Discussion
After having owned too many cars to mention, I've finally got round to TVR ownership. A black 55,000 mile S2 now sits proudly outside my flat (pictures to follow when I get a chance to upload them).
I got the car at what I consider to be a good price, but it does have a few issues that need sorting, and I wonder if you can shed any light on a couple of them:
Rear exhaust mount - how is this bolt secured? If I undo it will there be a captive nut rattling around in the chassis never to be found again?
Window/door alignment - the aluminium window frame and glass sit about 1cm too high and overlap the roof on the drivers side, but the door itself is pretty well aligned. The drivers roof section sits lower than the passenger side though and raising it would solve the problem. Can this be done and how do you do it, or am I looking at the wron solution?
Harness mounts/roll bar - What is the easiest/cheapest option if I want a bit more security for track days?
Lights on buzzer - Is this affected by the dashboard lights? Where is it located so that I can get rid of it?!
Speedo under reading (by about 10%) - Is this common?
Sorry for all the questions. Loving the car. It's a bit 'kit car', but feels just like a 1960s sports car - Nice and involving! A perfect addition to my current budget fleet of an XJ6 3.2 Executive and an E30 325i
I look forward to meeting up with some of you soon.
Alain
I got the car at what I consider to be a good price, but it does have a few issues that need sorting, and I wonder if you can shed any light on a couple of them:
Rear exhaust mount - how is this bolt secured? If I undo it will there be a captive nut rattling around in the chassis never to be found again?
Window/door alignment - the aluminium window frame and glass sit about 1cm too high and overlap the roof on the drivers side, but the door itself is pretty well aligned. The drivers roof section sits lower than the passenger side though and raising it would solve the problem. Can this be done and how do you do it, or am I looking at the wron solution?
Harness mounts/roll bar - What is the easiest/cheapest option if I want a bit more security for track days?
Lights on buzzer - Is this affected by the dashboard lights? Where is it located so that I can get rid of it?!
Speedo under reading (by about 10%) - Is this common?
Sorry for all the questions. Loving the car. It's a bit 'kit car', but feels just like a 1960s sports car - Nice and involving! A perfect addition to my current budget fleet of an XJ6 3.2 Executive and an E30 325i
I look forward to meeting up with some of you soon.
Alain
Speedo reading 10% under, welcome to the club. 
Since I brought my S2 in March I have been trying many ways to fix just this problem. So far with no luck.
I believe that the cause of our problem lies with the speedo drive gear in the gearbox. My car had had a recon box fitted and I think that it had the wrong drive gear fitted. It's got 24 teeth.
The right speedo drive gear in the gearbox is now obsolete, i.e. you cannot buy it from a Ford dealer and you won't get one from a TVR breaker either. I've tried and tried and tried.
In desperation I have brought a 22 teeth drive gear for a mechanical cable from my local Ford dealer (ours is electronic) and I am now in the process of finding someone to machine out the mechanical drive and 'let in' a home made electronic drive end.
2 teeth in 22 is almost a 10% change and would explain the error. I think that gearbox recon places cannot get the correct drive gear so are fitting what they can get, with subsequent speedo inaccuracies.
If anyone else is having their gearbox recon-ed or replaced then please keep the drive gear, you have been warned.
Other attempted fixes included stripping out the speedo to try to recalibrate it. Not recommended as you end up stripping the potentiometer off the PCB if you are as heavy handed as me. Also you have to lever open the front trim ring, not pretty.
Also I tried something called a Speedo Healer, about £80 on line. It gains up or down the frequency of the square wave pulse signal. It's very popular with motorbikes where if you change the gear ratio you have to recalibrate the speedo. A great piece of kit, but... the signal strength on the TVR isn't enough to make it work. Your speedo just reads zero all the time.Not recommended.
I'll post on here when/if I get a fix.
Since I brought my S2 in March I have been trying many ways to fix just this problem. So far with no luck.
I believe that the cause of our problem lies with the speedo drive gear in the gearbox. My car had had a recon box fitted and I think that it had the wrong drive gear fitted. It's got 24 teeth.
The right speedo drive gear in the gearbox is now obsolete, i.e. you cannot buy it from a Ford dealer and you won't get one from a TVR breaker either. I've tried and tried and tried.
In desperation I have brought a 22 teeth drive gear for a mechanical cable from my local Ford dealer (ours is electronic) and I am now in the process of finding someone to machine out the mechanical drive and 'let in' a home made electronic drive end.
2 teeth in 22 is almost a 10% change and would explain the error. I think that gearbox recon places cannot get the correct drive gear so are fitting what they can get, with subsequent speedo inaccuracies.
If anyone else is having their gearbox recon-ed or replaced then please keep the drive gear, you have been warned.
Other attempted fixes included stripping out the speedo to try to recalibrate it. Not recommended as you end up stripping the potentiometer off the PCB if you are as heavy handed as me. Also you have to lever open the front trim ring, not pretty.
Also I tried something called a Speedo Healer, about £80 on line. It gains up or down the frequency of the square wave pulse signal. It's very popular with motorbikes where if you change the gear ratio you have to recalibrate the speedo. A great piece of kit, but... the signal strength on the TVR isn't enough to make it work. Your speedo just reads zero all the time.Not recommended.
I'll post on here when/if I get a fix.
magpies said:
I guess another way would be to contact a company that sells new dials (usualy for chavs to change the colour 
and give them enough info for them to make new dials with the markings to suit - diameter and angles for zero and say top speed
oh and of course what colour.
Yes you could do. If you have a GPS then you could do a calibration chart. Indicated speed (speedo) v actual (GPS) and give this to someone who could remark your existing dial. I could probably dig out a contact for the UK dial manufacturers service guy if you need it. and give them enough info for them to make new dials with the markings to suit - diameter and angles for zero and say top speed oh and of course what colour.
Alternatively a Kit Car speedo from someone like smiths can be calibrated to suit whatever you need via simple logic switches in the back. But you will lose the mileage reading and the lovely TVR logo from the dial.
Hello Alain and welcome to the forum 
Good news - I have absolutely no idea how to fix any of your problems but I know everyone else will!(I'd never read about the speedo problem before...) I've only had mine a few months and the knowledge uptake is quite quick but then hopefully you won't need to go through all the troubles I've had. Most people on here seem to have a fairly trouble free motoring experience but they are more than happy to help out when things go wrong.
I think most doors actually sag rather than stick out over the top - it will be interesting to see what people will suggest to this problem.
Hope you enjoy your 'new' car!
I've edited to say this should give you some ideas for the roll bar and harness setup.
http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/xforums/topic.asp?h=0...
Cheers
Pierce
Good news - I have absolutely no idea how to fix any of your problems but I know everyone else will!(I'd never read about the speedo problem before...) I've only had mine a few months and the knowledge uptake is quite quick but then hopefully you won't need to go through all the troubles I've had. Most people on here seem to have a fairly trouble free motoring experience but they are more than happy to help out when things go wrong.
I think most doors actually sag rather than stick out over the top - it will be interesting to see what people will suggest to this problem.
Hope you enjoy your 'new' car!
I've edited to say this should give you some ideas for the roll bar and harness setup.
http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/xforums/topic.asp?h=0...
Cheers
Pierce
Edited by The Stiglet on Monday 10th August 13:58
Cognac said:
Window/door alignment - the aluminium window frame and glass sit about 1cm too high and overlap the roof on the drivers side, but the door itself is pretty well aligned. The drivers roof section sits lower than the passenger side though and raising it would solve the problem. Can this be done and how do you do it, or am I looking at the wron solution?
Alain
Hi Alain and welcome to our little world, not too sure what you mean about the door sitting too highAlain
I would say take some pic's of what you mean and post them on here and we can all tell if it's the same as our cars or not.
cheers.....Tony..
Re the speedo reading 10% low, the cheapest fix is to stick to about
27 in a 30 zone
36 in a 40 zone
63 in a 70 zone
I have yet to find a car other than a peugeot 206 which has an accurate speedo when compared to my sat nav speedo reading, however I have noticed they all seem to read a % higher, maybe for safety reasons.
27 in a 30 zone
36 in a 40 zone
63 in a 70 zone
I have yet to find a car other than a peugeot 206 which has an accurate speedo when compared to my sat nav speedo reading, however I have noticed they all seem to read a % higher, maybe for safety reasons.
hello and welcome,
the S3 i have doesnt have a captive nut to the rear exhaust mount, but its not buried in glassfibre either, it possible to get an open ended spanner between the body work and fuel cradle subframe where its fastened to (removing the ali sub frame cover plate first).
cant help with the window alignment, or harness questions.
lights on buzzer isnt standard in an S, if its wired to be highlight the dash lights are on its been wired in wrong IMO, as its not standard it could be a box with three(ish) wires protruding from it anywhere behind the dash.
speedo reading under, can't recall if mine does or not, if its waving rather than steady, check your earths.
bil
the S3 i have doesnt have a captive nut to the rear exhaust mount, but its not buried in glassfibre either, it possible to get an open ended spanner between the body work and fuel cradle subframe where its fastened to (removing the ali sub frame cover plate first).
cant help with the window alignment, or harness questions.
lights on buzzer isnt standard in an S, if its wired to be highlight the dash lights are on its been wired in wrong IMO, as its not standard it could be a box with three(ish) wires protruding from it anywhere behind the dash.
speedo reading under, can't recall if mine does or not, if its waving rather than steady, check your earths.
bil
clarenceboddiger said:
however I have noticed they all seem to read a % higher, maybe for safety reasons.
I worked in the maintenance dept of a car manufacturer a few years ago. The reason that the speedo on ANY car is always about 10% out is liability and law. By law, a car speedo cannot read too slow and therefore to protect themselves the manufacturers deliberately build in a 10% error. This is so that an unsuspecting driver is not actually driving faster than he thinks.
The other reason is liability. No manufacturer wants to be in court as a contributing factor in an accident. If someone who "caused" a crash could prove that the speedo was out the wrong way then they could argue they would never have gone at the actual speed - stopping distances would come in to play too.
Every car of the production line at the time had its speedo checked on a rolling road to make sure it was reading too fast - I am sure all manufacturers did the same.
clarenceboddiger said:
Re the speedo reading 10% low, the cheapest fix is to stick to about
27 in a 30 zone
36 in a 40 zone
63 in a 70 zone
I have yet to find a car other than a peugeot 206 which has an accurate speedo when compared to my sat nav speedo reading, however I have noticed they all seem to read a % higher, maybe for safety reasons.
Yes it's the vehicle regs that make your speedo inaccurate. A speedo can read out by a maximum of 4mph or 10%, whichever is the greater, OVER the true speed. But significantly it can NEVER read under and be legal.27 in a 30 zone
36 in a 40 zone
63 in a 70 zone
I have yet to find a car other than a peugeot 206 which has an accurate speedo when compared to my sat nav speedo reading, however I have noticed they all seem to read a % higher, maybe for safety reasons.
And it's done so that you don't exceed the speed limit whilst your speedo says you aren't
Hence most manufacturers set them to always read under by a margin of safety for production tolerances.
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