Well, you might think I’m done with brakes on the Ttiger, sadly no. After starting to look at what I could fit in a 15″ rim the choices were pretty limited. Toss in that I really did want an E-brake it makes it more difficult to find something. The Tiger has a Dana 44 rear axle that has some old world parts and time also to think about that. The plan is to remove the housing ends of the Dana 44 and replace with Ford 9″ flang ends. This is a common swap for the Jeep and 4×4 folks seeking better axles and brakes. So after looking at 9″ rear brake packages it is still a problem to find something that looks track worthy and will fit 15″ rims. Most of the Wilwood stuff uses big (too big for the tiger) rotors, most of the hot rod 9″ brakes that are E-Brake capable have a brake pad that is HUGE and really not right for the rear of a car. Then I remembered a fellow I met who worked on the RCR GT40. Rob ant Vintage Venum (www.vintagevenom.com) makes some nice parts for early mustangs and some will fit within 15″ wheels. This is what they have – You use their special billet axle bracket, a set of 1994-2000 Mustang Cobra Rear calipers with Ebrake, and same car rotors (11.66″ vented) and all done. I just got the billet bracket as I didn’t want the rotors and lines (read on).  Well,  still need to yank out the rear and do the 9″ flang conversion and get special 9″ axles with Dana 44 splines.  The Calipers come with pads and are a Ford Motorsports product so easily available from Summit for about $220. The don’t look as good as you might like but they should do fine. Picked up E-Brake Cables from Lokar and related braided lines and hardware for them as well. But guess what, more fun. While looking for slotted rotors it ends up that Wilwood makes a Cobra rear kit for stock size brakes, and basically it is the 2 piece rotors and some ok pads. You know I like Wilwood stuff, and 2 piece rotors, well that is just cool stuff so will be using that kit. More as it unfolds!

Wilwood Superlite 6 on Tiger Front Suspension

Well after a long mess of brake FAILS, I finally got something worth posting about.The second set of brackets are good and are going to work. I ended up still have some spacer problems and on one side will have a couple of shims between the caliper and bracket, but good enough. More at www.gtsparkplugs.com look at ‘The Cars’ button and navigate to the Tiger.

Well they finally arrived and out to the garage I ran! The hubs are nicely made and look strong. The weight is a couple of pounds at most. The iron ones that were basically 5 lug MustangII / Pinto disk brakes cut down to a hub are a lot heavier. Do you enjoy my accurate descriptions! Well they are nice, I used the new ARP screw in studs (super long too!) and set one up. They do come with the bearing races installed and a nice screw in dust cap, the Wilwood support had mentioned the dust caps were separate so chalk up another one for them being wrong. Never the less, I get a spindle set up and slapped the caliper bracket and hub together. My hope was the offset for the brake bracket would not change. Well FAT CHANCE given the way things have been rolling and as fate has it, it has to change about 0.030 to keep the caliper centered over the rotor. Not a big deal just need to change a small spacer thickness and be done. As soon as I do that I can weld up the mess and do the last bit of drilling and tapping on the brake bracket. Case Closed hopefully. One nice thing is that the CNC made Wilwood hubs have the studs very true, the Chinese iron hubs did not and you needed to force the long studs into the brake hat holes. The long studs with the Wilwood hub slide right in, smooth as glass. These hubs were from the parts bin as used on the Superformance brake upgrade package.

Had to pick up a set of roller 5 lug rims for the Sunbeam in anticipation of the axle changes. I found another Tiger owner that had used the 2005 16″ Mustang Halibrand style rims with some spacers and it looked pretty good. I found a set off of ebay which was local (save $100 on shipping) and picked them up. The 16″ rims have plenty of room for the 11.75″ brake and Superlite 6 caliper even without the spacer. The wheel offset for these rims are 39mm so a good amount of spacer will be required on the front, maybe .75″ or so as a guess and maybe .5″ for the rear. Baer brakes makes some that can be used with long studs in a lot of sizes so should be easy to get close. The goal is still to use 15″ rims for the race tires but for now these should do just fine. They even included the mock spinner. I should paint them black like ‘The Rippers’ rims, maybe the Tiger needs to be red and black  now

Well I finally got into the garage and took a couple of picture of the Tiger front end. The main website Here has the start of that chapter. I also talk a bit about the brake madness and show some differences in the Wilwood Dynalite and Superlite brake pads.

This is the link here as well –

http://www.gtsparkplugs.com/TigerFrontSuspension.html

Well still no picture on the custom Sunbeam Tiger front suspension. But in chatting with a fellow Tiger racer (well I’m not one yet) he was mentioning his brake set up using 12.19″ Rotors on 15″ wheels and thought, damn I have 11.75″ I should of course upgrade. The one thing I don’t like are the Dynalites on the front side of the car. “The Ripper” has Superlite 6 Piston on the fronts and they work really well. The dynalites have much less pad surface then the Superlite series, so task of fitting them in was also on the books. After all that found even a better caliper that would almost bolt on (Dynapro 6 Piston) but seems it does not fit 1.25″ Rotors. Crap, would have been easy no changes just new larger calipers and pads. Well back to the drawing board. In researching more of the Superlite calipers you can get them in narrow outside body and that helps, also found a kit for a Superformance Cobra with, guess what, Superlite’s and 12.19″ rotors. Seems they run a Mustang II spindle as well, so might get really lucky if it all fits and just use a stock Wilwood bracket! The Superlite calipers will work on 11.75″ rotors as well, but in for a dime in for a dollar as they say (They in this case is the little voice in my head that says get the best brakes possible). Another interesting thing is the Superlite’s have a smaller overall height off the top of the rotor vs. the Dynalites, just at tick, but it will all help. The only area of concern is rim interference on the front face of the caliper to rim. Will just have to see how that goes as the thicker pads move things out a bit.

The Calipers, GT Directional rotors, bracket should be here early Janurary. Brake compounds that were ordered were the nice J Pads, but they may have discontinued that compound, so may have to try another maybe B, C, or H.

What to do with the Dynalite’s? Rear brakes of course. Will have to shim them back for the 9″ Brackets for the 1.25″ rotors, I have but should not be an issue, or I’ll just have to use thinner rotors or make some new brackets…

I just started working on getting the drivetrain page up on the main site. I just put up some images of the Tilton Hydraulic Release bearing and retainer plate for the Tiger’s toploader. The transmission is from David Kee Toploaders and more info on the gearbox, clutch, pressure plate, release bearing and the differential are up on the new page.

Tiger Transmission

Here is the information on the Tiger United 31, which is being held at Big Bear Lake.

It is a quick drive out of Los Angeles, and if you have any interest in Tigers this is where you will possibly find the largest collection of them. Seems people are coming from all over the country. I don’t think I will be driving the Tiger up, but I’m going to try to head on up Saturday morning which also is the day of the autocross. I hope to snoop out some interesting ideas on cars and chat with a lot of the folks I have met online. Starts Thursday June 26th, and ends Sunday June 29th. Below is a blurb from the California Association of Sunbeam Tiger Owners (C.A.T.)

Jun 26 – 29 Tigers United XXXI will be held at Big Bear Lake, California.  The Northwoods Resort, 800 866-3121 for reservations, is the place.  Darrell Mountjoy is the Chair and has much work done and much to do.  Darrell has chosen a theme for this Tigers United,  Rootes Race Cars.  Darrell has commitments so far from five Tiger and two Alpine race cars including a Bonneville Sunbeam (photo above) that is planning to break 200 mph.  Click here for Registration Form (Not sure how long it will be active).