The 289 is in, but there's still a ways to go | Sunbeam Tiger engine swap project - Ep. 8 - Hagerty Media

If you watched Episode 7 last week, you’ll know that we reached a milestone with the Tiger’s engine swap—getting the engine and transmission back up into the car. While this stage can mark the “home stretch” in similar projects, there is still a lot of work to do on the Tiger. This video deals with a good chunk of it, so here’s a quick outline of what you’ll see.

In case it’s not obvious, I am getting very tired of lying on my back and crawling around on my greasy garage floor. If there were ever a perfect customer for an automotive lift, it’d be me. But here we are again—skinning my knuckles while reconnecting the clutch hydraulics, trying to mount the starter while chewing on a flashlight and not kicking over the camera … and so much more. Plus, it’s about a hundred degrees in my garage in this segment. However, if I can get this stuff done, it’s on to the glory and light of the work on top. As Frank Costanza once said … “Serenity now, Brad … Serenity now …”

A really satisfying portion of this segment is also dedicated to painting some stuff with about 50 years of road trip patina. It was high time for a spruce-up. This isn’t normally something I care much about; I mean, I like things to be presentable, but good honest age on an original component is just fine with me as long as it isn’t deteriorating. Now, though, I’m just trying to make Davin proud, you know.

Another fun chunk of time was spent test-fitting the new Tiger-specific Griffin aluminum radiator, which looks great. I know a lot of people who are running these, and I’m going to give this car every fighting chance I can to keep cool in traffic. Getting the radiator, fan, pulleys, and belt lined up is quite something on a Tiger; there’s just no room to work. You need the spindly hands of Ichabod Crane to get anything done, and having three of them would always be a help.

Lastly, you’ll see the front subframe dragged laboriously into position under the car—this car is getting very close to rolling on its own four wheels again. Stay tuned!