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 This is a Sunbeam Alpine Series II built in 1963 and I'm the (un)lucky new owner. Series II is a little unfortunate, because that means the underpinnings are even more ancient compared to later models. It has rear lever shocks. It's been bouncing around in my family since 1970, but the last time it was driven was probably the early 80s. It's spent way too much of its life parked in a rather moist area, so the relative lack of rot is remarkable to me. Nothing structural, no body rot, just some surface rust and some holes in the floor pans, which were already patched.  These pictures are from when I first got it home a few weeks ago and immediately pulled everything loose out of it. The car was originally blue, then yellow, then white, and finally red. Twice! The grey primer was between the white and first red repaint.    Dirty, dented, and just generally abused. And SO MANY WASPS NESTS.  Unsurprisingly, it's got the original engine. The wiring is an absolute mess, I mean, beyond everything being Lucas. There was no ignition coil, so I added one and after some rigging, I grabbed a fresh battery. Turns over no problem and has spark, but I haven't sorted the fuel situation yet. I also replaced the hard crumbling radiator hoses and discovered there's a bad freeze plug thanks to the piss stream I got out the side when I tried to put something in the radiator.  The bigger issue is that it's got no brakes. And the front calipers were froze up, which made moving it a terror. The good news is that I was able to pull off the calipers and I can carefully move it in and out to do the dirtier work. The bad news is that I ordered a caliper rebuild kit from rockauto, but it was for a different variant of the caliper and there's basically no source for an easily compatible caliper that I'm aware of. If anyone has a source on some sort of Girling Type 16 variant calipers with a 3.5" center to center mounting at a decent price, I'll love you. I'm hoping that the lack of availability is because of 'rona and not that they're just gone forever.   In the meantime, I've started cleaning and repairing the metal. Unfortunately, I hate sanding, so I'm not going to be happy with that. So I started with the interior, where it was mostly just cleaning up and a quick shot of some primer to ensure there's no future issues.  Never mind the crappy temp job on the battery box. I'm going to do a proper repair and slip a plastic box in there. You can see whoever did the floor pans was not an accomplished welder, but they're solid and will be covered with carpet, so I'm just going to move on. Too much other stuff to do.  Speaking of which, I did start stripping the front valance because it was relatively twisted. Turns out it was about half bondo. The deck lid, too. Apparently it was painted red following an accident and they didn't bother actually making repairs. I know what the more recent damage is from. Some time around 1990 is was stored in a shop which was hit by a tornado. The roof was ripped off the shop and some of the shop fell on the car. Goals: Get the little thing back on the road. "Near" future to do list: Completely refresh the brakes with as many fresh parts as possible. The calipers seem to be the only trouble. I've sourced nearly everything else. Drain the tank. I'm guessing it has 35 year old gasoline in there. Make it start / fix engine. Consider a swap depending on what needs done. I already know the carbs and linkage are kind of junk. Clean the hell out of the underside and protect it. Infinity sanding. Bodywork on the valance and passenger door. Get it in primer. Longer term to do list: Rewire the entire car. In the process switch to negative ground and separate everything into different circuits. Right now it has a total of two fuses - one for constant power and one for keyed power. Figure out what color I want it to be. At the moment I'm thinking a dark blue metallic of some sort. Figure out the interior. I'm going to insulate and carpet the floor front to back and that's fairly easy. I'm going to need to fabricate a lot of interior pieces, though. I'm leaning towards selling off the gauges and doing a fully custom dash, especially if I end up doing some sort of engine swap. Update the suspension however much I can. Come to grips with the fact that this is going to take me years. Budget: Shoestring. Skill level: Probably not high enough. But this is not my first project.  Here's my (currently dirty) El Camino that I restored inside and out, including all the paint and body work. Admittedly, I learned quite a bit about what not to do in hindsight. The worst part was that someone ran into it at my work's parking lot right after I painted it, so I had to do a decent chunk of the work over again.
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Jul 31, 2020 21:48
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 00:10 |
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As a fellow British car owner, my condolences. I worked at a British restoration garage/parts dealer plus my good friend owns/races/sells parts for Alpines and Tigers so I can ask around. How do the bores and pistons look in the caliper? Also inspect the rockers closely, that's a major area for rust.
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Jul 31, 2020 22:01
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Pistons are crap. 3 bores look good to me. I haven't gotten the last piston out of the one caliper yet and I have a bad habit of switching to a new task so I can feel I accomplished something. I can get the correct rebuild parts from a specialty supplier, but I understand the caliper for say, an early TR4 should fit, and if those were actually in stock at the moment, they're cheaper than rebuilding what I've got.
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Jul 31, 2020 22:09
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This is the best thread.
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Aug 1, 2020 21:41
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EVERYWHERE 
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"Manky" strikes me as the proper term for this. Voted 5. Can't wait for more.
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Aug 1, 2020 22:01
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Assuming they fit, I just ordered fresh calipers for about the same price as the rebuild parts. I was mashing the order button as soon as I saw the stock alert. In other news, I need to take some pictures. I found some badness and tons of dirt dauber nests.
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Aug 5, 2020 14:39
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So, I had finally crawled under the rear for the first time to spray some penetrating oil and get ready to drain the fuel tank. More messed up wiring. Definitely not getting a signal from that sending unit right now.  I looked up and noticed this this, I-link, I guess that's attached to the lever shock. More importantly, it's only attached to the lever shock and not the axle. poo poo.   If you look close, you can the other side is attached. Also, check out the awful dirt dauber nests, including oil-infused ones. Manky was definitely a good description.
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Aug 5, 2020 20:24
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There's Project Binky, this can be Project Manky!
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Aug 6, 2020 07:43
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 00:10 |
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I got the calipers in and they didn't fit. The mounting was correct, but apparently the difference between the type 16 and type 16P is that the body of the caliper is about 1/4" shorter, so the 16P didn't fit over the rotors. I ended up sending them back and began brainstorming. This is the original front suspension I'm working with and I've done some measuring. I'm formulating a plan to do a spindle swap and I'll probably end up needing to fabricate some A-arms, but I think I'm going to try to keep modifications to subframe to a minimum. It would be a lot simpler if suspension part dimensions were easily found. One of the few things I looked for and found detailed diagrams for was the 1988 fiero. Oddly, everything on that would almost fit perfectly off the shelf, but that's not really cheap and readily available. Then I turned to my driveway and noticed G-body spindles are just about bang on and I know that everything about them is cheap, plentiful, and reliable. I have a brother that puts together hot rods for a living, so I plan on talking to him, but at least it's a start. It looks like it would make changing over to a manual steering rack easier, too.  Moving onward and a few inches upward, I've dumped all the fuel that was in the tank and the lines and rigged up a temp fuel line for a 1 gallon tank for testing purposes.  Fuel is sorted (except for the crappy carbs, but the immediate goal is for it to fire, not drive). So on to the electrical. I know it has spark now and it turns over, but really slow because there's a lot of resistance. I spent about a half hour covering all the exposed wiring ends to eliminate the chance of shorts and then started cleaning up the wiring and replacing the horrifically corroded ends of the main battery wires. I still need to clean up the starter attachment and then I'll be ready to give starting it a serious go. Admittedly, I'm putting this off because if it runs alright I'm then going to have to consider the pros and cons of switching to a 2-barrel Weber setup versus engine swap.  I've spent hours beating and bending on that valance. The driver's side's corner was bent down about an inch lower than the passenger's side's. Since the bottom is enclosed and pretty tight and I honestly don't really know what I'm doing, this was definitely an exercise in creativity. I'm sure I did it the wrong way, but job's done all the same. You'll also notice that I've been able to continue stripping parts (goodbye windshield and frame!) and spent entirely too long sanding. I'm kind of curious how much it weighs at this point.  More evidence of sanding, but let's talk about this passenger's side door. Embiggen the picture and you can clearly see that it's pretty hosed. I feel like I've become a sanding archaeologist at this point. You can see the big strip of bondo that 's running down pretty much the whole side. I discovered that was done and resprayed early in the car's life because on the door there's a coat of grey primer and blue on top of the original blue paint. That's not the case for the majority of the car and the bondo is under the blue respray. The battered section of the upper door I believe is from a tornado and cinder block wall collapsing. The metal is pretty stretched at this point, but I'm going to remove the door glass and try my best to fix it. I don't think door skins are even available for the early Alpines and I don't think I could make it much worse. Captain McAllister posted:There's Project Binky, this can be Project Manky! Names are fun, and I've started calling it the Manky Moonbeam.
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Aug 22, 2020 18:08
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