For information: on arrival at a motor show in NE Scotland last Sunday morning, one of the bolts in the battery tray of a Tuscan had worn through the housing on the charging point causing it to short out.

Result, lots of smoke, plenty of heat, and what could best be described as a potentially serious "Near Miss".
Plenty of fire extinguishers etc on hand, wheel removed and battery compartment opened, problem sorted.

Worth having a look, check for any wear. This was on an early Tuscan.

Thanks for the heads-up Richard, I'll take a look on mine this weekend,

Andy

i've just bought a tuscan which had had the same problem but worse it cracked the screen with the heat .Does any one know were I could get a front screen as I've tried every were

I'm not sure if anyone has posted this but thought I would share the info connected with my near miss.

Near miss was the Anderson connector had cracked and was shorting the battery so the car could have gone up in flames.

From what I could see it looks like TVR (I'm assuming mine was as it came out of the factory) used to thread the hole in the connector to attach it to the chasis as it's difficult to get to with a nut and bolt. Also the hole in the standard connector is quite small. The guy that fixed mine thinks this threading has weakened the connector casing causing the problem. He replaced mine without touching the hole in the connector with a thinner nut and bolt.

www.car-doc.co.uk

These guys fixed mine and they're mobile. They're setting up a nationwide team of mobile auto electricians so if they're not in your area now they will be in the near future.

I had the connector and cable (well Mal the Herts RO did) so I only paid for the labour. I think it was about £95.

Connectors are on eBay for abot £6 and you need some cable. All bits should be available on eBay and think I found one of the TVR supply companys sells it as a jump start connection kit.

The whole job should cost about £110 parts and labour if you make the part up yourself.

The workshop at TVR Power burnt down in August due to a shorting battery terminal and jump lead socket on a Tuscan. I had mine replaced as it was badly corroded. Worth a look for all owners.
BATS

is there enough evidence left to see where it started
main theory seems to be the bolt through
the Anderson connector
I've altered mine to use smaller bolt and I glued
a nut on the back to ease reassembly
The original bolt is too big and breaks through
the plastic getting horribly close to the + terminal

Sorry to hear that Basil Brush. Have you had the anderson connector checked over in the past at all? Insurance job or did you get to it in time?

I had a new one put on a couple of services back.

It's going to be an insurance job as, although there is nothing visible from outside, it's made a mess of the inner panels around the battery box and taken a lot of the coating off the chassis rails.

The Tuscan is still at Drivestyle HC in Harrogate getting sorted out. I didn´t get it looked at until a couple of weeks ago as I was boarding in the 3 valleys, which did a very good job of taking my mind off it. No word on extent of damage yet but I think it´s damaged the heater boxes, scuttle etc so may be a bit more involved than I thought.

Oh and just to make matters better, some scrotes stole the wheels off my GF´s Ka yesterday, so now we´ve not got a car at all. Just what I needed.