S1 rebuild....not one for the purist
Discussion
So where to start.Just over a year ago I bought a very sad 88 S1. The good news was that the outriggers had been sorted. That's about it, the 2.8 engine had one unleaded and one leaded head, the cooling system had not seen antifreeze for several years, the indicators didn't indicate and dip/main alternated from side to side. Both seats had collapsed but it did have a great looking dashboard.
.
But on the up side I am a mechanical engineer, and spent 43 years building and designing machines, how difficult could a TVR be.
So I sat down, made a list and got to work.
Item 1. Engine. You know all those stories about unused "crate" engines, well I found one in Tintagel. Its a 2.9 but heigh ho some S1's had 2.9s.
so I pulled the heads and this is what it looked like, at this point I could have just put it back together but where's the fun in that, so the heads went off to Specialised Engines and came back stage 3, big valves and gasflowed and added to this is a Piper ultimate road cam.
.
More later.
.But on the up side I am a mechanical engineer, and spent 43 years building and designing machines, how difficult could a TVR be.
So I sat down, made a list and got to work.
Item 1. Engine. You know all those stories about unused "crate" engines, well I found one in Tintagel. Its a 2.9 but heigh ho some S1's had 2.9s.
so I pulled the heads and this is what it looked like, at this point I could have just put it back together but where's the fun in that, so the heads went off to Specialised Engines and came back stage 3, big valves and gasflowed and added to this is a Piper ultimate road cam.
.More later.
Dinner cooked served and eaten. I suppose I could drop in the odd recipe here and there,but that's not what your here for.
I should say at this point that I had done some research before I started on this little project for the known problems :-
1.Outriggers.
These have been replaced. Phew.
2 Squatting on pull away.
It has the S3 trailing arms which are corrosion free. Whoopee.
3 Overheating/under-heating/slow warm up!
Lets deal with the last one first. A quick examination of the plumbing shows that the swirl pot is used as a shunt to replace the water plate oil cooler that was fitted behind the oil filter, so cold water by-passes the thermostat and flows through the radiator. This may also answer point 2. Doh. Overheating, the standard radiators dissipation is marginal at best. Barely enough surface area when its all clean and hunky dory.
4 Night vision.
Physics says you can't travel faster than light, and having worked with lasers for 15 years i'm inclined to agree, but a milk float could out accelerate the photons from a 7" Lucas sealed beam unit.
5 Steering apparently lacks feel and turn in is a bit vague.
Can't comment on this, iv'e only driven the car 1.5 miles, but I can tell you that my old chim with 96 bottles of wine in the boot had no steering at all approaching a bend at just a little above the speed limit. We both survived thanks to a convenient french farm entrance and a very understanding french farmer.
6 Leaky roof.
Iv'e owned a midget mk1, 2 MGB's from the 60's and 70's a Sunbeam Alpine, a Chimaera, a 1966 Hillman Minx Convertible, a Saab 900 Convertible and I currently have a 2001 Volvo C70 ragtop. They all leak, its just a fact of life. Drill a hole in the lowest part of the floor turn up the heater and get on with it.
7 Noise.
Glorious isn't.
I should say at this point that I had done some research before I started on this little project for the known problems :-
1.Outriggers.
These have been replaced. Phew.
2 Squatting on pull away.
It has the S3 trailing arms which are corrosion free. Whoopee.
3 Overheating/under-heating/slow warm up!
Lets deal with the last one first. A quick examination of the plumbing shows that the swirl pot is used as a shunt to replace the water plate oil cooler that was fitted behind the oil filter, so cold water by-passes the thermostat and flows through the radiator. This may also answer point 2. Doh. Overheating, the standard radiators dissipation is marginal at best. Barely enough surface area when its all clean and hunky dory.
4 Night vision.
Physics says you can't travel faster than light, and having worked with lasers for 15 years i'm inclined to agree, but a milk float could out accelerate the photons from a 7" Lucas sealed beam unit.
5 Steering apparently lacks feel and turn in is a bit vague.
Can't comment on this, iv'e only driven the car 1.5 miles, but I can tell you that my old chim with 96 bottles of wine in the boot had no steering at all approaching a bend at just a little above the speed limit. We both survived thanks to a convenient french farm entrance and a very understanding french farmer.
6 Leaky roof.
Iv'e owned a midget mk1, 2 MGB's from the 60's and 70's a Sunbeam Alpine, a Chimaera, a 1966 Hillman Minx Convertible, a Saab 900 Convertible and I currently have a 2001 Volvo C70 ragtop. They all leak, its just a fact of life. Drill a hole in the lowest part of the floor turn up the heater and get on with it.
7 Noise.
Glorious isn't.
Yes I am having to change the ECU, the Ford unit is not up to the changes to the engine so I'm fitting an Emerald unit. I also bought the engine loom from them so you just need 5 connections into the existing loom, 12v perm, 12v switched, a good ground and a new fuel pump relay control in and power out.
I'm having to rewire the whole car as it was a real mess with wires cut, twisted together and taped ect.
I'm having to rewire the whole car as it was a real mess with wires cut, twisted together and taped ect.
The rear end repair is interesting, the outrigger tube goes right through to the main chassis rail and is then spot welded in through holes in the larger tube. The main tube integrity is fine. I don't plan to cut out any chassis tubes other than the uprights to enable a different gearbox to be fitted, more on that to come.
The welding has been tidied up since this photo. I'm badly out of practice.
If I need the sump off I'll just lift the engine a little. Helpful comments on hinge locations, I have been looking at that to see if I could come up with a better engineering solution, I have seen the later chassis layout at the front so I may just replicate that. The right side tube is already 2.5 wall tube so that may have been changed earlier. Thanks for the advise on the rear exhaust mount, it does look pretty feeble.
The welding has been tidied up since this photo. I'm badly out of practice.
If I need the sump off I'll just lift the engine a little. Helpful comments on hinge locations, I have been looking at that to see if I could come up with a better engineering solution, I have seen the later chassis layout at the front so I may just replicate that. The right side tube is already 2.5 wall tube so that may have been changed earlier. Thanks for the advise on the rear exhaust mount, it does look pretty feeble.
so while i'm on the subject, here is the engine/g'box setup
The gearbox is an RX8 5 speed from a 232 bhp model. You can probably see the modded dissy, this now houses a cam position sensor so that I can run sequential injection.
.
I need this for the oversized EV6 injactors.
Standard EV1's are 136cc and inject twice per cycle. I am now running 440cc injecting during induction only. this improves consumption and low end torque. And torque means acceleration.
The gearbox is an RX8 5 speed from a 232 bhp model. You can probably see the modded dissy, this now houses a cam position sensor so that I can run sequential injection.
.I need this for the oversized EV6 injactors.
Standard EV1's are 136cc and inject twice per cycle. I am now running 440cc injecting during induction only. this improves consumption and low end torque. And torque means acceleration.
Ive used the header tank from a rover 75, and run the oil cooler feed, which is the lower pipe on the pump outlet to that. the small pipe from the top of the thermostat housing runs to the top pipe on the header forming an air bleed and expansion space. the top hose goes direct to the radiator. The header tank is set up with the centre water level in line with the top of the thermostat.
Just got round to pulling the rear hubs and trailing arms apart to replace bearings, CV's and trailing arm bushes. Confusing to find left hand threaded nut on the right hand shaft, and right hand on the left shaft. Presumably messed up when the trailing arms were changed. I'm converting to discs and i've seen a number of posts re this so here's my short take on it. Iv'e bought a couple of adaptor plates from ML, £30 for the pair, and they put the caliper at the top, which puts the handbrake cable and bleed nipple where they should be. I'm also using a pair of 1275 midget front flexible brake pipes, these have 7/16" UNF banjo's at one end so you can point the pipe where you want it, that seems to take care of most of the issues iv'e seen with this conversion. I'll post pictures when I start the reassembly.
Hi Phillpot, i'll check but the banjo is a good fit so may be m10 x 1.
As for the gearbox stuff, its a complex job but basic details are :-
Bellhousing shortened by 8.5mm to get proper spline engagement and clutch release geometry,
[/url]
|http://thumbsnap.com/MrrgX7lm
adaptor made to bring spigot bearing out, rather than extending g'box input shaft
this takes its registration off the 21mm bore in the crankshaft.
I'm using the mazda slave cylinder, moved forward 12mm on the same alignment and all the standard clutch release setup.
The prop will be approx 50mm shorter so alignment is critical, this will be taken care of with the new g'box mount.
The remote shift is my own manufacture, it moves the shift 60mm forward of the standard S position which was to far back for comfort, so 135 mm rather than TVRs rather crude 3" crank.
|http://thumbsnap.com/kGC8daq7[/url]
I'll post more pics as I go forward. (no pun intended)[url]
As for the gearbox stuff, its a complex job but basic details are :-
Bellhousing shortened by 8.5mm to get proper spline engagement and clutch release geometry,
[/url]
|http://thumbsnap.com/MrrgX7lmadaptor made to bring spigot bearing out, rather than extending g'box input shaft
this takes its registration off the 21mm bore in the crankshaft.
I'm using the mazda slave cylinder, moved forward 12mm on the same alignment and all the standard clutch release setup.
The prop will be approx 50mm shorter so alignment is critical, this will be taken care of with the new g'box mount.
The remote shift is my own manufacture, it moves the shift 60mm forward of the standard S position which was to far back for comfort, so 135 mm rather than TVRs rather crude 3" crank.
|http://thumbsnap.com/kGC8daq7[/url]I'll post more pics as I go forward. (no pun intended)[url]
Added to all this, due to the gain in torque I have gone for a 3.36:1 LSD,
This is the gearing comparison
RX8 G’box 3.36 LS Diff
Gear Mph per 1000 RPM Mph @5500 RPM
----------------------------------------
1 6.97 38
2 11.58 64
3 16.44 90
4 21.86 120
5 26.86 148
T9 G’box 3.63 open Diff
Gear Mph per 1000 RPM Mph @5500 RPM
----------------------------------------
1 6.02 33
2 11.18 61
3 16.06 88
4 20.23 111
5 24.53 135
Which means that French motorway cruising comes in at just under2.9k rpm rather than the current 3.3k
This is the gearing comparison
RX8 G’box 3.36 LS Diff
Gear Mph per 1000 RPM Mph @5500 RPM
----------------------------------------
1 6.97 38
2 11.58 64
3 16.44 90
4 21.86 120
5 26.86 148
T9 G’box 3.63 open Diff
Gear Mph per 1000 RPM Mph @5500 RPM
----------------------------------------
1 6.02 33
2 11.18 61
3 16.06 88
4 20.23 111
5 24.53 135
Which means that French motorway cruising comes in at just under2.9k rpm rather than the current 3.3k
Mea Culpa. Caliper and banjo are 10mm. I didn't go for braided as all the brake plumbing is new right up to the rear cylinder.
A little anecdote from my time in the early 80's working part-time in a cars spares shop ( this kept the cost of my first restoration project down) A customer returned a set of rear pads for a newish Granada as 2 fitted and 2 didn't, a close inspection of the car showed that it had 3 ATE calipers and 1 Girling! Ford were still holding a lot of stock in those days so there was a lot of mix and not quite match going on.
I made a remote for my old T9 box, It looked like this, I have drawings but not all the parts though i could put it back together.
A little anecdote from my time in the early 80's working part-time in a cars spares shop ( this kept the cost of my first restoration project down) A customer returned a set of rear pads for a newish Granada as 2 fitted and 2 didn't, a close inspection of the car showed that it had 3 ATE calipers and 1 Girling! Ford were still holding a lot of stock in those days so there was a lot of mix and not quite match going on.
I made a remote for my old T9 box, It looked like this, I have drawings but not all the parts though i could put it back together.
greymrj said:
A weakness on the rear drive system on the S is the location of the UJ's to the drive flanges. They are not dowelled and rely only on the bolts for location. There have been many incidents of these bolts coming loose and any damage to the bolt holes or flange threads then makes matters worse. We have found the 12 point star bolts a pain, OK for quick machine installation during manufacture but not easy to get right with hand tools. 12.9 hexs heads are worth sourcing instead. Mine are now paint marked to pick up any movement but next time mine will be drilled (24 bolts...how many drills!) and wired in place.
I've already sourced a set of 12.9 capheads, or do you mean hex head bolts? if using bolts you could lift the corners of the tabs. I had to cut the heads off the old torx bolts after breaking 3 drivers. phillpot said:
Very interesting to see how you got round issues like first motion shaft length etc.
see above for issues around first motion shaft. The spline is the same so you can use the standard 2.9 clutch, though I have the lighter 2.8 flywheel. I changed to the RX8 box because the t9 is already at its limit on the basic 2.9 engine, even ford didn't use it hence the mt75, the shortened remote is a really neat fix. I must learn to weld ally.
Edited by Alan 1209 on Friday 6th January 23:57
greymrj said:
The existing plates under each pair of screw heads rather puzzle me. They are too thick to be used as tabs. There doesnt appear to be a need for load spreaders and they do not tie pairs of bolts together in any way. They are harder than the CV body so they might prevent the screw heads digging in?
Gassing Station | S Series | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff