160,000 Mile TVR Chimaera

[Shed TVR]

Well almost:



I've owned a few different cars but always wanted a TVR, I found this car in January and it was the cheapest Chimaera for sale by a fair margin. It's done a lot of miles but mechanically it is decent having had a recent chassis refurbishment, and an engine rebuild by JE developments at 152,000 miles.

I don't have many pictures of the outside of the car but here's a couple to give you an idea:





The car does have a fair few issues being as cheap as it was, the top needs replacing really and the interior is pretty scruffy.






Someone has replaced the dash with what looks like a piece of hardboard and the wood around the radio is cracked. The seats/leather are in quite a poor state especially the drivers seat. The car actually has the full hide option which I'm lead to believe is fairly rare?



The engine runs very well. I'm not entirely sure of the spec of the rebuild but it certainly pulls well, there is a dyno plot in the folder that came with the car that says 265bhp and 305 lbft which I think are fairly good numbers for this engine (4.6 RV8). Also it made 200lbft at idle




I picked the car up a few weeks ago and drove it around 70 miles home, it handled that fine but I did note some issues:

-Engine/gearbox mounts need looking at
-Investigate ticking noise from engine
-Wipers/washers are rubbish!
-Slight knock from nearside front suspension
-Differential whines (noted on test drive)
-Rear tyres getting low

I got the car home and drove it around for about a week; I absolutely love driving this thing even with the issues it has! Never owned/driven a V8 car before this and the noise and powerband are fantastic. It probably feels quicker than it is due to the noise but it feels significantly faster than my old MR2 turbo.

After a couple of days I noticed a few more issues on the car:

-Exhaust seems to be hanging low on one side
-Significant amount of oil leaking from the sump
-Oil leaking from the differential

I wasn't happy driving the car around with these issues so I set about investigating the causes. When I had a look at the oil leak there was oil all over the sump and gearbox, on closer inspection the sump was leaking from several places.



The differential was also leaking from the main seal (no pic of that). The gearbox mounts had seen better days:




When I had a look at the exhaust I found a bizarre botch job:



And all the bolts holding the center section on were completely loose (2 had fallen out already)! The center mounts had completely gone and were falling apart

I ordered a load of parts from Racetech and set about fixing all the problems. The rear exhaust mount came off first:



I've seen a lot of botch jobs having owned a few sheddy performance cars over the years but silicone hose holding an exhaust on is a new one for me

That rubbish got replaced with a new mount and bush:



Then the center mounts were replaced:








That's all for now, the car is currently in bits in my garage! More updates later today hopefully.

Edited by Shed TVR on Thursday 22 February 14:25

[Shed TVR]

yonex said:

I cannot say just how much i think photobucket sucks. OP, suggest you move to flickr

Hopefully the pictures are working for everyone now? Moved to flickr like you suggested.

[Shed TVR]

scottos said:

Photos work for me, you can download a plug in to your browser to show all photos.

Very brave purchase, looks great and not bad at all considering! I'm sure once its had the once over and a bit of TLC youll have some more trouble free motoring!

Thanks, it was always going to be a bit of a risk but I'm hoping it pays off.

shalmaneser said:

Car looks great OP, I must admit to a growing interest in getting one of these as a project car... So many things could be improved and modified!

I'd say go for it, I can't think of many more exciting cars at this price point Worth bearing in mind though these have fairly terrible chassis rigidity so never going to be the last word in handling or precision

dave_s13 said:

Nice motor OP. If I had a garage and a spare few quid this is what I'd do in my spare time. I sadly have neither at the moment.

Thanks, it's a shame you don't have the time. To be fair it's not much fun in this weather though, my garage is freezing today!



OK so I've made a bit more progress on the car. After getting the exhaust off and changing the mounts I decided to have a go at the wipers, mainly just to get off the garage floor as I was a bit cold lol.

I'd ordered a replacement wiper arm as one of them was very loose, as well as new wiper blades and an up-rated washer jet kit. These are the original washer jets which are a horrible design; it's just a piece of hose with some holes in it to add to this mine were split in half also.




This was what I found when I looked at the mounting of the loose arm:



Oh dear

It looks like someone forced an imperial nut onto the metric thread, stripped it, then put another nut on top of the nut. Deciding this wasn't enough they then drilled through the wiper arm and put a bolt through the entire thing, quality botch

Anyway I did my best to sort that mess out; I ended up putting a die down the threads and managed to get an M8 nut on there which seems to hold OK. New wiper blades, wiper arm and washer jets fitted, hopefully I'll actually be able to see something in the rain now!




Next I changed the engine mounts, not going to lie this was a horrible job and took me a while. Here's the old ones vs the new ones:




After that I replaced the gearbox mounts:






Then I had a look at the leaking sump. I drained the oil and removed the sump to try and see why it was leaking. The sump had taken a knock on the bottom at some point, probably from a speed bump. When I removed it I was a bit alarmed to find that it appeared to be sealed with bathroom sealant don't think it is oil resistant silicone as it's clear. I'm hoping this was done by a previous owner and not the engine builder as that would not bode well for the rest of the engine!

Here's a picture anyway, you can't see the sealant very well. There were several spots where oil had clearly been leaking past the silicone:



Unfortunately once I cleaned up the sealing surface I found a hairline crack:





Given that a new sump costs around £300 for these I thought I'd try to weld up the crack for now and hope that it seals OK. Time will tell if it's worked or not. Here's a terrible picture of the sump after it was welded and cleaned up



I'm not the world's greatest welder by a long way but hopefully the fix is good enough. The sump went back on with a proper gasket, and a new oil filter. There's probably a better way to do it but I found it a lot easier to fit with the gasket cable tied on initially



Another rubbish photo:



That's all for now, hopefully I will have re-sealed the diff cover and replaced the rear diff mounting bush by the end of today. I'll leave you with the hilarious first page of the owners manual

Edited by Shed TVR on Thursday 22 February 15:16

[Shed TVR]

darkyoung1000 said:

Superb stuff. A you're a brave man! Good work on rescuing a superb car - given the bodges you've uncovered, looks like it might not have lasted much longer....

How do the outriggers on the chassis look?

yonex said:

Awesome. The car looks great!

Thank you both The car was actually owned by a member on here a few years ago who had put a lot of effort into maintaining it, there's a thread about it here not sure if pwd95 is still active on here?

Outriggers look OK, no obvious rust from underneath. It's difficult to examine them properly without the body off, I may get a cheap boroscope at some point to try and have a look inside.


I didn't have any luck getting the diff cover off today, so I thought I'd post some pictures of my car history instead:

Citroen Saxo 1.4, slow but fun!


Renaultsport Clio 172 cup



Saab 9-3 2.8t



Toyota MR2 Turbo Rev4



More updates on the TVR tomorrow hopefully.

[Shed TVR]

Paul S4 said:

Very interesting read; a pal years ago had an S3 2.9 that I 'looked after' for a while and got a lot of problems sorted for him ( he was absolutely not a petrolhead and did not even know what a ratchet spanner was !!

It was eventually returned to him, after having about £4000 spent on it at a local TVR specialist, and it was amazing to drive even with the Ford 2.9V6. Baring in mind I had a 1970 Lotus Elan S4DHC at the time, going from the Elan into the TVR was a complete contrast !!
Two different approaches to sports car design and performance !! ie Brute power versus 'performance enhanced by lightness'.

I always recall getting wheelspin in 3rd in the TVR in the wet, something I never got in the Elan in the 12 or so years that I had it !

I cannot comprehend those 'repairs' on your car...I have never seen anything like that before...!!

Keep up the photos and the posts, I shall be following with interest.

PS If you don't already, I would fit a) a battery isolator switch, preferably hidden as an anti theft and more importantly safety item, and b) always have a fire extinguisher fitted inside the car that is easy to access.... Any fibreglass car should have one !!

I can confirm that mine also spins in 3rd in the wet my rear tyres are not the best though. Never owned a Lotus but would love to have one, unfortunately I think I'm priced out of most of them

Very good point about the fire extinguisher and battery isolator; it's not something I'd considered. I'll definitely be fitting both of those asap.

RC1807 said:

Interesting purchase, OP

That said, if a bloke can drive one all the way to Latin America and only need the clutch changed along the way, they can't be THAT bad, can they?....

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-43056769

It's not the same car, is it? wink

Hah I did read that story last week, I'm amazed they didn't have more issues! Wonder how many miles that car is on?




Thanks for all the replies, it's motivating me to keep going I managed to get the diff cover off finally, really I should have removed the diff completely but never mind. Some 'creative' methods were needed:






I don't think this had ever been off judging by how stuck it was; all of the dowels were rusted solid. The diff looked OK inside with no obvious signs of wear. This car has the hydratrak diff which was a rare factory option, it's a viscous locking diff which is generally considered a bit rubbish It's also a self sealed unit which means I can't split it open without losing all the viscous fluid.


I got both sealing surfaces cleaned up:






Then it went back together with some new sealant:






I got a bit paranoid and put way too much sealant around the drain plug I should really have ordered a new one but never mind. I still have a few bits to put back together but I'm hoping to have the car up and running again by the end of today. More updates soon.

[Shed TVR]

fivetenben said:

Hi!

The Pub2Pub Chim was on about 50,000 miles at the start of the trip, so now it will have covered around 75,000...

However the sticking odometer has steadfastly refused to go past 57,000 - how very TVR!

Ben

Hi Ben

Brilliant all of my instruments actually appear to be working other than the rev counter which bounces all over the place with every gear change!

Congratulations on completing your journey, I'd love to do something like that some day

Shadow R1 said:

Great stuff, I look forward to updates on threads like this.

Mr Tidy said:

You're a braver man than me OP!

But it's good that someone takes up the challenge of keeping cars like this going - they are so analogue in every way.

And you're getting stuck in to fettling it too - I'm looking forward to the updates!

Good luck.

Thank you both, the car is indeed very analogue and I love driving it







Well I made a lot of progress on the car today. The diff was filled up with new fluid using my patented diff and gearbox filler tool:



Exhaust and anti-roll bar back on with a new exhaust clamp for the front:





Unfortunately I think the exhaust has gotten a bit bent from not being supported properly for a while Not a major issue but one side does hang a little lower than the other.

A bloke came round and fitted some new rear tyres for me These were what were fitted to the car when I got it and seemed to handle the power fairly well even with not much tread:



New oil:



The top is looking very tired, looks like someone tried to stitch the window on by hand?:



Found a couple more bodges lurking in the engine bay:





One of the previous owners clearly had a lot of duct tape spare

She lives!



Went out for a test drive and the diff is still whining unfortunately, although I couldn't see any leaks and there is a lot less 'slack' in the driveline with the new mounts. It's possible I've miss-diagnosed the whine and it's actually a wheel bearing going, otherwise the diff will have to be replaced at some stage. I'll leave the car overnight and see if there is any oil on the floor tomorrow, hopefully not!

I thought I'd make a list of outstanding issues and jobs I want to do so I can keep track of my progress:

-Oil leaking from sump
-Oil leaking from diff
-Suspension knock n/s front
-Diff whining
-Fit fire extinguisher
-Fit battery isolator switch
-Exhaust falling off!
-Wiper arm loose
-Washer jets broken
-Wiper blades need replacing
-Engine mounts perished
-Gearbox mounts perished
-Offside mirror controls don’t work
-Seat bolt needs repairing drivers side
-Needs new aux belt
-Air intake pipe needs replacing
-MAF sensor wiring needs attention
-Top needs replacing
-Replace dash wood panel
-Replace radio wood panel
-Damping has gone on rev counter
-Investigate tick from engine
-Bell housing rubber cover missing
-Sleeve exhaust


It's a long list and some issues I've not mentioned on here but have noted before, I should have a half decent car once all of these are sorted

More updates soon I hope. I will be tackling the suspension knock, air intake bodge, aux belt, bell housing cover and fitting a fire extinguisher and battery isolator as suggested by Paul S4.

[Shed TVR]

Paul S4 said:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TVR-Griffith-Chimaera-S...

You may already be aware of this book but I seem to recall that it was well worth getting. When I had my Elan S4 I used to buy all the books/manuals/parts catalogues etc in order to understand the car. Some people are into books, some are not but it is useful to know as much as you can about the mechanics and the engineering IMO, especially as it seems you are keen to do work on the car yourself.

Hi Paul,

No I wasn't aware of that book, I found a place that sells new copies for around £40 so I'll probably get it from there. Thanks for the recommendation, it'll definitely be useful to me being new to TVR ownership

Douglas Quaid said:

Maximum respect OP I’ve always wanted a TVR and I’d love to do what you’re doing if I had spare cash and room to work on one.

Thanks, I'm fortunate to have enough time and space to work on it at the moment. Probably advisable to spend a bit more and get a better example than mine though



Small update today, I gave the car a wash and got some more pictures as I said I would:







I don't think it looks too bad all things considered! More updates soon.

[Shed TVR]

LewG said:

Brilliant job, car looks jolly good considering the mileage! I've had my Chim 3 years or so now and still enjoying the experience. It has had a few little TVR-ish issues as expected but nothing too drastic. At the end of the day it's some scaffold tubes and a Land Rover engine, not too much to go wrong really!
Did you have a close look at the exhaust when you were working on it? Mine had cracked along the little joiner bridge both sides where it joins into that bodged rear mount, also had one of the tailpipes break at the welds and fall off on a country lane

Indeed, I think the drivetrain is considered quite robust in these Do you have a thread up about yours? I did have a look at the exhaust up close, the joiner piece is bent but still strong and all the welds look fine. I'm told these come with a stainless exhaust from the factory?

SebringMan said:

It's looking like a good buy and one which you are enjoying. I think I remember seeing this car up for sale.

It seems alot of the problems you have fixed so far look like common TVR niggles. My friend's Chim had that leak at the sump too.

The mileage would put alot of people off but not me. I'm going to go out there and say I reckon 30-40% of TVRs are clocked out there. After all the speedo cable is easy to disconnect and a low mileage policy kind of encourages you do to that. With it helping values too that's a final bonus.

Thanks, the sump is a really poor design imo with one gasket trying to seal across several surfaces. Didn't help mine was done with bathroom sealant either

I wouldn't be surprised; Ben's car has apparently clocked itself according to his comment earlier!

Kitchski said:

160k is nothing bad - it means it's been used and enjoyed. The chassis is the big obstacle, but then I've seen plenty of low mileage cars with rotten chassis' before too (I work on TVRs as a profession).

A lot of my thinking when buying the car was that putting more miles on it wasn't going to make it depreciate much - a big plus for me as I want to drive the car as much as possible. Like you say I wouldn't think higher mileage would make a huge difference to rust on the chassis.


I finished a few more jobs on the car in the last couple of days. I've been trying to trace this suspension knock with no luck (I'm hopeless at finding suspension noises) and ended up just ordering replacements for a couple of bushings that looked worn out. I tried replacing the anti-roll bar bushing first:







The bushing was definitely past it's best and appeared to be a part from a ford Not sure if that's some part only TVR owners know fit or just another bodge

A few more bits arrived:




The air intake pipe came off:



oh dear



If you didn't know, the air filter in these is actually inside the front bumper. I'm sure this sounded like a great idea on the drawing board, but in reality it has just ended up getting covered in mud and water. Hard to see from the picture but the filter material actually seemed to be rotting/disintegrating!



Not sure why someone decided to re-use this hose clamp...



Old vs new:






Back together:






The auxiliary belt was next on the list as it appeared to be cracking. The old one came off; these cars use an auto-tensioner which makes things a lot quicker:



Old belt was cracked but not too bad:



New belt fitted:





I had a look at the wiring on the MAF plug also, it looks like the duct tape is just there to stop the wiring rubbing on the bonnet:



Looks like this has been re-wired and not insulated properly at the end. I don't have the tool to remove the wires from the plug at the moment but I'll pick one of those up and heatwrap the end later on.




I did a bit of digging through the service history and found the original purchase receipt:



Looks like the water pump and radiator failed at 2 years old



And the dyno printout from the new engine:




More updates soon.

[Shed TVR]

Well it's been a while! I've been working away on and off since my last post and haven't had much time to work on the car but I managed to get a few more jobs done lately.

LewG said:

No I haven't I'm afraid, I believe you're right, from what I've heard the tubing itself is a fairly low grade stainless. Mine was starting to look well past best so as I didn't fancy buying a new system any time soon I just gave it a light wire brushing and gave it a coat of heat resistant silver paint all over, then polished the rear tip sections thoroughly with Autosol.
That anti roll bar bush definitely wasn't helping anything! Looking at the radiator it might be my eyes but that looks a bit crappy in places. During an engine out job on mine I noticed that due to stones and weather etc it'd absolutely hammered the radiator everywhere but behind the number plate, on touching it with a screwdriver all of the remaining fins crumbled away! Think I got it recored for about 80 quid, on the other hand there are posh ally ones available.
Keep thinking it'd be a good idea to sell it sometimes, but it's that wonderful burble that always stops me!

That's a shame, feel free to post a pic of yours here Mine is rusting a bit in a few places but nothing too serious. You're right about the radiator - it's something I will look at eventually but for the moment the cooling system is working fine.


I've been trying to tackle a couple of annoying problems on the car - mainly the ticking noise from the engine and the suspension noise from the front. I found a slight bit of play the lower ball joint on the nearside so that got replaced:



Unfortunately I didn't notice any improvement. Another day when I had a bit of time I decided to have a look at the battery connections to try and plan out fitting the battery isolator; I found my 'suspension' noise (video)



The battery box was completely loose, when I pulled it out I found that the ECU and wiring harness were also unsecured!



I didn't have the time to fix these issues so have just left it as it is for now while I think about how to mount the battery and ECU properly.


Whilst poking around the engine bay I found a suspicious looking bolt blocking off a port on the engine. I presumed it was a vacuum line and from experience I knew that this would never seal properly so removed it to fit a hose blank - turns out it was actually a coolant passage!



This was what it looked like inside , again not sure what someone was thinking when they fitted this... (at least use a stainless bolt?)



Hose blank fitted:




I noticed the tensioner pulley bearing was noisy when I swapped the alternator belt, unfortunately you can't buy the pulley on it's own so I had to replace the entire unit:




Gizmos arrived for me to re-wire the MAF sensor so that will be getting done soon:




During cleaning the car I noticed that the boot carpet was coming away in several places:





I also found this random metal plate in there - maybe it was some sort of attempt to reinforce the boot floor?



The carpet was glued back in place:




I took a trip to see JE engineering about the ticking noise from the engine - they were very helpful and investigated it for free

They were 99% sure it was just an exhaust leak from somewhere so I will be trying to find that soon, I also bought an updated metal tensioner pulley from them that has a replaceable bearing


Next I decided to take a look at the mot advisory 'drivers seat bolt pulled through the floor'. I found the bolt easily enough:



(don't worry I had loosened the nut off already!)

I decided to remove the entire drivers seat to get better access:



I found that the seat had actually punched through the fiberglass from the top, for some reason someone had drilled out the mounting hole massively and weakened the mounting point. I also found about 6 random holes drilled in the floor which I siliconed up.



The welds had broken on one of the captive bolts for the seat mounting:



This was cleaned up then re-welded (crap welding warning )






I used the random piece of mild steel plate in the boot to make some support plates for the rear 2 bolts on the seat mounting:



That lot got painted then the seat could go back in:





Done!

Next I'll be looking at securing the passenger seat the same way, and at the same time fitting my fire extinguisher and securing the battery and ECU. I've also ordered a replacement convertible top (it finally disintegrated on the M1 on the way back from JE) and a new dashboard.

More updates soon (hopefully).

[Shed TVR]

Thanks for the replies Eddy I will check the manifolds at those joints today, appreciate the tip.

Well I went for a drive in the car yesterday and it had a bit of a TVR moment! First the oil pressure gauge decided I had 70psi of oil pressure, the horn stopped working, then it decided it wanted to idle at 3000rpm

I decided to fix the rev sticking issue and the loose battery first as I was more concerned about these. I had a look in the engine bay and immediately found the problem:



I'd say that was fairly unlucky! (bonnet trim was caught in the throttle linkage). I glued the trim on to stop this happening again:

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Next I had a look at the loose battery, fitting the fire extinguisher and securing the passenger seat. First the passenger seat was removed:



Don't think it'd been cleaned under here in a while also carpet trim on the battery box was coming apart.

Here's the battery inside the box, can't say I've ever heard of that make before but oh well



Next I removed the battery and found that there were already threaded inserts in the bottom of the box:





It looks like someone removed it and just never bothered to bolt it back in again as there were already holes drilled to mount it

Also some utter plank had drilled the mounting holes out massively again


The seat mounting holes looked fine fortunately with no signs of weakening or anyone messing around in there. I did replace the washers though as they had rusted to bits:




Next I re-glued the carpet on the battery box and cut down some bolts to the right length for fitting it:






Then the battery box went back in:





The ecu is just wedged by the side of it for now as I didn't want to drill more holes than necessary in the car! It's fairly secure there but I may come back to it if I think of a way to secure it properly.

All back together with the fire extinguisher fitted



(I did clean the carpet underneath but forgot to take a picture)


Unfortunately I missed the delivery for my replacement top so that'll be being fitted another time. Going back to the original list of problems:


-Suspension knock n/s front
-Diff whining
-Fit fire extinguisher
-Fit battery isolator switch
-Offside mirror controls don’t work
-Seat bolt needs repairing drivers side
-Needs new aux belt
-Air intake pipe needs replacing
-MAF sensor wiring needs attention
-Top needs replacing
-Replace dash wood panel
-Replace radio wood panel
-Damping has gone on rev counter
-Investigate tick from engine
-Bell housing rubber cover missing
-Sleeve exhaust :wink:
-Battery insecure
-Secure passenger seat
-Horn not working
-Oil pressure gauge lies!
-Coolant pipe loose o/s
-Drive-line shunt
-Roof rubber trim coming loose
-Seat belt does not pull back both sides


I've added a couple of small issues on here that I've not mentioned on the thread, I'll be sorting these as I go. I'll try and get another update out either today or tomorrow

[Shed TVR]

pwd95 said:

Thanks for the email Shed...

My old steed. I'm responsible for taking the engine out & taking it to JE. I don't own any Duct tape though.
Someone must have driven over something in the last 2 yrs or so. The sump & zorst were straight when I had it. My list was very similar to yours, I just didn't have the time in the end so let her go.
That engine is fully balanced & an absolute peach... enjoy!

Thanks for the reply and the pictures

I didn't think you were responsible for the bodge jobs; it's very telling that there are no receipts in the service history from the next owner after you!

The engine is great - do you know if the exhaust has been modified at all?

[Shed TVR]

pwd95 said:

Bin racking my brains about the little coolant pipe. Found this pic from the day I had the motor back.........

Interesting, I did mention it to John when I took the car to him and he said the pipe is blocked like that from the factory apparently

pwd95 said:

Just read this from the start. Quite a long list of jobs. Just goes to show how cars can deteriorate if not maintained well. You’re doing a grand job though, systematically working through each task and it’s good to read how you’re tackling each in turn. Keep up the good work.

Thanks, I think TVRs deteriorate a bit worse than most cars A lot of the problems have been caused by previous owners (not pwd95) working on the car without really knowing what they're doing also.

[Shed TVR]

pstruck said:

Indeed. As an ex-owner myself I know that even a younger car with less miles takes a good deal of ongoing ‘tinkering’ to keep them in fine fettle. I would like to own another one day, but funds are limited. Maybe doing it like you is a way of getting another one on the drive. I’m not afraid of some spannering and there is a lot of satisfaction to be had putting right all those niggles.

Go for it I say! Another reason (other than initial cost) for me buying a high mileage example is that I'm not worried about putting a lot of miles on it which I plan to do once it's where I want it to be mechanically.

Something like this would be worth a punt surely? cheap wedge

I did see a 4.2 cerbera for 12k a while ago if you were feeling really brave

[Shed TVR]

Well it's been a while, but I still have the TVR! I've fallen behind with updating the thread, but let me get it up to date.

The car is on SORN at the moment, but I will be looking to put it back on the road next week. Many things have broken and some of them have been fixed

So to carry on from my last post, I purchased a new dash board to replace what was fitted as it looked horrendous. I went for the original walnut as I thought it suited the car.



Uh-oh, what's that lurking in there?



Ah yes, my favourite previous owner has been in here before



Radio panel was cracked but not too bad, it got replaced anyway:



New vs old dash, the one that came out of the car had some sticky back fake wood from B&Q



Radio panel in:



And a slightly rubbish photo of the interior




It made it!




Then the car almost overheated in traffic due to the fans not kicking in. Luckily I spotted it before it boiled over! This was the beginning of the wiring issues on the car...



The corrosion to the wiring was bad enough that just pulling the connector caused the wires to snap off in my hand! I did manage to clean the cables up enough to get a good contact again but the plug and wires will probably need replacing at some point.

After this, I took the car camping to Cornwall:



It even coped with the dirt track to the campsite surprisingly well!




Then we skip forward a bit to the MOT and it wasn't good news. The tester discovered two hairline cracks in the chassis along the welds which was causing the "suspension" noise I was struggling to find earlier on! Obviously I was frustrated for not spotting this earlier, but in my defense with the road grime on the car it was hard to see.







In the end I decided to weld it up myself as I simply didn't have the funds for a new chassis at the time. Not the best solution but better than taking it off the road! The test center was happy enough with that, and I was rewarded with an MOT. The plan now is to limp the chassis along for another year or two while I save for a replacement.

Then the differential became very noisy. Time for a new one!





I went for a used BTR mechanical unit as these are supposedly better than the hydratrak.


Then, due to work circumstances, I ended up living in the US for around 7 months and the car went on to SORN. When I got back, I'd developed a worrying fondness of automatic barges and bought this:



I may or may not make a thread on it, but since there's hardly anything wrong with it I doubt I'd be able to add much content!

I eventually built up the energy to work on the TVR again which was in a bit of a sorry state on axle stands with no differential. The new diff went in, but now the car won't start. hmm. I had a look underneath and discovered the fuel pump wire had rusted in half:



More updates soon.

[Shed TVR]

So the fuel pump ground wire got repaired:



But the fuel pump still won't prime. Hmm. The power wire was a bit ropey, so that got some "refurbishment". I would have loved to just replace this but didn't have a crimp the correct size and wasn't able to source the weird black capacitor anywhere.







Fuel pump still won't prime. I also can't measure 12V at the pump wiring

There's still infinite resistance on the ground cable to the chassis. hmm. I traced the ground wire into the boot where it disappeared. I tried to open the boot and... nothing My battery was charged, so unfortunately the boot solenoid seems to have given up.

TVR in their infinite wisdom decided it would be a good idea to have no emergency boot release and no facility to open it with the key, so time to break into it. I won't post any photos of this, but suffice it to say it was very worryingly easy

I traced the ground wire all the way through the bloody car, only to find that someone had wired the power wire up to the ground, then disconnected the ground Not sure how my fuel pump ever worked, but anyway...

New ground wire run to the chassis:




The fuel pump primes now!

Time to take a look at the boot lock. I took it apart, unfortunately the motor had gone in the solenoid.





Fortunately it was a Ford part, so £12 later I had a new solenoid from a KA.





Put a proper plug and socket connector on it instead of the random crimps the last person had wired it with:





The boot lock worked again!



The exhaust also got sleeved finally:





More updates soon!

[Shed TVR]

Well it's been a while again! Trying to fit in working on the TVR between working offshore has been a little difficult.

I had the TVR booked in for an MOT, but was called away for work at the last minute I got back from a 3 week trip on an oil rig at 2am the night before, and the MOT was booked in for 9am...

Not even having time to check the tyre pressures or bulbs, the car started first time after being sat for over a month! I noticed the horn wasn't working, but managed to get it going again with a bit of scotch brite on the contacts

I dropped the car off at the test centre, and waited for the call to say it had failed... I got a call a few hours later "the car is ready for you to collect" - passed with one advisory for a rusty brake disc!

Amusingly, this has still been one of the most reliable cars I've owned...

I've decided to get a full chassis refurb done on the car, to fix my dodgy welding and probably get the outriggers done. I've got a bit attached to the old TVR, so I've decided to keep it for the foreseeable future.

For the moment though, a couple of minor fixes:

Sorting out the power mirrors, turned out to be a bad connection on this little plug. The wiring was corroded to bits inside the plug, so the only option was to solder directly to the PCB:





Power mirrors are working on both sides now! The only electrical thing on the car that doesn't work now is the oil pressure gauge.

A little top end inspection, everything looks fine:



Took the car up north:


I've got new CVs, new rear brakes, and an oil pressure sender in the post. Headlight covers are getting re-sprayed next week hopefully as well.

More updates when I have time

[Shed TVR]

Fermit and Sexy Sarah said:

Your car history is pretty similar to mine. My first car was a VTR, followed by a 172 Cup, and after that I had a (none turbo) Mk2 MR2 at some point!

As an aside, if you're around the Midlands, or can get them to Notts I could restore your leather seats.

I've noticed a lot of Saxo owners in particular end up in TVRs. I think it's something about liking lightweight, simple cars.

Would you mind giving me a PM with the rough cost of that? I'm considering my options with the seats. I want buckets really, but I feel it'd spoil the look of the interior.

[Shed TVR]

Fermit and Sexy Sarah said:

Oops...

Sorry - the recipient doesn't permit emails.

If you could either allow, or my company email is on the website in my profile. Cheers.

Should be working now, cheers.

mwstewart said:

That has been regularly serviced for sure.

It's had very regular oil changes, bear in mind the new engine has only done 10,000 miles though!

[Shed TVR]

Got a little bit done on the TVR today, old driveshafts out ready for the new CVs. Think I might be fancy and paint the hubs as well

[Shed TVR]

Bit more progress today, decided to paint my doritos and rear control arms. They looked bad, but actually turned out to be mostly surface rust. It gives me hope for the rest of the chassis anyway!

I just used some fairly random spray paints I had lying around Think it looks good now, wait until the rust comes back through

Also, thanks to my new hero, the person who put copper grease on every fastener on the rear suspension. Not a single seized bolt!



Lower control arm next to one that's been cleaned:




Also got the gearbox oil changed, old stuff had a good colour but the level seemed quite low. More to come soon.