You ain't nothin' but a hound dog...

Well, it appears I've bought a pup. Not necessarily a big deal given my plans, but annoying nonetheless. Had a chat to Dan Taylor at Dan Taylor TVR, and basically it goes like this:

Outriggers - worst he's ever seen. This is really annoying because I had a poke and a prod when I bought the car, and I didn't spot this. Subsequently I stuck a screwdriver through them, but didn't realise the total state of them at this point. Large bill for this to be sorted. I did kind of expect this (after my 2nd prodding session) as I'm not the lucky kind, but confirmation wasn't really welcome.

Radiator. This was unexpected. Car ran fine to temp, nothing untoward at all. However, it's apparently rusted to buggery and weeping. It's an expensive part, and fitting it is not cheap either. Balls.

Plug leads and extenders. On the TVR, a set of plug extenders is used to help shield the HT leads from heat from the exhaust manifolds. Apparently there are a couple missing, and these are no longer available to fit the original leads. Uprated leads are the answer, and then there are some extenders that fit with these. Not cheap though (of course).

Other than that, just a small oil leak from the sump gasket. Probably a good thing because it's kept the main chassis from going the same way as the outriggers!

It's annoying, but somewhat inevitable. The car was cheap when it was new, and cheaper now - during it's life it has bound to have not had the care it's needed because the owners would not have had the means to give it that. I'm most annoyed about the outriggers. It's a known problem, I knew about it, and still didn't spot that the one I was buying had the issue. Total muppetry.

On the plus side, the wishbones are solid (another weak point), generally the suspension is in good shape (shocks are a bit rusty and not nice, but they're original, so to be expected), and everything else 'wrong' with the car is cosmetic. Because of the bills incurred , the shiny bits I've bought are not on the car (because I didn't want to pay Dan Taylor's rates for fitting bits once I knew I needed to splash out on the above essentials), so now I'll have to put them on myself. Be the New Year now though....