Two days of pulling gives amazing results.

[Tullamore]

Oct 2006:

Then time was shifted to other projects.


Monday Jan 14 2008:

Wednsday Jan 16 2008:

 

[Tullamore]

Picture with the car that was straightened and then used to take the dimensions from.

 

[jumpinjan]

The valance needs to come off and you need a new top valance section from Martel. I use them to guide me how much each fender needs to be pulled. If Martel's valance doesn't fit, then more work on the fenders are required.
Jan

 

[Tullamore]

you need a new top valance section from Martel.

I ordered parts from Martel before, a couple that will be used on this car, and I would never give him an order again. His parts are good but he is impossible to deal with and I did not get the parts that I ordered in the first place.

 

[Tullamore]

I thought I would post some pictures of the progress:

 

[Eleven]

Maybe I shouldn't tell this story

When I was 19, I bought my first Alpine, it looked like yours. Left front stove in. My buddies dad owned a towing company. Having zero dollars to get it fixed, we decided to tie the back to a Maple in my yard and the front to the biggest rig his dad owned (no, we didn't tell him the plan). Three hours of pulling, jerking, yanking and other generalized abuse, we got it reasonably straight. Sort of. Turned left great, right, not so good. Long story short, I was amazed at how tough the car was, only a '55 Buick that my buddy owned was beefier.

I think your system is better.

 

[Tullamore]

Long story short, I was amazed at how tough the car was, only a '55 Buick that my buddy owned was beefier.

I have had many people who have seen it tell me that it is amazing how well the car is built. If it was pretty much any other car of that vintage only a crushed ball of sheet metal would have been left. Which is good for the person who was driving!

 

[Eleven]

Had a GT6 for a couple of years

Found a great new tub rust free and swapped out the old for the new. Just for grins, I jumped on the roof of the old tub and collapsed (insert fat joke here) it...boom. Your basic coke can. Couldn't drive the TR anymore with out claustrophobia. I remembered that old Alpine and the one I raced. Sold GT6 and bought my Alpine. The TR was a hoot to drive and I loved it but age changes things. (BTW, the tub weighed all of 232lbs.)

 

[P. Scofield]

The valance needs to come off and you need a new top valance section from Martel.
Jan

Are you sure? Looks straight to me!

 

[Tom H]

Steve, Great story and great photos, but it does not tell the whole story. Were you able to straighten and re-use any of the front end sheet metal- fenders, lower valance, upper valance, Hood mount platform, etc?

Tom

 

[Tullamore]

Tom, what you see in the first picture of my second set of pictures is all that was reused. The frame rails were straightened and then strengthened. The rest came off a rusty car that was so bad it would have broken in half if the doors hadn't held it.

Here are some pics with new paint!

 

[Alpine Addict]

Looking very nice.

 

[jumpinjan]

Yes, that's very nice. Looks like everthing is straight again. There's a lot of manhours in that car!
Jan