Todays been a good day on Florence, haven't been many of them so far.
Changed diff oil which was much easier than expected, filled via a hose that i ran out the OSR wheel arch and just poured in oil until it started dripping out of the fill hole.
Adjusted handbrake slightly, it still only really works when the brakes are pressed, oh well just a little TVR quirk I suppose.
Fitted the amp on the back of the spare wheel which is a nice snug fit, cut a piece of mdf to fit the inside of the wheel, amp screwed to the mdf then it all attached to the wheel with nice ratchet strap. Sounds dodgy BUT very secure, easy to remove, weight of spare wheel and amp is about the same as the battery on the other side so it's evened out plus the amp and cabling are hidden away so the boot looks completly standard and the roof fits in perfect.

If anyone has seen Zombieland you'll know rule #32 in life is enjoy the little things. I changed the key over to a flip fob and also got a new alarm fob, for some reason this is the best thing i've done. Can't really explain that but it made me happy. The flip fob has 3 buttons which open both doors and the boot, but only work when the alarm is deactivated so I need both fobs.


the exhaust had an annoying rattle which turned out to be perished rubbers all round so changed all these at the same time as fitting cherry bombs. middle section cut open with exhaust on a jig so it remained straight, cherry bombs welded in place then 'box' welded back on, no pics of this unfortunately but the finished item looks like this



Time to start after all this work, it's the first large engine car i've had and the quantities of things are surprising. 6 litres of oil and 12 litres of coolant. When I reconnected the battery the heater fan started working - weird! It never worked before and I haven't done anything to it, well not on purpose anyway. She started first time, let her warm up fully and blipped the throttle a little bit, made all the trouble worth while.

video and little pic

haha
the remote door thing was quite simple actually, universal remote fob set from eBay for about £20, this switches the solendoid to 'pop' the doors open. I had to fit solenoids as it's an early car but on later cars things are even easier.
I don't know that much really I just read up online and learn as I'm going, mainly trial and error to get things working.

Brett,

That's awesome about the doors. I've got a universal remote central locking kit sat around so I wonder if I could use that to do the same thing as you have ?!? Not a whiz with electronics though so probably not. Ha. You fancy swapping cars and having another little project ?? Could give you a good list of stuff to work through. Haha. Good that you've got her all up and running now though, perfect weather for it as well !!

AJ

Well it is one of these nice cheap kits

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/55075-Universal-Remote-K...

In theory you could just take the key to get cut to match your existing one, but I recently had a new key cut and it's about £25 so didn't want to buy another.
So I took apart one of my keys then cut and filed it to match the shape of the flip key blade, the blade part is held in by two screws.

I fitted a solenoid for each door, which pull a bike cable linked to the same bracket which the internal door knob activates. The boot already has the solenoid fitted. A relay for each solenoid is activated by the 3 buttons on th keyfob. Well they will do when I finish wiring it up.

Today just been doing little bits as the weather has been so nice, I really need to get it finished quickly and start enjoying it.
One of the wheels fell over yesterday and has scratched the front, i'm so pissed off, didn't even have them a day and they now need touching up.
Removed and sprayed front grill, tidied up some wiring, stuck on the TVR centre caps and put sikaflex around all the grommits in the engine ba.

Fitted clear indicators side and front. Clear front lenses from eBay (about £20 M.O.D ones), sprayed the surrounds in black hammerite also while they were out. Lots of sikaflex to hold in place but it didn't have enough grab so I looped some wire around and tied this to a sack trolley. I'll leave over night and should be set just right in the morning.


For some reason I can't get the video above to play on my laptop so this might work
http://s140.photobucket.com/albums/r30/luz008/TVR/...

I'm quite sure I haven't got one either. '93 Chim 430, April/May build.

I don't ( well can't find one in any of the normL places) on mine either again a 93 430. Like your idea with the string for the front lense as one of mine keeps dropping!

Naa I'll just whip the grill out, easy enough to put back in, had the same idea for the doors too but was going to do it with a whole new alarm system, glad to see the idea works in practice!

^^^^^ As above.

I've got a universal kit so might take it into a car sparky and get them to have a go at doing the same thing ! Plus it adds to the TVR "flare" to be able to open the doors with the keyfob ! ha.

Also great idea with the indicators, i'm having the same issue at the moment that i have no way of wedging anything behind to hold them in place whilst glue sets. I'll give that a try over the weekend i think !

Bad news with the Wheel, but they do look awesome i have to say ! You manage to get out in her over the weekend ? I think i finally started to sway the mrs on mine with a couple of journeys with the top down in the sun.....result!!

AJ

Hi, I don’t know what it was for, but FWIW I have the same black wire doing nothing... !

R

not much been happening recently on Florence as i've been away in Vegas and the weather has been ste. Had a stinking hangover today so only managed to get a bit done.
Took the grille off to spray black, sanded down flat and sprayed with black hammerite. While it was off I thought I may as well 'recharge' the air filter. I would recommend anyone doing this now, I was so surprised how much crap came out of it, so dirty and loads of dead flies etc. Recharge is easy, spray loads of the cleaning solution on the filter, leave for 10mins then rinse with hosepipe. When it's dry spray the oil all over.




Got the dash and radio panelss knocked up in Autocad then had them laser cut. Moved hazard light switch next to clocks on right hand side, switch on radio panel will be for the fan. The holes for the gauges are too bloody big as he must have used the original hole size, not 52mm like i wanted - crap! will work that out tomorrow, i think i'll just stick a bit of metal behind the new dash front with correct hole sizes.
There will be a TVR logo stuck onto the radio panel under the fan switch, it looks nice but didn't have tie to secure it today. Also the warning light strip needs adjusting level.
Wiring is taking a lot longer than expected, but it's a bit complicated and I like to solder everything so it takes it's time. The switches in built LEDS are really bright so I've made them dimmable and will be fitting capacitors to the 12v feed so they fade off Thought it would make a nice touch with all the switches and gauge lights fading off. I just need to work out which ones to use, trial and error will fix that. The switches in the pics below have the LEDS quite bright, but they are always illuminated (low) and then when the switch is on they light up brighter.









I couldnt work out where to stick the amp so I thought why not use the space behind the spare wheel? Screwed the amp to a peice of MDF then strapped onto the spare wheel, very secure and keeps it out the way. It was a temp place, but I can't think of any reason not to leave it there? Just need to get all the wiring finished now.
Fitted relays and the remote door opening onto the MDF rear bulkhead thing. As everything will be covered by the trim I didn't take too much time making it all neat, but wiring all works and soldered everything. I will be fitting the fire extinguiher ontop of the fuel tank next to the sub I think? I was in two minds about getting one, but with a few friends cars having fires I thought so it. About £100 for a proper plumbed in one and it gives me peice of mind.



Also doing some trial and error on the LEDs for gauges to see which give the best illumination