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Re: [Tigers] Risky Business

To: tigers@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: [Tigers] Risky Business
From: Theo Smit <tsmit@shaw.ca>
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2010 22:17:45 -0600
Mauro, you shouldn't be leery of driving your car, so long as you know 
everything is up to date as far as maintenance is concerned. But a Tiger 
is a 60's car, and it was not designed to last forever. I wonder what 
anyone driving a pre-1970's Porsche (or even into the 70's, so that we 
can include the 930) thinks about while they go down the road.

I think there are a couple of reasons that there's a constant flow of 
vivid what-if disaster scenarios being presented.
Part of it is that many of us on the list have an engineering or other 
technical background, and worrying about failure is an important part of 
our profession.
Part of it is that all of our cars are 45 years old or thereabouts, and 
they've thereby outlasted many of the people that created them, and 
several generations worth of technological advances in vehicle design 
and component engineering. It's pretty safe to say that no one at Rootes 
ever suspected that their little monster would still be a going concern 
today, and for sure they didn't design the chassis or suspension to take 
anywhere near the amount of pounding that most Tigers have received at 
this point.
And part of it is that pretty much everything we've discussed, HAS 
happened to people in Tigers, and mostly on the road. Fan blades have 
come off and gone through the hood. Fulcrum pins have sheared, in 
parking lots, but also on public roads. Old tires have exploded while 
traveling on the highway. Poor replacement components (specifically 
fulcrum pins and ball joints) have made people's best attempts at 
preventive maintenance worse than useless.

Through it all, Tiger owners and the people making Tiger maintenance 
parts have worked to keep the cars going and to weed out the bad and 
unsafe stuff from the good. The reason you can get all the horror 
stories at the drop of a hat, is because we're generally past that, most 
owners are aware of the critical items in Tiger construction, and are 
just spreading the word.

Cheers,
Theo


MAURO D'ANGELO wrote:
> As a matter of fact, I am one of those people, and I do not fully trust my
> car yet because of all of this talk.  I really love my Tiger, but I feel so
> much more comfortable (and safe) in my Porsche because I know it won't try
> to kill or maim me.  If something were to happen in that car, it would more
> likely be caused by human error, not mechanical failure.  I strongly suggest
> to you all to clearly distinguish between necessary racing modifications and
> normal street use.  I'd wager that the majority of owners never race their
> cars to the point that serious mods are necessary anyway.  The fear problem
> is compounded by all the Kool-Aid that's been flowing through the list.
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