Dusty bin.

Car is now fully legal having stumped up the necessary 215 quid to Mr Osbourne. The brake light switch didn't arrive from Racing Green (I thought the wishbones took a long time to get to me, but I overlooked that as I guess they may not be a stock item), so I got on the Pistonheads forum and asked about the part number. Now I've been rude about this forum before, but this time someone seemed to know something worth knowing! Turns out I actually have one of these on my Discovery II. Anyway it's apparently an Intermotor 51590, fitted to all sorts of Rover-esque cars. Because it is so flimsy and crap I thought it's bound to break on other cars so I called up a local motor factors who had one in stock. Why didn't I think of this before? Anyway, it turns out that it's close, but not exactly the same. A bit of araldite and a very small locknut to lengthen the plunger and we were away.

This is what the original looks like:



The new part is narrower in the body, and shorter in the plunger, but it will do. We'll see what the one from RG looks like when it turns up...

I took the car for a spin to get 65 quids 'worth' of Shell V-Power. Great fun. The brakes are fierce but predictable. Few little lock ups here and there (kind of embarrassing as the tyres chirrup and squeal) but really good. Pushed the car through a few bends, feels solid and controlled. Really nice. Bloke pulled into the petrol station after me having followed me for about 4 miles. Made nice comments about the car. Chuffed. The only thing I'm not 100% happy with are the seats. They feel just too small and lacking in support. Suppose I'll have to get used to it really - there's not much else that fits...

Interestingly, the new brakes/pad combination has added up to a fair bit of dust. Here's the back wheel:



which is fairly clean. And the front:



Yuk. Looks like they've been painted anthracite or something. If this is a permanent fixture, that might be the way forward - it doesn't look a bad colour, just that the backs and fronts don't match and look like completely different wheels.

Need to book track days.

Dash it all.

Got the rest of the dash out yesterday and embarked on the rebuild of the new one. I removed and stripped down the old dash, and in doing so broke the small LED that lit Intertia Warning Light. This is attached to a small PCB with a resistor on it. I was very annoyed at this, mostly because these are unobtainable now. I know my car is not original, and I'm going to leave the preservation of original Chimaeras to others, but I did want to retain the warning lights. Because I broke that LED getting the dash out, I was very careful with the rest of them. However, I still couldn't get the MIL light out (this is to do with the fuel injection), but the rest, being on a large PCB attached by a bolt, came off easily. I ended up going to Car Builder Solutions for some LEDs to replace the ones that I'd broken/could not get out of the dash. I went for these ones. I ended up replacing the MIL light with one that says 'ECU' (which I think is more descriptive anyway) and I turned the handbrake one upside down so the it says 'i' for inertia (this is pretty well what TVR had done actually). They look fine to me, and because they're not in the main cluster of lights, it doesn't look odd and they're also hidden behind the steering wheel rim! I also changed the red LED alarm light for one of these because the rim of the original was black plastic and looked it, and I fancied a change from red. Overall it was a fairly straightforward affair, if not long winded. Doing this meant some time spent kind of upside down in the driver's footwell, reaching up and getting hands scraped by stuff you'd never usually see, so that was kind of a drag. An interesting (?) thing is that the nuts that hold the dash one (these are notorious in TVR dash changing circles) are sometimes changed by others doing this same job for wing nuts. I can't see that working out well. When I was doing mine up with a spanner, I could hear the dash top moving into position and tigtening against its neighbouring components. I would never have got sufficient leverage on a wing nut.

Anyway, time for a pic or two:



and a very similar one:



You can see that I also changed the pedals for Leven ones too. This was for a couple of reasons. The most important is that the Leven pedals are wider, which means that heel-and-toe is much easier, This is important as apparently downchanging without this matching of engine to gearbox revs can mean the rear wheels lock and there could be a resulting spin. This has happened to a couple of forum'ers. The other thing, clearly, is that they look nice and shiny, which is obviously the way forward. This activity also meant spending time upside down in the drivers footwell being an amateur contortionist. Anyway, here's a pic:



And here's one with the seat and carpet back in:



Aw feck. It looked better before:



Only joking. I think it's much improved. Even if you don't agree, at least the dash has no cracks in it, and it now houses a head unit that plays CDs and also music both from a USB key, or MP3 player.

Now the car looks so inviting, I really want to drive it, but there is a small fly in the ointment. While on one of my upsidedown in the drivers footwell forays, I broke the brake light switch. This is a 50p part, that predictably is sold for a fiver, and given I got on the computer at 4pm-ish, won't be here until Thursday at the earliest. I can't really drive with no brake lights, so I am now stymied. Pants.

One final thought is how much I actually like the colour. When it was in the garage covered in dust and general shit and corruption, I didn't really appreciate what a handsome colour it is and I did think about getting quotes to change it to perhaps Rolex Blue (which is close to purple actually), or Imperial Blue (which is much more bright). Now it's clean, I'm staying as is. Lots got sold in Starmist Blue (my colour) and there's a good reason for that - it's a cracking colour!

Mucky pup.

I know I was just going to clean the car, but something has been bugging me about the previous pics but I couldn't lay my finger on it. Then I read this thread on Pistonheads and thought it would be a good idea to apint the wheelarches and other underside bits with this stuff. The whole car is made of plastic, so I'm not saving it from rust, but it will look smart and cover the more ropey bits of fibreglass finish that TVR left in hard-to-see areas. I cleaned the car with a jetwash paying attention to the wheelarches and underside areas front and back, and the floorpan. I ended up doing this twice both times once with the foam on, then pressure wash off, and then again. Then I got busy with the mucky stuff. It has the consistency of butter at room temperature and there's no point in using a brush that you'd want to use again, but it went on OK. I did the wheelarches, floorpans and areas front and rear under the car. I didn't really get good pics, but here are a a couple anyway:



at the rear and:



at the front.

Of course with the jetwash and a leave overnight, the discs went rusty, so now the weelarches look smart and the brakes look like I nicked them off a pikey encampment.

Hard to get a decent pic of the underside with a phone, so here's a crap one:



I did then clean the car. That sentence is very short considering the process was:

1) Jetwash with foam and then rinse with pressure.
2) Dry off with manmade chammy
3) Wash car with two bucket method and sponges
4) Dry car with manmade chammy
5) Wash car with two bucket method and mit
6) Dry car with manmade chammy
7) Clay car with normal compound clay
8) Rinse car with pressure wash
9) Dry car with manmade chammy
10) Clay car with soft clay
11) Rinse car with pressure wash
12) Dry car with manmade chammy
13) Machine polish car with DA buffer and Sonus deep swirl remover polish
14) Manually buff car
15) Machine polish car with DA buffer and Sonus extra fine polish
16) Manually buff car
17) Wax car with Autobalm
18) Manually buff car
19) Finish with high gloss sealer
20) Manually buff car
21) Degrease weels
22) Wash and rinse wheels
23) Wax Wheels

The car is about as clean as it will get. It badly needs a respray, so I'm not claiming it's a thing of beauty, but at least it's clean after its winter hibernation:





At this point in the photos, I hadn't put all the wheels back on because I was still bleeding the brakes. I bled the brakes a further 3 times in all. I did find that there were bubbles still coming out from the nearside rear nipple even after the 2nd time. Amazing. I still think the pedal pumps up though, so I am wondering about a possible master cylinder problem. While I'm still thinking about that, I took the dashboard out:



I have a new stainless steel one to go in from Leven. This job is another one which is a pain in the arse. Getting the dashtop off is a subject that a couple of guys have had a go at, so I won't go on, apart from to mention that it's easier with the driver's side vent completely out. While taking these bits apart, it's clear what crap build quality this car has in places - I found a short piece of 1x1 wood with a load of 'no-nails' stuff stuck to it. Think it was supporting the dash in some way - can't work it out. I have got the radio panel out today also. I have a new Sony head unit to put in. It was half price at Halfords, and it's a Sony, so I'm not expecting much, but who cares about the stereo when there's a V8 up front anyway?