Pat's Tuscan V6 restoration thread

[Astacus]

Or, it could have been an off-cut from another dash panel, that the factory used to mount the switch as it had the correct size hole already cut.

[thegamekeeper]

The car is already fitted with a manual reversing light switch in the panel below the minor instruments. In fact the switch and panel in question is part of that panel which has been cut off a spare switch panel and mounted under the dash with the switch reversed so script is not seen. My money is it being an electric cooling fan switch, Vixens and Tuscans were not fitted with electric fans despite the engine powered fan being so far from the radiator.

The overdrive switch was part of the gear knob and was a slide on/off switch.

Although as you correctly say seat belts were required by law post 1967 the cars were only fitted with 2 point lap straps as standard and 3 point fixed belts were in fact an option. (not even a drivers side airbag!!!)

[Adrian@]

Morning Steve, moluag's car...Mike Carmichael has a extended lever switch on his Tuscan V6 ...their versions of the O/D box does not have the gear lever switch.
Adrian@

[thegamekeeper]

Being the last car it differs from others, in fact they all differ from each other slightly. The clever money is to fit the switchgear from an overdrive GT6 which has the OD switch on the steering column with the indicators and dip switches.

[Pat H]

thegamekeeper said:

The car is already fitted with a manual reversing light switch in the panel below the minor instruments. In fact the switch and panel in question is part of that panel which has been cut off a spare switch panel and mounted under the dash with the switch reversed so script is not seen. My money is it being an electric cooling fan switch, Vixens and Tuscans were not fitted with electric fans despite the engine powered fan being so far from the radiator.

The overdrive switch was part of the gear knob and was a slide on/off switch.

Sadly, my knob doesn't have an on/off switch.

Neither does the knob on the Tuscan. So the overdrive switch must have been somewhere else.

Electric fan switch is a good shout. The radiator was missing from the car, so I can't say for certain that it had an electric fan, but there is no evidence of a cooling fan ever having been fitted to the pulley on the front of the timing cover...

John Haggas's car is a bit later than mine. This also had o/d and has the extended lever switch fitted to the bottom of the dash in the same place as my mystery switch.

Quite like the idea of GT6 o/d switchgear as a neat solution. Mind you, I expect they are pretty hard to find.

[thegamekeeper]

just buy a GT6 and throw the rest away.

ps, I,ve had 3 early ones and they all had OD switch on gear lever, and thinking about it they probably used Triumph 2000/TR switches on Ford gear stick. Wires were exposed on outside of lever.

pps, there are new ones both for RHD and LHD on ebay £28

Edited by thegamekeeper on Monday 1st July 13:30

Edited by thegamekeeper on Monday 1st July 13:34

Edited by thegamekeeper on Monday 1st July 13:43

[Pat H]

thegamekeeper said:

just buy a GT6 and throw the rest away

Yep.

Thinking about it, I'm not even sure that the o/d switch isn't already on my existing steering column.

I'll have to have a root in the garage when I get home from work tonight.

[tus6]

Great to see all the 'traffic' on your rebuild......

Just back from holiday and can CONFIRM that it is the OVERDRIVE SWITCH.

I had a GT6/Vitesse switch cluster fitted to my car in 1971, as it was so much easier to use a finger operated switch on the steering column, when driving, than the one shown in your photo.

[ATE399J]

I'd go with overdrive too (piccie of mine below). I have a long stalky switch so it ends up being parallel to the indicator stalk. FYI the other switch is a fan manual override switch.



Incidentally, the overdrive inhibitor switch (on top of the gearbox at the front) can also work as an automatic reverse light switch, there are 4 terminals, two enable the O/D and the other two would switch the Rev. lights.

P.

[Pat H]

ATE399J said:

Incidentally, the overdrive inhibitor switch (on top of the gearbox at the front) can also work as an automatic reverse light switch, there are 4 terminals, two enable the O/D and the other two would switch the Rev. lights.
P.

Interesting stuff. Will bear that in mind.

I think I agree with Chris. It is a pretty poor location for the switch. GT6 column switch is the way to go.

[tus6]

Pat H said:

ATE399J said:

Incidentally, the overdrive inhibitor switch (on top of the gearbox at the front) can also work as an automatic reverse light switch, there are 4 terminals, two enable the O/D and the other two would switch the Rev. lights.
P.

Interesting stuff. Will bear that in mind.

I think I agree with Chris. It is a pretty poor location for the switch. GT6 column switch is the way to go.

I have just got my Tuscan V6 back on the road....... Driving experience gets better every day as things loosen up. Even the engine tickover has 'smoothed out' (presumably it has used up the old petrol and is running on fresh stuff now).

One question for you Pat..... My heater matrix is blocked. Have tried to 'reverse flush' it to no avail! Can you tell me if the thing can be removed from the engine bay, or do you need a 'contortionist' working inside the car to hold a spanner on the nuts/bolts that are on the bulkhead. I cannot believe that TVR would have used 'trapped nuts' to make the job a 'one man' effort......

Pat... If you have any further identification problems like the overdrive switch, just post them on this forum and I will help all I can.

It will probably also help some fellow owners of V6 Tuscans

[tus6]

Pat H said:

ATE399J said:

Incidentally, the overdrive inhibitor switch (on top of the gearbox at the front) can also work as an automatic reverse light switch, there are 4 terminals, two enable the O/D and the other two would switch the Rev. lights.
P.

Interesting stuff. Will bear that in mind.

I think I agree with Chris. It is a pretty poor location for the switch. GT6 column switch is the way to go.

Maybe we (TVR Tuscan V6 owners) should all be contributing information that we currently hold in our heads, relating to our cars, to a central site/forum. The Car Club seems to be the most obvious location for such a database, but the main interest of most members appears to be in the more modern TVRs.

The BMW Car Club do this in the specific registers for each model. The E24, 6 series Big Coupe section run a particularly good one, that has helped me on various problems that I have had on my M 635.........

Just a thought..... What does everybody else think?

Pat, if you have any further problems on identification, please contact me and I will pop out to the garage and make a comparison with my car, which was built very close in chassis number to your car and is likely to have similar parts and layout.

[Pat H]

I might be very wrong, but I suspect that a sticky thread in the Classics forum on PistonHeads is the best place.

The Car Club has already given me lots of help, but not everyone is a paid up member, and the resource would be more accessible here.

Incidentally, Chris, is your petrol cap the magnetic type?

[ATE399J]

Chris,

Heater matrix:- I suspect that there are at lease 203,203 different incarnations of TVR heater systems but, if its the same as mine you can get the matrix out from the engine bay side. However, getting to the nuts at the back of the four (from memory) screws that hold the housing in without taking the dash out will, I suspect, be fun.

My system looks like this:-



Sorry I didn't have time to polish it before I took the piccie

Edited by ATE399J on Wednesday 10th July 09:36

Edited by ATE399J on Wednesday 10th July 09:39

[tus6]

Pat and Phil
Thanks Phil for the photo info on the heater matrix. I will have to get help from a fit young person to hold the spanners up behind the dash!

Pat--- Mine is the magnetic petrol filler cap. The 'Circular' magnet has a habit of coming 'un-glued' from the alloy flap and fixing itself to the flat part of the tank filler tube. If it has done this, yank it off and re-glue it to the alloy filler flap. I find Evostick works pretty well and has only failed once in 43 years. If the circular magnet is missing, then that could be a problem.....

[moluag]

Adrian@ said:

Morning Steve, moluag's car...Mike Carmichael has a extended lever switch on his Tuscan V6 ...their versions of the O/D box does not have the gear lever switch.
Adrian@

As Adrian said ... here is an image showing my overdrive switch, as fitted by the factory, in the same place as your mystery switch.



If you need any help with a filler cap Pat, give me a bell.

Mike

[tus6]

Any further progress Pat?

Did you sort out the problem with your petrol filler cap?

[mybrainhurts]

Pat H said:

I was poking about with the remains of my dash yesterday.

What do you reckon this switch is for?

I'm talking about the horizontal one at the bottom, with the associated warning lamp.

All I know for sure is that it left the factory that way.

Looks like an afterthought for an auxilliary or extra.

The only significant option that the car had was overdrive, and I can't find evidence of an overdrive switch anywhere else on the dash. Might it be for the O/D?

Does that vipers switch release the vipers when plod stops you...?

[Pat H]

tus6 said:

One question for you Pat..... My heater matrix is blocked. Have tried to 'reverse flush' it to no avail! Can you tell me if the thing can be removed from the engine bay, or do you need a 'contortionist' working inside the car to hold a spanner on the nuts/bolts that are on the bulkhead. I cannot believe that TVR would have used 'trapped nuts' to make the job a 'one man' effort......

I hate to say it, but the heater box was the last thing I removed from the shell, after I had lifted if from the chassis.

You definitely needed to have someone on the inside of the bulkhead and there was very little clearance between the heater box and the curved chassis tube that runs over the gearbox, to the point where I even doubted whether I could have removed it with the car still on the chassis.

So I wish you lots of luck with that, if you haven't already sorted it.

As far as current progress is concerned, there isn't a lot to report. Still trawling eBay for minor parts. Have located source for magnetic petrol cap. Stripped and rebuilt rear lamp units with new seals etc. Generally just pottering until the chassis is ready.

To be honest, I've spent rather more time fettling this old thing and using it in the nice weather...

Edited by Pat H on Tuesday 11th July 14:51

[tus6]

What a beautiful motorcycle..... Brings back memories of Steve McQueen and didn't Tom Cruise ride one in Top Gun? Or was it Richard Gere in 'An Officer and a Gentleman'.....

Thanks for your observations on the removal of the heater matrix.... I will now remove all of the water pipes and try flushing the matrix from both directions. I think new hoses are about due in any event. When I removed the hose from the heater valve, the hole was blocked with 'blue gunge' and I was able to break this up with a wire probe! Who knows....... I may just get lucky with the heater matrix!

Keep us all posted with your progress on the Tuscan.

I know that you have a lot of people who are very interested in your project.