Retro Cars, August 2010 – Talbot Sunbeam, 2.0L XE

Words: Andy Basco Photos: James Lipman

“I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t even know what a Talbot Sunbeam was. But, when he said it was rear-wheel drive, I did some research on the internet, saw how competitive they’d been in rallying and I was all over it!” That’s pretty much how 23-year-old Rob Barnard fell into Sunbeam ownership. He was 19 at the time and, like the majority of guys his age not wanting to ponce around in a Corsa or a Saxo, he’d been eyeing up a lots of richly priced Mk1 and Mk2 Escorts.

He was employed at Selsdon Garage back then, an honest outfit that gave him a strong mechanical grounding. “My boss was a great guy, I really learned a lot from him. In fact, if it wasn’t for him, I probably wouldn’t have taken on this project. I guess I owe him a lot,” Rob declared. “Next door at Selson, we had a lawn mower shop, and the owner Paul Simmons, was really into his National Hot Rods. He used to come by the workshop quite often, and one day said he was having a bit of a car clear out. He had about ten at the time and said he had a Sunbeam that’d been sitting in a barn for about ten years that he didn’t want anymore.”

As already mentioned, Rob wasn’t overly familiar with the iconic Sunbeam at that point, but being the open-minded, humble individual that he is, he was willing to take a look anyway. On arrival, it looked pretty much how you’d expect a car that hasn’t turned a wheel in a decade to look. It was covered in dust and grime. And not just outside either. The doors and bonnet had been removed prior to storage and carefully wrapped and positioned behind the car for safe keeping. This had resulted in apocalypse of spiders entering the cabin and spinning serious amounts of web. We’re talking real Arachnophobia stuff here. Remember that film? The one where Jeff Daniels saves the day by firing a nail gun at a flaming, airborne, hairy spider? Well, the Sunbeam’s interior wasn’t quite so life-threatening, but Rob still needed a pretty strong stomach to venture inside its cockpit.

The engine bay was equally as unkept, with the running gear in situ being a reworked eight-valve 1600 Holbay lump mated to a factory-fit four-speed gearbox. The Holbay has been bored out to 1700 capacity, and was sporting a set of Dellorto 45s, which would inevitably need some re-adjusting to get singing sweetly again. But, with there being no battery in place, it was pretty hard to assess the Talbot’s mechanicals. Before committing himself in any way shape or form, Rob wisely asked if he could have the car transported back to the workshop for a thorough inspection on the ramp. It’s owner at the time, Paul, happily obliged, no doubt confident that a sale was inevitable.

“I checked for rot first,” Rob explained. “And it was all perfectly solid. It has been seam-welded underneath, probably at the same time as it was restored and painted. I’m pretty sure Paul hadn’t done the work himself. i think it was painted about 14 years ago now, so it was done by the owner before him. But the shell was in great condition, and as I said, the chassis was solid so it was all looking good to me.”

Rob then started cleaning out the interior. The cobwebs were literally scooped up and vacuumed out. The Sparco seats were already in place, and as you can see, cleaned up amazingly well. In fact, it’s as if they’d never been sat in prior to the car going into storage. A real touch in Rob’s book. The rear bench was still in place too, but that was always going to be junked.

So, it was really down to the mechanicals as to whether or not Rob would part with his hard earned. “The brakes didn’t work,” he continued. “The pedal was actually on the floor. And the fuel pump was broken, too. We basically did loads of bleeding and removed the brake master cylinder. The plunger had seized so I put it in a vice and started tapping it with a punch and mallet. It was all going well until it snapped off, flew up and smacked me on the nose! There was brake fluid everywhere and I was rolling around on my back like ‘Aaarrrgghh, I’m blind!’ Taz, my mate who was helping me, was properly bent over in fits!”

So, despite his best efforts and a near-death experience with a master cylinder plunger, Rob had to invest in a new unit anyway, and after hours of bleeding (brake fluid that is, not actual blood!), the pedal feel began to be restored. The fuel pump, however, was an easier fix: “We basically cleaned it, put some fresh fuel in it, tapped it, primed it and it started pumping,” Rob enthused. “We then popped in some fresh plugs, messed with the carbs a little and she fired up. By that point, I’d made my mind up that I was taking it.”

With the doors and bonnet back on, Rob couldn’t see any other reason why the Sunbeam should fail an MoT, so got it booked in at his local. As the tester poked and prodded around, Rob held his breath waiting for the verdict. And after a quick tightening of the track rod ends, the Talbot was given a clean bill of health. Rob had landed on his feet; he’d inadvertently stumbled across a completely built rear-wheel drive box of sideways fun. And although the asking price wasn’t exactly a bargain, it was but a sniff of the outlay it would have taken to build the car from scratch. Or to source a similarly spec’d Escort for that matter.

“On the way back from the MoT centre we were saying we couldn’t believe how little work it’d taken to age the car back up and running. Especially considering it’d been laid up to ten years,” Rob continued. “But it was literally at that moment we started hearing a knocking noise from the bottom end. I couldn’t believe it.” Eager to avoid any further unnecessary damage, Rob took the Sunbeam straight back to the workshop. The engine came out, the head removed and stripped right back to a bare block. Accepting his own limitations, and wanting to get an experienced engine builder’s opinion, he delivered the block to Bencham Engineering.

“They told me the pistons weren’t worth saving and the block would require major amounts of honing out,” he confessed. “Basically, they advised me it wasn’t worth rebuilding. So it was either acquire another Sunbeam engine or find something else to fill the hole. I’d been advised Vauxhall lumps fit straight in. They don’t!”

Rob told us that he was at his most motivated when he picked up his 2.0-litre DOHC 16-valve C20XE lump. The idea of a high-revving Vauxhall setup on a rear-wheel drive Sunbeam platform sounded massively appealing, so it took him just a month to source the Talbot’s replacement engine. An Opel Manta five-speed Getrag gearbox was also obtained, as it bolts directly to the XE engine and enables it to be mounted longitudinally for real-wheel drive power delivery, as opposed to the powerplant’s native transversely-mounted front-wheel drive usage.

The XE engine itself was bought from a mate, but as he wasn’t sure of the block’s history, Rob decided it was best to rebuild it before its final fitment into the bay. So he stripped it down in the workshop, took the block out back along with the aforementioned Manta ‘box and gave both a good jet wash. He then bolted the two together, using an old XE sump he’d picked up for next to nothing, and thought he’d have a go at roughly slotting it all into place before beginning the rebuild.

So, the car was brought into the workshop over the weekend, and Rob began by removing the bonnet, jacking the front-end up and putting it on stands. The XE and gearbox were then slid under the highest point, and a crane was attached to the ‘box from above the bay. As he raised it a little to get it sitting straight, it soon became blatantly obvious that it was never going to fit. The Manta’s five-speed was huge, particularly in the bellhousing regions, compared to the Sunbeams’s original four-speed, and was a million miles away from squeezing into the tunnel. “I didn’t really know what to do at that point,” Rob confessed. “But when my boss had a look, I think his exact words were, ‘don’t be such a tart, just cut the tunnel out!'” I’d never done anything like that before so I found it hard to stomach, but I took the interior out, including the carpets to take a look. I measured it all up and then grabbed the brightest thing I could find, which was a bottle of Tipp-ex, and just marked out what needed to be cut. I still couldn’t bring myself to do it though. I must have sat there for a good 20 minutes with the angle grinder in my hand just looking at it!”

Many of us have never had to entertain the idea of cutting out a big hole from the floorpan of our precious retro, so you can kind of appreciate Rob’s hesitation. But, the sparks were soon flying and he was left with a generous sized tunnel to work with. The engine and gearbox were slid back under and using a jack and the crane, it was roughly positioned as far back to the bulkhead as it would go. rob then crudely mocked up some engine mounts to give him an idea of what was required.

“Once the engine was in place, I started fabricating the real mounts,” Rob continued. “The gearbox mount was the first one I did, and that was made from scratch. I just studied the mounts usually used and made up my own. It only took about 45 minutes. But it was the engine mount that were a little more tricky. I bought a mounting kit from SBD. It was designed to fit an XE into a Mk2 Escort and allows you to choose where to position the engine in the bay. You know, whether you want it sitting high/low, front/back, that kind of things. But it’s made up of like 12 parts and you have to cut bars, and weld on blocks. It took me a while to work out exactly what I needed to do. And then I had to weld on extra brackets to make it fit in the Sunbeam.”

With the block potentially in place, Rob then bolted on the cylinder head to make sure the bonnet closed. Thankfully it did, and he moved back inside the cabin to begin working on the tunnel again. Basically, he welded on an extra band of a few inches, and then welded the top dome piece he’d cut out, back in to place.

The propshaft was too short, too. “There’s this old boy I know,” Rob let on. “Deaf as a doorpost but a really nice, honest guy, and a superbly talented welder and engineer. I took the prop to him to have it lengthened, but he said he could make me up a new one. All he needed was the gearbox to make sure the spline fitted alright. True to his word, a week later he called me up and it was ready, so I shot back down to East Grinstead to pick it up and then headed straight back to the workshop to fit it. But I couldn’t believe it, it wasn’t even close to fitting! So, I called him back up and he apologised because he’d given me the wrong one. He said it was because he’d had a few beers before I arrived! I went straight back to swap the props and then, although it was late, I still had to go back to the workshop and fit it! It was perfect.”

Rob returned to Bencham Engineering a few days later to have the XE rebuilt with new pistons and rods, all standard mind. The head was also breathed on a little. But while it was away, Rob placed a few more orders with SBD. “I needed an inlet manifold off them because I wanted to run the twin 45s that were off the old engine,” he explained. “I also ordered an exhaust manifold, again designed for a Mk2 Escort so I had to modify the downpipe a little, and an ECU that’d allow me to run distributor-less ignition.

Benchams didn’t take long with the rebuild, and Rob soon had the XE back and on a stand ready to piece together with the manifolds and other ancillaries. He also had the rocker and cam belt covers powdercoated for good measure. “It was a great feeling once the engine was back in the bay, all painted up and cleaned. It made all the grief worthwhile,” say Rob. It still took a few weeks before the XE turned over for the first time, though. There was all the wiring to do yet. “I did about half of it myself,” Rob said. “But, my mate Taz again has been brilliant. he helped me out massively and put in a few late nights to help me get it right. He’s pretty good with that kind of thing.”

The fuelling also needed some love, as did the Dellortos, but eventually the XE fired up. Further tweaking of the carb setup was required to get it running right but he Sunbeam was alive and kicking, The only other problem was the bake system. Due to the carb positioning, there was no room left for the brake servo, so it’s been removed and the master cylinder retained. “The pedal was really spongy,” Rob confessed. “So I was looking into sorting a remove servo. But after hours of bleeding, some pedal feel started to return, and they’ve been really strong ever since.

And aside from a few obligatory teething problems, the Sunbeam’s been as good as gold since returning to the road this year. Rob’s still a little upset he never got the opportunity to see how the original Holbay performed in the car, but he loves the XE. “It’s got loads of torque to get the bum out,” he enthused. “And it’s just so much fun to drive. In all seriousness though, it’s not been an expensive build because I’ve done most of the work myself with the help of mates and the guys down my old garage. But I’m so glad I didn’t go for a Ford. I like the fact no one knows what is. It’s an on-going joke between my mates that I drive around in battered old Talbot, but I think they love it really…”

So, although the Sunbeam may not have the street cred of many of it’s Blue Oval-badged counterparts, it most certainly makes up for it with its retro paint job and barking 16v XE engine, which give this old Talbot some real presence. It’s a true Escort-beater in our book, built for a fraction of the cost and boasting superb performance. There’s even talk of a Calibra Turbo lump finding its way under the bonnet. Watch this space…..

 2.0-litre DOHC 16v Vauxhall C20XE, fully rebuilt bottom end with new standard pistons and rods, ARP rod bolts, rebuilt cylinder head, twin 45 Dell’Orto carbs, SBD inlet manifold, SBD programmable distributor-less ignition engine 2D management, SBD uprated coil pack with custom HT leads, Facet electronic fuel pump, Filter King fuel pressure regulator, SBD 4-2-1 exhaust manifold with modified downpipe, custom exhaust system with 2.5″ rolled tailpipe, high voltage super small alternator, custom coolant hoses, standard radiator recored with four larger rows, 12″ electric coolant fan, braided oil lines to oil catch tank, powdercoated rocker and cambelt covers, custom engine mounts, front bowled sump, five-speed Opel Manta Getrag gearbox with uprated custom clutch kit, custom propshaft.

 7×15″ Compomotive wheels with 205 Yokohama tyres, Bilstein front adjustable coilovers, Bilstein rear shocks and springs, four-pot AP brake calipers with vented and cross-drilled brake discs, rear brake drums with uprated AP shoes and brake cylinders, braided lines, non-servo assisted, seamwelded shell, custom gearbox tunnel, modified bulkhead.

 Lotus Sunbeam forest arches, Perspex rear window, Rally Design carbon mirrors, standard bumpers, fully respray in Kawasaki green and yellow paint (possibly achieved with masking tape).

 Sparco bucket seats, four point harnesses, stripped out rear and painted satin black, battery relocated behind passenger seat, standard dashboard with Race Tech gauges

 Selsdon Garage Services, and all my mates that have helped out, especially Taz for all the late nights he’s worked on the car with me.