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I actually bought the twincam a few months ago, so the next few posts are me rapidly catching up with the current situation. Before I bought the car, I needed to know what major parts were missing/damaged, major being very expensive to make/buy Basically, that came down to the chassis and the engine block These two parts would cost many £1000s each. I was told of a chassis for sale, and on that basis, decided to buy the car. Strictly speaking, the body should have been on that list too! The block was slightly suspect in that it had been used on another car (although the numbers match this car) and had had some problems, but I decided to take that risk. Blocks have been made for twincams before, so patterns existed.

So now I had the car in storage and I made a photographic list of the parts and started working out what I was missing. It's surprisingly not too long a list and I had some quick successes in locating some of the more difficult parts.

A good run, and some more parts found.

An excellent run in the 25hp yesterday. I took a couple of friends to a pub and we had a good old natter over lunch. The car ran well, but it's getting noisy. The good running is down to the carburettor being restored so it's not running so rich any more. Saves petrol AND wear-and-tear on the bores.


The noise is down to a small hole in the exhaust. I'll bandage it up, then weld it at some point over the winter.

This is actually a picture of my spare carburettor, A Claudel Hobson AZP. The one on the car is an AZP1.


I also have some new parts fore the twincam: A pair of air vents for the body , the casting that clamps the exhaust pipe to the exhaust manifold, Rotax starter switch and a couple of other items.

The Beaulieu Autojumble is in a couple of weeks. Frankly, I can't wait. How sad is that :o) I'm looking out for all sorts of bits and bobs, we'll see how I do.

Pictures of my two Sunbeams

This is my 1927 Sunbeam 25hp. I've had it a couple of years and it's going well now, although it's still leaking a fair bit of oil. That's because of a crack in the sump. I'll get that welded up soon.

This is my 1926 Sunbeam 3-litre Twincam Super Sports. This, frankly, isn't going at all. On the bright side, it doesn't leak oil.

What may surprise some people is that even in its current state, the twincam is worth more than the 25hp.

Right now I'm cleaning up the parts of the twincam and searching for some missing parts. This blog is going to be a history of the restoration of my twincam, and the fettling of the 25hp. The 25hp (Annabel) is going to be sold at some point, partly to finance the restoration and partly because I only have a single garage.

Some parts I had already

Although the car is very complete, there are a bunch of bits missing before I can reach the rolling chassis stage. This is essentially a running car without a body.

I have a Rotax MT65 starter motor from the 25hp, which will be perfect. I'd like another! I was also considering fitting a ki-gass pump to the 25hp so I had found one. The ki-gass pump connects directly to the petrol line and sprays petrol vapour into the inlet manifold. This make the cars easier to start from cold.

All the instruments are missing. I already had a spare speedo, although it's 0-85 instead of 0-120. I think it can be converted without too much trouble, but it will need a new face of course.

As luck would have it, I'd found a magneto switch from a Leyland Truck. It was perfect, apart from being engraved "Leyland" instead of "Sunbeam" of course! About three days before I first considered buying the twincam, I sold it to another twincam owner whose switch was very worn. Happily, he sold me the very worn one from his car which I will pick up at Beaulieu Autojumble in a couple of weeks. I have plenty of time to repair it, I doubt my twincam will hit the road before 2011.

Clocks aren't too tricky, I have about six now that I will select one from.

The next bit of fantastic luck was a really good find on http://www.prewarcar.com/ . I found a rev counter. They're like hen's teeth! Not only that, it 's in perfect condition and was a very sensible price.

I have a clock that has "8 jours" instead of "8 days" so I'll probably use that face and continue the French "theme" as the rev counter is a French one.