Cheap(?) TVR Chimaera 400
Discussion
One little, and reversible, mod you might like to try.
If at any time you think that the accelerator pedal feels a bit heavy, you could try removing one of the two return springs from under the bonnet..
There's one each side, and apparently one you cannot see in the mechanism itself, so no danger of haveing no return spring if the remaining one breaks
I removed one after someone else suggested it, and stuck it in the door pocket "in case".
47.000 miles and 11 years later I still have it in the door pocket, as I find the lighter throttle more to my taste.
If at any time you think that the accelerator pedal feels a bit heavy, you could try removing one of the two return springs from under the bonnet..
There's one each side, and apparently one you cannot see in the mechanism itself, so no danger of haveing no return spring if the remaining one breaks
I removed one after someone else suggested it, and stuck it in the door pocket "in case".
47.000 miles and 11 years later I still have it in the door pocket, as I find the lighter throttle more to my taste.
QBee said:
One little, and reversible, mod you might like to try.
If at any time you think that the accelerator pedal feels a bit heavy, you could try removing one of the two return springs from under the bonnet..
There's one each side, and apparently one you cannot see in the mechanism itself, so no danger of haveing no return spring if the remaining one breaks
I removed one after someone else suggested it, and stuck it in the door pocket "in case".
47.000 miles and 11 years later I still have it in the door pocket, as I find the lighter throttle more to my taste.
I might give that a try to see how it feel, cheers. Must give the throttle cable a bit of an easier time as well. The heavy clutch is much more noticeable though, especially when stuck in traffic. I got in my daughter’s Aygo to pop to the shops after a day driving the TVR and I almost pushed the clutch pedal through the floor! If at any time you think that the accelerator pedal feels a bit heavy, you could try removing one of the two return springs from under the bonnet..
There's one each side, and apparently one you cannot see in the mechanism itself, so no danger of haveing no return spring if the remaining one breaks
I removed one after someone else suggested it, and stuck it in the door pocket "in case".
47.000 miles and 11 years later I still have it in the door pocket, as I find the lighter throttle more to my taste.
One thing I do need to have a play with is the pedal adjustment, as it’s pretty much impossible to heel and toe at the moment. At rest, the throttle pedal sits a lot lower than the brake, and the brake pedal is very firm with little travel in it (a good thing) so I need to either wind the brake pedal down slightly or bring the throttle up. I know they have a bit of adjustment on them.
I loved my old Chimaera 400. Bought it as a 21st birthday present to myself for not a lot of money. Unfortunately there was a reason it was not a lot of money. It needed so much work doing. Most of the suspension needed replacing, one of the exhaust manifolds was ticking, the interior was pretty badly worn and it would shunt terribly when driving at low speeds.
Being 21 and not having the money to get these bits sorted, I only kept it for about six months before selling it on again. It’s still out there somewhere getting the love and care it deserves.
Being 21 and not having the money to get these bits sorted, I only kept it for about six months before selling it on again. It’s still out there somewhere getting the love and care it deserves.
Sammo123 said:
I loved my old Chimaera 400. Bought it as a 21st birthday present to myself for not a lot of money. Unfortunately there was a reason it was not a lot of money. It needed so much work doing. Most of the suspension needed replacing, one of the exhaust manifolds was ticking, the interior was pretty badly worn and it would shunt terribly when driving at low speeds.
Being 21 and not having the money to get these bits sorted, I only kept it for about six months before selling it on again. It’s still out there somewhere getting the love and care it deserves.
Shame you had to move it on, but glad it's still going. Being 21 and not having the money to get these bits sorted, I only kept it for about six months before selling it on again. It’s still out there somewhere getting the love and care it deserves.
Apart from the suspension replacement, it sounds a lot like my car, to be honest. Dealing with the manifolds was a nightmare from which I'm still recovering, but it is done. The shunting around 1500 RPM on light throttle is a bit of a "feature" on these. Mine was pretty bad when I first got it. After new plugs and leads, and cleaning and repeatedly cycling the idle air valve with Rovergauge to exercise it, it is a LOT better. It still does it occasionally, but it's nowhere near as often, or as bad when it happens.
Amazing weekend of weather (can't remember the last time I said that) saw the car covering 350 miles this weekend.
Another pootle along the coast road to West Bay in the sunshine with a mate for a gelato and a mooch round the parked up motorbikes. Nice drive back following a beautiful silver MGA. Lots of nice stuff out and about this weekend, and a couple of cheery waves exchanged with drivers of a Tuscan and a Griff.
And then decided to trust it for the first time on a decent run. Needed to do the 285 mile round trip to the parents house just north of Oxford. Although the car had been running well since the breakdown, I'd be lying if I said it hadn't dented my trust a little bit. But with my AA card in my wallet, I filled up with V-Power and set off, roof off. My faith wasn't misplaced, and despite some heavy traffic at the bottom of the M3 on the way there, and the A34 around Oxford on the way back, it didn't miss a beat. Engine heat soaking through the transmission tunnel bakes your legs at low speeds though, and the heavy clutch gets tedious in the stop/start stuff. But no overheating, no strops. Fans halt the temperature climb as it gets to about 85 indicated, and then back down to 75-80 within a minute or two of getting moving again.
This also happened on the way back (shows the state of the dash as well - very much on the to-do list)
I also took this as an opportunity to test touring range, as I was starting with a full tank, and keen to see if it could make the round trip without refuelling. Normally it's getting down toward the quarter tank mark at about 230-240 miles. The roads were reasonably busy yesterday due to the holidaymakers all heading home from the SW ahead of the schools going back this week, so most of it was a 50-60 mph with the occasional stretching of legs where appropriate, a bit of the aforementioned stop/start, and a couple of hard acceleration runs off roundabouts or lights. At the normal 240 miles, the gauge was showing about a third full instead of the usual quarter, but not trusting the gauge fully, and running out of fuel being a really stupid thing to break down for, I decided to stop at a handy Shell station off the A35. At 245.2 miles on the trip, it took 35.25 litres to refill, which meant there was a good 20 litres left in the tank. Some quick maths worked out I'd averaged 31.8 mpg which I think is staggering for an old pushrod V8 powered anything, even if it is featherweight. It also suggested that the car has a useable touring range of somewhere around the 360 mile mark, leaving a comfortable gallon or so in reserve.
A fun, noisy weekend. Now I need to clean it again!
Another pootle along the coast road to West Bay in the sunshine with a mate for a gelato and a mooch round the parked up motorbikes. Nice drive back following a beautiful silver MGA. Lots of nice stuff out and about this weekend, and a couple of cheery waves exchanged with drivers of a Tuscan and a Griff.
And then decided to trust it for the first time on a decent run. Needed to do the 285 mile round trip to the parents house just north of Oxford. Although the car had been running well since the breakdown, I'd be lying if I said it hadn't dented my trust a little bit. But with my AA card in my wallet, I filled up with V-Power and set off, roof off. My faith wasn't misplaced, and despite some heavy traffic at the bottom of the M3 on the way there, and the A34 around Oxford on the way back, it didn't miss a beat. Engine heat soaking through the transmission tunnel bakes your legs at low speeds though, and the heavy clutch gets tedious in the stop/start stuff. But no overheating, no strops. Fans halt the temperature climb as it gets to about 85 indicated, and then back down to 75-80 within a minute or two of getting moving again.
This also happened on the way back (shows the state of the dash as well - very much on the to-do list)
I also took this as an opportunity to test touring range, as I was starting with a full tank, and keen to see if it could make the round trip without refuelling. Normally it's getting down toward the quarter tank mark at about 230-240 miles. The roads were reasonably busy yesterday due to the holidaymakers all heading home from the SW ahead of the schools going back this week, so most of it was a 50-60 mph with the occasional stretching of legs where appropriate, a bit of the aforementioned stop/start, and a couple of hard acceleration runs off roundabouts or lights. At the normal 240 miles, the gauge was showing about a third full instead of the usual quarter, but not trusting the gauge fully, and running out of fuel being a really stupid thing to break down for, I decided to stop at a handy Shell station off the A35. At 245.2 miles on the trip, it took 35.25 litres to refill, which meant there was a good 20 litres left in the tank. Some quick maths worked out I'd averaged 31.8 mpg which I think is staggering for an old pushrod V8 powered anything, even if it is featherweight. It also suggested that the car has a useable touring range of somewhere around the 360 mile mark, leaving a comfortable gallon or so in reserve.
A fun, noisy weekend. Now I need to clean it again!
When that clutch gets too much, there seem to be two solutions:
1. There is a lighter clutch kit available - someone else will be along to give you full details
2. You can get a brake servio inserted into the clutch system which will aprrox halve the weight of the clutch.
I have such a system in mine because I have a painful left big toe joint, it uses of all things an MGB servo.
1. There is a lighter clutch kit available - someone else will be along to give you full details
2. You can get a brake servio inserted into the clutch system which will aprrox halve the weight of the clutch.
I have such a system in mine because I have a painful left big toe joint, it uses of all things an MGB servo.
Been a while since I updated, so I thought I'd share what's been happening.
Car has been running well, but the appalling weather we've had for what seems like an eternity now has meant it hasn't had a lot of use.
I decided to investigate the engine knock that the car has had since I bought it (and which reduced the price by £1,500).
Just to recap, it's a random, irregular heavy tick/knock coming from the centre of the engine that can only be heard at idle when the engine is hot. As soon as you pick up the revs, it disappears, and when the engine is cold, it doesn't happen at all.
Looking under the car, the sump is easily accessible which means checking the big end bearings isn't a particularly onerous task so that was my first port of call. I could detect no up and down freeplay on any of the rods that would indicate the source of a knock, but I decided to pull each cap off and check, which is straightforward enough to do by rotating the engine by hand until the journal for each pair is at its lowest point. Undo the two nuts, tap the cap off with a rubber mallet and recover the lower shell half, then push the piston up the bore until the rod clears enough to be able to push it to one side and extract the upper shell half.
This proved to be a worthwhile exercise, as no1 lower was worn (although strangely the others were fine). There was no detectible freeplay in this bearing, and the crank journal was undamaged, so I don't know why this happened.
I also discovered something about my engine whilst doing the job. It's not actually a 4.0 but a 3.9 (albeit the two are exactly the same 3948cc). Although the old Rover lump evolved over the years and many changes were made, there were essentially two versions of the engine as far as the rotating assembly is concerned. The 3.5 and 3.9 fall into the first, and the "4.0", 4.6 (which TVR called a 4.5) are the second.
The 3.9 is a bored out version of the original 3.5. They share the same crank and therefore stroke. This bottom end has is known as the "small" journal crank, with smaller diameter main and big end journals than the later engine.
The later 4.0 shares the same bore and stroke as the 3.9 (hence the same cc) but has a larger journal crank, with larger mains which are also cross bolted. The different capacities (4.6 and 5.0) are achieved with different cranks to lengthen the stroke. As well as the cross bolted mains, these later engines are quickly identifiable by the type of big end bolts used. In place of the studs and nuts are single-use stretch bolts.
My engine is a 3.9, as I discovered. No big deal other than removing the possibility of a cheap upgrade to a 4.6 by chucking in a 4.6 crank at some stage. The earlier and later cranks are not interchangeable due to the different journal size. The 3.9 to 4.0 crossover happened in 1995. My car was registered in April 96 so must have had one of the last of the 3.9s that TVR Power had kicking about. There is no mention in the (extensive) history file of the engine ever having been changed.
Anyway, with regard to the job itself, the replacement shells are standard Land Rover bits, so no TVR tax. A set of quality (King) shells set me back about £40.
Old and new shell comparison (this was the only one with visible wear)
And that was that. Apart from the mild discomfort of laying flat on my back (albeit now more pleasant thanks to the diesel heater in the garage blowing toasty warm air under the car) it's really not a difficult job if you take your time and work methodically. Remove the nuts from the bearing cap after rotating the engine to put the journals at or near to the bottom, and tapping the cap it with a rubber mallet to free it from the rod, extract old bearings, have a clean up, visual check of the journals and ensure the oil feed is clear, install new shells with a generous smear of assembly lube, refit caps (ensuring they are refitted to the rod they came off, and that they are the right way round - there's a raised rib on one side of each cap, and each pair of caps on a journal has to have the rib facing each other). Bit of Loctite on the threads, torque the nuts up to 50Nm. I also checked after each replacement that the crank rotated smoothly, rather than find a problem at the end and have to work out which one was the issue. Before refitting the sump, as a bolts and braces measure, I turned the engine, plugs out by hand a few revolutions, feeling for any sticky points or roughness, but everything felt buttery smooth.
Sump back on (after washing the pick up pipe through with solvent and removing the silicone residue from the old "gasket"), new oil and filter after priming the filter. Turned. the key. Engine fired up oil light out, pressure gauge climbing, tappets quiet after a second or two, and it sounded sweet, but then it did before. Went for a drive. Noticed another 5 PSI or so of hot oil pressure which was nice, but felt exactly the same otherwise. Pulled back onto the drive and let it idle.
Knock...........knockknock............knock...... Arse!
No worse, but no better either.
Investigation continuing - more updates to follow shortly.
Car has been running well, but the appalling weather we've had for what seems like an eternity now has meant it hasn't had a lot of use.
I decided to investigate the engine knock that the car has had since I bought it (and which reduced the price by £1,500).
Just to recap, it's a random, irregular heavy tick/knock coming from the centre of the engine that can only be heard at idle when the engine is hot. As soon as you pick up the revs, it disappears, and when the engine is cold, it doesn't happen at all.
Looking under the car, the sump is easily accessible which means checking the big end bearings isn't a particularly onerous task so that was my first port of call. I could detect no up and down freeplay on any of the rods that would indicate the source of a knock, but I decided to pull each cap off and check, which is straightforward enough to do by rotating the engine by hand until the journal for each pair is at its lowest point. Undo the two nuts, tap the cap off with a rubber mallet and recover the lower shell half, then push the piston up the bore until the rod clears enough to be able to push it to one side and extract the upper shell half.
This proved to be a worthwhile exercise, as no1 lower was worn (although strangely the others were fine). There was no detectible freeplay in this bearing, and the crank journal was undamaged, so I don't know why this happened.
I also discovered something about my engine whilst doing the job. It's not actually a 4.0 but a 3.9 (albeit the two are exactly the same 3948cc). Although the old Rover lump evolved over the years and many changes were made, there were essentially two versions of the engine as far as the rotating assembly is concerned. The 3.5 and 3.9 fall into the first, and the "4.0", 4.6 (which TVR called a 4.5) are the second.
The 3.9 is a bored out version of the original 3.5. They share the same crank and therefore stroke. This bottom end has is known as the "small" journal crank, with smaller diameter main and big end journals than the later engine.
The later 4.0 shares the same bore and stroke as the 3.9 (hence the same cc) but has a larger journal crank, with larger mains which are also cross bolted. The different capacities (4.6 and 5.0) are achieved with different cranks to lengthen the stroke. As well as the cross bolted mains, these later engines are quickly identifiable by the type of big end bolts used. In place of the studs and nuts are single-use stretch bolts.
My engine is a 3.9, as I discovered. No big deal other than removing the possibility of a cheap upgrade to a 4.6 by chucking in a 4.6 crank at some stage. The earlier and later cranks are not interchangeable due to the different journal size. The 3.9 to 4.0 crossover happened in 1995. My car was registered in April 96 so must have had one of the last of the 3.9s that TVR Power had kicking about. There is no mention in the (extensive) history file of the engine ever having been changed.
Anyway, with regard to the job itself, the replacement shells are standard Land Rover bits, so no TVR tax. A set of quality (King) shells set me back about £40.
Old and new shell comparison (this was the only one with visible wear)
And that was that. Apart from the mild discomfort of laying flat on my back (albeit now more pleasant thanks to the diesel heater in the garage blowing toasty warm air under the car) it's really not a difficult job if you take your time and work methodically. Remove the nuts from the bearing cap after rotating the engine to put the journals at or near to the bottom, and tapping the cap it with a rubber mallet to free it from the rod, extract old bearings, have a clean up, visual check of the journals and ensure the oil feed is clear, install new shells with a generous smear of assembly lube, refit caps (ensuring they are refitted to the rod they came off, and that they are the right way round - there's a raised rib on one side of each cap, and each pair of caps on a journal has to have the rib facing each other). Bit of Loctite on the threads, torque the nuts up to 50Nm. I also checked after each replacement that the crank rotated smoothly, rather than find a problem at the end and have to work out which one was the issue. Before refitting the sump, as a bolts and braces measure, I turned the engine, plugs out by hand a few revolutions, feeling for any sticky points or roughness, but everything felt buttery smooth.
Sump back on (after washing the pick up pipe through with solvent and removing the silicone residue from the old "gasket"), new oil and filter after priming the filter. Turned. the key. Engine fired up oil light out, pressure gauge climbing, tappets quiet after a second or two, and it sounded sweet, but then it did before. Went for a drive. Noticed another 5 PSI or so of hot oil pressure which was nice, but felt exactly the same otherwise. Pulled back onto the drive and let it idle.
Knock...........knockknock............knock...... Arse!
No worse, but no better either.
Investigation continuing - more updates to follow shortly.
Scoobydrew95 said:
Glad to see nothing too terminal gone on there, at the moment in any case.
You make doing big end bearings seem so normal and not petrifying. I'd be so bloody scared to start the engine
It's only petrifying if you dwell too long on what's at stake You make doing big end bearings seem so normal and not petrifying. I'd be so bloody scared to start the engine
Actually mechanically pretty simple and quite satisfying to do. But yes, there was a bit of a deep breath when I turned the key for the first time. It's quite hard to get wrong in reality. The shells have locating tangs that engage with notches in the rod and cap, and just "look right" when they're correctly seated, It's then just a case of making sure the caps go back on the same rods they came off, are the right way round, and the nuts correctly torqued.If it had been a later cross bolted "4.0", I'd have had to replace the rod bolts as well, which are stretch bolts, angle tightened, and about £80 a set. The stud type I have are reusable and torqued to a conventional number.
Peanut Gallery said:
f you pulled all the main end caps off, could you pull the crankshaft down just enough to spin the bearing and inspect / replace those bearings as well?
People have done the mains with the crank in situ, but they're done one at a time by removing a cap and lower shell, then using a thin piece of wire to carefully push/slide the upper shell round the journal until you can lift it cleanly off. Being very careful of course not to scratch or score the journal. Refitting is the reversal of the above. I didn't look at the mains, although arguably I should have while I was in there.So, in an ongoing effort to track down this annoying knock, and with a stethoscope strongly pointing at the front cover area, I decided to strip it down and have a look to see if I could see anything untoward. I also wanted to fit the new water pump which I've had sitting in a box for the past few months. The original wasn't leaking, and the car runs at a nice temperature, but there was some axial play detectable on the pump with the load of the belt removed which I wasn't happy with. RV8s will not tolerate overheating, and the pump is a standard Land Rover part, and priced accordingly, so I wanted to be extra safe.
So, in the garage, out with the tools, and time to start taking stuff apart (again lol).
Started by removing the auxiliary belt (and the tensioner to improve access). Then drained the coolant and removed some of the hoses, again for access. Took the coolant swirl pot out, and removed the crossmember. Then unbolted the old coolant pump from the front cover. You can remove the cover with the pump in situ if you're not changing it, but there's good access to all the bolts, and I figured any tight or difficult ones would be easier to deal with if the front cover were still secured to something. Got me to here.
Then find TDC on the compression stroke. There's a few ways to do this, but I ended up taking the nearside rocker cover off to check that both valves on no 1 were closed when the timing marks on the crank pulley lined up.
Then unbolt the crank pulley. This involved a very long breaker bar, and my daughter sat in the car, in gear with her foot hard on the brake. F****g tight, but it came off eventually. Then remove the distributor, drop the sump (again can be done in situ but two of the sump bolts screw into the bottom of the front cover and you risk borking the gasket if you leave it in place). The bolts that go through the coolant jacket are notorious for siezing and breaking, and given my history with this on this car, I was nervous but everything came out with care and patience. Undo the bolts, a few light taps with a rubber mallet on the front cover and off it comes.
Found an incredibly slack timing chain with a lot of lateral play between the chain and sprocket (first clue), so ordered up a new chain kit, plus a new front cover gasket, new front oil seal and a new crank pulley bolt from Motaclan, and after checking the timing marks on the sprockets were aligned, unbolted and removed the timing chain.
Ended up with quite a pile of bits on the bench
There was another surprise here. The pic below shows the cam nose after removal of the distributor drivegear and the cam chain and sprocket. The threaded holes at roughly 3 o clock and 9 o clock to the cam are for a thrust plate which Rover fitted to control cam endfloat. One of the mods TVR make to these engines is to fit their own cam, which clearly isn't machined to accept the thrust plate. So they simply leave it off! This means the only thing controlling cam endfloat is the cam chain, plus a tiny incline in the cam lobes and followers to push the cam backwards! Which may explain the lateral play in the sprocket.
At this point, I had to make a decision. The "correct" thing to do would be to remove the cam and either get it machined for a thrustplate and refit it, or at 77k, more realistically fit a new cam and follower kit. This would have involved a load more stripping down (inlet manifold off, rockers and pushrods out etc), not to mention a load more cost. And I came back to the fact that the car goes very well indeed with plenty of top end which it simply wouldn't have if the cam was toast. So I decided I'd just reassemble with a new chain which would, for a while at least theoretically reduce endfloat, and see if it made any difference at all to the noise which I was increasingly suspecting was caused by the cam moving back and forth (so-called "cam-walk")
So,I fitted the new timing chain, and set about reassembling. I opted for standard rather than duplex because the fairly short life (30k or so) wasn't going to be a problem on a car doing 3k a year and I would be in for a new cam long before that anyway, and nobody could tell me for sure if a duplex upgrade kit would fit this "intermediate" cover engine without the front cover needing to be machined. So, standard it was going to be.
Dizzy drive, spacer and washer fitted to cam, and retaining bolt torqued down.
Now onto the most laborious part of the whole job - cleaning the old gasket off the cover and the engine block. Painstaking and a real test of patience, but had to be done. Seen here part way through...
Knock the old front oil seal out of the cover, and tap the new one in nice and square. Fit the new gasket fitted (with a thin smear of RTV for help), refit the front cover and torque the bolts up carefully. Bolt in the shiny new water pump, remembering to fit the hose supports in the right places. Then notice the leaking low pressure hoses around the power steering pump.
Ordered some lengths of power steering hose, and decided to replaced all the low pressure stuff. High pressure hose in good condition and not leaking so decided not to disturb it. Easy enough job. Cut lots of cable ties (TVRs default method of securing underbonnet wiring and hoses), tape the new hose to one end of the old with strong duct tape, and carefully pull it through to ensure correct routing, then trim it to length. Once fitted, replace the cable ties to re-secure everything and you're done.
I decided to refill the cooling system before refitting the sump. Any leaks in the front cover could cause coolant to go into the sump, with nasty consequences, so I filled and bled it and left it overnight. Next day, level was exactly where I'd left it and no leaks, so was happy to bolt the sump back up, and finish reassembling everything. Aligned the distributor with the rotor arm pointing at no1 segment and left the clamp loose enough that I could rotate it later to set the timing up properly, plug the senders for the oil pressure gauge and idiot light back in, reconnect the distributor power, fill it up with oil, check for obvious leaks (none, thankfully) and start it!
It fired straight up. Timing was miles out, but a fiddle with the distributor sorted that. I noticed that the timing wanders slightly at idle and stabilises with revs. Which again fits with the cam moving about. The distributor is driven off the cam on a bevel gear, so any fore/aft movement of the cam will fractionally advance and retard the timing. But most importantly, when I got it hot and took it for a drive, the knock at idle is significantly less frequent, and much quieter. So I am now confident it's cam walk. It will come back as the new chain stretches and wears, but I am pretty confident that I can fit a new cam at some point with a retaining plate, and it should be banished forever. Consensus among RV8 engine gurus is that the noise is annoying, but harmless.
A smaller task I undertook as well was to do something about the rats nest of wiring under the bonnet around the coil and distributor area, not helped by the HT leads for the offside bank being shoved under the coil. I decided to re-route them and tidy things up a bit. Combined with my cleaned and polished swirl pot, and some other more minor tidying, the engine bay looks a lot more presentable now.
Put about 50 miles on the car over the weekend, and it didn't miss a beat.
Thanks for reading.
So, in the garage, out with the tools, and time to start taking stuff apart (again lol).
Started by removing the auxiliary belt (and the tensioner to improve access). Then drained the coolant and removed some of the hoses, again for access. Took the coolant swirl pot out, and removed the crossmember. Then unbolted the old coolant pump from the front cover. You can remove the cover with the pump in situ if you're not changing it, but there's good access to all the bolts, and I figured any tight or difficult ones would be easier to deal with if the front cover were still secured to something. Got me to here.
Then find TDC on the compression stroke. There's a few ways to do this, but I ended up taking the nearside rocker cover off to check that both valves on no 1 were closed when the timing marks on the crank pulley lined up.
Then unbolt the crank pulley. This involved a very long breaker bar, and my daughter sat in the car, in gear with her foot hard on the brake. F****g tight, but it came off eventually. Then remove the distributor, drop the sump (again can be done in situ but two of the sump bolts screw into the bottom of the front cover and you risk borking the gasket if you leave it in place). The bolts that go through the coolant jacket are notorious for siezing and breaking, and given my history with this on this car, I was nervous but everything came out with care and patience. Undo the bolts, a few light taps with a rubber mallet on the front cover and off it comes.
Found an incredibly slack timing chain with a lot of lateral play between the chain and sprocket (first clue), so ordered up a new chain kit, plus a new front cover gasket, new front oil seal and a new crank pulley bolt from Motaclan, and after checking the timing marks on the sprockets were aligned, unbolted and removed the timing chain.
Ended up with quite a pile of bits on the bench
There was another surprise here. The pic below shows the cam nose after removal of the distributor drivegear and the cam chain and sprocket. The threaded holes at roughly 3 o clock and 9 o clock to the cam are for a thrust plate which Rover fitted to control cam endfloat. One of the mods TVR make to these engines is to fit their own cam, which clearly isn't machined to accept the thrust plate. So they simply leave it off! This means the only thing controlling cam endfloat is the cam chain, plus a tiny incline in the cam lobes and followers to push the cam backwards! Which may explain the lateral play in the sprocket.
At this point, I had to make a decision. The "correct" thing to do would be to remove the cam and either get it machined for a thrustplate and refit it, or at 77k, more realistically fit a new cam and follower kit. This would have involved a load more stripping down (inlet manifold off, rockers and pushrods out etc), not to mention a load more cost. And I came back to the fact that the car goes very well indeed with plenty of top end which it simply wouldn't have if the cam was toast. So I decided I'd just reassemble with a new chain which would, for a while at least theoretically reduce endfloat, and see if it made any difference at all to the noise which I was increasingly suspecting was caused by the cam moving back and forth (so-called "cam-walk")
So,I fitted the new timing chain, and set about reassembling. I opted for standard rather than duplex because the fairly short life (30k or so) wasn't going to be a problem on a car doing 3k a year and I would be in for a new cam long before that anyway, and nobody could tell me for sure if a duplex upgrade kit would fit this "intermediate" cover engine without the front cover needing to be machined. So, standard it was going to be.
Dizzy drive, spacer and washer fitted to cam, and retaining bolt torqued down.
Now onto the most laborious part of the whole job - cleaning the old gasket off the cover and the engine block. Painstaking and a real test of patience, but had to be done. Seen here part way through...
Knock the old front oil seal out of the cover, and tap the new one in nice and square. Fit the new gasket fitted (with a thin smear of RTV for help), refit the front cover and torque the bolts up carefully. Bolt in the shiny new water pump, remembering to fit the hose supports in the right places. Then notice the leaking low pressure hoses around the power steering pump.
Ordered some lengths of power steering hose, and decided to replaced all the low pressure stuff. High pressure hose in good condition and not leaking so decided not to disturb it. Easy enough job. Cut lots of cable ties (TVRs default method of securing underbonnet wiring and hoses), tape the new hose to one end of the old with strong duct tape, and carefully pull it through to ensure correct routing, then trim it to length. Once fitted, replace the cable ties to re-secure everything and you're done.
I decided to refill the cooling system before refitting the sump. Any leaks in the front cover could cause coolant to go into the sump, with nasty consequences, so I filled and bled it and left it overnight. Next day, level was exactly where I'd left it and no leaks, so was happy to bolt the sump back up, and finish reassembling everything. Aligned the distributor with the rotor arm pointing at no1 segment and left the clamp loose enough that I could rotate it later to set the timing up properly, plug the senders for the oil pressure gauge and idiot light back in, reconnect the distributor power, fill it up with oil, check for obvious leaks (none, thankfully) and start it!
It fired straight up. Timing was miles out, but a fiddle with the distributor sorted that. I noticed that the timing wanders slightly at idle and stabilises with revs. Which again fits with the cam moving about. The distributor is driven off the cam on a bevel gear, so any fore/aft movement of the cam will fractionally advance and retard the timing. But most importantly, when I got it hot and took it for a drive, the knock at idle is significantly less frequent, and much quieter. So I am now confident it's cam walk. It will come back as the new chain stretches and wears, but I am pretty confident that I can fit a new cam at some point with a retaining plate, and it should be banished forever. Consensus among RV8 engine gurus is that the noise is annoying, but harmless.
A smaller task I undertook as well was to do something about the rats nest of wiring under the bonnet around the coil and distributor area, not helped by the HT leads for the offside bank being shoved under the coil. I decided to re-route them and tidy things up a bit. Combined with my cleaned and polished swirl pot, and some other more minor tidying, the engine bay looks a lot more presentable now.
Put about 50 miles on the car over the weekend, and it didn't miss a beat.
Thanks for reading.
Edited by Limpet on Monday 18th March 11:15
Edited by Limpet on Monday 18th March 11:28
I have very much enjoyed reading through this. Your car is in my favourite colour and I often look at them and wonder about ownership.
Its very much a brave pill, more so for the lack of driver aids. But that's also what makes them appealing to me.
Having had a number of AWD sports cars, I do wonder if a Chimaera is a step too far for me as I am not The Stig.
Originally I had planned to get a modern 911 as a fun car. But instead have decided to move from an old defender to a brand new one. This has depleted the car funds, but I still fancy a fun car and Chimaeras fit will into that category for very reasonable money.
Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for posting your updates, I look forward to more.
Its very much a brave pill, more so for the lack of driver aids. But that's also what makes them appealing to me.
Having had a number of AWD sports cars, I do wonder if a Chimaera is a step too far for me as I am not The Stig.
Originally I had planned to get a modern 911 as a fun car. But instead have decided to move from an old defender to a brand new one. This has depleted the car funds, but I still fancy a fun car and Chimaeras fit will into that category for very reasonable money.
Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for posting your updates, I look forward to more.
andyb28 said:
Its very much a brave pill, more so for the lack of driver aids. But that's also what makes them appealing to me.
Having had a number of AWD sports cars, I do wonder if a Chimaera is a step too far for me as I am not The Stig.
I wouldn't be concerned about that. My experience is that you have to be driving like an absolute helmet to get yourself into trouble. Having had a number of AWD sports cars, I do wonder if a Chimaera is a step too far for me as I am not The Stig.
I have very much enjoyed reading through this. Your car is in my favourite colour and I often look at them and wonder about ownership.
Its very much a brave pill, more so for the lack of driver aids. But that's also what makes them appealing to me.
Having had a number of AWD sports cars, I do wonder if a Chimaera is a step too far for me as I am not The Stig.
Originally I had planned to get a modern 911 as a fun car. But instead have decided to move from an old defender to a brand new one. This has depleted the car funds, but I still fancy a fun car and Chimaeras fit will into that category for very reasonable money.
Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for posting your updates, I look forward to more.
Its very much a brave pill, more so for the lack of driver aids. But that's also what makes them appealing to me.
Having had a number of AWD sports cars, I do wonder if a Chimaera is a step too far for me as I am not The Stig.
Originally I had planned to get a modern 911 as a fun car. But instead have decided to move from an old defender to a brand new one. This has depleted the car funds, but I still fancy a fun car and Chimaeras fit will into that category for very reasonable money.
Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for posting your updates, I look forward to more.
QBee said:
One little, and reversible, mod you might like to try.
If at any time you think that the accelerator pedal feels a bit heavy, you could try removing one of the two return springs from under the bonnet..
There's one each side, and apparently one you cannot see in the mechanism itself, so no danger of haveing no return spring if the remaining one breaks
I removed one after someone else suggested it, and stuck it in the door pocket "in case".
47.000 miles and 11 years later I still have it in the door pocket, as I find the lighter throttle more to my taste.
I did this on my second Griff, works a treat ! If at any time you think that the accelerator pedal feels a bit heavy, you could try removing one of the two return springs from under the bonnet..
There's one each side, and apparently one you cannot see in the mechanism itself, so no danger of haveing no return spring if the remaining one breaks
I removed one after someone else suggested it, and stuck it in the door pocket "in case".
47.000 miles and 11 years later I still have it in the door pocket, as I find the lighter throttle more to my taste.
andyb28 said:
I have very much enjoyed reading through this. Your car is in my favourite colour and I often look at them and wonder about ownership.
Its very much a brave pill, more so for the lack of driver aids. But that's also what makes them appealing to me.
Having had a number of AWD sports cars, I do wonder if a Chimaera is a step too far for me as I am not The Stig.
Originally I had planned to get a modern 911 as a fun car. But instead have decided to move from an old defender to a brand new one. This has depleted the car funds, but I still fancy a fun car and Chimaeras fit will into that category for very reasonable money.
Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for posting your updates, I look forward to more.
Its very much a brave pill, more so for the lack of driver aids. But that's also what makes them appealing to me.
Having had a number of AWD sports cars, I do wonder if a Chimaera is a step too far for me as I am not The Stig.
Originally I had planned to get a modern 911 as a fun car. But instead have decided to move from an old defender to a brand new one. This has depleted the car funds, but I still fancy a fun car and Chimaeras fit will into that category for very reasonable money.
Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for posting your updates, I look forward to more.
They honestly are not the spiteful handling things that some make them out to be. Mine being the 4.0 doesn't have the massive bottom end torque that you get from the 5.0 which makes it probably a bit more manageable in the wet, but it's still a relatively big, torquey engine in just 1060kg of metal, fibreglass and comedy wiring, so does demand a degree of respect, but it is quite possible to drive it in a downpour without scaring yourself. It's really nicely balanced, and just brims with feel through both the steering and the seat. A long travel throttle with a very linear response makes it easy to moderate the power, and as long as you're sensible, it's absolutely fine.
In the dry, you have to be driving like a complete lunatic to unstick it. Traction is fantastic, and there's quite a bit of body roll to let you know you're pushing on, as well as bags of feel through the steering and the seat. I've had two what I would call "moments" in the car. The first was pulling out of a tight T-junction where I gave it a few too many beans, the diff hooked up and it required a "dab of oppo" to get it straight. The other was coming down a nearby hill where I was braking quite hard approaching a roundabout, and downshifted where I discovered for the first time that the rear end gets alarmingly light under engine braking. Again, it wasn't a major drama, but I'm always mindful of that now.
It has genuinely surprised me how "friendly" and even useable it is. As well as the stuff above, there's plenty of room for me at 6ft 2, and my 5ft 4 wife can also get comfy in it (although she uses a cushion on the seat base to give herself slightly better visibility. The seats are comfy enough to do a couple of hours at a time, and it has a huge boot as well as a decent stowage area behind the seats. The heater is fantastic, the roof surprisingly watertight, and it's sensibly geared in 5th (70 mph on the GPS = 2,800 RPM). There's a fair bit of wind noise from the roof seals at motorway speeds, but otherwise, it's a decent cruiser, especially roof off. Will crack 30 mpg as well on a run, driven sensibly, which gives you an easy range in the low 300s without rolling the dice. You can halve that easily though.
The lack of driver aids just means you have to be a bit careful, and concentrate fully on what you're doing. No bad thing really.
If you're considering one and are put off mostly by the "scary" reputation, I'd say go and have a drive of one. They really are lovely old things. Completely analogue, the noise never gets tiring, and you could quite easily go off touring in one and it wouldn't exhaust (or kill) you. Reliability so far for me is just what I would expect from something that's 28 years old in a couple of months. A steady stream of little tweaks and replacement of tired bits. I've had one "fail to proceed" which I sorted by the roadside with basic diagnostics and tools. It has not (yet) failed to complete a journey. They do like fettling and tinkering, and they do like being used. Mine runs so much nicer if it's not left for weeks on end in the garage. The TVR Car Club is also fantastic. Great bunch of people with all the support and knowledge you ever need to keep one running, and some useful discounts on parts and insurance. They welcome non-owners to the regional monthly meets as well, and people will happily talk you through ownership and things to look for, as well as let you look round their cars. No heirs and graces whatsoever.
And they are dirt cheap to insure as well. I've got this through the club with Footman James, with agreed valuation of £13k, 4,000 miles a year, and I'm paying £200 fully comp. Most of the consumables are standard Rover/Land Rover or Ford bits, and if you are prepared to get stuck in with the spanners, or you know a friendly mechanic, they are not expensive things to run at all.
Edited by Limpet on Monday 29th April 09:57
So, I've had this car a year now (not sure where that went), which meant it was time for the dreaded MOT.
I opted to take it to an old friend of mine who is a classic car (and bike) nut, even if it meant a 100 mile drive. He doesn't let fails through, but he will give the car (and me) the benefit of the doubt on borderline stuff. He's also pragmatic and completely and utterly honest. If he fails it (and he has failed my cars before), I know beyond any doubt it's something that genuinely needs sorting. But he will always "try" to pass it, if that makes sense.
So, I set off at an ungodly hour on Saturday and made the 100 mile run for an 8 am appointment. And of course it bucketed down most of the way. But the car kept me warm, dry and snug and didn't miss a beat. The first MOT of any car in my hands always makes me nervous, but at the back of my mind I was concerned about emissions as I've removed the pre-cats. Accepted wisdom is that this doesn't present an MOT issue, but the car needs to be properly hot. But I'm a "seeing is believing" person and I had a good couple of hours behind the wheel to think about it, and worry. Journey completed without incident, and I arrived nice and early. After a handshake, a quick catch-up, we went into the testing bay, where he got to work.
Squeaky bum time.
It was good news. A pass, with advisories on the headlamp reflectors starting to deteriorate, and a slight weep from the power steering which has appeared on and off in the MOTs for the past few years. I've tried to find the source of it without any success, and he had a nose for me while he was in there, and said it wasn't obvious either. I'll need to clean it all off and check. Emissions were comfortably within the limits after the car was left idling for 10 minutes and the fans had cycled a few times. Happy days!
Had a great drive back across country, and the car got me home again without incident, even after getting stuck in 20 minutes of slow traffic going through Salisbury. Temp gauge goes from 75° to 90° within a minute or so of coming to a stop, but the fans control it, and then within 5 minutes of getting moving again, it's back down to 75°. Out on the open roads, it really is a joy to drive. The burble from the exhausts is a joy, the gearbox is lovely, and the way the engine note hardens and it wakes up past 3,000 RPM really makes you want to push on. Although certainly no slouch, it's not a spectacularly fast car by modern standards, but it really rewards being driven. Get the heel and toe right, listen to the burbling and popping from the exhausts on the overrun, and feel that V8 punch you out of corners. And all the time the steering talks away through your hands, you can feel what the rear end is doing through the seat, and there's that lovely lack of mass. On the right road, when it all comes together, it can make you forgive it absolute anything.
So, by way of a reward, I washed and polished it yesterday.
Needed to pop to the shops to get a couple of bits, and as the TVR was out, I took it. When it rewarded me by developing a misfire as I turned into the road, and pulled on to the drive running on 5 (if that!).... Item number 102 on today's glitch list. Feels like an ignition problem, which shouldn't be too difficult to track down. But a job for another day.
They're fun, these things.
Thanks for reading.
I opted to take it to an old friend of mine who is a classic car (and bike) nut, even if it meant a 100 mile drive. He doesn't let fails through, but he will give the car (and me) the benefit of the doubt on borderline stuff. He's also pragmatic and completely and utterly honest. If he fails it (and he has failed my cars before), I know beyond any doubt it's something that genuinely needs sorting. But he will always "try" to pass it, if that makes sense.
So, I set off at an ungodly hour on Saturday and made the 100 mile run for an 8 am appointment. And of course it bucketed down most of the way. But the car kept me warm, dry and snug and didn't miss a beat. The first MOT of any car in my hands always makes me nervous, but at the back of my mind I was concerned about emissions as I've removed the pre-cats. Accepted wisdom is that this doesn't present an MOT issue, but the car needs to be properly hot. But I'm a "seeing is believing" person and I had a good couple of hours behind the wheel to think about it, and worry. Journey completed without incident, and I arrived nice and early. After a handshake, a quick catch-up, we went into the testing bay, where he got to work.
Squeaky bum time.
It was good news. A pass, with advisories on the headlamp reflectors starting to deteriorate, and a slight weep from the power steering which has appeared on and off in the MOTs for the past few years. I've tried to find the source of it without any success, and he had a nose for me while he was in there, and said it wasn't obvious either. I'll need to clean it all off and check. Emissions were comfortably within the limits after the car was left idling for 10 minutes and the fans had cycled a few times. Happy days!
Had a great drive back across country, and the car got me home again without incident, even after getting stuck in 20 minutes of slow traffic going through Salisbury. Temp gauge goes from 75° to 90° within a minute or so of coming to a stop, but the fans control it, and then within 5 minutes of getting moving again, it's back down to 75°. Out on the open roads, it really is a joy to drive. The burble from the exhausts is a joy, the gearbox is lovely, and the way the engine note hardens and it wakes up past 3,000 RPM really makes you want to push on. Although certainly no slouch, it's not a spectacularly fast car by modern standards, but it really rewards being driven. Get the heel and toe right, listen to the burbling and popping from the exhausts on the overrun, and feel that V8 punch you out of corners. And all the time the steering talks away through your hands, you can feel what the rear end is doing through the seat, and there's that lovely lack of mass. On the right road, when it all comes together, it can make you forgive it absolute anything.
So, by way of a reward, I washed and polished it yesterday.
Needed to pop to the shops to get a couple of bits, and as the TVR was out, I took it. When it rewarded me by developing a misfire as I turned into the road, and pulled on to the drive running on 5 (if that!).... Item number 102 on today's glitch list. Feels like an ignition problem, which shouldn't be too difficult to track down. But a job for another day.
They're fun, these things.
Thanks for reading.
Edited by Limpet on Monday 29th April 10:41
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