350i Resurrection - a diary.
Discussion
Right chaps, some of you may remember that at the tail end of last year, I purchased this car from Pistonheads classifieds:
To cut a long story short, after a relationship breakdown, and a move back up to the Midlands with my folks, I decided to get myself the sports-car project I always wanted (yes, I'm having my mid-life crisis early!)
.
After being jilted out of a deal on a very original Triumph Spitfire, and then finding out that they all seem to be very overpriced OR heaps of junk, I remembered about the wedge series TVRs.
Now, my old man has A LOT of history with RV8s, as do we as a family. He's built them, blown them up in competition, and driven them as a daily. I've had the pleasure of tooling about in some of the family's Landys over the years, and it won't be a surprise that the thought of owning an RV8 powered TVR was HUGELY appealing.....if scary.
Hitting up e-bay we found a lovely green car which had been sat for some years, but had an absolutely immaculate interior in magnolia leather. It did however need a complete exhaust system......and probably lots else.
Anyhow, we called up about the car...........and it was sold
By this point I'd just about given up. We still had a trailer booked to collect the Spitfire (which never materialised), and 24 hrs to cancel the booking and loose the deposit.
Hitting up Pistonheads classifieds I found this silver car. We made some phonecalls and then on Saturday, went to have a look.
Well, they say pictures tell a thousand words......
That's my old man next to the wedge, behind our V890 'Rex' that has been with us for almost 20 years.
What does a V8 TOWING a V8 sound like? Kinda like this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHZbCQh1yHw&fea...
Yep, that's Dad and I giggling like kids!
To cut a long story short, after a relationship breakdown, and a move back up to the Midlands with my folks, I decided to get myself the sports-car project I always wanted (yes, I'm having my mid-life crisis early!)
.After being jilted out of a deal on a very original Triumph Spitfire, and then finding out that they all seem to be very overpriced OR heaps of junk, I remembered about the wedge series TVRs.
Now, my old man has A LOT of history with RV8s, as do we as a family. He's built them, blown them up in competition, and driven them as a daily. I've had the pleasure of tooling about in some of the family's Landys over the years, and it won't be a surprise that the thought of owning an RV8 powered TVR was HUGELY appealing.....if scary.
Hitting up e-bay we found a lovely green car which had been sat for some years, but had an absolutely immaculate interior in magnolia leather. It did however need a complete exhaust system......and probably lots else.
Anyhow, we called up about the car...........and it was sold
By this point I'd just about given up. We still had a trailer booked to collect the Spitfire (which never materialised), and 24 hrs to cancel the booking and loose the deposit.
Hitting up Pistonheads classifieds I found this silver car. We made some phonecalls and then on Saturday, went to have a look.
Well, they say pictures tell a thousand words......
That's my old man next to the wedge, behind our V890 'Rex' that has been with us for almost 20 years.
What does a V8 TOWING a V8 sound like? Kinda like this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHZbCQh1yHw&fea...
Yep, that's Dad and I giggling like kids!
Edited by voltage_maxx on Wednesday 4th April 20:03
Okay, another quick update to try and bring everyone up to speed!
Got the wedge back and over the inspection pit to see what's what.
Not looking bad superficially
Chassis was pretty good too!
To cut a long story short, the whole of the brake system was shot, so is being entirely replaced with uprated parts here and there.
The engine, whilst sweet mechanically, was running rough. Very rich and sooty, and took ages to settle down to a proper, nice even idle. It was an oily mess, and for some reason, even with the fan running wouldn't stay cool.
The interior wasn't too bad, but like the rest of the car, tired. A lot of the switches refused to work properly, all the dash veneer was split, and the seats were looking very secondhand.
Oh and the hood is fit only for the bin!
On the upside, it seems someone made a last ditched effort to get the car on the road. ALL of the front suspension rubbers had been renewed with polybushes, as well as the balljoints and even a new steering rack!
I spent the following months tinkering on the car, getting to know it, planning, and collecting parts together. However, the winter months set in and being an asthmatic, working in the garage over the winter just wasn't happening.
A couple of week ago however, I really got the wind behind me and decided to get stuck in:
All the brakes are now stripped off, as are all the engine hoses.
I'm spending a lot of time on the engine to get it running spot on. To this end all the Fuel Injection system has been stripped off for cleaning and overhaul.
I'm also trying to get to the bottom of the poor water circulation, and so have the water pump off. I may have to have the heads off before I'm done.
So, as of Tuesday, this is what the car looks like:
For those who would like the back story in detail, here's the link to my build thread over at Retro Rides: http://retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=re...
Got the wedge back and over the inspection pit to see what's what.
Not looking bad superficially
Chassis was pretty good too!
To cut a long story short, the whole of the brake system was shot, so is being entirely replaced with uprated parts here and there.
The engine, whilst sweet mechanically, was running rough. Very rich and sooty, and took ages to settle down to a proper, nice even idle. It was an oily mess, and for some reason, even with the fan running wouldn't stay cool.
The interior wasn't too bad, but like the rest of the car, tired. A lot of the switches refused to work properly, all the dash veneer was split, and the seats were looking very secondhand.
Oh and the hood is fit only for the bin!
On the upside, it seems someone made a last ditched effort to get the car on the road. ALL of the front suspension rubbers had been renewed with polybushes, as well as the balljoints and even a new steering rack!
I spent the following months tinkering on the car, getting to know it, planning, and collecting parts together. However, the winter months set in and being an asthmatic, working in the garage over the winter just wasn't happening.
A couple of week ago however, I really got the wind behind me and decided to get stuck in:
All the brakes are now stripped off, as are all the engine hoses.
I'm spending a lot of time on the engine to get it running spot on. To this end all the Fuel Injection system has been stripped off for cleaning and overhaul.
I'm also trying to get to the bottom of the poor water circulation, and so have the water pump off. I may have to have the heads off before I'm done.
So, as of Tuesday, this is what the car looks like:
For those who would like the back story in detail, here's the link to my build thread over at Retro Rides: http://retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=re...
The wedge is now at that stage where there is a pile of parts surrounding the car and workshop. To carry on dismantling the car at this stage would be silly, as all I'd end up with is whole load of TVR parts and a skeleton of a car!
As such, I'm now turning my attentions to refurbing and rebuilding what came off!
Rusty, crummy, siezed up rear brake caliper. Ick!
What one looks like after I've been over it with a wire-brush. Much better. All the brake calipers are going to be painted - I got some VHT caliper paint through this week.
Caliper split in half ready for refurbing.
Next up, the hubs!
This was the absolute worst of the pair, really quite badly corroded. I can only assume this side of the car was always parked out in the rain or something! It needed a wire brush AND a chisel to get the worst of the rust scabs off!
This was the other hub, filthy and grotty, but much better.
It cleaned up really nicely, if you look REALLY closely, you can just make out the original Ford stamping marks!
Next up, the rocker covers!
Again, dirty and grotty. Using some label remover I was able to carefully remove the TVR badge for safekeeping, it'll be re-attached later!
All ready for jetwashing!
That certainly cleared a LOAD of gunk out of the inside of the rocker covers.
I then attacked a cover with a wire brush in an angle grinder. It gets the covers back to shiny alloy quite effectively.
As you will see later on, I have a cunning plan for these rocker covers - we'll see if it works!
As such, I'm now turning my attentions to refurbing and rebuilding what came off!
Rusty, crummy, siezed up rear brake caliper. Ick!
What one looks like after I've been over it with a wire-brush. Much better. All the brake calipers are going to be painted - I got some VHT caliper paint through this week.
Caliper split in half ready for refurbing.
Next up, the hubs!
This was the absolute worst of the pair, really quite badly corroded. I can only assume this side of the car was always parked out in the rain or something! It needed a wire brush AND a chisel to get the worst of the rust scabs off!
This was the other hub, filthy and grotty, but much better.
It cleaned up really nicely, if you look REALLY closely, you can just make out the original Ford stamping marks!
Next up, the rocker covers!
Again, dirty and grotty. Using some label remover I was able to carefully remove the TVR badge for safekeeping, it'll be re-attached later!
All ready for jetwashing!
That certainly cleared a LOAD of gunk out of the inside of the rocker covers.
I then attacked a cover with a wire brush in an angle grinder. It gets the covers back to shiny alloy quite effectively.
As you will see later on, I have a cunning plan for these rocker covers - we'll see if it works!
Campbell said:
......Bump......
Hows the car coming Bob.
What are we going to read about next...
Cambelt
Hey thanks for the interest!Hows the car coming Bob.
What are we going to read about next...
Cambelt
I've been out working on her an awful lot these past few days, I'll do a proper update shortly.
Here's a little taster of how far I've got though, managed to free the diff from the car just a couple of hours ago.
The only part of the rear end still left in place are the shock-absorbers, and seeing how they're still okay, they'll be staying there!
Time I updated this....
Currently going hell for leather to get the car on the road for BBWF.
LOTS left to do, but the good news is the rear-end rebuild is moving along nicely.
Tonight I'll be rebuilding the rear calipers with new stainless steel pistons, and if time allows changing the seals in the new (to me) LSD that's going in as a replacement.
I also managed to pick up a New Old Stock brake master cylinder as well as a rebuild kit for the clutch master and slave cylinders:
Still lots to do.
I have a chap hopefully coming over next week to weld a fractured chassis tube.
At that point, the whole car will really move on in a big way.
I have a load of friends coming over a week on Saturday, to help me out.
Hopefully we might be able to get the car back on its wheels at that point.
These being the 'new' wheels and tyres I have to go on:
Then, all I'll really have to do is replace all the hoses and refit the EFI.
Wish me luck guys, I REALLY want to be able to join you all at BBWF.
If I do, the car is likely to look a little shabby, cosmetically, but she'll be mechanically sound......hopefully!
Currently going hell for leather to get the car on the road for BBWF.
LOTS left to do, but the good news is the rear-end rebuild is moving along nicely.
Tonight I'll be rebuilding the rear calipers with new stainless steel pistons, and if time allows changing the seals in the new (to me) LSD that's going in as a replacement.
I also managed to pick up a New Old Stock brake master cylinder as well as a rebuild kit for the clutch master and slave cylinders:
Still lots to do.
I have a chap hopefully coming over next week to weld a fractured chassis tube.
At that point, the whole car will really move on in a big way.
I have a load of friends coming over a week on Saturday, to help me out.
Hopefully we might be able to get the car back on its wheels at that point.
These being the 'new' wheels and tyres I have to go on:
Then, all I'll really have to do is replace all the hoses and refit the EFI.
Wish me luck guys, I REALLY want to be able to join you all at BBWF.
If I do, the car is likely to look a little shabby, cosmetically, but she'll be mechanically sound......hopefully!
Hi Adam - I shall fix te picture links as soon as I have a spare moment.
Now, unlike a lot of the threads on here, where you'll see MASSIVE transformations in a day, there's little of that here.
It's just been a long, slow slog at dilligently rebuilding and restoring crucial parts.
This is what the TVR currently looks like:
And from the rear:
Dashboard and interior are still in pieces:
You'd probably think I'm bat-s
t crazy to think that this car will be on the road in under a month then, yes?
Weeeeeel, maybe not.
This is what's taken up so much time, Salisbury 4HU Powr-Lok rear end
It's a surprisingly daunting piece of engineering to sort out properly, hence I had a lot of help from the old man on this, who's worked on these diffs a lot before.
We've rebuilt the diff with new seals, and in the process had to change an output shaft bearing, which became mullered when we tried to strip a seal out.
This involved having to very carefully re-set the bearing pre-load using a dial gauge.
I've also rebuilt the (completely siezed and cocking useless) rear brake calipers with brand new seals and stainless steel pistons - hopefully so that I'll never have to do it ever again!
There are still the copper brake lines to make up, handbrake calipers to rebuild and fit, and the mounting yoke to fit - but this is a serious victory in the scheme of getting this car back on the road!
On Saturday, I had a load of mates over to help me out with some time consuming tasks.
We managed to strip a load of the brittle, cracked and inferno-prone fuel piping out of the rear of the car and drained the tanks.
We also removed the original (buggered) trailing arm bushes!
Honestly, there's no wonder these cars get a bad reputation for handling. With two worn trailing arm bushes, and bent trailing arms pins, it's a miracle someone didn't stuff the thing into a hedge backwards!
Turning our attentions towards the front of the car, we set to on the fuel injection manifold.
After seeing the state that the fuel lines were in underneath the car, I felt the only right thing to do was to change every last piece of fuel hose.
The last thing I wanted was for all my hard work to go up in flames
Cleaning up the castings soon revealed the 'exotic' sourcing of TVR's components
Which of course, immediately made me wonder if my old Land-Rover, 'Leonard', would take to the old-school gasser look:
Errrrrr, no!
Again, I felt vindicated for changing the fuel lines on the manifold.
Looking inside the sectioned hose running directly to the injectors from the fuel rail, it was very heavily cracked and perished!
Unfortunately, this gave us a problem, as the short stubs of pipe are factory fitted to the injectors with a machine fitted pressed collar.
After having sliced through the pipe, I wondered if I'd just bought myself a needless ticket to a full set of new injectors :/
Thankfully, we figured out a way of cutting the locking collars off with a hacksaw.
Violet was particularly good at this, and so we stood around and watched!
At this point Matt turned up. We were all very hungry, so piled into Leonard and headed off to get some KFC.
Driving through Mansfield (which has always been full of boy-racers for years) in Leonard, with Black Sabbath & Led Zeppelin cranked up was hilarious, and awesome fun!
We also needed some more jubille clips, which we managed to buy, of all places, in ALDI!
So yes, my TVR is now tuned, not by Audi, but by ALDI
After Onne's meticulous cleaning, and cutting lots of lengths of fuel hose and tightening jubille clips etc. The fannymould now looks like this:
I re-fitted the gummed up 'extra air valve', which was a source of rough and rich running, and now just need to replace the old vacuum pipes, and give the plneum top and throttle body some attention.
Again though, another very important part of the jigsaw sorted!
Finally, for a bit of a mojo booster, what do you reckon to the refurbished rocker covers?
I was originally going for a black wrinkle paint finish. However, my attempts looked, frankly, bloody awful!
My mate Gareth, virtually snatched them off me and set to with his set of machine polishing wheels, and gave them this beautiful, mirror-type finish.
Looking at them, I felt that having the valleys of the covers picked out in blue, to match the pin-striping of the car would really finish them off.
Seeing how Matt spends his time away from retro cars painting war-game miniatures, I handed him the paint and brush, and in the blink of an eye, they looked like this:
I'm well chuffed!
Now, unlike a lot of the threads on here, where you'll see MASSIVE transformations in a day, there's little of that here.
It's just been a long, slow slog at dilligently rebuilding and restoring crucial parts.
This is what the TVR currently looks like:
And from the rear:
Dashboard and interior are still in pieces:
You'd probably think I'm bat-s
t crazy to think that this car will be on the road in under a month then, yes?Weeeeeel, maybe not.
This is what's taken up so much time, Salisbury 4HU Powr-Lok rear end
It's a surprisingly daunting piece of engineering to sort out properly, hence I had a lot of help from the old man on this, who's worked on these diffs a lot before.
We've rebuilt the diff with new seals, and in the process had to change an output shaft bearing, which became mullered when we tried to strip a seal out.
This involved having to very carefully re-set the bearing pre-load using a dial gauge.
I've also rebuilt the (completely siezed and cocking useless) rear brake calipers with brand new seals and stainless steel pistons - hopefully so that I'll never have to do it ever again!
There are still the copper brake lines to make up, handbrake calipers to rebuild and fit, and the mounting yoke to fit - but this is a serious victory in the scheme of getting this car back on the road!
On Saturday, I had a load of mates over to help me out with some time consuming tasks.
We managed to strip a load of the brittle, cracked and inferno-prone fuel piping out of the rear of the car and drained the tanks.
We also removed the original (buggered) trailing arm bushes!
Honestly, there's no wonder these cars get a bad reputation for handling. With two worn trailing arm bushes, and bent trailing arms pins, it's a miracle someone didn't stuff the thing into a hedge backwards!
Turning our attentions towards the front of the car, we set to on the fuel injection manifold.
After seeing the state that the fuel lines were in underneath the car, I felt the only right thing to do was to change every last piece of fuel hose.
The last thing I wanted was for all my hard work to go up in flames
Cleaning up the castings soon revealed the 'exotic' sourcing of TVR's components
Which of course, immediately made me wonder if my old Land-Rover, 'Leonard', would take to the old-school gasser look:
Errrrrr, no!
Again, I felt vindicated for changing the fuel lines on the manifold.
Looking inside the sectioned hose running directly to the injectors from the fuel rail, it was very heavily cracked and perished!
Unfortunately, this gave us a problem, as the short stubs of pipe are factory fitted to the injectors with a machine fitted pressed collar.
After having sliced through the pipe, I wondered if I'd just bought myself a needless ticket to a full set of new injectors :/
Thankfully, we figured out a way of cutting the locking collars off with a hacksaw.
Violet was particularly good at this, and so we stood around and watched!
At this point Matt turned up. We were all very hungry, so piled into Leonard and headed off to get some KFC.
Driving through Mansfield (which has always been full of boy-racers for years) in Leonard, with Black Sabbath & Led Zeppelin cranked up was hilarious, and awesome fun!
We also needed some more jubille clips, which we managed to buy, of all places, in ALDI!
So yes, my TVR is now tuned, not by Audi, but by ALDI
After Onne's meticulous cleaning, and cutting lots of lengths of fuel hose and tightening jubille clips etc. The fannymould now looks like this:
I re-fitted the gummed up 'extra air valve', which was a source of rough and rich running, and now just need to replace the old vacuum pipes, and give the plneum top and throttle body some attention.
Again though, another very important part of the jigsaw sorted!
Finally, for a bit of a mojo booster, what do you reckon to the refurbished rocker covers?
I was originally going for a black wrinkle paint finish. However, my attempts looked, frankly, bloody awful!
My mate Gareth, virtually snatched them off me and set to with his set of machine polishing wheels, and gave them this beautiful, mirror-type finish.
Looking at them, I felt that having the valleys of the covers picked out in blue, to match the pin-striping of the car would really finish them off.
Seeing how Matt spends his time away from retro cars painting war-game miniatures, I handed him the paint and brush, and in the blink of an eye, they looked like this:
I'm well chuffed!
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