[Sunbeam Talbot Email List] 50's Sunbeam engine paint color

[Max King]

Hello David!

When I first started my restoration, I sent an email to STAR Chairman John Badger.  His response:
"As far as your engine block colours go, I've spoken to our technical adviser, Jim Wilkinson, who tells me that all engines left the factory painted BLACK. There were however some in grey, but these were factory built reconditioned engines and had an aluminium plate attached indicating that it was a Rootes recon engine." -John Badger

After receiving back from the machine shop my block/head, I recently re-asked the question to David Bamforth.  His response:
"No definite answer on this one. We have seen on the black head red block many times on the alpine and black head grey block or grey head black block on the saloon/ coupe. I would choose to follow "The Road to Fame" film which shows the building of alpines in the factory (I think you would agree that as far as evidence goes this is very reliable) it clearly shows the engine including the head as Black ALL OVER" -Dave Bamforth

Dave is correct, the film clearly shows black all over.   On my engine, which before going to the machine shop had been sprayed in primer from an earlier restoration attempt, the area under the side tappet cover plate had a lot of factory overspray -- in black.  The pushrods had black overspray on one side only.  I have to conclude that the block was originally black.  Both my head and the replacement head I'm using (original cracked...) had black paint remnants.

So, you probably can't go wrong with black.

Cheers!  --Max

***************************************************
Max King, Ph.D.
Office of the Vice Provost for University Life
University of Pennsylvania
3611 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6222
(215)898-6081 (Phone)
(215)573-5611 (FAX)
mjking at upenn.edu
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-----Original Message-----
From: staowners-bounces at sunbeamtalbot.info [mailto:staowners-bounces at sunbeamtalbot.info] On Behalf Of David Reina
Sent: Sunday, March 21, 2010 7:03 PM
To: staowners at sunbeamtalbot.info
Subject: [Sunbeam Talbot Email List] 50's Sunbeam engine paint color

Hi all,

Spring is around the corner and I must finish putting the head back on  
my 53 Drophead Coupe.  Quite a while back I blew the head gasket on  
the thin area between cylinder 3 and 4.  I had the head skimmed and  
replaced the exhaust valves and had hardened seats installed on all  
the valves.  (By the way the machinist suggested only needing to do  
the exhaust valve seats but I asked him to do them all.  Was I  
throwing good money away?)

Anyway, (and perhaps its been discussed here before in the past), I am  
wondering what color was the block and the head.  Both black?  I have  
seen some cars with a grey cylinder head, and wondered if this is  
correct.

Regards to all,
Dave Reina


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