Body Off - The Naked Truth

[ChimpOnGas]

All I can say for sure is that T715 JLA was just 10 years old when I inspected it, and the car's chassis was already rotten as a carrot, and I mean shot!. It hadn't just got like that in the last year either, so I think its fair to say some Chimaeras were getting very rusty indeed just a few years after leaving the factory.



Read the above advert I saved, it's from May 2009 when I went to look at T715 JLA, no way was it a 34,000 mile car that had been garaged most of its life as the seller claimed. It really was a shocker with a very rotten chassis that had to have been sat outside for most of its life as the hood was rotten too, considering the only honsest thing about it was it was definitely only 10 years young it was also the Chimaera that nearly completely put me off the whole idea.

The silver/grey chassis cars were definitely better but as Alun says they are older cars now so it all evens out, to be honest is academic these days as even the youngest Chimaera is 17 years old and the average age is more like 22 years. Now consider there are still plenty of Chimaeras out there with an unrestored chassis, but I bet if you lifted the body on them not one would have a completely rot free outriggers.

For those looking to buy a TVR these days it all adds up to the best advice being to look for one that's already had at least the outriggers replaced, but better still a full body off chassis restoration with supporting photos to prove the work was done to a good standard. Chimaeras are now in the same place Lotus Elans were in the late 1980's / early 1990's, we saw many 20 year old Elans through the workshop back then that were still on their original Lotus backbone chassis but were completely rotten.



A Chimaera is just a grown up Elan, a steel back bone chassis all be it in tube not the sheet steel of the Lotus and both with a fiberglass body sat on top, in the late 80's/early 90's Elans were rather unloved by the snobby classic car buyer and so were cheap to buy. But people had started to restore them and the solution back then was always a new galvanised chassis from Lotus or Spyder which solved the problem in a stroke.

As they hit and passed through that dreaded 20 year old window things started to get a lot better for the Elan, but this history lesson shows us we are passing through the darkest days for the Chimaera just as the Elan passed through it many years before. It stands to reason we should look to see what happened to Elan prices when they reached 30 to predict the future for our Chimaeras, and at this point most Elans had been sorted with a new chassis so from the naughties on their values stabalised and indeed they started to rise quite rapidly as people realised what a bargain they were.

By 2005 an Elan that sold for £8k in the mid 90's was now pushing £15k and by 2010 they were nudging £20k, fast forward to today and you try to find a decent Elan roadster for less than £30k. The 20 year old point is a defining one for all classics and the Chimaeras like the Elan before it is no different, in the next 10 years for sure we will see a lot more of our cars having a proper body off chassis restoration and these will be the cars in 2030 that make good money.... just as those restored Elans with their new chassis started to make good money when they reached 30 years old too.

Those of us restoring our Chimaeras now are doing so at just the right time, we're getting our chassis sorted while they are still in reasonable order and getting our cars ready to enjoy for the next 10 years, when I come to sell mine in 10 years or so values will have risen like the value of 30 year old Elans rose and I will be offering a well sorted example to the market that would have given me 23 years of joy but will have many more years of life in it for the next custodian to take advantage of.

History is always our best tutor , because history has an uncanny habit of repeating itself

[ChimpOnGas]

V41LEY said:

Good thread chaps - have enjoyed watching the progress and the result.
Can I ask if there is/was any other work planned for the car - engine rebuild, respray, new carpets, hood etc. I’d be very interested in using Alex but my car needs (or rather I would like) to do the other bits as well. Any thoughts. Thx.

Hi Jon,

The reality is there's no such thing as a finished Chimaera, it's just different levels of how many jobs are left on an ongoing and never ending to do list. The trick is to try to knock the jobs off the list faster than new jobs appear on it, or at least keep the outstanding jobs at the same number which is typically where I'm always at with my TVR.

I have no plans for paint as my Chimaera enjoyed a front end respray at Surface & Design when it received the Mk3 headlight conversion, and my engine is strong so given there's always a list of little outstanding jobs I really don't want to be adding to it and spending unnecessarily. A Chimaera is kind of a flawed diamond, as such it's a car that goads you into making improvements, but it's all too easy to just keep throwing money after money at the car when what we really should be doing is just getting on with the fun bit....

Driving it

We are all effectively driving about in rolling restoration projects at varying stages of completion, as soon as you accept the process is a never ending one you realise the best policy is just good old fashioned preventative maintenance while keeping a close eye on component wear and corrosion. The way to think about it is we are all in a marathon trying to stay ahead of the inevitable wear and tear, corrosion and component failure; the trick is to stay one step ahead but to extract the maximum service life out of every component so as not to end up spending unnecessarily.

I measure the success of my TVR ownership on how much driving I can extract from it, I maintain the car without compromise but also try to keep my spending realistic and in line with the market value of Chimaeras. I need the car on the road as much as possible as all the time it's incapacitated being worked on it's time I'm losing not driving and enjoying my TVR, this means only replacing or restoring elements that demand attention but catching them in advance of the their imminent demise, I try hard to get this balance right which means resisting the temptation to replace or restore before the component has given me it's longest service life possible before I run the risk of it causing a breakdown or MoT failure.

The car must be ready to use at all times and 100% reliable, and if I do decide to take it off the road for something major like the chassis restoration it must be completed in the winter months when ordinarily I would be using the car the least, ideally it would be the wettest winter in living memory too which was achieved more through luck than judgment, but as it turned out I couldn't have picked a better winter to lose the use of the car.

In preparation for getting the car back, the other day I wrote a list of the outstanding things I want to complete on the car before the end of 2020, basically I ended up with 12 jobs, these are all works I will complete myself knocking two or three off the list every month. By the end of the year everything will have been crossed of the list, but I guarantee you they'll be 10 or so new jobs appear because the truth is I have never had less than 10 outstanding jobs on my TVR maintenance list in all the 11 years I've own the car.

However, I can also hand on heart say the car is immeasurably better in every single respect than it was when I bought it 11 years ago at just 33,000 miles in it's well maintained state, so while I've always kept very much on top of the general maintenance I have also been slowly but surely walking my Chimaera into a better than new state. I try to make everything I do to the car better than how TVR did it, and I try to make sure every component I replace is better than the part TVR used. The chassis restoration is just one good example of this policy, while TVR's effort lasted 23 years we've tried to restore it in a way that ensure it'll last a lot longer than that.

Better chassis protection, better engine management, better wiring, better suspension, better brakes, better tyres, better fuel economy, better performance, better seats and carpets, better headlights ect ect ect, these are just some of the things I've done already in the last 11 years in my bid to make the car better in every respect than when it left Bristol Avenue back in 1996. I've also completed all these improvements while trying not take the car off the road for too long, and while always staying one step ahead of the general maintenance too.

General maintenance of a TVR will always keep you busy, trying at the same time to make a Chimaera better built and dynamically better as well as more practical than it was when new is a real challenge believe me, doing so while keeping the car on the road at all times takes things to another level. Ultimately I'd like to think the my TVR could easily become my very practical and reliable everyday transport, this being my ultimate measurement of success and one I genuinely feel I've achieved...

Until that is the next thing breaks or wears out of course

[ChimpOnGas]

Where they rot....



If these areas can be better protected the problem will disappear!

[ChimpOnGas]

ray von said:

IIRC around 10 years ago the only option was a full body off which was mega money around £12k possibly, which was enough to write any Chim off.
Then the outrigger only jobs sprung up and as I've already said mechanics became expert welders over night.
CoG looks a good job, re your last pic remember under the manifolds can also rot out, I know you've added extra coatings there

Cheers ray von, TBH I was pleasantly surprised how well the silver/grey finish on my top rails coped with the exhaust heat, it seems more heat resistant than the white powder coat that came after.





The top rails were covered with Waxoil most of their early life and later Dinitrol for the last 10 years too, but I wouldn't have thought rustproofing wax is a great high temp coating, however I did get rid of my pre-cats some 10 years ago which definitely lowered exhaust manifold temps, this was followed shortly after by an ACT Y-Piece to complete a full de-cat.

Classic Chim said:

I was impressed with the black heat proof paint on your top tubes Dave. So much so I was a bit peeved I wasted money on tape.
If I hadn’t already bought it I would have nicked that idea off you

I’m not convinced the tape will last very long or stay stuck on.

The black high temp paint on the top rails is Alex Wheatley's idea Alun, all his chassis restorations get it.





I have no experience with the high temp reflective tape you've used but I'm sure it'll do its job, I've seen a number of Cerbera guys use it so your best bet is to see how well it lasts on those cars?

I would PM ianwhitewick and Boatbuoy both of whom used reflective tape on their Cerberas some five years ago.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Ask them how its held up over the last five years and you'll have your answer mate

[ChimpOnGas]

I'd be worried a woven heat insulating material could hold moisture against those top chassis rails, you get this with exhaust wrap so it's definitely a thing.

[ChimpOnGas]

Interior back in, I'd almost forgotten how beautiful this view is.



Nothing stops Alex Wheatly, what a guy! He's had the virus and recovered, he's now back at it working in isolation and remains totally committed.

We must all support the self employed, the government package for them is a joke, insulting even! Alex Wheatly continues to take responsibility for his own income and refuses to be defeated.

Respect

[ChimpOnGas]

Alex was really ill, he definitely had the virus, as did my wife and a good friend of mine who brought it back from a skiing trip Austria. All have recovered thank God, but the virus is becoming a feature of everyone's lives, the infection rate is high so make no mistake you and or people close to you will very likely be getting it.

People's jobs are at risk, every day companies are finding new ways to cut their overheads to stay alive, to this end the completion of this chassis restoration has reached a heightened state of importance. My TVR is about to go from toy to critical transport, we are all trying to stay off the roads as much as possible right now, but with an 83 year old mother 130 miles away I need to know if there's an emergency I can get to her.

Never before has a reliable, sorted, and economical TVR been so important to me.

The game has changed folks!

[ChimpOnGas]

I'm being told to expect some videos soon.

I'll be uploading then to YouTube and sharing them with you.

Life goes on. support the self employed everyone

[ChimpOnGas]

dhutch said:

As you say, huge effect on some people careers and businesses as well. Do you not have another car?

This is a company car issue, lets say the lease on that company car is about to come to an end, why would the employer replace that car with a new one when they've asked the sales person to stay at home?

The thing is you can't blame them, why would you pay for a car thats not being driven in the persuit of additional business?

With sales already down by 50% and expected to fall further to 30% you need to cut as many business costs as you can, especially if you're looking to come out of the other side with your business still alive.

Thats all well and good but if that company car is your only transport, it is withdrawn, and you also have a vulnerable 83 year old mother over 130 miles way, you're going to need alternative transport.

This alternative transport is my TVR.

[ChimpOnGas]

Exactly Alan, the cheapest car to replace my company car is the car I already own!

The only real issue with running a sorted Chimaera as daily transport is keeping it fed with petrol, and that's where my LPG conversion comes in to save the day.

My LPG TVR delivers an average petrol cost equivalent of 48mpg which is better than nearly every other petrol car out there, even a little 1,200cc hatchback!

Only a diesel would be cheaper to fuel than my dual fuel Chimaera, and not by a huge margin either.

[ChimpOnGas]

Loubaruch said:

COG,

With the price differential between petrol and diesel at 48 mpg you are probably getting equivalent diesel mileage.

I know when recently changing cars from a diesel to petrol that around 40 mpg for the petrol equates pricewise to around 55+ mpg for diesel for the mileage I do.

Here are the mathematically proven facts.....

My LPG TVR does 22 mpg all day long no matter how I drive it, so with LPG at 0.55p and petrol at £1.20 a litre, this gives the following calculation:

1.2 / 0.55 X 22 = 48 mpg (petrol cost equivalent)

On the other hand with diesel at £1.26 the calculation looks like this:

1.26 / 0.55 X 22 = 50 mpg (diesel cost equivalent)

I get an average of 55 mpg from my Audi A3 1.6litre turbo diesel company car with it's 7 speed DSG transmission, so the Audi is still cheaper to fuel than my LPG TVR but the gap really isn't huge, and thank God I'm not still stuck with a petrol only TVR that would average a painful 24 mpg at best!

Actually petrol is the cheapest its been for years, the combination of over production and the fact no one is driving anywhere right now has forced the price of a litre of unleaded to an all time low, my local Sainsbury's is selling a litre of petrol for £1.03 and a litre of diesel at £1.09, at the same station a litre of LPG is £0.56.

Therese are exceptional times though, so this situation will not last

While the gap is closing, both petrol and diesel are still almost twice the price of LPG, so even in these unusual fuel market conditions converting my Chimaera to gas still delivers hugely cheaper V8 TVR motoring. A 12 gallon £57.00 fill of petrol in your standard 4.0 litre Chimaera should buy you 300 miles, to take me the same 300 miles I need a 14 gallon fill of LPG but this only costs me £35.00

This is actually the worse I've ever seen it, the gap between petrol and LPG has closed making my LPG conversion the least cost efficient than its ever been, but I'm still saving £22.00 every time I put 300 miles of fuel in the car which soon adds up, and as soon as things return to normal the gap will widen again for sure.

Gas is good

[ChimpOnGas]

Zener said:

phazed said:

All tucked up nicely.

Like the logo on the front just in case you forget whats under the cover ............

Its so he can tell the front of the car from the back, a common problem for the Boxster owner

[ChimpOnGas]

dhutch said:

ChimpOnGas said:

Here are the mathematically proven facts.....

22 mpg on gas
48 mpg (petrol cost equivalent)
50 mpg (diesel cost equivalent)

Thank God I'm not stuck with a petrol, 24 mpg at best!

I drive a E46 330ci, which does 28mpg average, 24mpg through traffic on my 12mile 50min commute, 38mpg on a motorway run with chunk of 50mph limit. Often I do around 10k pa.

So on that basis, your car on petrol is £325 worse per year, and on gas is £812 better. Your total saving would be £1136.
Obviously if you half the mileage because its a second car and actually only does 5k a year, the savings half to £568
If like most people with a second car your actually only doing something liek 2.5k pa then the saving is now £284 a year.

In summary, can't fault you choices, but I would just leave it on petrol an remove all the faff of conversion refueling!


Daniel

You're comparing apples with pears Daniel

You need to compare the same car before and after it was converted, not a completely different car (a BMW) with a TVR Chimaera.

My switch to LPG covered the cost of the conversion a long while ago, these days it's really just cheap as chips motoring.

[ChimpOnGas]

phazed said:

It seems being banged up is causing all sorts of confrontation on PH.

Shut it, blooming Porsche drivers

Stay safe Peter

[ChimpOnGas]

Back on topic, the engine bay work is done





She's exremly close to completion now

[ChimpOnGas]

phazed said:

Very tidy for a full bay Dave........

Cheers Peter, my LPG vaporiser plumbing alone is, errr, an efficient use of available space

Read.... 'Tight as a Nun's chuff'

Classic Chim said:

It’s getting near the business end now. Wow. I’m stoked for you Dave.

Peter mentioned on my thread, it takes longer than you think, it’s a heck of a lot of fettling and routing then routing something else and realise you need to re route the first one. If a Tvr needs 25 cable ties expect to cut off and re tie about 15 of them
Alex must be pretty slick at it being a pro

The devil is definitely in the detail, its the 80/20 rule, ie 80% of the time is spent completing the last 20% of the work, Alex is doing an amazing job and is showing superb commitment to meeting the completion deadline.

[ChimpOnGas]

The latest images just in from Alex Wheatly Automotive Engineer.





What a great job he's done

[ChimpOnGas]

So close!

















https://youtu.be/r1m9NRUypLc

[ChimpOnGas]

150 cable ties in total apparently

[ChimpOnGas]

She lives, and by all accounts she's driving beutifully







Such a great feeling to see her out on the road again, the car will be delivered back to me on a low loader tomorrow, like a kid on Christmas eve I can hardly contain my excitement......