In goes the Ford 289 | Sunbeam Tiger engine swap project - Ep. 7 - Hagerty Media

In this week’s Sunbeam Tiger engine swap video, you get to see the last of the driveline prep and then the sweaty work of getting the Redline Rebuild 289 shoehorned into the Tiger. While it’s true it can be hung from the top and “dropped in,” over the years this bottom-up approach has proven to be a good way to also get the job done. It’s certainly easier for me to do it this way, so here we go.

This is a job best suited for a couple of people to tackle together and involves a lot of finesse. The tail shaft of the transmission has to go into a tunnel in the center of the car, and at the same time the angle of the body—suspended by a hoist, mind you—needs to be constantly adjusted to get the driveline under the nose of the car. Then there are the motor mount bolts, which need to be lined up perfectly.

Let’s just say it’s a job I’d not care to do again anytime soon, as you can probably tell from the screen grab below. Hey, we’ve all been there.

The prep work continues before I install the Holley EFI setup and the elements of the high performance cooling stuff from Griffin. A LOT of nuts and bolts are turning, and to say “I’m in the home stretch” is probably a little optimistic, but I’m getting there. We have some tours planned for the fall, and this Tiger needs to be well sorted by then.