Jack's 1966 Sunbeam Alpine
Here's the story of Jack's 1966 Sunbeam Alpine.
On December 12, 2024, Curt Holland and Craig Farr made the 600 mile drive to NE Pennsylvania to retrieve the Sunbeam from a barn, where it has been for the last 40? years.
With it safely loaded on the trailer for the return trip, they headed back to Jack's home the next day.
The Lily Bean coffee crew from BREMC gathered at Lily Bean on Saturday morning December 14, 2024, and after fueling with coffee, all headed to Jack's house to unload the Alpine.
The first challenge was backing the trailer over Jack's narrow bridge.
It took a few tries but we finally got the car in position to unload into the carport. Jack is supervising us.
Curt, Craig, Skip, Mac, Jeff and Tom attached a chain to the back axle and just pulled the car off the trailer! Wishful thinking, if it only rolled this easily.
Instead, they wound up using a come-a-long to pull it off the trailer.
Mission accomplished! The 1966 Sunbeam Alpine is safe in her new home, ready for Jack to get well and start working on it.
The car was placed on wooden blocks so the old wheels and tires could be removed. The back spinners came right off, but the fronts were stuck tight. It has been 40 years since they were removed.
Concerned with breaking the ears off the spinner, Curt welded up a heavy-duty knocking wrench that doesn't apply loads on the ears. Even this tool didn't budge the spinners, until Doug noticed the front wheel hubs were switched. We hammered the other direction and eventually got the front spinners off. What a dangerous situation! Hubs will be swapped to their correct sides. It's off that the backs were correct and the fronts were backwards.
The old tires were SHOT!
We eventually found the bonnet release and we pleased not to find large nests of critters living under there!
Jeff is removing the tight sparkplugs. We then added Marvel Mystery oil to soak and reinstalled the sparkplugs.
Other items like suspension pivots and door hinges were sprayed with WD40 to start making things easier to move. The suspension is going to need a lot of work.
2/4/2025- Dean from the Catawba Valley car club donated these brand new tires that are aged out. They will be just fine for now, rolling the car in and out of the shop. BOTH the wire wheels and tires will need replacement once the car is drivable again.
The new tires would allow us to roll the car outside for a pressure washing. We removed several interior items first.
Mac tried out his new foaming attachment for the pressure washer. The foam is impressive!
