Kelvinators TVR Tasmin

Kelvinators TVR Tasmin

Author
Discussion

Dave Hedgehog

14,541 posts

203 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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always loved this design of TVRs

especially the bonkers tea tray on the boot of the 450 seac





hmm another car that would make an excellent EV conversion angel

bolidemichael

13,717 posts

200 months

Saturday 17th August 2019
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The fettling's good, the steering wheel better (you now need drilled pedals to match!) and the gifs best!

Keep up this great thread.

shalmaneser

5,930 posts

194 months

Saturday 17th August 2019
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You're doing great work on this!

I really enjoyed your M328i thread as well. Have you got a shape of a long term plan for this car? Tempted to modernise with electronic management or will you be leaving it as is? The car looks fantastic - I'm sure it's mainly the colour but I can see shades of the Delorean in the styling - but maybe that's just the era.

Congratulations on what look like an awesome project - can't wait to see the next installment!

KelvinatorNZ

Original Poster:

628 posts

69 months

Sunday 18th August 2019
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Thanks for the kind comments, everyone.

In regards to long term plan, it's a bit up in the air. I managed to get the EFI system from a later S series TVR, which should bolt onto this engine and then I can run it from a spare Speeduino ECU I have here. That was the original plan before I got the car, but since I have the car running now, I want to see how well I can get the KJet running before deciding to bin it or not.

KelvinatorNZ

Original Poster:

628 posts

69 months

Sunday 18th August 2019
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It seems like I'm stuck in a never-ending loop of dodgy fuel hoses. The TVR is no different.

After I paid for the TVR and whilst waiting for the transporter to collect it, I was let in on a little... issue... the car had. This is what I was told, as a little "oh btw" side note

"And last but not least – I never cured a petrol smell from the tank and guess he hasn’t either … I couldn’t leave the car in the internal access garage cos it stank the house out."



Well, that could be interesting, since my only garaging is internal access, under the bedrooms, and my driveway is too steep to park a classic car on (not to mention uncovered).

When the car arrived, there was no obvious smell. I suspect that was to do with the fact the tanks were empty. Once I added fuel, a noticeable smell was present at the rear of the car. It wasn't enough to stink the house out, or even the garage, but with only 10L in the tanks I can only imagine it gets worse the more full they are.

I have receipts for one of the tanks being removed and repaired in 2011, along with all the fuel hoses as the "recently replaced" filter was leaking. This dashed my hopes that it might just be a simple case of dodgy old fuel hoses causing the issue, as they had been replaced (we'll see).

Today I jacked the car up and had a look. Unfortunately I found that due to differences in early and late chassis, despite seeing this car up on QuickJacks, I cannot line mine up with the chassis tubes to safely lift it. The later cars have body mount plates on the chassis, where mine doesn't.


Oh well, the old jack and stands come out to play again


You can spot the silver fuel pump in the top left of the above photo, behind the exhaust. The tanks are more or less above the pump, on each side.

A quick look around and I suspect I found at least one of the causes of the fuel smell. The main feed hose from the tanks to the pump has horrifically perished


The way the hose has been run also causes issues too, with the hose being squished flat in at least two places as it goes over chassis tubes (top and bottom photos are good examples).

It's not cheap hose either, being Aeroflow. The Tee piece between the tanks has been replaced with Aeroflow parts.


The small hoses from the pump are showing signs of perishing too. All in 8 years, and minimal use.

So surprise surprise, despite being done before, it's all dodgy looking and buggered. I have my suspicions about the filler and balance tube couplers, but I'll deal with them if replacing the under car hoses doesn't help. They looked ok from what I could see under the car.

I have ordered new 5/8" fuel hose for everything to the pump, a new brass Tee piece (to replace the Aeroflow one), a new fuel filter, and I still have stock of good 8mm hose for the other hoses. Once it all arrives I'll drain the tanks, rip it all out and start again. Hopefully that sorts the fuel smell, and may even help the system run better if the hose isn't being crushed.

One last little thing; I gave the other side of the rear window a polish today too. Now you can see through both sides. It's far from perfect, but much better.


Interestingly, from the inside, I'm pretty sure the clearer spot on the left was my test patch. I'm going to buy a foam polishing cone and try polishing at a higher speed and see what happens, especially with that pitted yellowing. Just need to take care with the surface heat, not to cause more damage.

bolidemichael

13,717 posts

200 months

Sunday 18th August 2019
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Good work, Sherlock, and great gif usage smile

KelvinatorNZ

Original Poster:

628 posts

69 months

Saturday 24th August 2019
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Some goodies arrived during the week, so it was time to get under the Tasmin and rip out some hose.

Since working under cars on stands sucks, I had another go at getting the car up on the Quickjacks. This time I was much more successful. I had to use the jacks sideways (an approved method, and the same as I used on Snicket)


The reason I wasn't so keen on this initially was that the exhaust hangs so low I wasn't sure it would clear the frames. It did. Just.


With the Tasmin in the air, it was much easier to roll around under it on my creeper. I started to rip the old fuel hose from the tanks out. No photos of this process because it was messy....

First I disconnected the feed to the pump. This is from both of the tanks, so I had a 10L fuel can ready. I managed to spill a fair bit, but got it into the can in the end. I filled up with 10L the other day, and about 9L or so came out. Some of that difference would be on the ground (and my arms), but it confirms that the tanks were bone dry when I got the car.

The hose came out easy enough. It was worse than I thought though, every section of hose was seriously perished, with cracking all over it. The hose also smelt like fuel on the outside.


There were some nasty splits in the ends of the hoses from each tank too


Bend the hose, and it isn't pretty


The new hose is Continental J30R7 5/8" fuel hose. This is a low-pressure suction feed, so didn't need to be a high-pressure hose, it just needed to be high quality.


The hose walls are thicker than the old Aeroflow 400 series hose.


The old Tee piece is made from a bunch of Aeroflow bits. In the interests of simplicity, I replaced it with a 5/8" solid brass Tee


Old mate wasn't too hot on cutting ends straight, so a couple of clamps were hanging over the edge. Not best practice.


The new Tee section


And installed into the car. The two tank outlets are very easy to access


And the Tee hangs above the drive shaft (and there is evidence that the old setup had been in contact with the driveshaft at some point!). The zip tie is there to hold it up and clear of the shaft.


The hose was routed slightly differently to simplify the route, and then cut to length and connected to the pump. The hose was zip-tied to the chassis in a couple of places to secure it, making sure not to pinch the hose as it had been


With the tanks connected I want to replace the fuel filter and inspect the accumulator. The whole lot (pump, filter and accumulator) are mounted on a plate above the chassis, in front of the LH side rear wheel. On the later 280i the filter is mounted in the engine bay. The black one is the accumulator, and the silver one is the filter. The pump is out of shot to the left (with hose removed).


This is the other side. Let me illustrate the fuel setup with some coloured arrows. Fuel comes into the pump from the tanks (orange), out of the pump and into the accumulator (blue), out of the accumulator and into the filter (yellow) and finally, once filtered, out of the filter and along hard lines to the fuel distributor in the engine bay (green).


These hoses weren't too bad visually, but no point in leaving them there. One quick check for seeing if your accumulator is stuffed or not is to disconnect the vent hose from the back of it, and see if fuel comes out.


Mine was full of fuel. This vent hose should be dry, because it's only to help equalise the air inside the accumulator, and shouldn't have any fuel contact. The fuel is (usually) separated from that side of the accumulator by a diaphragm. If the diaphragm splits, it lets fuel through and back into the tank instead of holding pressure. My accumulator is stuffed.

Thankfully I had planned to remove it completely and will be using new fuel hose to bypass it and route the pump straight into the filter.

The fuel filter has banjo fittings on it. The inlet converts to rubber hose, whilst the outlet is to a hard line.


Some of the hose clamps on the fuel hoses had been installed by a scumbag and weren't accessible from the underside. I'm not too sure how they were even done up, unless it was off as a complete assembly and clamped whilst on the bench before fitting. Since I wasn't using the hose again I chopped it off, unbolted the accumulator and pump and removed the lot. The accumulator looks very old and probably original to the car.


The filter had been replaced, but it had a date of 2005 on it. The receipts say that the "recently replaced" filter was leaking back in 2011, so either it wasn't that recent, or it was old stock when fitted.


I ordered a filter online based on the original filter numbers I had, and even with triple checking, it's wrong.


Yeah, that's not gonna fit. It's possibly the correct filter for a later car with the filter in the engine bay. Working off the number on the filter, I need a Ryco Z399 instead. One has been ordered, along with a Z71 oil filter.


Unfortunately that leaves me at a standstill now. Hopefully the new filter will be here this week and I can fit it after work one day.

In the meantime I had ordered a new air filter, so went about fitting that. I had previously checked the filter and noted it was dirty, and the wrong filter. The old filter had rounded corners, so left an unfiltered gap at each corner.



The correct one for the early airbox is a Ryco A1345.


No gaps


Parts bin special


I'll probably lose some +6hp gains from closing up those gaps, but at least I know its right, and won't be sucking in unfiltered air anymore. Sigh.

Sometimes I just wish some people wouldn't touch cars. A little knowledge is dangerous.

BrettMRC

4,037 posts

159 months

Wednesday 28th August 2019
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100% with you on some people not being allowed to touch cars - always a pleasure finding someone elses little surprises!

What sort of load can those ramps take? smile

KelvinatorNZ

Original Poster:

628 posts

69 months

Wednesday 28th August 2019
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Lol, fixing other people's "fixes" sure gives me a lot to keep busy with.

My quickjacks are the 5000lb model, but I believe they do a 3000lb and 7000lb model too. I figure it's unlikely I'll need to lift more than 2 ton on mine, so I'm safe. Their "rating" has been proven to be well under their safe loading capacity, but I wouldn't risk overloading them.

Paul S4

1,181 posts

209 months

Wednesday 28th August 2019
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Those old fuel lines are 'not fit for purpose'....I have never seen such poor rubber hoses !

Pleased that you are getting it sorted properly...I cannot understand people who fit stuff like that, not even attached correctly...it is beyond belief really.

Keep up the good work !

I helped out a pal a few years ago with a 2.9 S TVR that he bought....he is one of my best pals but he is not mechanically minded at all !

When we went to view the car I had several reservations, and had it been my money I would have walked away I guess.
But we got an AA inspection done which reported it was good structurally, so he bought it ( unknown to his wife by the way, but that's another story ! )

It never ran properly, so as I had quite a bit of spare time ( then not now !) I managed to get it delivered from Scotland down to me in the NE of England, and arranged for it to be sorted out by a very well renowned TVR specialist.

To cut a long story short, the electrics were shocking ( Quote "It was a fire waiting to happen " !) eg the main ignition lead was nowhere near thick enough to take the current etc etc, so after two visits and about £4000 worth of work (!!!) my pal got his car back and was able to enjoy it properly.

I drove it a few times, and it was something special....even with the Ford 2.9 Granada engine it would spin the wheels in 3rd very easily !
It was quite brutal in fact...particularly compared to my 1970 Lotus Elan that I had at the same time....2 contrasting ways of achieving the same goal!

Keep the updates coming... great write up and a fascinating read !



B'stard Child

28,320 posts

245 months

Wednesday 28th August 2019
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Really enjoying this - I’d like something from Blackpool in my life one day - thanks for sharing

KelvinatorNZ

Original Poster:

628 posts

69 months

Wednesday 4th September 2019
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Last weekend was a productive one on the TVR, starting with wrapping up the fuel hose replacement job I started earlier.

I was held up with the wrong filter, so I did some more research and ordered what I hoped was the correct filter (using the number off the existing filter)


Thankfully it was the right one. The early cars with the filter under the car use a Ryco Z399 filter.

A set of nice new copper crush washers and on went the fitting


I had to replace the hose from the pump to the filter, as I was doing away with the accumulator, and the existing hose was both incorrectly rated, and starting to perish


1/4" hose is pretty small, and not that common here, but I found Repco stocks Gates Barricade hose, which is bloody expensive per meter, but some of the best hose available.

You'll note in the photo above that the old hose is J30 R6 rated, which is safe to about 50PSI in an injection system (despite saying a higher rating on the hose). The Bosch MFI system runs at about 80PSI, so although that hose had been working OK, I wasn't going to trust sticking with an R6 hose. The Gates Barricade hose is safe for 225PSI as it is a J30R14T2 rated hose.


Since I had been doing all this work on the bench first, it was time to move to under the car, where I got a timely reminder to always check your lifting points. The TVR had been in the air on the Quickjacks for a week now, and unknown to me it had settled on the front blocks, and they had started to tilt and slip. It's possible it would've been OK, but it's not worth the risk. I dropped the car back down and reseated all the blocks. ALWAYS check the car is secure before getting under it, even if that means giving it a good shake or shove. Better it falls off the stands onto the ground, than onto your head.


With the car safely in the air again, I refit the new filter to the mount and secured the bolts and ground straps. I wanted a nice straight hose from the pump to filter, but due to the proximity and angle, the only way I could do it was a loop back from the filter. At least this time I don't need to wrap the hose in tape to stop it from being rubbed through where it was touching the body, as it had been...




And here is the new hose


Once everything was happily in place, I torqued both banjo fittings up with my torque wrench. They don't take much, just 18-20NM, but it's essential they are torqued correctly. I have heard much talk about not using the moulded hex on the ends of the filter or disaster can strike. I don't know how true that is, but I didn't need to secure the filter as the mounting clamp held it tight anyway.


After mixing some more injector cleaner into 10L of fresh petrol, I slowly poured it into both tanks, keeping a close eye on the new hose joins. When everything appeared to be dry and sealed, I reconnected the battery, and turned the key and listened as the system primed. I let it prime for a short time and checked all the high pressure lines, and once satisfied they were dry, I fired the beast up. Everything still looked good. Winning.

With the car still in the air, I planned some more maintenance. I wasn't sure when the last time the driveline oils were done, so like usual, I spent hours pouring over fluid specs, and eventually settled on a Nulon fully synthetic 75W-85 GL4 for both the gearbox and diff. Nulon sells it in these nifty little baggies, which at first I thought were a gimmick, but I'll tell you now, its way better than a bottle.


The gearbox is a bit of a pain to get at due to the exhaust, which chills out directly under the drain plug, and allows only a small space to access the fill plug. Always undo the fill plug first, just in case.

One thing that always bothers me is getting oil on the exhaust, as even if you hose it with degreaser or brake clean, it'll still stink as it burns off. There was no way to avoid oil pouring on the exhaust with the TVR, so I settled for being smart and using some plastic sheet wrapped around the exhaust. Worked a treat.


The old fluid actually looked really good, so I suspect it hasn't done a lot of miles in the car, but its probably still been in there a few years.

The diff was easier to access, with the drain plug smack bang on the bottom, and the fill plug on the back. Both were bloody tight but came off when I asked nicely.


Yeah, the diff will probably need some seals at some point, but that's down the list a bit for now.

I used three and a half bags (1L each) between the gearbox and diff. Here we see the squeezy bois chilling at the watering hole


One thing I noticed with the bags is that it can be hard to get the last little bit out. What you can do is join the two bags together, and drain one into the other. I also reused hoses between bags, leaving me with one unused, clean, hose to stick back onto the half full bag to use later.


With the fluids changed (except engine oil, I still need to do that) I lowered the car back down and took it for a quick spin. Unfortunately the running issue seems to be getting worse. It used to just be under load at about 4000rpm the engine would fall flat and cut out. Now it happens randomly and is almost undrivable.
http://youtu.be/BECsTxi0bfg

Watch the video with subtitles on as I note where it has issues. You can see it revs happily with no load at the end.

I had my suspicions of what it could be, but I needed to do more testing.

B'stard Child

28,320 posts

245 months

Wednesday 4th September 2019
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KelvinatorNZ said:
I used three and a half bags (1L each) between the gearbox and diff. Here we see the squeezy bois chilling at the watering hole


One thing I noticed with the bags is that it can be hard to get the last little bit out. What you can do is join the two bags together, and drain one into the other. I also reused hoses between bags, leaving me with one unused, clean, hose to stick back onto the half full bag to use later.
What a really good idea they are - I tend to use a cartridge pump as squeezing out semi rigid bottles lying under the car on your back sucks

On my track car (striped out interior) I drilled a hole in the transmission tunnel (aligned to the fill hole) that I seal with a large rubber grommet when not in use - worked brilliantly but I appreciate it's not for all

shalmaneser

5,930 posts

194 months

Wednesday 4th September 2019
quotequote all
With the running problems you had on the M328i and now this car you are a glutton for punishment! Looks like you're doing it all the right way though so I'm sure you'll get on top of it in the end.

KelvinatorNZ

Original Poster:

628 posts

69 months

Wednesday 4th September 2019
quotequote all
shalmaneser said:
With the running problems you had on the M328i and now this car you are a glutton for punishment! Looks like you're doing it all the right way though so I'm sure you'll get on top of it in the end.
What can I say? I'm a sucker for weird cars that don't run properly :P

KelvinatorNZ

Original Poster:

628 posts

69 months

Wednesday 4th September 2019
quotequote all
As mentioned previously, I'm having some running issues and I need to try and work out what it is.

The issue has been getting worse the more I run and drive the car. It previously only happened under load at about 4000rpm, where the engine would fall on its face and cut out like you had turned the key off. If you kept the throttle steady it would recover with a surge as the revs dropped, but as soon as it got up to about 4k again, it would cut out. When stationary, and not under load, it will happily rev to its 6k redline.

It's a very annoying issue. I had a couple of suspicions of what it could be, but I needed to do some testing to narrow it down.

My first suspicion was that I must be losing spark, as the engine cuts so abruptly and I felt that if it were fuel it would kinda stutter out.

The first thing I noticed was that the replacement coil the previous owner had fitted was a Bosch GT40. This is a 12v coil, and from what I have discovered, widely known to have issues with electronic ignitions. Now, the ignition system on my car is both a ballasted system and electronic. A ballasted system runs a resistor on the power feed to the coil, dropping the voltage, meaning the coil doesn't see 12v. So I was already running the coil under voltage.


After testing and confirming the resistor was still in place, I removed this coil and refitted the original Ford coil that came with the car.


Changing this resulted to a smoother idle (maybe, but probably a placebo), but the engine still cut out.

The next thing was to check the lead positions, cap and rotor. I note that the cap and rotor have been replaced, and the old ones were with the car. The old cap is stuffed, but the old rotor looked OK, so I swapped that in after a quick clean. No change.

Next was to confirm if I did lose spark or not. The only way I could think of was by thinking out of the box and using my timing light... So I connected it up, and strapped it to the wiper so I could see it when driving. Sure enough, when the engine cut, the light was still flashing away happily. That indicates I have spark (although, not if I have a good strong spark, but some spark is better than none).


So this points me down a different path. I have air, and I have spark. Could it be fuel after all?

I posted up on a few forums asking for help, and got some great tips on where to start looking. One of the easiest to do was to check the sensor plate in the AFM was clean. This plate is hinged, and lifts up with airflow as it gets sucked into the engine, which in turn pushes a plunger up and down to control fuel flow. Well, although the top looked reasonably clean, the underside was filthy (probably thanks to the incorrect air filter that was fitted)



I gave this a thorough clean and made sure it was spotless. This made no change, but its good to know its clean now.

I also, once again, checked the intake tube and boot for splits or cracks, but none found. All vacuum lines (all two or three of them) were checked, all OK.

One thing that makes me suspect its possibly fuel, is the state of the new plugs I fitted. Even after a couple of runs around the block, a couple look almost unused. Maybe lean? From 1 to 6 in order.


This is leaving a couple of possibilities, ones that I cannot test without further equipment. First is an intake manifold leak or the likes. Today my smoke machine arrived, so I could test this.


It's just a cheapie, but makes a good amount of smoke, and has a pump to actually blow it out under pressure.


After a quick test, I modified it to work how I needed it to. I salvaged a cap from a CRC rust convertor can, drilled a hole in it, glued some hose into it, and glued the cap onto the front of the smoke machine (as it just has a big nozzle on the front normally, for maximum smoke dispersion in da clubz)


This hose then goes into a rubber glove with a finger cut off it. I find using one of these seals the intake pipe nicely with the wrist of the glove, but doesn't crush the rubber hose.


I don't know if it's good or bad, but smoke testing the intake shows there are no intake or vacuum leaks. I tested with the throttle open and closed, to check the intake hose for leaks as well as the plenum/manifold, but nothing, not even a weep.


So what left? Well, two things really. I need to test the fuel pressures of the system, but because the fuel fittings use banjo bolts and hard lines instead of rubber hoses, I can't use my existing pressure testing kit. I have a new kit on the way, which has all the fittings I need to connect into the KJetronic system. This will tell me if there is an issue with the Warm Up Regulator or the main pressure regulator. The whole system relies on having the correct pressures, so even a few PSI difference can make it all turn to custard.

The other thing I need to do, once I have tested the pressures, is to remove the fuel distributor and injectors. I need to see if the plunger in the fuel distributor is clean and moving freely, or if it's sticky. I also need to check the flow and spray pattern from the injectors. It's possible either, or both, of these things are causing an issue.

My main theory at the moment is a sticking fuel plunger, which is causing the engine to starve of fuel when it demands more. The worst thing you can do with a KJet system is to leave old fuel in it and not run the car regularly. This car has been off the road for years, and I don't know when it was last started and run, or how old the fuel in the system was. KJet runs at such fine tolerances that even a slight gum or varnish on a component can make it upset.

I'm determined to work this issue out and get the KJet working properly as it's a cool system, and one I haven't worked with before. I have everything I need to convert to EFI and Speeduino, but I'm trying hard to resist that urge.

Now we wait. Once the pressure test kit arrives, Its game on.

bolidemichael

13,717 posts

200 months

Wednesday 4th September 2019
quotequote all
Good update, great gifs and the greatest gloves.

SlimJim16v

5,617 posts

142 months

Wednesday 4th September 2019
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I've been following this with interest, as a friend had a hard top 2.8 in the 80s and another had a couple of V8s. One felt a bit faster than it should and after he sold it, it turned out it was a factory tuned version.

One thing, I don't think GL4 should really be used in a hypoid diff. A FWD transaxle maybe.

KelvinatorNZ

Original Poster:

628 posts

69 months

Thursday 5th September 2019
quotequote all
SlimJim16v said:
One thing, I don't think GL4 should really be used in a hypoid diff. A FWD transaxle maybe.
GL4 is just an API fluid spec, meaning it won't harm yellow metal in older hardware. The fluid I used meets requirements for both the gearbox and diff in this car, including hypoid gears (at moderate speed and load. Its a light car, at road speeds, so it'll be fine. On a track would be a different story).

C70R

17,596 posts

103 months

Thursday 5th September 2019
quotequote all
What a fantastic thread. You're an utter glutton for punishment, but I'm sure that the sense of achievement will be huge when you get the thing running reliably. Hats off to you for the level of technical capability and can-do attitude - I'd have thrown the towel in and shipped if off to a garage long before you.