I have been just observing on the Tiger mailing list for the last few
months but now it is time to come out. My name is Matt Bouchelle and a
friend of mine (Scott Waldmann) and I have a couple of Mk 1 Tigers that
we are beginning ground-up restorations on in central Florida.
Scott's is in running condition (well if you overlook the broken leaf and
dead brake booster) and was a daily driver til 1996. It has been in his
family since 1969 and he learned how to drive on it, so there is a strong
sentimental attachment.
My Tiger hasn't been cranked up since 1973-75. I was looking for one
like this, believe it or not. I wanted one that I could tear apart,
restore every part and rebuild it like a kit car project at very low
initial cost and fairly solid condition. We had considered building an
Everett Morrison Cobra but I decided that I would rather have a real
Tiger than a kit Cobra. We are starting the restorations with mine by
stripping it to nothing and dipping it at Restoration Depot (aka
Revivations) in Wauchula Fl.
Now I know the look on each of your faces because everytime we say the
word dipping in front of any Tiger guys this look of fear runs across
their face and we hear all the Redi-Strip talk. The process that
revivations uses is not acidic, rather it is a heated base. We went and
questioned the owner one Saturday for 3 hours and cannot be swayed to
anything but dipping. He has guaranteed us that he could leave the Tiger
in either tank for a year and nothing would happen to the metal other
than the paint, bondo, undercoating and rust would be removed. They also
can spray the insides of the rockers, frame rails, crossmember etc with
self etched primer and/or undercoating so that we will never see rust
again.
Anyway, after the heated base tank removes the paint, bondo and
undercoating, the car will go into another tank that uses an electrolysis
process to break the bond between the rust and the metal of the car to
derust the entire body inside and out. I guess the rust is attracted to
the anode (or cathode) and the body itself is the cathode (or is that
anode)(I never liked Chemistry).
The real reason for this email is to let you know that we drove up to SOS
and have posted the pictures that we took on our web site at:
www.ij.net/cybercontrols/sos/page1.htm
Most of the photos are of the car show on Saturday but there are also
some of the drive to Helen on Friday and a couple taken at the MG car
show they dropped in on Friday evening.
It may take a couple of minutes to load because we have all 76 thumbnails
loading on the main page. We did that purposely so that once you get it
loaded you can see what all the pictures look like and then click on only
the ones you want to see a bigger example of.
Apologies to Alpine owners. We spoke with Tiger Tom too long during the
beginning of the show and did not get to the Alpines to photograph them
before lunch.
Matt: B9472103 & Scott: B9472487
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