At last - TVR owner
Discussion
Five months after finding the TVR I wanted and agreeing a deal in principle the sale was completed on Saturday.
Have not bought the cheapest Tuscan available but have got one with a very deep history file - £25k+ of invoices in its 18 1/2 years, only one previous owner, original invoice, build photos etc etc - its even come with a box of spares and original parts that have been upgraded if I ever wanted to return it to completely as it was when it left the factory
Whilst the car is now legally mine its currently en route to Track V Road who have maintained it for the last 9 years for some work and upgrades so that when I collect it from them late Jan / Feb I can be as sure as possible its mechanically perfect
Owner I bought from has been superb and the whole TVR "scene" has made me feel incredibly welcome with lots of advice / guidance offered - just looking forward to finally getting it home now
Have not bought the cheapest Tuscan available but have got one with a very deep history file - £25k+ of invoices in its 18 1/2 years, only one previous owner, original invoice, build photos etc etc - its even come with a box of spares and original parts that have been upgraded if I ever wanted to return it to completely as it was when it left the factory
Whilst the car is now legally mine its currently en route to Track V Road who have maintained it for the last 9 years for some work and upgrades so that when I collect it from them late Jan / Feb I can be as sure as possible its mechanically perfect
Owner I bought from has been superb and the whole TVR "scene" has made me feel incredibly welcome with lots of advice / guidance offered - just looking forward to finally getting it home now
Track V Road are about 100 miles away from me - Central TVR and other well regarded specialists are closer to me but decided to keep using Track V Road as they know the car very well (having maintained it for so long) and the conversations I have had with them have always left me feeling reassured that the car is in safe hands and I will not be charged for unnecessary work
Nice looking Tuscan!
Track V Road setup and traced the last niggles on my Cerbera after a complete restoration. They where very very good, no messing about. Would use them again if I ever got another TVR.
Gaz golds, poly anti roll bar bushes & braided brake hose where about the best thing I did to my Cerbera. All pretty cheap to do & improve the driving experience. oh and getting the geo setup properly by Track V Road! :-)
Mortgage_tom said:
Nice looking Tuscan!
Track V Road setup and traced the last niggles on my Cerbera after a complete restoration. They where very very good, no messing about. Would use them again if I ever got another TVR.
Gaz golds, poly anti roll bar bushes & braided brake hose where about the best thing I did to my Cerbera. All pretty cheap to do & improve the driving experience. oh and getting the geo setup properly by Track V Road! :-)
That's good to hearTrack V Road setup and traced the last niggles on my Cerbera after a complete restoration. They where very very good, no messing about. Would use them again if I ever got another TVR.
Gaz golds, poly anti roll bar bushes & braided brake hose where about the best thing I did to my Cerbera. All pretty cheap to do & improve the driving experience. oh and getting the geo setup properly by Track V Road! :-)
It was fitted with new Nitrons 500 miles ago and had a full geo setup, together with four new Spider wheels (owner thought it was better to replace than refurbish) and four new tyres - it now drives very nicely indeed and cost him in excess of £2.5k to get done
Andy665 said:
That's good to hear
It was fitted with new Nitrons 500 miles ago and had a full geo setup, together with four new Spider wheels (owner thought it was better to replace than refurbish) and four new tyres - it now drives very nicely indeed and cost him in excess of £2.5k to get done
Nitrons, even better! :-)It was fitted with new Nitrons 500 miles ago and had a full geo setup, together with four new Spider wheels (owner thought it was better to replace than refurbish) and four new tyres - it now drives very nicely indeed and cost him in excess of £2.5k to get done
Car went in to the specialists just before Christmas but work did not commence until afterwards.
Whilst primarily going in for the head refresh it made sense whilst the engine was being taken out to give everything a good checking over - anything that is showing signs of wear is much cheaper to do now rather than taking the engine out again at a later stage
Just one crank bearing has a few tiny score marks on it, the valves are the early chromed ones that need replacing but everything else is in really good shape, even the original finger followers are in good shape although they will still be replaced.
The clutch is a relative weak point on Tuscans, they very rarely wear out, the poor design (thanks TVR) of the clutch cylinder means that the clutch fingers snap off long before the clutch surface wears out - clutch on mine is perfect despite being fitted over 20k miles ago so will be going back in.
The camshafts are showing zero signs of wear, apparently the early Speed Six engines had very good quality camshafts fitted, the specialist normally replaces them as a matter of course on a head rebuild but they are suggesting I'd be perfectly ok to just put these back in (I'm as yet undecided)
Should have full estimate tomorrow and then I can decide what "nice to haves", if any I can afford to have added to the list.
Whilst primarily going in for the head refresh it made sense whilst the engine was being taken out to give everything a good checking over - anything that is showing signs of wear is much cheaper to do now rather than taking the engine out again at a later stage
Just one crank bearing has a few tiny score marks on it, the valves are the early chromed ones that need replacing but everything else is in really good shape, even the original finger followers are in good shape although they will still be replaced.
The clutch is a relative weak point on Tuscans, they very rarely wear out, the poor design (thanks TVR) of the clutch cylinder means that the clutch fingers snap off long before the clutch surface wears out - clutch on mine is perfect despite being fitted over 20k miles ago so will be going back in.
The camshafts are showing zero signs of wear, apparently the early Speed Six engines had very good quality camshafts fitted, the specialist normally replaces them as a matter of course on a head rebuild but they are suggesting I'd be perfectly ok to just put these back in (I'm as yet undecided)
Should have full estimate tomorrow and then I can decide what "nice to haves", if any I can afford to have added to the list.
Personally, whilst the engine is out I'd be replacing the clutch. I did over 50k miles in a Tuscan over 9 years and that needed a new clutch twice.
I know they're expensive, but 20 - 25k miles seems to be their natural life expectancy IMHO.
Ask what the Track v Road guys recommend though, they know their stuff
I know they're expensive, but 20 - 25k miles seems to be their natural life expectancy IMHO.
Ask what the Track v Road guys recommend though, they know their stuff
The Surveyor said:
Personally, whilst the engine is out I'd be replacing the clutch. I did over 50k miles in a Tuscan over 9 years and that needed a new clutch twice.
I know they're expensive, but 20 - 25k miles seems to be their natural life expectancy IMHO.
Ask what the Track v Road guys recommend though, they know their stuff
The clutch is fine - very rarely does the friction material wear out, its the clutch fingers / springs that break off due to the awful clutch cylinder design. Track V Road used to be able to simply replace the springs but AP now refuse to supply them, they have a load of clutches stacked up that are all perfectly ok bar the fingers / springs that are brokenI know they're expensive, but 20 - 25k miles seems to be their natural life expectancy IMHO.
Ask what the Track v Road guys recommend though, they know their stuff
Track V Road said life of a clutch is more dependant on the type of use the car gets rather than age / mileage which makes a lot of sense, I did think about having the notoriously poor slave cylinder seals replaced but they advised that they were done less than 400 miles ago (just before I viewed the car)
Andy665 said:
I did think about having the notoriously poor slave cylinder seals replaced but they advised that they were done less than 400 miles ago (just before I viewed the car)
To change the slave seals the gearbox will have to have been disconnected from the engine as the slave is concentric to the input shaft. That being the case, I would have expected whoever did it to have inspected the clutch at the time, so you should have some hard evidence of the clutch wear.Have to say, clutch failure is the one thing I dread on mine. Engine was re-built by Power's 8 years ago and is bullet proof - doesn't use any oil and pulls like a train - and everything else can be worked on easily enough. My clutch has around 40k miles and still works perfectly.
Konrod said:
To change the slave seals the gearbox will have to have been disconnected from the engine as the slave is concentric to the input shaft. That being the case, I would have expected whoever did it to have inspected the clutch at the time, so you should have some hard evidence of the clutch wear.
Have to say, clutch failure is the one thing I dread on mine. Engine was re-built by Power's 8 years ago and is bullet proof - doesn't use any oil and pulls like a train - and everything else can be worked on easily enough. My clutch has around 40k miles and still works perfectly.
Good to hear that your clutch has lasted 40k miles, mine was replaced 20k ago so got a few years more hopefullyHave to say, clutch failure is the one thing I dread on mine. Engine was re-built by Power's 8 years ago and is bullet proof - doesn't use any oil and pulls like a train - and everything else can be worked on easily enough. My clutch has around 40k miles and still works perfectly.
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