Picked my Tiger up today in York, PA

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PITT40

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I'm back in Pittsburgh now (4 hours away). My dad is bringing the car out to me tomorrow. Here is the first pic.

I got that 2 wheel trailer with it. It's a homemade jobber from the 1950's, but will do the trick. The car has been sitting on it since 1984 when the previous owner moved. He put tires on it 3 years ago and I put new lights on it and greased the wheel bearings before the trip. I will sell it once I get the car to Pittsburgh.

I have a commitment tomorrow and won't dig into it until Sunday. Will have more pics.

p.s. Still can't tell if it is factory black. There is white everywhere, even up under the dash. But it's a Tiger and has all the nuances. More investigation to come.
 
I note the rubbers on the sidelights are sprayed over too. If you can't findany original black .. Could it be someone switched tiger vins .. Crashed or stolen car?
 
That spray over the turn signal gaskets is from the Vo Tech school repaint. They did a poor job. The one rear trunk hinge was so poorly taped that about 1/4 of the hinge side is painted white.

Quick history. The car was white when my seller bought it in 1969. He thought it was original paint. He drove it for a couple years as a daily driver. In 1971 he bought a more suitable daily driver for this climate (with snow and all). A friend of his wanted to buy it.They agreed on a price and he let the biddy take possession but not ownership (title change). A few months later the buddy gave the car back because he couldn't pay for it. The buddy actually took the car and had the Vo Tech school paint job done. The car has sat ever since.

I'm going to pull the hood latch on Sunday. It looked like the hood hinges may have been partially black when looking up from inside the grille. The original headlight bezels and cowl vents were clearly black at one time. (See pic that I have posted prior).

I didn't have time or means to investigate further today. The doors won't open while it sits on the trailer and I was busy doing lights and pulling the trailer hubs, etc before it got dark. So all I did was do a quick look around with a flashlight.

There is no sign a collision anywhere. Stolen? Maybe but the VIN would have come from a wrecked car, because this is 100% a Tiger. If that appears to be the case, do I paint it black?

BTW, my seller paid $1500 for it when he bought it.
 
Latch

Save the screws as the original ones have a small circle stamped in them.
Also be careful the dovetails "latch pin on doors," can get stuck and they are expensive bits and the re pops are not so nice.

Hope the rear brake shoe did not rusted to the backing plate with the e brake on :)
 
AWESOME!!!!

Very very cool! That is a very exciting project. Congratulations!!!

Please post pix of your progress! It's always neat to see pix of the 'time machines' that have been untouched for so long.

Cheers! -Kevin
 
You guys may not believe this, but the clutch master was not only free, it had fluid in it and the clutch works!!! The brake master has some fluid and was solid on the first pump, then was slow to return. I didn't even check the levels before pushing them. I need to get fluid tomorrow.

The only problem was the parking brake has been on for 40 years and I had to spray and tap them back and manually turn the rear brake hubs and squirt WD40 in to get them loose. It took 3 guys to push it into the garage off the trailer about 6ft because the rear brakes dragging.

I had a little time to sort thru the stuff in the trunk and all side chrome is there. One Tiger emblem is missing and most of the trunk letters but 2. Air cleaner with filter and an NOS filter media still in the wrapper. The trunk shelf is pretty rough and wood is splitting, but that's normal.

BTW, if the solenoid is down low on the firewall in a Mk1A, what is the false floor on the passenger side for on that model? There is nothing behind it.
 
Also on the headlight bezels, the MkII ones have a screw into the clip on the bottom of the headlight bucket. The originals have no screw. I recall my other Tigers having screws. How do you attach ones properly without a screw? That spring clip just doesn't seem like it will be trustable, if I can get it lined properly.
 
Beware of flying parts

The clip on headlight rings will fly off at speed when changing lanes.
They have to be drilled and there is a little clip which must be installed on headlight buckets. Possibly clip is already done for you by P.O.

Many really cheap small motorcycle guys and even the BMW ones suggest plain old Diesel fuel as rust and WD40 substitute.
 
The poor reliability of the spring clips IS the reason there are screw attached rings on the later cars.

The passenger false floor just makes a smooth surface for the passengers feet.
It makes a great place to hide a cruise control module also.
 
Just wanted to chime in. What a great find! Eager for all the progress reports and photos on your exciting project. Some may say I'm a bit biased, but black definitely looks beautiful on our cars. :)
 
Well, I got the hood latch removed and...................it's all white under there. There is also white under the carpet and sound deadener/underlayment as well as behind the gas tanks and under the dash. There are no signs of any accident whatsoever or signs of 2 cars being combined. I do have original black headlight bezels and cowl vents that came with it. So either someone at the factory royally F'd up and stamped the wrong color code on the VIN tag or someone had a wrecked black car, stole a white car and swapped tags. The notary ran the VIN through the state DMV database and it was not in there.

So what to do? Paint it white or black?
 
Contact norm with the trans and rear end # and he will tell you what you have purchased. You should paint it black to match the vin tag and even if there is a story on the car (and most have them) you have picked a great color to paint it. Lee
 
If someone wrecked their car and switched vin's there would most likely be no paper trail to an accident----usually if someone is going to do that you want to stay quiet so no one knows what is happening. As far as paint--paint it whatever color makes you happy. My last Tiger was a code 58 car--I painted it code 100 Med Blue--that made me happier. Sounds like it's a keeper so you have to be comfortable with the color.
 
Well, back then you could convert an Alpine and get away with it. This is clearly a Tiger in every facet. So that's why a possibility is this was a stolen car and they obtained numbers from a car that was wrecked beyond repair to resell it.

I'm going to get the rearend number to Norm. Where are the numbers on the trans?
 
There is a metal tag riveted onto the side of the gearbox on the (your) passenger side.
One rivet, at the very front of the box.

It would be very interesting if your gearbox and diff numbers are correct for the VIN in the official records.
It would mean that someone had too many Brown Ales at lunchtime.
 
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Liquid Lunch ?

tiger260 said:
There is a metal tag riveted onto the side of the gearbox on the (your) passenger side.
One rivet, at the very front of the box.

It would be very interesting if your gearbox and diff numbers match the VIN.
It would mean that someone had too many Brown Ales at lunchtime.
Click to expand...

Most likely black & tan in the growler.
 
tiger260 said:
It would be very interesting if your gearbox and diff numbers match the VIN.
It would mean that someone had too many Brown Ales at lunchtime.
Click to expand...

Maybe it's just the way you wrote it and I misunderstood, but the number on the transmission tag isn't the car's VIN number, it's the sequential serial number assigned to the transmission when it was manufactured by Ford.

Edit. I just reread your post, maybe you meant he could submit the trans serial number to Norm to have him check his database re. the trans number to the VIN of record?
Just so the poor fellow doesn't panic if he doesn't see his VIN on his trans tag... ;)

Cheers,

Paul
 
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Paint the car whatever color floats your boat. At the Baja Cantina during car week in Monterey, there were two tigers side by side. One was black the other carnival red.
The red car was code 1, the black car code 39.
 
Any number of reasons

Most of us small motorcycle guys have been known to put a valid lic. plate on a non registered vehicle. Whenever I did I at least put insurance on it as that ticket was 1500 dollars in California. Some guys do stuff like that with a parking ticket collection vehicle as well.

To be safe my ASAP first stop is the state sponsored vin verification at DMV or Highway patrol.

Most of you heard about that E type Jag owner reunited with car after 30 years.

When you hear a nice collection of parts statement don't let it get you down. Get it TAC'ed and build it how you want it.

Let's see how the auction results come up in Anaheim in a couple of weeks pitting a white car against a black car.

The list TAC inspectors is not posted back to new and improved S.T.O.A site.

Our member DC Tiger just got his cars done in D.C. you are pretty close.

Oh, I do like the too many beers reason, that the stamping guy forgot to put a 08 after the one 1+08 = 108 Polar White not the most exciting color...
I can see it happening, just like the same rear end numbers on several cars, maybe that guy screwed up yours too.
 
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