Underneath

OK, I have checked out the comments on the origional paint on the sunbeams. They all say "body colour". I beg to differ, I have a series V Alpine and now a Mk1 Tiger. It has shown itsself to be origional as can be. I have also checked with a chap in our club that assures me I am correct.
The Rootes builders did NOT paint the undersides in body colour. It was sealed in a dark red primer and then painted with a black sound/protection cover. I am in the process of removing same and underneath is the dull red primer. At no point is there any body colour.

steven said:

OK, I have checked out the comments on the origional paint on the sunbeams. They all say "body colour". I beg to differ, I have a series V Alpine and now a Mk1 Tiger. It has shown itsself to be origional as can be. I have also checked with a chap in our club that assures me I am correct.
The Rootes builders did NOT paint the undersides in body colour. It was sealed in a dark red primer and then painted with a black sound/protection cover. I am in the process of removing same and underneath is the dull red primer. At no point is there any body colour.

Click to expand...

Steven this is the same car that was missing the SUNBEAM lettering on the front? there are several Alpines and Tigers surviving in unrestored original condition that still have body colour factory applied paint on the underside.. the wheel wells as visable in period road tests show body colour as do several period mags with shots underneath.

How far the cars were painted is a different story and same goes for soundproofing.. not on all cars.. some original cars have the area where the tailshaft goes in only primer.. but seems to be pretty strong proof across unrestored (and by that i mean no touch-ups.. no bingle low milage cars) that show they were body colour... there has been quite a bit of research done on it.. and seems fairly consisitent.

michael-king said:

Steven this is the same car that was missing the SUNBEAM lettering on the front? there are several Alpines and Tigers surviving in unrestored original condition that still have body colour factory applied paint on the underside.. the wheel wells as visable in period road tests show body colour as do several period mags with shots underneath.

How far the cars were painted is a different story and same goes for soundproofing.. not on all cars.. some original cars have the area where the tailshaft goes in only primer.. but seems to be pretty strong proof across unrestored (and by that i mean no touch-ups.. no bingle low milage cars) that show they were body colour... there has been quite a bit of research done on it.. and seems fairly consisitent.

Click to expand...

The car I have has been pranged, however the interior, underneath etc is pristine. Every hole in the underneath has its origional rubber bung. I almost burnt the rubber seal into the body where the fuel pipe enters the cross tube. Even levering up the cover that covers the fuel pipe under the boot floor shows no evidence of body colour. Only sound deadener and primer so I disput this statement untill I can see it with my own eyes. Oops, also the cross tubes that have been whacked are also in primer not body colour. the front and rear guards I have removed show No evidence of body colour underneath.

Steven and Michael, I just wanted to make a minor contribution to the discussion.

As an example of one, my car, Vin ...1447, did not have body color paint under the undercoat where I was cleaning up the rear spring front attachment points prior to reinforcement. The box sections in that area only had the very smooth red primer as Steven describes.

I am the original owner, and that area has never been touched since I picked up the car from the dealer. I have not taken the undercoating off the fender wells but would certainly expect to find body color in there.

Gene

Thank you, exactly what I found. the very proffesional even coat of dull red primer is so invasive of the area's not seen by most people. I inended to paint the underside in body colour however if I continue throughout the entire underbody strip and find no difference, it will be repainted in origional dull red primer. I may paint the inside of the fender's in body colour, wiil see.

steven said:

Thank you, exactly what I found. the very proffesional even coat of dull red primer is so invasive of the area's not seen by most people. I inended to paint the underside in body colour however if I continue throughout the entire underbody strip and find no difference, it will be repainted in origional dull red primer. I may paint the inside of the fender's in body colour, wiil see.

Click to expand...

Steven,

So you are saying not even the wheel wells on yours are painted body colour?

Underside paint

When Jensen converted the cars to MKI Tigers, they cut out the trans tunnel with a torch along with the cross tubes. This would have left a rough slag edge. If the underside had already been already painted body color, it would be burned in those areas. IMO it would not be practical for Jensen to repaint those areas in body color but perhaps to "touch them up" with primer or perhaps black paint. This would include the underside of the new trans tunnel as well. Based on the crude weld work, it's hard to believe Jensen was that concerned with a quality paint finish on the underside ;-) These are just my opinions and I'll defer to those much more knowledgeable then I in Tigers.

Dear Sirs, I have now discssed this matter with the rootes/sunbeam experts over here. I also made contact with a genuine Rootes service dealer (ex). The end result from these learned gentlemen as well as my limited observations on my Alpine and now my Tiger.

Quote from Mr J Harris (ex dealer/serviceman) "The cars from Rootes had the underneath treated with primer/sealer. It was a red colour. Over the sealer was a sound/stone covering. This was on all the underneath except for the front inner guards. They were treated with primer but not black covering. They had body colour. I made a point of polishing the inner guards to enhance the car and reduce the chance of road grime sticking to the car."

This is backed up by every senoir member of our club.

I spoke to the owner of an unrestored 60K mile SIV today.. (a car that atteneded many of the AU nationals) the car is smoonstone white, I will be gogin to take some pics on the weekend, but after a phone conversation today.. there is body coloured paint in the front guards under the underseal, there is body colour in the rear guards, though only lightly at the top of the well. The front area where the X frame meets the front rails (the ribbed zone) has a very good coat of paint.. interstingly enough there appears to be templete marks (similar to those used in the grill area to paint the black inside the grill openings) to stop the underseal gettign on the sills and the rear valence/sills.

In the front guards where the headlamp buckets are there has been a black finish applied, but better lighting when we check it out should give an idea.

This is a car with no hits, original paint, interior etc.. never been apart. There is also an autumn gold S3 being restored here at the moment, original owner doing first resto.. gold paint on the body under the stone finish.

There may be some inconsistancies on the order of which the finishes were applied, and may have changed suring production but there are definatly cars with the paint on in the gards and some way into the underside.

As a side note the SIV has original rubber plugs (original sealer removed from top of them during the strip down.. this was a surprise as many will now there were also srung metal plugs used to fill the pressing holes in the fllors, boot, rear deck.. yet there are cars later and earlier that have metal and some have rubber.

Also steven.. as you would note from the STOC board where you posed the question a few members agreed with you.. and one member who did also pointed out a guy who restores the cars had pointed out to him that he had seen the cars with the paint in the gards/body as well.

Ok,

I have not had a chance to go look and photograph the unmolested original car yet, but have dug up some food for thought.

Some period road test pics from the brooklands books from Alpine SII to SV and Tiger. All showing painted inner guards front and rear (of note is that many of the cars in other pics where lighting is not as good in other shots in the article make the wheel arches appear dark due to shadow) Click for larger images:

Motor Sport April 1965 Tiger MKI:

Sports Car Graphic 1966 February SV Alpine:

AUTOCAR 1962 February Harrington LM

AUTOCAR 1963 December SII Alpine

Road and Track 1961 October SII Alpine

underneath

maybe when the alpine bodies were designated at pressed steel to go to jenson for the conversion could it be possible that the body was dipped in the primer vat after being assembled without the body parts such as the alpine trans tunnel, inner wheel braces,etc that were not needed for a tiger. every original tiger i have looked at has no evidence of the inner wheel braces being cut off. then when jenson had made the modifications to the body for the tiger conversion it was then painted by jenson. i wouldn't think that they would start cutting and welding on a painted body. i have heard that there was nothing but primer under the inner wheel braces of a tiger. maybe the underside of a tiger didn't get painted as an alpine would have in order to keep cost down. if you look at page 43 of chis mcgovern's book you will see the paint line for alpines. notice that the bottom photo shows an alpine upside down for inspection of paint. on page 45 the alpine coming down to meet it's drivetrain appears to have the underneath painted. i do know that the underneath of the wife's alpine has blue paint under the undercoating that was on the car when we bought the body in california. we had it blasted instead of dipped so the paint is still there. everything since get's dipped. someone find a retired jenson worker to answer these questions.

65beam said:

maybe when the alpine bodies were designated at pressed steel to go to jenson for the conversion could it be possible that the body was dipped in the primer vat after being assembled without the body parts such as the alpine trans tunnel,

Click to expand...

The Alpine tunnel was cut out with a torch, and a sloppy job at that. I would guess that was not part of pressed steel's job description ;-)

underneath

take a look at an alpine in a bare metal state and you will see the difference between the two tunnels. go to my photobucket site http://s606.photobucket.com/albums/tt142/65beam/ and you will find photos of my current restoration of a series 4 alpine. since the tunnel is not a structural piece of the car and with the financial condition of rootes at that time wouldn't it make sense that they leave the tunnel out of the alpine along with other unneeded parts of the body before sending it off to jenson? why scrap parts that didn't need scrapped? the front floors were probably installed and then cut to fit the tiger tunnel. a torch and stick welder make a mess of fresh paint so that was my reason for speculating that maybe the paint work was also done at jenson. it makes you wonder what other corners they cut in order to reduce production cost. was not painting the underside one of those cost cutting measures? will we ever know all the details? odds are NO! i just know that if my wife ever quits spending money on restoring alpines, maybe some day i can buy a tiger. she still has two harringtons to do after this series 4. i've told the person restoring the alpine that over the years he's gotten gets much more of the wife's money than me. anyone got a tiger that they want to sell cheap?

I have been busy beavering away at the upside down tiger. Removing the black body stuff. So far, trunk (boot) floor and wheel hump. red primer same as both rear chassis rails. Further foward the under floor and surrounding metal all primer. The cutouts in the rear X member shows the reinforced piece welded to the existing frame and black crap on them, remove the black stuff and unpainted metal. I expect when I get to the front X members where the exhaust holes are it will be the same, no primer under the black stuff. The limited removal I have done on the inner guards (fenders) only shows red primer under the black however I think both frnt fenders have been worked on/replaced in its life. Oh, I have cleaned the rear spring mounts, lookes pristine, I can see every weld and fold, will I reinforce? maybe.
An upside is seeing metal panels as they came out of the factory with every seam and weld clear as day.

A little belated.. but the pics from the unmolested SIVGT:

http://community.webshots.com/album/581938227YhwvTT



Some intersting things to come out of the crawl and tell..
Rootes maksed the rear 1/4 sills to ensure the black undercoating didnt get where you can see it.
They sealed over the gromets on the boot floor (you can see the body colour under the gromet when we took it out)
Where the sealer has chipped off the X brace under the car there is body colour, and the cross bracing shows runs of the sealer that go upwards indicating it must have been done on a rotiserie.
There is body colour over the sealer in the front guards AND UNDER it.
There is body colour at the end of the X brace where it meets the sills, they have masked it to ensure the selaer didnt go over the part you can see, they also seem to have polished it smooth too.
There is body color under the selaer in the rear wings.. as can bee seen where the tank bolts were removed.

A few more pics in the album so have a browse.

I have spent many hours on the underneath of this Tiger, I have removed 90% of the black sealer. At no point on the underneath is there any sign of the Midnight Blue body colour. I believe Rootes may have had different paint programs for the cars. The Tigers were painted with the red primer and maybe the black selar underneath. When shipped to Jensens the additional parts were fitted. At every point parts were fitted, there is no red primer only black sealer. As far as the inner guards go, the rears were origional especially considering they have inners as well. I have removed a limited amount of black sealer inside the guards however no sign of body colour yet, only red primer.

Steven,

I'm not doubting what you are seeing on your car.. its there.. but you have stated without hesitstion that it applies to ALL Tigers.. and there are many original cars with paint in the guards and on the underside. You also followed it up with claims the alpines were the same... no body colour.. and again.. there are many cars that prove they were painted under the car as well. I guess the good thing to come out of this is in looking at the car i went to visit it shows rootes went to some trouble masking the cars underneath.. something i did not know before. In the near future i will have a comparative MKI cross over body car to examine.. again no hits not repaints.. so will be interesting to crawl aroud it and see what it shows.

As a side note... does your MKI have black paint in the drains at the base fo the A post/windscreen, the ones above the leading edge of the door?

Oh Yes, Joy Joy have found body colour The underneath of this Tiger is now free of almost all black stuff. Every panel, beam, seam is dark red primer. The exception is the Tiger panels added to the X beam and the extra lugs for the exhaust brackets. They were welded on and then sprayed with the black stuff. No red sealer. The exception is the transmission tunnel, yes, yes it is painted midnight blue body colour on the underneath.

The whole lot will be repainted with a gloss red primer because the makers say its so good chemicaly it will seal all metal so corrosion cannot occur. It can also be overcoated with any topcoat including 2 pack. So I will see how the underneath looks in bright red and deside to cover it all with midnight blue if I think it will look better. Gotta wait till the rain stops before shooting the paint.