Steve Heath's nuts are too big.

This post is going to be long. I did think about splitting it into smaller posts, but then it's just the same length of stuff split up a bit - what's the point? Anyway, on with the saga.

Last time around, I had got the nearside rear wishbones on and had pretty well built up the suspension. I did the same to the other side, but with added frustration. In a previous post I wrote that one of the front lower wishbones had been deformed by the process of removing the bushes. On the offside rear upper wishbone, a similar thing had happened. The wishbone was now narrower than it had started out. I ended up making a 'tool' out of angle iron, bolting this too the wishbone and getting medieval with a vice. All this took lots of time, and it took about another half day to get the other side built up. While I was there, I realised that I had used the wrong bolts for the shocks on the near side, and ended up having to change those out too. Overall it's been a stinker. This has not been helped by the complete inaccessibility of some of the nuts and bolts in putting it all back together. I have used all new nuts and bolts, mostly supplied by Steve Heath, however, some I have had to supply myself as the space for the larger nuts that Steve supplies is too tight. All this fannying about costs mucho time (hasten to add - not Steve's fault - just TVR's design and the fact that they are all hand made, so each is somewhat different). Looks like this now:



Again, the all black colour scheme, coupled with me using my phone as a camera means that the photos don't come out that well, but you can see now that everything's connected up, braided brake lines fitted, handbrake cable on, drop links connected etc. Job done. On to the fronts.

As a reminder, this is where we left the front:



Just looks like a mass of black shutz, which it really is. First I got the wishbones in. This was much easier than the rears, but still not a task I'd want to do too often:



Then I built up the hub and put that in:



This was all very straigtforward at this point. Then I started on the brakes. Now you'll remember that way back in this blog, I mentioned that I'd bought stuff that was far more to do with the car's dynamics than the way it looked. Well, here you go. This is the brake kit that I have (I won't insult your intelligence by pointing out the new parts) next to the old front brakes:



That should slow me down a tad. Makes the old kit look a bit effeminate really! Here's the disc on the hub (just temporarily before I tackled the other side and the calipers):



I then had a complete moment of muppetry. There's an adaptor that comes with the brake kit that converts NPT thread in the caliper to the more normal M10 of brake lines. I didn't at all twig this and this was the result:



Duh. The NPT thread is sticking outwards. No wonder it didn't want to go into the caliper! Luckily I'm not that stupid that I just tried to wind it in - realised all was not well and stopped play. Today I rang Rally Design where I'd bought the kit and they pointed out what a knobber I was. Once we'd establised that, I was free to carry on building up the front end:



and the other side (for once):



Anti-roll bar is not on at this stage. That was a saga in itself. 4 bolts to get the bar fixed in. Took about 30 mins to wiggle and curse the bar into position ("HTF did it come out again?") and a further 1 hour for the bolts to do up. Plus say 25 mins to put the drop links back on. Talk about things taking much longer than you thought they would!

At this point, I touched up all the chips I'd made in the paintwork on the wishbones and then decided that the new shiny white outriggers looked really odd, and could also do with a bit more protection. One of the reasons why these car's outriggers rot is that crap finds its way on top of them and then they just rust down from above. I loaded up the Shutz gun again and let the outriggers have it, being careful to get the nozzle far up as high as possible and give the trigger a good squeeze. I think that a load of the black goop will have found its way up and down on top of the 'riggers slowing the process of decay down a great deal:



Incidentally, you can see the size of disc and calipers (width really) at the extreme bottom left corner. Now I just need to bleed the brakes and take it off to Dan Taylor for a geometry check.

I thought this post would be longer than it is really - goes to show that things are much easier said (written) than done - I am stiff as heck and my hands are stinging! The other thing to note is what it all looked like before. Looking at the floor in that post makes me realise how much crud is now on my garage floor. As soon as I get the car out, I will do something about that...

Anyway, quick chassis spec check:

TVR Chimaera 400.
Polybushed suspension
Tubular lower front wishbones
Gaz Gold Pro shocks/springs all round
Steve Heath ARB drop link kit
Poly ARB blocks
Braided brake hoses
Wilwood Dynalite 4 pot front calipers
Massive vented front discs (300mm dia x 32mm width)
Hawk Racing pads (fast road/track day compound)
Compomotive MO6 wheels F: 16x8, R 17x9
Toyo Proxes TR1S. F: 225/16/45, R 255/17/40