age that he wasn't going to do anything with it and he wanted me to have it.

It is basically rust free, never wrecked, original drive train intact with less than 67K miles. I have identified the following LAT options on it: LAT 1, LAT 6, LAT 8, LAT 20 (at least the dual point dist), LAT 70, and LAT 27 (rusty Tri Y headers needing replacement). At one time it had LAT 72 (Motorola Radio) but I have know idea where it is now. I know there is also another hood with a NACA duct, a roll bar, and the original steel wheels and grille bar somewhere but I haven't been able to dig them out of his garage yet (pretty well buried in stuff).

I have the car home, pressure washed, and plan to replace all of the hydraulics, hoses, brake components etc. before pulling the engine and tranny out. This will be a labor of love as I have wanted this car for a long time! It looks great in the garage next to my 35 Ford traditional style hot rod.

I welcome any advice, comments etc. any of you out there. I'm sure I will be back with questions, progress pictures etc.

If any of you live in Southeast Virginia or Northeast NC. please give me a shout. email: varodder@cox.net

Colin Pratt
Newport News, Va
 
Colin,

Great looking project and nice to have such a long history with the car...

I guess more important for you to ask any questions as they come up.. looks like alot of fun. welcome to the baord and tiger community..

advice.. join CAT :D
 
Welcome

varodder said:
If any of you live in Southeast Virginia or Northeast NC. please give me a shout. email: varodder@cox.net

Colin Pratt
Newport News, Va
Click to expand...

There is a lot of experience available on these forums and it's all waiting to help you keep em' runnin'. Most of us have bloody knuckles and reasons why you may want to or not do certain things with a mongrel Tiger. Enjoy and welcome, randy
 
Colin

Welcome! You sure get an A+ for perseverance. Glad you finally got "your" car.

I am up the road in northern VA and in fact I purchased my Tiger down in Newport News a couple years back.

All the Best

Jim
 
Good News from Newport

Spent a pretty fair amount of time in Va. Beach
I do not think every one knows HAMB is the Hokey Ass Message Board. The board is a great resource for general how to for all makes and models.
The Mrs does not care for the use of Hokey with a negative connotation being from Va. Tech. Great story, car looks pretty complete and almost looks like it is jumping for joy to be out and getting attention.
 
Hi Colin,

First, I would like to add my welcome to you to the Tiger community.:D

You had asked on Doug's thread about the suspension strengthening details. The best one for the rear spring front mounts can be found at http://www.tigerengineering.net/TECHTIPS/Spring Mount Reinforcement.pdf written by Tom Hall. He also addresses some of the issues there regarding the front cross member attachment points. The fact that yours moved as you jacked you the car is kind of scary. If you do a search on the forum here, you can find some info and pics on the rear spring mount subject. Oneoffive (AKA Randy) has also added a gusset in the dog leg area as a way of strengthing this design weak spot. Pic's in the thread. I think both his and Tom's approaches are great and did both on my car.

The other crossmember reinforcements basically involve rewelding the shock towers, adding a reinforcing plate on one open end, rewelding the attachment plate points for the lower fulcrum pins, adding some reinforcement beads to the rack mounting brackets and around the two part crossmember joint, etc. Also, the upper wishbone ball joint hole is a weak area that will benefit from a reinforcing bead weld being run around the hole. (Do weld with old ball joint in place, to hold shape, then replace joint as it will be destroyed buy the welding process.)

A lot of the factory welds were really just stitch like welds, rather than running all the way around things. If you can get your hands on a copy of the old CAT Shop Notes, there is a lot of good detail there. If you join CAT, you can buy a copy through the parts warehouse, available to members only, hint, hint..

Gene
 
I am also a proud Hokie!

Warren said:
Spent a pretty fair amount of time in Va. Beach
I do not think every one knows HAMB is the Hokey Ass Message Board. The board is a great resource for general how to for all makes and models.
The Mrs does not care for the use of Hokey with a negative connotation being from Va. Tech. Great story, car looks pretty complete and almost looks like it is jumping for joy to be out and getting attention.
Click to expand...

Hokey is OK. I am also a Va Tech Hokie (class of 1974).:D While the HAMB is strictly traditional hot rods and customs there is a wealth of information on parts fabrication, painting etc on it. I highly recommend it.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks for the info

cadreamn67 said:
Hi Colin,

First, I would like to add my welcome to you to the Tiger community.:D

You had asked on Doug's thread about the suspension strengthening details. The best one for the rear spring front mounts can be found at http://www.tigerengineering.net/TECHTIPS/Spring Mount Reinforcement.pdf written by Tom Hall. He also addresses some of the issues there regarding the front cross member attachment points. The fact that yours moved as you jacked you the car is kind of scary. If you do a search on the forum here, you can find some info and pics on the rear spring mount subject. Oneoffive (AKA Randy) has also added a gusset in the dog leg area as a way of strengthing this design weak spot. Pic's in the thread. I think both his and Tom's approaches are great and did both on my car.

The other crossmember reinforcements basically involve rewelding the shock towers, adding a reinforcing plate on one open end, rewelding the attachment plate points for the lower fulcrum pins, adding some reinforcement beads to the rack mounting brackets and around the two part crossmember joint, etc. Also, the upper wishbone ball joint hole is a weak area that will benefit from a reinforcing bead weld being run around the hole. (Do weld with old ball joint in place, to hold shape, then replace joint as it will be destroyed buy the welding process.)

A lot of the factory welds were really just stitch like welds, rather than running all the way around things. If you can get your hands on a copy of the old CAT Shop Notes, there is a lot of good detail there. If you join CAT, you can buy a copy through the parts warehouse, available to members only, hint, hint..

Gene
Click to expand...

Thanks for the information, I am also chatting with Randy on some of these procedures. I am fortunate that I hang around with a lot of old time hot rodders who also appreciate the Tiger and are willing to help out. One of them showed me how to chop a top and schooled me in Mig welding. This should all come in handy. Actually, the cross member only moved a slight bit as it was taking up the weight of the front end. My guess is that the area it was bolted to flexed slightly. I'll be taking a close look at all of this when I pull the front suspension to drop the engine and transmission out.
 
barn find

tigers east is having the united in pigeon forge ,tn october 4 /8. that's not that far of a drive for you. there will be quite a few alpines and tigers . more info can be found at the te/ae website.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top