Cheap(?) TVR Chimaera 400

Nice purchase

From Amore, presumably?

It says Amore on the plate if you look closely, at an angle! He's mentioned it in the TVR area too. I'd recommend carbon fibre effect vinyl wrap too. Here was my last Chimaera, only chipping and scraping off all the old veneer was a right task:



And the lower panel:

Thanks all.

Yes, from Amore. Mark has been an absolute gent from start to finish. Very knowledgeable and more importantly, very honest. Never tried to make this car out as something it wasn’t and no hard sell at any point. Genuine pleasure to deal with.

I did mine in CF effect vinyl wrap - decent quality.
I bought enough to do it twice (to allow for a first time cockup) and it cost about £12 from memory.
I cleaned up the steel dash plates (for that is what they are under the wood veneer) with an angle grinder - gently.

Excellent work OP!

Looks like you've got a good value car, will follow with interest.

Nice!! First one I've seen that's not mine!

I also DIYd my dash, first with carbon wrap and then by painting it. I can also recommend just buying a couple meters of fabric to 'retrim' the doorcard carpet. I used diamond suede alcantara quilted stuff, some backing foam and a can of contact spray. Both of those little things made the inside of the car feel 10 years newer in my head, especially getting rid of the carpet doors.

That looks really good. I noticed the (slightly rusty) metal plates where my veneer has fallen off. Quite tempted to give vinyl wrap a go.

I’ve never done anything like this before so forgive me if this is a daft question, but how you get such neat edges around the light switches and the warning light panel? The bezels will give you a bit of grace on the gauges and the stereo but you’ve done a fantastic job of cutting this.

I bought a new set of the little LED lights (you can find them on EBay or PH, cannot remember which), as most of mine didn't work anyway, and they are glued in, so tricky to remove from the dash. I stuck the CF wrap on, and cut out the gauge holes with a craft knife, and then gave the new dash panels and the car to my TVR specialist to finish
I have to admit that I was given a spare dash panel set off a similar age car by a friend, so it was his dash panel that I prepared and covered, and then gave him mine back. I was also inserting two new gauges (air/fuel ratio gauge and an oil temperature gauge - you can see I have five gauges, with the temperature and pressure gauges grouped together, the AFR gauge is away over on the other side of the main gauges, like in the Griff dash).
I marked the positions for the new gauge holes, and had the holes for the new gauges cut by a client who had a new CNC machine and was used to precision cutting. You won't need to make any new holes, though now is the time to do it if you fancy any. Caerbont make the TVR ones I fitted. https://www.smiths-instruments.co.uk/tvr/chimaera. Ignore the fact that they don't list those two, they do sell the gauges and senders, just phone them.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. Genuinely appreciated, and I’ll reply individually when I get in front of my computer rather than trying to navigate a mobile browser and keyboard.

By way of a car update, I chanced my arm over the weekend on a tidy looking pair of used manifolds on Fleabay for a very reasonable price which arrived this morning. They were very well packed and protected, and on unwrapping them, look to be in far better condition than mine, at least cosmetically. No sign of any dents or obvious cracks either. As a bonus, they’ve also had the pre-cats removed, which is a job that I wanted to do anyway.



I can’t say, I’m looking forward to fitting these at all based based on the horror stories that I’ve read, but needs must. I’m trying not to drive the car too much until I get this manifold leak nailed down, and the new distributor vacuum advance unit fitted (arriving tomorrow). Also need to source a new set of manifold bolts and gaskets before I do the work obviously. I have time, as I have some long-standing plans this weekend, which means the car is going to sit tucked up in the garage for the next couple of weeks. I may have to take it up the road a couple of times just to warm it up of course in that time.

Manifold seller also threw in a brand-new set of Powerspark HT leads still in their packaging, and a seemingly little used set of Lucas originals. A spare set came with the car as well, so that’s 3 spare HT lead sets I’ve got, plus 3 spare rotor arms and a spare dizzy cap that also came with the car. Wondering if this is trying to tell me something