Grotty?

Got a comment on this blog via the TVR forum (the one I was harsh about below) that the wheel shots on here (in my last post) had the (and I quote) 'Grotty old wheel nuts on there'. It's a fair cop, they do look gash. There are some perfectly good steel ones on ebay, look really nice, but I didn't go for those, oh no. I decided to make the most ridiculous purchase of a car accessory I think I have ever done:



yep, aluminium alloy wheel nuts. They weigh virtually nothing, and they look the bizzo. However, they are stupid expensive, and proves that I am nuts (excuse lame pun) beyond a shadow of a doubt. Now I'll have to be really careful about letting bodgers with air wrenches anywhere near them!

Had to mod my press that I posted about below. Doing a job (not car related), I bent my adaptor. I suppose this was expected really - the bender is designed to bend pipes of heavier gauge than the metal that I made the adaptor out of. Not very brainy. So added more steel:



squished the living daylights out of that Red Bull can!

Pressing matters

In the garage today for a couple of hours. Took this shot of the engine bay with spangly new radiator and leads:



Doesn't look too bad in there on the whole.

Took this picture of the new back wheel. Bit of a contrast to the OE Estoril wheel below (which is a front wheel to be totally fair):



The wheels are Compomotive MO6's. They are a lightweight racing wheel, which I've had shod in Toyo Proxes TR1S. Size on the rear is 17x9 with 255/17/40, and front is 16x8 with 225/16/45.

As per my last post, I have bought the Steve Heath polybush kit. Now you need a press to press the old metalastic bushes out, which I don't have. I do have a pipe bender though, which has a 12 ton ram in it. So I had some old box section lying about that got give to me as scrap to mess about with my welder on and I chopped it up and made something of an adaptor to turn my pipe bender into a press:



Those pins hold the bits of bodged up box section into the bender and just give a flat surface to press against. Just need to get time to get those wishbones off, refurbish them and rebush.

Jaguar

Used to have a Jaguar. I like Jaguars. This is the car we had before we were blessed with our beautiful daughter:



4 litre supercharged V8 - about 380bhp. Best trip we did was down to my parent's house in Burgundy. Late for the ferry on the way back we sat at over 130 for a long time - was like doing 50 in a 'normal' car. Lucky not to get nicked by the french old bill though...

It's back!

The car's back. Really pleased with the result (if not the bill!). Dan Taylor is top geezer as it turns out when I met him today. Really helpful, and very enthusiastic! He has a 5 litre Chimaera too, so he clearly has taste. It's an early one, mid/dark red colour. The same guy who he recommended for the paint on my car has painted his - looks really good, so that's cool too. Sprayer is in Marden - very close to where I live.

Dan was overall impressed with the condition of the car, especially the interior. Overall he thinks it's a good example, which is nice!

I saw the outriggers on the workshop floor. They were horrid. They were so rusty I couldn't pick one of them up with out it bending in half at the rusty bits. Ridiculous. From the underneath they looked rusty, but OK. But on top they were a disaster area:



The new ones look much nicer:



In this photo, you can probably see that I have some new shocks and springs! Gaz Gold Pro fully adjustable shocks, with uprated springs. Dan also polybushed the anti-roll bars and changed the drop links for Steve Heath ones. I've bought this kit and I'll get round to doing the whole suspension with the polybushes eventually. As Dan had to take various bits off to do the work he was doing, he fitted the uprated parts when putting everything back. The weird thing is that I haven't driven the car for so long that I now don't remember what it felt like to drive before the mods, and whether now it's so different! I need to take it on a track day I think.

Under the bonnet he's done some tidying up - clipping cables and pipes together to make the engine bay more tidy and these things more secure. He's also fitted the new alloy radiator, which does look really good, and magnecor leads too, which give a touch of clean colour to the engine. Overall, well pleased!

On the way back from picking up the car, the front numberplate fell off on one side. The screw holding it on must have vibrated out. All part of the fun I suppose.

One side done, one to go

Got a call from Dan Taylor. One side is done in terms of old outrigger cut off, new one on. Other one should be done this week! Totally excited about having the car back, totally dreading the bill!

Got quote for a respray - didn't seem bad, especially when considering the recommendation of the sprayer came from Dan Taylor who must have seen a few spray jobs.

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....

TVR Chimaera Forum on Pistonheads

Generally full of tossers. And the TVR Griffith vs Chimaera 'war of banter' is really tiresome. Don't understand how anyone gets any value at all out of it (the forum, that is - the banter thing is innately not valuable). Most of the questions are asked over and over again. Annoyingly I even found that one I had asked is a repeat! The search was busted at the time (that's my excuse anyway). I suppose that generally the world is full of prats, so it's inevitable that a load of them go out and buy TVRs. It's no different on the Land Rover forum I'm on, and I've heard reports of the same on the Porsche forums too (but that one was really inevitable!).