> On February 26, 2005, Curtis wrote:
> In the passenger fender well
> behind the strut brace and lower are two large 'dents'...
> Even an Alpine outside has the same dents but
> no items are mounted near them to suggest what they are
> for...
> Does anyone know what these were for?
Curtis:
I think I have the answer to your puzzler. I went out to my shop where I
keep both my street Tiger and my vintage racer Alpine to take a look.
Currently, only my Tiger is out there, as my Alpine is down at a friend's
race shop where I have the benefit of using his lift for some work I was
needing to do.
Anyway, after finding the "dents" you were talking about, it hit me like a
ton of bricks. I'll lay odds that those dents were pressed into the inner
fender during the manufacturing process to allow for clearance for the
Alpine steering gear. As you are probably aware, the Alpine had a steering
box instead of a rack and pinion like the Tigers. All of their
"side-to-side" steering gear was located behind the engine and over the top
of the bell housing. As the Rootes factory replacement parts book calls
them, both the "drop arm" and the "relay lever" (idler arm and pitman arm in
American terms) are mounted on an Alpine roughly where the engine mounts
attach to the chassis on a Tiger, which happens to be just forward of the
"dents" you are talking about. Without having the benefit of looking at my
Alpine to confirm this right now, I'm betting that these "dents" allow these
two aforementioned components to swivel from side to side in an unrestricted
manner when the steering wheel is turned. Consequently, since the Tiger
more or less shares a body shell with the Alpine, Rootes probably saw no
need to spend the money it would have taken to delete those "dents" for the
Tiger.
As you can see, I've also forwarded this response to the Alpine list with
the hope that our friends there can confirm this for us. I won't be seeing
my Alpine again until next weekend so, as I stated above, I myself won't be
able to confirm this until then.
Take care,
Andy Walker
Edmond, OK
B382001600LRXFE
B9006857LRX
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