Kelvinators TVR Tasmin
Discussion
Well, it happened again. Somehow awesome old British cars that need loving find me, and of course who am I to turn them down?
This car has a bit of a weird story, but I guess it adds to the history of it all. It all started when I had the M328i listed on Trademe, back in March, and in amongst all the useless time-wasters asking me dumb questions, I got asked if I wanted to swap the black leather vaders for white leather seats from another M3. Of course this was a no, white leather is one of the worst wearing colours in the E36.
The fellow wasn't done there though, he wanted my seats. The next question he asked on my listing immediately had my ears perk up, and suddenly I was intrigued.
Yes, that's right, a TVR.
After a bit of googling I worked out an 80s TVR would be a Wedge. Not the most loved TVR, but I like them, and any TVR is a good TVR in my books. It's 80s, it's British, how bad can it be?
Of course I was interested, and let him know. Later that night I get a call and discuss the car. Its been off the road for a few years getting some work done at the "local" TVR specialist, in Auckland. Ok, no problem, except the owner is down in Christchurch (about 1000km and a large body of water away from each other, and I'm somewhere in the middle of that). It turns out that he wanted my car, because he was buying a convertible E36 M3, and wanted to swap my black leather into it. He also had thoughts of "Trevors last drive" by flying up to Auckland, picking up the TVR, driving it down to me, swapping to the M3 and for him to continue on his way down south. As I found out later, this would've been a big ask for the TVR.
We discuss the ins and outs, and I'm recommended to contact the specialist and discuss the car.
I give the specialist a call and discuss the car. Apparently it's all sorted, and basically ready to "fly through" a WOF and to hit the road. Its had various work done, including most of the hard work like suspension. He noted it does have an issue starting, which is possibly down to a failed fuel accumulator, but does run and could be driven onto a truck. His description of the car was that its a good solid, tidy car, but may need some carpets as they are a bit worn. I was very interested, but needed photos to see what condition it was in. Ok he said, he will try and sort some for me.
To cut a long story short, I tried for months to get photos of the car, with every reason under the sun for not getting them from the specialist. On the other side of it, the seller of the TVR decided not to buy that M3, and couldn't find one he wanted, so no longer had a need or want for my car. I let him know I was still interested in outright purchasing the car but would need photos. Both him and myself followed up with the specialist, to no avail.
Just before I went on holiday at the end of June, the BMW sold, but I still had no proof of life that the TVR even existed, so just left it hanging whilst I chilled out in the UK (more on that in a later post).
When I returned, I already had a list of cars on Trademe I wanted to look at. I had basically given up on the TVR at this point, as during the month I was away, still no photos had been sent.
I looked at a couple of cars, including an Evo 4 (which I came very close to buying, but the second viewing showed too many issues, and the unmistakable smell of weed inside) and a C55 AMG (nice car, if a bit dull). I wasn't quite set on them, but noticed that the TVR specialists website had been updated, with new photos, and what happened to be dead center in the photos, but a silver Wedge!
Well, there was my proof of life I guess; the car did exist!
I contacted the owner and confirmed the car was still for sale, and then did the stupid thing; making an offer for the car as it sits, without so much as a real photo. Offer was accepted, and a call was made to the specialist to make sure no money was owing, that the car could come with the spare parts, and that it would drive onto the truck.... oh wait, what's that, it suddenly doesn't run but you will "try to get it going"...
I pushed forward anyway, sending my hard-earned money to the seller, and booking my preferred transport, letting him know that the car doesn't run but the specialist will "try" to get it running.
After a long week of waiting, this showed up this morning.
Yes, that's the proper good fella Brent from Classic Towing dropping off yet another project to me. Can't recommend him enough, as even when things go a bit pear shaped, he has it all under control, and he loves weird cars almost as much as I do.
My first question to him was "did it run?" to which he replied with a no, and tightened the winch ready for laying the bed flat. Such a cool truck, it lowers the bed right off onto the ground. This is half way down
Brent pushed the car whilst I jumped in and steered it carefully into the garage. This was harder than you would think, being that it was raining on the outside, and inside of the windscreen, and the wiper didn't work (well, it's not even fitted). We made it safely into the garage though. The brakes work, which is something.
So, what is this weird little thing?
A 1980 TVR Tasmin 280i
It's more or less a Ford Capri in a fibreglass body with tube-frame chassis and some weird and bespoke parts.
Powered by a 2.8l V6 Ford Cologne engine topped with Bosch K-Jetronic mechanical fuel injection, backed by the latest (for the 70s) in Ford 4 speed manual gearbox technology, and driven via the rear wheels through a Jaguar XJS diff with spiffy inboard disc brakes. The pinnacle of technology, and a real parts bin special.
On the plus side it does get some pretty advanced gear for something that is the same age as my green Mini. Independent rear suspension, four wheel disc brakes, fuel injection, electric windows, bonded windscreen and a targa top convertible.
It does have a lot of known quirks though, such as a multitude of wiring issues, a wiring loom that consists of only black wires (seriously), diabolical K-Jet fuel injection, and a dual fuel tank system that is no end of troubles.
Anyway, this car is the 106th Tasmin off the line, and appears to be the 4th DHC (Drop Head Convertible) made (1st was a concept made from a chopped up FHC). Before the DHC was in production, the FHC (Fixed Head Coupe) was the TVR to have. The FHC was soon phased out though and only the DHC survived until the end of production, albeit with some big changes.
Being a very early car, my one has some specific early only "features". The first, and most obvious, is that its a TVR Tasmin, not a TVR 280i. TVR dropped the Tasmin name later on and left the names to just be the displacement of the engine (280i - 2.8 V6, 350i - 3.5 V8 etc).
A couple of other early features are the weird little mirrors hanging off the doors. Later cars changed to pods in front of the side windows, like a normal car. One of my favourite really early features though, has to be the gorgeous Stewart Warner gauges
The later cars got boring, but arguably more readable (and probably reliable), VDO gauges. There is just something about the way the SW gauges are clocked, and the vertical odometer.
So, now that the car has been delivered, how is it? Did i win the blind buying game, or get screwed?
It's not as tidy as described, and it doesn't currently run. The battery was completely dead (to the point my ctek charger won't even detect it), but with a replacement battery the electrics are slowly coming to life again. Unfortunately, it leaks like a sieve and is full of water. I tried to dry as much as I could out, but the dehumidifer will have to do the rest. The roof seals will be the major contributor to this, as they are well buggered. The water ingress is what has ruined the carpet, it's literally rotting away. The boot, once I got it open, wasn't much better, with the lid being full of water and covered in condensation on the inside.
The seats are in good condition, with no obvious rips or tears, as is the rest of the general interior. The wood grain has some cracks, but overall for a car I suspect spent a lot of time sitting outside, its in good shape. Apparently blue velour and vinyl stand the test of time.
Bodywork is very good, with only some stone chips on the front. The rest of the paint appears to be good and will come up well with a polish. The top is also in good condition, with only some damage to the fabric on the removable section, and the rear window is very cloudy. Hopefully, I can polish that out, but it may need replacement.
I don't know how the car is mechanically as it does not run. The previous owner advised (only after I had paid for it) that there is a strong fuel smell from the tanks when sitting, but it drove well otherwise. The fuel in the tanks smells like varnish, but cannot be smelt without opening one of the two fuel caps. I will need to drain this out and throw some new fuel in before trying to start. The starting issues could be a few things, but I will get to that in due course.
One cool thing about TVRs is the convertible roof with a removable targa section. You can either have the roof up, down, or the rear section up but without the targa section, which fits into the boot (roof isn't locked in this photo, so looks a bit baggy)
So that's the TVR. The plan is to get get it running, get a WOF on it and then take it to the British Car Day show in Feb. In between that, just take it out for some top-down Summer cruising. Oh, and keep fixing it. Can't forget that.
This car has a bit of a weird story, but I guess it adds to the history of it all. It all started when I had the M328i listed on Trademe, back in March, and in amongst all the useless time-wasters asking me dumb questions, I got asked if I wanted to swap the black leather vaders for white leather seats from another M3. Of course this was a no, white leather is one of the worst wearing colours in the E36.
The fellow wasn't done there though, he wanted my seats. The next question he asked on my listing immediately had my ears perk up, and suddenly I was intrigued.
Yes, that's right, a TVR.
After a bit of googling I worked out an 80s TVR would be a Wedge. Not the most loved TVR, but I like them, and any TVR is a good TVR in my books. It's 80s, it's British, how bad can it be?
Of course I was interested, and let him know. Later that night I get a call and discuss the car. Its been off the road for a few years getting some work done at the "local" TVR specialist, in Auckland. Ok, no problem, except the owner is down in Christchurch (about 1000km and a large body of water away from each other, and I'm somewhere in the middle of that). It turns out that he wanted my car, because he was buying a convertible E36 M3, and wanted to swap my black leather into it. He also had thoughts of "Trevors last drive" by flying up to Auckland, picking up the TVR, driving it down to me, swapping to the M3 and for him to continue on his way down south. As I found out later, this would've been a big ask for the TVR.
We discuss the ins and outs, and I'm recommended to contact the specialist and discuss the car.
I give the specialist a call and discuss the car. Apparently it's all sorted, and basically ready to "fly through" a WOF and to hit the road. Its had various work done, including most of the hard work like suspension. He noted it does have an issue starting, which is possibly down to a failed fuel accumulator, but does run and could be driven onto a truck. His description of the car was that its a good solid, tidy car, but may need some carpets as they are a bit worn. I was very interested, but needed photos to see what condition it was in. Ok he said, he will try and sort some for me.
To cut a long story short, I tried for months to get photos of the car, with every reason under the sun for not getting them from the specialist. On the other side of it, the seller of the TVR decided not to buy that M3, and couldn't find one he wanted, so no longer had a need or want for my car. I let him know I was still interested in outright purchasing the car but would need photos. Both him and myself followed up with the specialist, to no avail.
Just before I went on holiday at the end of June, the BMW sold, but I still had no proof of life that the TVR even existed, so just left it hanging whilst I chilled out in the UK (more on that in a later post).
When I returned, I already had a list of cars on Trademe I wanted to look at. I had basically given up on the TVR at this point, as during the month I was away, still no photos had been sent.
I looked at a couple of cars, including an Evo 4 (which I came very close to buying, but the second viewing showed too many issues, and the unmistakable smell of weed inside) and a C55 AMG (nice car, if a bit dull). I wasn't quite set on them, but noticed that the TVR specialists website had been updated, with new photos, and what happened to be dead center in the photos, but a silver Wedge!
Well, there was my proof of life I guess; the car did exist!
I contacted the owner and confirmed the car was still for sale, and then did the stupid thing; making an offer for the car as it sits, without so much as a real photo. Offer was accepted, and a call was made to the specialist to make sure no money was owing, that the car could come with the spare parts, and that it would drive onto the truck.... oh wait, what's that, it suddenly doesn't run but you will "try to get it going"...
I pushed forward anyway, sending my hard-earned money to the seller, and booking my preferred transport, letting him know that the car doesn't run but the specialist will "try" to get it running.
After a long week of waiting, this showed up this morning.
Yes, that's the proper good fella Brent from Classic Towing dropping off yet another project to me. Can't recommend him enough, as even when things go a bit pear shaped, he has it all under control, and he loves weird cars almost as much as I do.
My first question to him was "did it run?" to which he replied with a no, and tightened the winch ready for laying the bed flat. Such a cool truck, it lowers the bed right off onto the ground. This is half way down
Brent pushed the car whilst I jumped in and steered it carefully into the garage. This was harder than you would think, being that it was raining on the outside, and inside of the windscreen, and the wiper didn't work (well, it's not even fitted). We made it safely into the garage though. The brakes work, which is something.
So, what is this weird little thing?
A 1980 TVR Tasmin 280i
It's more or less a Ford Capri in a fibreglass body with tube-frame chassis and some weird and bespoke parts.
Powered by a 2.8l V6 Ford Cologne engine topped with Bosch K-Jetronic mechanical fuel injection, backed by the latest (for the 70s) in Ford 4 speed manual gearbox technology, and driven via the rear wheels through a Jaguar XJS diff with spiffy inboard disc brakes. The pinnacle of technology, and a real parts bin special.
On the plus side it does get some pretty advanced gear for something that is the same age as my green Mini. Independent rear suspension, four wheel disc brakes, fuel injection, electric windows, bonded windscreen and a targa top convertible.
It does have a lot of known quirks though, such as a multitude of wiring issues, a wiring loom that consists of only black wires (seriously), diabolical K-Jet fuel injection, and a dual fuel tank system that is no end of troubles.
Anyway, this car is the 106th Tasmin off the line, and appears to be the 4th DHC (Drop Head Convertible) made (1st was a concept made from a chopped up FHC). Before the DHC was in production, the FHC (Fixed Head Coupe) was the TVR to have. The FHC was soon phased out though and only the DHC survived until the end of production, albeit with some big changes.
Being a very early car, my one has some specific early only "features". The first, and most obvious, is that its a TVR Tasmin, not a TVR 280i. TVR dropped the Tasmin name later on and left the names to just be the displacement of the engine (280i - 2.8 V6, 350i - 3.5 V8 etc).
A couple of other early features are the weird little mirrors hanging off the doors. Later cars changed to pods in front of the side windows, like a normal car. One of my favourite really early features though, has to be the gorgeous Stewart Warner gauges
The later cars got boring, but arguably more readable (and probably reliable), VDO gauges. There is just something about the way the SW gauges are clocked, and the vertical odometer.
So, now that the car has been delivered, how is it? Did i win the blind buying game, or get screwed?
It's not as tidy as described, and it doesn't currently run. The battery was completely dead (to the point my ctek charger won't even detect it), but with a replacement battery the electrics are slowly coming to life again. Unfortunately, it leaks like a sieve and is full of water. I tried to dry as much as I could out, but the dehumidifer will have to do the rest. The roof seals will be the major contributor to this, as they are well buggered. The water ingress is what has ruined the carpet, it's literally rotting away. The boot, once I got it open, wasn't much better, with the lid being full of water and covered in condensation on the inside.
The seats are in good condition, with no obvious rips or tears, as is the rest of the general interior. The wood grain has some cracks, but overall for a car I suspect spent a lot of time sitting outside, its in good shape. Apparently blue velour and vinyl stand the test of time.
Bodywork is very good, with only some stone chips on the front. The rest of the paint appears to be good and will come up well with a polish. The top is also in good condition, with only some damage to the fabric on the removable section, and the rear window is very cloudy. Hopefully, I can polish that out, but it may need replacement.
I don't know how the car is mechanically as it does not run. The previous owner advised (only after I had paid for it) that there is a strong fuel smell from the tanks when sitting, but it drove well otherwise. The fuel in the tanks smells like varnish, but cannot be smelt without opening one of the two fuel caps. I will need to drain this out and throw some new fuel in before trying to start. The starting issues could be a few things, but I will get to that in due course.
One cool thing about TVRs is the convertible roof with a removable targa section. You can either have the roof up, down, or the rear section up but without the targa section, which fits into the boot (roof isn't locked in this photo, so looks a bit baggy)
So that's the TVR. The plan is to get get it running, get a WOF on it and then take it to the British Car Day show in Feb. In between that, just take it out for some top-down Summer cruising. Oh, and keep fixing it. Can't forget that.
So I guess this is where we start then.
The first port of call today after having the car delivered was to work out why we had no power. I popped the bonnet, and yes there was a battery. Ok, let's remove the battery and see if I can throw some charge into it.
Ctek says NO. With the charger connected to the battery, nothing. No lights on the charger, and if anything, the charger started acting weird. Guess that's no bueno then. Hope my charger is OK.
A quick trip to Supercheap sorted out a battery for me. There is very little space for a battery, so a bit of digging in the Century Batteries catalogue yielded the biggest battery that would fit the same footprint, an NS60LSMF
Connecting this up showed that we finally had power. The dash warning lights come on with the key, the driver's electric window is working, albeit slowly, and the central locking works. Strangely the headlights did not respond to the switch, but some wiggling of the wires behind the switch sorted that out (yeah, I'll need to look into that).
The next obvious step was to see what was up with the fuel tanks. Now that I had power I could see the fuel gauge was reading empty. I decided to take a risk and try dumping some of BPs finest 98 and injector cleaner into the tanks and see what happens. I split the fuel and cleaner between the two tanks as evenly as I could.
Since I had been told it was possible the accumulator had failed, there is a trick to work around this and still have the car start and run normally. The accumulator works to hold fuel pressure in the lines when the engine is off, but when it fails the lines no longer have pressure, and the fuel pump only runs when the engine is turning, so it takes ages to build that pressure back up.
The trick to work around this is to have the pump run when the key is turned to ON so it primes the lines. The simplest way on early cars like mine is to disconnect one connector from the side of the fuel distribution unit. This causes the pump to run when the key is on. Easy. Its the blue connector in the top photo, and the green plug goes onto it (strangely... why arent they matched colours?)
I connected the battery and turned the key. Sure enough, I heard the familiar whine of a pump turning, and then the woosh of fuel heading down the lines into the fuel distributor.
Now it was the moment of truth. I turned the key, and the engine turned smoothly over. It spluttered a couple of times, but wouldn't start. What a tease.
Eventually, this happened.
http://youtu.be/Sg8Qz8bN3Xk
It was rough, but running, and even idling. I ran it for a while, and everything looked good. No obvious signs of leaks, but blimey does it make a noise!
The longer I ran it, the smoother it was getting
http://youtu.be/Rvn72D3ShaI
I checked and it seems to have gears, and a clutch, so that's a big win.
It still hesitates a bit, but that's to be expected for an engine that has been sitting around. I'll take the plugs out and give them a clean (or replace), and check the cap and rotor condition. If everything looks OK, it may even be time for a quick run around the block.
One must wonder though; if I can get it running with little effort, why couldn't the "specialist" have it running for the truck? Oh well, best not to dwell on it I guess.
The first port of call today after having the car delivered was to work out why we had no power. I popped the bonnet, and yes there was a battery. Ok, let's remove the battery and see if I can throw some charge into it.
Ctek says NO. With the charger connected to the battery, nothing. No lights on the charger, and if anything, the charger started acting weird. Guess that's no bueno then. Hope my charger is OK.
A quick trip to Supercheap sorted out a battery for me. There is very little space for a battery, so a bit of digging in the Century Batteries catalogue yielded the biggest battery that would fit the same footprint, an NS60LSMF
Connecting this up showed that we finally had power. The dash warning lights come on with the key, the driver's electric window is working, albeit slowly, and the central locking works. Strangely the headlights did not respond to the switch, but some wiggling of the wires behind the switch sorted that out (yeah, I'll need to look into that).
The next obvious step was to see what was up with the fuel tanks. Now that I had power I could see the fuel gauge was reading empty. I decided to take a risk and try dumping some of BPs finest 98 and injector cleaner into the tanks and see what happens. I split the fuel and cleaner between the two tanks as evenly as I could.
Since I had been told it was possible the accumulator had failed, there is a trick to work around this and still have the car start and run normally. The accumulator works to hold fuel pressure in the lines when the engine is off, but when it fails the lines no longer have pressure, and the fuel pump only runs when the engine is turning, so it takes ages to build that pressure back up.
The trick to work around this is to have the pump run when the key is turned to ON so it primes the lines. The simplest way on early cars like mine is to disconnect one connector from the side of the fuel distribution unit. This causes the pump to run when the key is on. Easy. Its the blue connector in the top photo, and the green plug goes onto it (strangely... why arent they matched colours?)
I connected the battery and turned the key. Sure enough, I heard the familiar whine of a pump turning, and then the woosh of fuel heading down the lines into the fuel distributor.
Now it was the moment of truth. I turned the key, and the engine turned smoothly over. It spluttered a couple of times, but wouldn't start. What a tease.
Eventually, this happened.
http://youtu.be/Sg8Qz8bN3Xk
It was rough, but running, and even idling. I ran it for a while, and everything looked good. No obvious signs of leaks, but blimey does it make a noise!
The longer I ran it, the smoother it was getting
http://youtu.be/Rvn72D3ShaI
I checked and it seems to have gears, and a clutch, so that's a big win.
It still hesitates a bit, but that's to be expected for an engine that has been sitting around. I'll take the plugs out and give them a clean (or replace), and check the cap and rotor condition. If everything looks OK, it may even be time for a quick run around the block.
One must wonder though; if I can get it running with little effort, why couldn't the "specialist" have it running for the truck? Oh well, best not to dwell on it I guess.
Not one to let a nasty cold get in the way of progress, I did some more work on the TVR today.
The first course of action for the day was to see how the car starts. After a couple of splutters and a bit of cranking (much less than yesterday), it fired into life. Not perfect, but better.
I couldn't help myself and had to take it for a quick run down the road and back. This uncovered a couple of things. One, the steering wheel is WAY off centre (which I didn't know whilst trying to back up my driveway), and the brakes pulsate a lot. Hopefully, an alignment will sort the steering issue, and some hard braking might clear the brakes as I suspect they are covered in rust/dirt.
On the plus side, it did go down the road in one piece. I didn't get out of first gear (very short road), but the clutch seems to work well. Its too wet outside to go further, with no wiper, and a very un-weatherproof roof.
When I returned from my maiden voyage I wanted to have a look at the plugs. I only removed one, but that was enough for me.
They don't look that old, but very black. Not wet which is good. According to my records, they are the wrong heat range and should be BPR5ES
I'll grab some new plugs and swap them out. Hopefully, that sorts some of the niggles when starting and running.
Not to be deterred, I pushed on with some other little jobs. First was to upgrade the radio to work with my phone, and crank some Spotify. It was a quick and easy upgrade.
Aww yeah, A cassette adaptor I had kicking around for years (see, hoarding works!). Actually works surprisingly well and doesn't sound terrible. All speakers work, and the flash EQ works a treat
This can stay for a bit. Does what I need it to do, although I need to work out how to get the antenna up so I can get FM stations too. It's not like I really need music though, the engine is music enough.
With that success, I moved onto the next thing on my list. The dodgy headlight switch. Two things bothered me about it. First, the wiring was dodgy enough to need wiggling to work, and second, the switch was upside down. The icon was on the bottom, and the switch was up for off and down for on.
The switch pulls out the front once the connector is removed, but there is also a white plastic sleeve that pushes off. The sleeve is to illuminate the icon via fibre optic cable, but mine isn't currently working.
The reason for the wiring being a bit dodgy was that the connector has obviously suffered some high resistance and the plug housing is damaged, allowing the terminal to float freely
I pushed it firmly into the connector on refitting, but I may need to close the terminal a bit to make it a tighter fit. I also need to look into using some relays to re-wire the headlights directly and take the load off the switch.
The switch its self had some minor corrosion on the terminals, but nothing a quick scrape with the screwdriver couldn't sort
And refitted the correct way around. Down for off, up for pop-ups UP.
The next thing that bugged me was the interior light switch... which seemed to be missing everything but the surround. The interior lights didn't work.
I removed the surround and found the guts of the exploded switch had been pushed down into the center console. I carefully fished the switch block and connector out. The rest of the springs etc are stuck down there and can stay there until the console has to be removed
You can see a good example of the black wiring in this car. Each wire is black, but does have a coloured collar at each end to identify it. Its not actually that bad to work with, but coloured wires are still preferred.
Using the handy diagram I checked which terminals did what on the switch
Obviously the two bottom ones are a joint +12, and the two other terminals are either "door open" or "on" settings (grounds to turn light on). I tried bridging them with wire and got nothing from the lights. I popped one of the lights out to check the bulb (there was one, it's removed in photo)
The bulb looked good, so out comes the multimeter. No power at the light when the switch terminals are bridged. No power at the switch +12 terminals. Hmmm.
Ok, what's upstream of the switch? The fuse. I had checked the fuses visually yesterday and they all look good, but something was obviously up. Interestingly I note that fuse 6, which powers the interior lights, also powers the hazard lights, which also are not working.
Interesting.
This is the fuse and relay box. Lovely.
Fuse 6 is the red one about halfway down. It wasn't blown, and the multimeter said I had power on each side of the fuse. The power comes into the fuse on the RH side of the photo and out on the LH side, through the fuse. I disconnected the wiring, removed the fuse, and cleaned everything up. There was some corrosion in the terminal, and everything is very dirty.
The result was this
Hazard lights! A handy thing to have on a British car.
Which also means, I now have power to the interior light switch.
I popped an LED bulb into the holder, and bridged the terminal
Ooooooh, light.
Only one was working, so I jumped onto the passengers' side, popped the light out, and found that the wire hanging under the dash was from that light.
I popped another LED bulb in that one, reconnected it and BAM, let there be light!
Because the switch was buggered, and there was no point in finding another. It only operates these two "knee" lights, so when am I ever going to need to set them to "on", and they are LED so no point in turning them "off" when they turn off when the doors are shut anyway.
I decided to bridge the terminals and leave it. I made up a jumper, using a pair of specially modified (squished in a vice until they fit) bullet terminals and some wire.
To make it pretty, durable, and safe, I wrapped the lot in tape and then stuffed it into the center console
TVR-Parts still sell the switch blanks, so I'll grab one of those and replace the interior light hole with one of those
Unfortunately it wasn't all quite straight forward. The door switches weren't quite playing ball. The passengers side wasn't hitting the pad on the door correctly so wouldn't trigger the lights to turn off when shut, and it turns out the drivers side one had been unplugged. I swapped that over, so the passengers side is unplugged, and the drivers is now plugged in and working correctly.
So, I now have sweet interior lights, and working hazard lights. Isn't it inviting?
Love the warm white LEDs. Much better than the usual cold white, or incandescent bulbs. Also puts a lot less strain on the wiring and battery.
Its small things, but in the world of British cars, it's a big victory to have things working.
The first course of action for the day was to see how the car starts. After a couple of splutters and a bit of cranking (much less than yesterday), it fired into life. Not perfect, but better.
I couldn't help myself and had to take it for a quick run down the road and back. This uncovered a couple of things. One, the steering wheel is WAY off centre (which I didn't know whilst trying to back up my driveway), and the brakes pulsate a lot. Hopefully, an alignment will sort the steering issue, and some hard braking might clear the brakes as I suspect they are covered in rust/dirt.
On the plus side, it did go down the road in one piece. I didn't get out of first gear (very short road), but the clutch seems to work well. Its too wet outside to go further, with no wiper, and a very un-weatherproof roof.
When I returned from my maiden voyage I wanted to have a look at the plugs. I only removed one, but that was enough for me.
They don't look that old, but very black. Not wet which is good. According to my records, they are the wrong heat range and should be BPR5ES
I'll grab some new plugs and swap them out. Hopefully, that sorts some of the niggles when starting and running.
Not to be deterred, I pushed on with some other little jobs. First was to upgrade the radio to work with my phone, and crank some Spotify. It was a quick and easy upgrade.
Aww yeah, A cassette adaptor I had kicking around for years (see, hoarding works!). Actually works surprisingly well and doesn't sound terrible. All speakers work, and the flash EQ works a treat
This can stay for a bit. Does what I need it to do, although I need to work out how to get the antenna up so I can get FM stations too. It's not like I really need music though, the engine is music enough.
With that success, I moved onto the next thing on my list. The dodgy headlight switch. Two things bothered me about it. First, the wiring was dodgy enough to need wiggling to work, and second, the switch was upside down. The icon was on the bottom, and the switch was up for off and down for on.
The switch pulls out the front once the connector is removed, but there is also a white plastic sleeve that pushes off. The sleeve is to illuminate the icon via fibre optic cable, but mine isn't currently working.
The reason for the wiring being a bit dodgy was that the connector has obviously suffered some high resistance and the plug housing is damaged, allowing the terminal to float freely
I pushed it firmly into the connector on refitting, but I may need to close the terminal a bit to make it a tighter fit. I also need to look into using some relays to re-wire the headlights directly and take the load off the switch.
The switch its self had some minor corrosion on the terminals, but nothing a quick scrape with the screwdriver couldn't sort
And refitted the correct way around. Down for off, up for pop-ups UP.
The next thing that bugged me was the interior light switch... which seemed to be missing everything but the surround. The interior lights didn't work.
I removed the surround and found the guts of the exploded switch had been pushed down into the center console. I carefully fished the switch block and connector out. The rest of the springs etc are stuck down there and can stay there until the console has to be removed
You can see a good example of the black wiring in this car. Each wire is black, but does have a coloured collar at each end to identify it. Its not actually that bad to work with, but coloured wires are still preferred.
Using the handy diagram I checked which terminals did what on the switch
Obviously the two bottom ones are a joint +12, and the two other terminals are either "door open" or "on" settings (grounds to turn light on). I tried bridging them with wire and got nothing from the lights. I popped one of the lights out to check the bulb (there was one, it's removed in photo)
The bulb looked good, so out comes the multimeter. No power at the light when the switch terminals are bridged. No power at the switch +12 terminals. Hmmm.
Ok, what's upstream of the switch? The fuse. I had checked the fuses visually yesterday and they all look good, but something was obviously up. Interestingly I note that fuse 6, which powers the interior lights, also powers the hazard lights, which also are not working.
Interesting.
This is the fuse and relay box. Lovely.
Fuse 6 is the red one about halfway down. It wasn't blown, and the multimeter said I had power on each side of the fuse. The power comes into the fuse on the RH side of the photo and out on the LH side, through the fuse. I disconnected the wiring, removed the fuse, and cleaned everything up. There was some corrosion in the terminal, and everything is very dirty.
The result was this
Hazard lights! A handy thing to have on a British car.
Which also means, I now have power to the interior light switch.
I popped an LED bulb into the holder, and bridged the terminal
Ooooooh, light.
Only one was working, so I jumped onto the passengers' side, popped the light out, and found that the wire hanging under the dash was from that light.
I popped another LED bulb in that one, reconnected it and BAM, let there be light!
Because the switch was buggered, and there was no point in finding another. It only operates these two "knee" lights, so when am I ever going to need to set them to "on", and they are LED so no point in turning them "off" when they turn off when the doors are shut anyway.
I decided to bridge the terminals and leave it. I made up a jumper, using a pair of specially modified (squished in a vice until they fit) bullet terminals and some wire.
To make it pretty, durable, and safe, I wrapped the lot in tape and then stuffed it into the center console
TVR-Parts still sell the switch blanks, so I'll grab one of those and replace the interior light hole with one of those
Unfortunately it wasn't all quite straight forward. The door switches weren't quite playing ball. The passengers side wasn't hitting the pad on the door correctly so wouldn't trigger the lights to turn off when shut, and it turns out the drivers side one had been unplugged. I swapped that over, so the passengers side is unplugged, and the drivers is now plugged in and working correctly.
So, I now have sweet interior lights, and working hazard lights. Isn't it inviting?
Love the warm white LEDs. Much better than the usual cold white, or incandescent bulbs. Also puts a lot less strain on the wiring and battery.
Its small things, but in the world of British cars, it's a big victory to have things working.
Not much has happened due to me having the flu, but the weather was too good not to take the TVR for a quick blat around the block
Anyone who has had Man-Flu knows how hard it is to survive a normal day, let alone a day playing with old British cars, so my freight train of progress is halted at the station for a bit, as the garage is just too cold for me to be working in (its the middle of winter, and its been horrible weather recently).
Due to said horrible weather, the tiny little "first drive" mentioned in the previous post did only consist of popping down to the end of the street and back, a return trip of about 100m.
Today was the first day we saw some sun, and because I heard getting some fresh air and sun is good for you when you're sick, I took this as a sign that the TVR should go for a quick run around the block.
I didn't go far, only a total distance of 1km according to Google Maps, but further than the car has been driven in probably 3 years.
https://youtu.be/gm38a3Cm-34
The car was already warm in this video as technically I had already taken it around the block twice before I thought I should grab a video. It started easily from dead cold, and as you can see warm starting is pretty good for an 80s K-Jet too.
I had the targa panel off but the rear section up to reduce wind noise, and even then, what a sound that Cologne makes! It surrounds you. What a silly little car to drive, but such fun.
It's not all happy days. The steering wheel is way on the piss (as you can see), the brakes pulsate badly, and it seems to misfire under load at about 4500rpm. There is still work to do, but its good to know that the car is actually driveable.
The new spark plugs arrived today, so I'll probably throw them in this weekend, and I'll check over the rest of the ignition system at the same time. It could also do with some more fuel as I must be burning dinosaurs at a rapid rate of knots, and there wasn't a lot in there to start with.
Anyone who has had Man-Flu knows how hard it is to survive a normal day, let alone a day playing with old British cars, so my freight train of progress is halted at the station for a bit, as the garage is just too cold for me to be working in (its the middle of winter, and its been horrible weather recently).
Due to said horrible weather, the tiny little "first drive" mentioned in the previous post did only consist of popping down to the end of the street and back, a return trip of about 100m.
Today was the first day we saw some sun, and because I heard getting some fresh air and sun is good for you when you're sick, I took this as a sign that the TVR should go for a quick run around the block.
I didn't go far, only a total distance of 1km according to Google Maps, but further than the car has been driven in probably 3 years.
https://youtu.be/gm38a3Cm-34
The car was already warm in this video as technically I had already taken it around the block twice before I thought I should grab a video. It started easily from dead cold, and as you can see warm starting is pretty good for an 80s K-Jet too.
I had the targa panel off but the rear section up to reduce wind noise, and even then, what a sound that Cologne makes! It surrounds you. What a silly little car to drive, but such fun.
It's not all happy days. The steering wheel is way on the piss (as you can see), the brakes pulsate badly, and it seems to misfire under load at about 4500rpm. There is still work to do, but its good to know that the car is actually driveable.
The new spark plugs arrived today, so I'll probably throw them in this weekend, and I'll check over the rest of the ignition system at the same time. It could also do with some more fuel as I must be burning dinosaurs at a rapid rate of knots, and there wasn't a lot in there to start with.
More progress was made on the old TVR today. Just small, but important things, again.
I had a weird thought last night as I was falling asleep. What if the alignment is OK, but the wheel isn't on straight?!
I previouslymentioned that the steering wheel is way on the piss, and I thought it was the alignment, but hey, with everything else wrong with this car, could it just be the steering wheel wasn't positioned correctly at some point after being removed?
This is a reasonably easy thing to check. First I marked the center top point of the steering wheel, with the wheels straight.
Yeah, that doesn't look right! Next, I turned from center to either lock and counted the turns. Both sides had the same amount of turns to each lock from center, so that indicates that the steering rack is centered. Hmm.
Also note in the above photo that the steering wheel bolt pattern lines up perfectly. I decided to take the wheel off and see if refitting it correctly would help, so I grabbed a hex key and started to remove the FINGER TIGHT screws from the wheel. Yes, finger tight.
The leather wheel is a genuine Momo from '86. Not original to the car then, but still period correct. It's in very good condition really.
Plot twist. I changed to the Momo Futura from Effie. I love this wheel, its so nice in the hand, and looks great. This is a much newer wheel, at '96, but still works.
It looks sublime
Moving right along, before I spend way too much time admiring my wheel, I changed the spark plugs. I whipped one out earlier to check and it was both black as anything, and the wrong heat range.
Just a quick note on heat ranges. The number in the spark plug model is the heat range. The ones in the car were a BP6ES and I replaced them with BPR5ES (the R is for Resistor, to reduce electrical interference). Going to a lower number means the plug is "hotter". A hotter plug transfers heat from the plug into the head slower, meaning the plug runs hotter. A hotter plug is better for lower performance engines that rev lower and don't have forced induction. The higher heat in the plug helps to clear carbon and keep the plugs from fouling. There is a science to it all, but that's the basic premise.
Love the ease of access. The old plugs came out with no issues.
Very black
The other bank wasn't much better, and plugs 4 and 6 were wet with fuel
I had to remove the intake tubing and air filter to get to the plugs, so went the next step and also checked and cleaned the metering plate (silver bowl looking thing)
The intake piping has been split before, but sealed up and had no other obvious splits, so that's good. The metering plate was nice and clean, but the throttle body was oily.
I gapped all the new plugs down to the correct 0.6mm and fitted
I haven't run the car yet, so it will be interesting to see if the new plugs make a difference to how it starts and runs. I have my fingers crossed.
The next thing I attacked was the windscreen wiper. The original wiper arm was removed from the car before I got it, and I suspect someone had intentions to convert the arm from a pin fitting to J-hook (who knows how), as they had butchered the fitting on the end so it couldn't be used. I had to find a replacement.
I knew I had a couple of arms from an SD1 in my piles of spares, so dug one out and had a look. The length was bang on, but it had a pretty solid kink in it, unlike the original one which is dead straight (come to think of it, the tailgate wiper is straight, I wonder if I have a spare still. I suspect its way too long though).
Hmm, not ideal. Sure, it wipes and works, but its pretty well in the middle of the driver's vision when parked.
Apparently, the original arm is a rear wiper arm from some ancient version of the Ford Festiva or similar. I could probably order one online, but I wanted a more local and readily available solution.
I went to Pick-A-Part with one goal in mind; Come home with a new wiper arm.
And look what I found
A rear wiper arm from a MK3 (00-07) Ford Mondeo liftback. It's not perfect; if it sits as low as the above photo the wiper will hit the bonnet. This is due to the arm being slightly bigger at the spindle, and if it sits lower, it doesn't clear the cutout in the bonnet when its shut. I found this the hard way by taking some paint off the bonnet >_<
Raising the arm up on the screen slightly means it clears the bonnet, but puts it at the bottom of the driver's vision
Even at that height though, it's barely intrusive in the driver's vision. I'll see if I can live with it, otherwise, I'll have to visit Pick-A-Part again. Its an option though, which is more than I had.
The last thing I had a go at today was the rear window. It's cloudy as heck and almost impossible to see through.
I had seen on YouTube that you can sometimes polish the plastic clear using elbow grease and some Plast-X. I tried elbow grease a while back and got nowhere.
Today I tried a couple of different methods. First, as a proof of concept, I used a small buffing pad on my drill to polish a small section with Plast-X. It's hard to see, but there is a slight difference. The arrow points to the line where the "before" is on the right and "after" on the left
So the concept works. Now to scale it up. I was meant to sell my spare buffer ages ago, as it just wasn't as powerful as my bigger one for dealing with paint, but as it turns out, it was perfect for this work.
I started on the driver's side, with Plast-X on the pad and this was the result
Still pretty cloudy, but now you can see through it. You can just make out the steering wheel, but if I move over slightly, no sign of the steering wheel
I worked it some more, but moved up to using Ultimate Compound. It's more abrasive than Plast-X, but seemed to take a bit more oxidation off. Polishing both sides made a big difference, clearly it was oxidised on both sides of the plastic
Unfortunately as far as i can tell, the yellow sections cant be removed. It's pitted into the plastic, and nothing seems to touch it.
I'll just be happy if it's clear enough to see a car behind me, as previously it wasn't. It was like having a white sheet instead of a window.
And just because I can, here is a photo of one of the few times the bonnet has been down since the car rolled into the garage
I had a weird thought last night as I was falling asleep. What if the alignment is OK, but the wheel isn't on straight?!
I previouslymentioned that the steering wheel is way on the piss, and I thought it was the alignment, but hey, with everything else wrong with this car, could it just be the steering wheel wasn't positioned correctly at some point after being removed?
This is a reasonably easy thing to check. First I marked the center top point of the steering wheel, with the wheels straight.
Yeah, that doesn't look right! Next, I turned from center to either lock and counted the turns. Both sides had the same amount of turns to each lock from center, so that indicates that the steering rack is centered. Hmm.
Also note in the above photo that the steering wheel bolt pattern lines up perfectly. I decided to take the wheel off and see if refitting it correctly would help, so I grabbed a hex key and started to remove the FINGER TIGHT screws from the wheel. Yes, finger tight.
The leather wheel is a genuine Momo from '86. Not original to the car then, but still period correct. It's in very good condition really.
Plot twist. I changed to the Momo Futura from Effie. I love this wheel, its so nice in the hand, and looks great. This is a much newer wheel, at '96, but still works.
It looks sublime
Moving right along, before I spend way too much time admiring my wheel, I changed the spark plugs. I whipped one out earlier to check and it was both black as anything, and the wrong heat range.
Just a quick note on heat ranges. The number in the spark plug model is the heat range. The ones in the car were a BP6ES and I replaced them with BPR5ES (the R is for Resistor, to reduce electrical interference). Going to a lower number means the plug is "hotter". A hotter plug transfers heat from the plug into the head slower, meaning the plug runs hotter. A hotter plug is better for lower performance engines that rev lower and don't have forced induction. The higher heat in the plug helps to clear carbon and keep the plugs from fouling. There is a science to it all, but that's the basic premise.
Love the ease of access. The old plugs came out with no issues.
Very black
The other bank wasn't much better, and plugs 4 and 6 were wet with fuel
I had to remove the intake tubing and air filter to get to the plugs, so went the next step and also checked and cleaned the metering plate (silver bowl looking thing)
The intake piping has been split before, but sealed up and had no other obvious splits, so that's good. The metering plate was nice and clean, but the throttle body was oily.
I gapped all the new plugs down to the correct 0.6mm and fitted
I haven't run the car yet, so it will be interesting to see if the new plugs make a difference to how it starts and runs. I have my fingers crossed.
The next thing I attacked was the windscreen wiper. The original wiper arm was removed from the car before I got it, and I suspect someone had intentions to convert the arm from a pin fitting to J-hook (who knows how), as they had butchered the fitting on the end so it couldn't be used. I had to find a replacement.
I knew I had a couple of arms from an SD1 in my piles of spares, so dug one out and had a look. The length was bang on, but it had a pretty solid kink in it, unlike the original one which is dead straight (come to think of it, the tailgate wiper is straight, I wonder if I have a spare still. I suspect its way too long though).
Hmm, not ideal. Sure, it wipes and works, but its pretty well in the middle of the driver's vision when parked.
Apparently, the original arm is a rear wiper arm from some ancient version of the Ford Festiva or similar. I could probably order one online, but I wanted a more local and readily available solution.
I went to Pick-A-Part with one goal in mind; Come home with a new wiper arm.
And look what I found
A rear wiper arm from a MK3 (00-07) Ford Mondeo liftback. It's not perfect; if it sits as low as the above photo the wiper will hit the bonnet. This is due to the arm being slightly bigger at the spindle, and if it sits lower, it doesn't clear the cutout in the bonnet when its shut. I found this the hard way by taking some paint off the bonnet >_<
Raising the arm up on the screen slightly means it clears the bonnet, but puts it at the bottom of the driver's vision
Even at that height though, it's barely intrusive in the driver's vision. I'll see if I can live with it, otherwise, I'll have to visit Pick-A-Part again. Its an option though, which is more than I had.
The last thing I had a go at today was the rear window. It's cloudy as heck and almost impossible to see through.
I had seen on YouTube that you can sometimes polish the plastic clear using elbow grease and some Plast-X. I tried elbow grease a while back and got nowhere.
Today I tried a couple of different methods. First, as a proof of concept, I used a small buffing pad on my drill to polish a small section with Plast-X. It's hard to see, but there is a slight difference. The arrow points to the line where the "before" is on the right and "after" on the left
So the concept works. Now to scale it up. I was meant to sell my spare buffer ages ago, as it just wasn't as powerful as my bigger one for dealing with paint, but as it turns out, it was perfect for this work.
I started on the driver's side, with Plast-X on the pad and this was the result
Still pretty cloudy, but now you can see through it. You can just make out the steering wheel, but if I move over slightly, no sign of the steering wheel
I worked it some more, but moved up to using Ultimate Compound. It's more abrasive than Plast-X, but seemed to take a bit more oxidation off. Polishing both sides made a big difference, clearly it was oxidised on both sides of the plastic
Unfortunately as far as i can tell, the yellow sections cant be removed. It's pitted into the plastic, and nothing seems to touch it.
I'll just be happy if it's clear enough to see a car behind me, as previously it wasn't. It was like having a white sheet instead of a window.
And just because I can, here is a photo of one of the few times the bonnet has been down since the car rolled into the garage
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 :PAs 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.
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.
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).Since I'm still waiting on the pressure testing kit to arrive, I got impatient and did some more testing.
I wanted to remove the injectors and see if any of them were leaking and what the spray pattern is.
The intake plenum needs to come off. before this can be removed though, the coolant block on the front needs to be unbolted. Unbolting this saves disconnecting the coolant hoses.
All the other hoses got removed, and the 7th injector was removed from the plenum. The plenum is held down with eight long bolts that go into the inlet manifold. Just a note, these bolts aren't sealed off from the inside of the plenum, so will need sealant on them upon reassembly.
With everything disconnected and unbolted, the plenum just lifts off
Removing the injectors is fairly simple. The clamp on the pipes (which goes above, below and between the pipes), as visible in the lower Lh corner of the above photo, has to be removed to allow enough slack in the pipes, but otherwise its a case of removing the single bolt per injector, and then pulling it free from the manifold. They are meant to be sealed in, but mine came out suspiciously easily.
The rubber collar is weird. I presume/hope there is a normal O-Ring under it, as that is what all the parts manuals say it should have, and there seems to be no part for that rubber collar. I'll have to carefully remove and reuse the collar.
All the injectors look pretty rough, but I guess thats what 39 years of sitting in the intake looks like. The ends all look clean enough, with no obvious buildup. I did note that cylinder 6 was very wet upon removal, and a couple of others were damp. The engine has been off and cold for about a week, with no pressure in the lines.
Testing them isnt rocket surgery, just pop them all into jars, fire up the pump and see if they produce any fuel (which they all did to some degree), which indicates either the fuel plunger is letting excess fuel through, or the injectors are leaking. Further investigations show its probably a 50:50 on leaking or adjustment causing it.
With the pump running, lift the sensor plate in the AFM to its stop and observe the flow and pattern from the injectors. All mine seem to flow roughly the same, but the flow pattern out of all of them appeared to be rubbish, with minimal misting and heading off in all directions. That's good, it confirms that buying a whole set of replacement injectors was the right decision!
One other thing that has been bugging me, was the sensor plate in the AFM. This is meant to be a finely calibrated instrument, but I think someone has mucked with mine before.
You can see in the above photo that it looks like the sensor plate (the disk in the middle of the cone) is sitting high with a gap under it. Well, it is.
From the below diagram, you can see the sensor plate sits at the bottom of a cone. As air comes in from the filter at the bottom, it comes in under the plate and a combination of that air coming in, and engine vacuum in the intake, lifts the plate to allow air into the intake. Lifting the plate also lifts the fuel plunger, increasing fuel flow.
The plate should be set to a specific height, which is more or less with the highest point of the plate flush with the lip at the bottom of the cone (before where it tapers outwards again, under the plate).
Mine was clearly sitting a lot higher than that. Not to mention the other issue...
The plate was off-centre. I even thought the plate was too big to fit through the opening, but it was just because it was off-centre.
I carefully backed off the center bolt, and centered the plate (this should be done with feeler gauges, but I did it by eye this time)
Now it fits through the opening
It was still sitting too high though
There is a spring under the plate that sets the height. The manual says to adjust it with pliers, but I'm damned if I can bend the thing.
I'll keep at it and see if I can tweak it.
The other thing I noticed is that you can hear and feel the plunger moving when you manipulate the sensor plate. I'm not sure how normal it is, but my plunger seems very slow to return to the zero position. It doesn't seem to bind and it moves smoothly, it's just slow to return. I'll be removing and cleaning this in the future anyway.
So that's where I'm at. I'm waiting for a set of new injectors to arrive, and I need to remove the fuel distributor and WUR to clean them out. I'm planning on setting everything up from zero since I have no idea what's been done to this by previous bodgers.
I wanted to remove the injectors and see if any of them were leaking and what the spray pattern is.
The intake plenum needs to come off. before this can be removed though, the coolant block on the front needs to be unbolted. Unbolting this saves disconnecting the coolant hoses.
All the other hoses got removed, and the 7th injector was removed from the plenum. The plenum is held down with eight long bolts that go into the inlet manifold. Just a note, these bolts aren't sealed off from the inside of the plenum, so will need sealant on them upon reassembly.
With everything disconnected and unbolted, the plenum just lifts off
Removing the injectors is fairly simple. The clamp on the pipes (which goes above, below and between the pipes), as visible in the lower Lh corner of the above photo, has to be removed to allow enough slack in the pipes, but otherwise its a case of removing the single bolt per injector, and then pulling it free from the manifold. They are meant to be sealed in, but mine came out suspiciously easily.
The rubber collar is weird. I presume/hope there is a normal O-Ring under it, as that is what all the parts manuals say it should have, and there seems to be no part for that rubber collar. I'll have to carefully remove and reuse the collar.
All the injectors look pretty rough, but I guess thats what 39 years of sitting in the intake looks like. The ends all look clean enough, with no obvious buildup. I did note that cylinder 6 was very wet upon removal, and a couple of others were damp. The engine has been off and cold for about a week, with no pressure in the lines.
Testing them isnt rocket surgery, just pop them all into jars, fire up the pump and see if they produce any fuel (which they all did to some degree), which indicates either the fuel plunger is letting excess fuel through, or the injectors are leaking. Further investigations show its probably a 50:50 on leaking or adjustment causing it.
With the pump running, lift the sensor plate in the AFM to its stop and observe the flow and pattern from the injectors. All mine seem to flow roughly the same, but the flow pattern out of all of them appeared to be rubbish, with minimal misting and heading off in all directions. That's good, it confirms that buying a whole set of replacement injectors was the right decision!
One other thing that has been bugging me, was the sensor plate in the AFM. This is meant to be a finely calibrated instrument, but I think someone has mucked with mine before.
You can see in the above photo that it looks like the sensor plate (the disk in the middle of the cone) is sitting high with a gap under it. Well, it is.
From the below diagram, you can see the sensor plate sits at the bottom of a cone. As air comes in from the filter at the bottom, it comes in under the plate and a combination of that air coming in, and engine vacuum in the intake, lifts the plate to allow air into the intake. Lifting the plate also lifts the fuel plunger, increasing fuel flow.
The plate should be set to a specific height, which is more or less with the highest point of the plate flush with the lip at the bottom of the cone (before where it tapers outwards again, under the plate).
Mine was clearly sitting a lot higher than that. Not to mention the other issue...
The plate was off-centre. I even thought the plate was too big to fit through the opening, but it was just because it was off-centre.
I carefully backed off the center bolt, and centered the plate (this should be done with feeler gauges, but I did it by eye this time)
Now it fits through the opening
It was still sitting too high though
There is a spring under the plate that sets the height. The manual says to adjust it with pliers, but I'm damned if I can bend the thing.
I'll keep at it and see if I can tweak it.
The other thing I noticed is that you can hear and feel the plunger moving when you manipulate the sensor plate. I'm not sure how normal it is, but my plunger seems very slow to return to the zero position. It doesn't seem to bind and it moves smoothly, it's just slow to return. I'll be removing and cleaning this in the future anyway.
So that's where I'm at. I'm waiting for a set of new injectors to arrive, and I need to remove the fuel distributor and WUR to clean them out. I'm planning on setting everything up from zero since I have no idea what's been done to this by previous bodgers.
Mikeeb said:
The rubber top hat buses should be soft. They are the seal to stop air leaks. Always replace them.
I would, if I could find a part number or source for them! Been through two parts guides for the Cologne and haven't spotted them, and parts interpretation is what I do for a living. Either I'm blind, or they aren't in the guides.They're still soft, and in good shape, so can be reused, this time.
Mikeeb said:
The rubber top hat buses should be soft. They are the seal to stop air leaks. Always replace them.
Further to this, some more investigation has revealed why the parts guide only shows standard O-Rings and not a rubber bush... Its not a rubber bush at all, but a plastic sleeve sitting on the normal injector O-Ring. Mine are just very compressed, so it looks like its part of the plastic sleeve.New O-Rings were already en route, so that's a win.
Its been a while since the last post; almost exactly a month. Although it's been quiet on here, work has been slowly progressing on the TVR.
Unfortunately I've been suffering serious issues with motivation recently, and getting down into the garage to work on the car just wasn't happening often. It hasn't helped that for every little scrap of success I've been having with the car, I would get a big wad of failure dumped on me. It seems like a constant battle at times.
When I could get into the garage and plug away at the TVR I did. I have done a lot of testing, cleaning and investigation into the K-Jetronic system trying to chase down the running issue it has. This will be the subject of a post in the near future, but I'm learning a lot about the system and how it works. Hopefully that knowledge will lead to me getting it working correctly, and helping others along the way.
In the meantime, I did have a couple of small successes. One was the gas struts for the bonnet and boot. The old ones were well poked, and held nothing, so other means of support were employed. The bonnet and boot may be fibreglass, but they sure ain't light; I didn't want to take one of them to the noggin.
Not flash, but they worked. The boot had the wood plank, and the bonnet had an aluminium tube.
I did some ringing around and research into the option of having the existing struts regassed, as finding a set of struts in the correct length and with the low pressure they require (100NM) locally didn't seem possible, but the cost of regassing the struts, if even possible, wasnt much less than a new set of struts from SGS Engineering in the UK.
The old ones appear to be the original Stabilus Lift-O-Mat struts, as the date mark on them is 04/80. They did pretty well to get this far!
Upon removing them, three had some pressure, although minimal, and one of the bonnet ones was completely dead. Removal was easy. The old ones had plastic locking pins that needed to be removed and then the ends could be popped off the ball with a long screwdriver. All of the ball joints had to be removed to replace with the new shiny ones, which is easily done with the appropriate spanners.
The replacements are lovely and shiny, I'm glad I went for the new option as the old ones just never would've cleaned up as well. They are Nitrolift branded, and gassed to the correct 100NM. It appears SGS custom build these for each order.
The ends are particularly nice
They fit and work perfectly. Much better.
For the money spent, its a great upgrade from the saggy old struts.
Moving on, the second win I had was finally working out what the ashtrays are in the early Tasmin.
My old ones were badly rusted and falling to bits. They weren't useable and looked terrible. I suspect this was from rainwater coming in the window due to the failed/damaged seals. The front was literally being pushed off by rust, on the driver's side.
There had been a lot of information/discussion on the internet about the ashtrays being from a Jaguar XJ6. I can dispel this myth now, they are not. You could probably make them fit, but they aren't the original ashtrays.
I purchased a pair of ashtrays from an XJ6, and when compared to the TVR ones the difference is subtle, but there. Jag on the left, TVR on the Right. The Jaguar ones are rounded on the sides, and slightly taller. The mounting tabs for the ashtray into the housing are completely different too.
Speaking of the housing, that also differs from the TVR one. TVR Left, Jag Right. Jag is slightly smaller in all directions except depth. Its slightly deeper and has a sloped back on it, whilst the TVR one is flat on the back. The mounting hole also doesn't line up.
So, with that bitter disappointment, and waste of money, I kept digging. I eventually found that the 2 Door Range Rover Classic used the same ashtray as the TVR, but finding one of those was proving impossible. It wasn't until a member on the TVR Wedges Facebook page pointed it out, that it was suddenly obvious where the ashtrays came from. I almost felt embarrassed I didn't notice it... they're from a Series 1 Rover SD1!
There it goes, sitting there, in the door. Finding one of these was a lot easier, albeit blue is a rare colour so I have ended up with a pair of tan, like the above photo.
It turns out that TVR modified the Rover part slightly, by removing the foam tape off the back of the housing, and bashing the mounting hole with a hammer to flatten it off (sits proud normally, and the ashtray won't sit flush in the door).
They aren't perfect, due to the tan, but I'm keeping an eye out for a blue pair, but will give dying these a go at some point. Better than rusty old ones falling out of the door!
So once again, I've been left with some small victories, which are better than nothing, but the KJet system continues to fight me. More on that later though, as thats been a big, ugly, process.
Unfortunately I've been suffering serious issues with motivation recently, and getting down into the garage to work on the car just wasn't happening often. It hasn't helped that for every little scrap of success I've been having with the car, I would get a big wad of failure dumped on me. It seems like a constant battle at times.
When I could get into the garage and plug away at the TVR I did. I have done a lot of testing, cleaning and investigation into the K-Jetronic system trying to chase down the running issue it has. This will be the subject of a post in the near future, but I'm learning a lot about the system and how it works. Hopefully that knowledge will lead to me getting it working correctly, and helping others along the way.
In the meantime, I did have a couple of small successes. One was the gas struts for the bonnet and boot. The old ones were well poked, and held nothing, so other means of support were employed. The bonnet and boot may be fibreglass, but they sure ain't light; I didn't want to take one of them to the noggin.
Not flash, but they worked. The boot had the wood plank, and the bonnet had an aluminium tube.
I did some ringing around and research into the option of having the existing struts regassed, as finding a set of struts in the correct length and with the low pressure they require (100NM) locally didn't seem possible, but the cost of regassing the struts, if even possible, wasnt much less than a new set of struts from SGS Engineering in the UK.
The old ones appear to be the original Stabilus Lift-O-Mat struts, as the date mark on them is 04/80. They did pretty well to get this far!
Upon removing them, three had some pressure, although minimal, and one of the bonnet ones was completely dead. Removal was easy. The old ones had plastic locking pins that needed to be removed and then the ends could be popped off the ball with a long screwdriver. All of the ball joints had to be removed to replace with the new shiny ones, which is easily done with the appropriate spanners.
The replacements are lovely and shiny, I'm glad I went for the new option as the old ones just never would've cleaned up as well. They are Nitrolift branded, and gassed to the correct 100NM. It appears SGS custom build these for each order.
The ends are particularly nice
They fit and work perfectly. Much better.
For the money spent, its a great upgrade from the saggy old struts.
Moving on, the second win I had was finally working out what the ashtrays are in the early Tasmin.
My old ones were badly rusted and falling to bits. They weren't useable and looked terrible. I suspect this was from rainwater coming in the window due to the failed/damaged seals. The front was literally being pushed off by rust, on the driver's side.
There had been a lot of information/discussion on the internet about the ashtrays being from a Jaguar XJ6. I can dispel this myth now, they are not. You could probably make them fit, but they aren't the original ashtrays.
I purchased a pair of ashtrays from an XJ6, and when compared to the TVR ones the difference is subtle, but there. Jag on the left, TVR on the Right. The Jaguar ones are rounded on the sides, and slightly taller. The mounting tabs for the ashtray into the housing are completely different too.
Speaking of the housing, that also differs from the TVR one. TVR Left, Jag Right. Jag is slightly smaller in all directions except depth. Its slightly deeper and has a sloped back on it, whilst the TVR one is flat on the back. The mounting hole also doesn't line up.
So, with that bitter disappointment, and waste of money, I kept digging. I eventually found that the 2 Door Range Rover Classic used the same ashtray as the TVR, but finding one of those was proving impossible. It wasn't until a member on the TVR Wedges Facebook page pointed it out, that it was suddenly obvious where the ashtrays came from. I almost felt embarrassed I didn't notice it... they're from a Series 1 Rover SD1!
There it goes, sitting there, in the door. Finding one of these was a lot easier, albeit blue is a rare colour so I have ended up with a pair of tan, like the above photo.
It turns out that TVR modified the Rover part slightly, by removing the foam tape off the back of the housing, and bashing the mounting hole with a hammer to flatten it off (sits proud normally, and the ashtray won't sit flush in the door).
They aren't perfect, due to the tan, but I'm keeping an eye out for a blue pair, but will give dying these a go at some point. Better than rusty old ones falling out of the door!
So once again, I've been left with some small victories, which are better than nothing, but the KJet system continues to fight me. More on that later though, as thats been a big, ugly, process.
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