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?

Lucky for once.

Drove down to Rally Design today which is the nearest place to me (I think) that stocks performance brake fluid. Picked up 1.3 litres of Wilwood 570 so that I could have another go at bleeding the brakes. On the way back, I dropped into Dan Taylor of Taylor TVR to book the car in for a geometry check. This is necessary because I've changed pretty well every component of the suspension that would affect the geometry. So in I go and talk to Colin, who said they were taking bookings for June! I was staggered! I asked if there was anywhere else I could go to get it done, and he went off and got Dan. Dan asked how I was fixed for Saturday, and then for this afternoon. I said fine, OK, I just need to bleed the brakes and then I'd be back. I then asked him to write in his diary that this was work needed for the MOT so that I could legally drive without an MOT, and he said that coincidentally the MOT place he uses had no bookings that dayy because they'd can'd them all because of some new machine that would be fitted that day. As it happened, they'd had it fitted earlier in the week, and therefore they had a free day. So it was looking like I could get the geometry and the MOT done in one hit.

I shot off home and got the car back up in the air, and bled the brakes (again). They felt much better so then I drove off back to Taylor TVR. About two bends into the journey I had to get out of the car because it was trying to kill me. I realised on looking that the front end had the most toe out I'd ever seen on any car not involved in an RTA. Drove much more carefully to Taylor TVR, When I arrived there, we had the car on the lift, and then it was realised that I'd left the locking wheel nut key at home. Arse. Fortunately the MOT bloke had a tool that circumvents this, otherwise that would have severely tested my sense of humour. Midway sorting out the geometry the MOT guy turns up and takes the car away. Rings a little while later and gets Dan up to his unit. Turns out that the door button on the passenger side is not working and that fails the MOT. Car turns up at Dan's unit, Dan hops out, fixes it in about 10 mins, and back it goes. Shortly it reappears, and Dan finishes off the geometry. As part of the adjustment, periodically the car has to be let down off the ramp and driven back and forth a bit to settle the suspension. Even though the wheels lock up a bit on the smooth floor of the workshop, Dan says the brakes are still a bit spongy.

I pay up and bugger off. My drive home is good, apart from it's now 5.30pm, and there's lots of traffic about. So I have to move slowly (bad) and lots of people see how utterly filthy the car is (bad). Did a little bit of sticking my foot in it, which was great. The car was transformed from when I took it to Dan's (which it should be). It's been that long since I drove it that I don't know how much better it is now than before! Annoying, but overall it does feel very tight and stiff. The brakes seem pretty fierce in spite of what Dan said, however, I still have enough fluid, so I'll do one more bleeding session tomorrow. I guess that this is something I didn't really know before. You can bleed the brakes, drive it a bit, bleed again, and so on, and for a couple of goes, the brakes will get better.

Going to clean the car tomorrow, and then I'll take some more pics!

Bleeding heck...

Got some other pics of the front brakes - weather was lovely today - too lovely to be stuck in the garage but I had work to do! Opened the garage doors at least which allowed some daylight in to get some better photos. Still using the phone, so the lens is still too small and crap to get decent shots, but better than before:





And from below (note the wheel is on!):



As you can see, it's still not as pretty as some out there, but there's paint on everything, and those brakes are nice and big!

I bled the brakes today using an Ezi Bleed. These gadgets are excellent value - I have an 80 quid job that attaches to my air compressor and this does at least as good a job. Having said that, I got through 1 litre of my favourite brake fluid, ATE Super Blue (also comes in gold, so you can alternate when you flush fluid and know when you've got rid of the old), and having got the car back down on its wheels for the first time in ages, I drove it out of the garage and realised that I'm going to need to bleed them again. Bugger. Pedal needs pumping up, no hardness there at all. Still, I'm at the stage where the MOT can be booked and I can look forward to driving it again!

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

Partial redemption....

Had another go at the car over the weekend. I was determined to lose the 'Afrika Corps' camo effect on the chassis, but also wanted (1) not to have to start again, and (2) add even more protection to these high impact areas. I bought a couple of cans of Tetrosyl Shutz (which is really what my shutz gun is designed for), got them nice and warm and let the chassis have it! The result is OK by me. The finish is hard-ish. Not glass hard like the POR-15 paint, but not waxy soft like the waxoyl:



I then had a go at putting the rear suspension back on on the near side. Fought me every inch of the way. Took 4 hours to get the job done, and even then I have not connected the ARB drop links or put the brake caliper back on. That rebushing job is a nightmare:



This picture is about halfway through. I have not got the driveshaft in at this point, but when I did, I put the wrong side in. That's the sort of luck I have, so no change there. I remember reading an advert where it said that the driveshafts are not 'handed'. Of course they are. On one side (the near side), the retaining nut is a left hand thread so that it minimises the chance of it undoing itself. However, needless to say, I didn't think it through, and therefore had to spend an unbudgeted half an hour swapping the driveshaft out. This is where we ended up:



It's in no way as pretty as some efforts I've seen, where the person has done some sort of colour scheme (perhaps the wishbones are grey and the hubs etc. are red), and the fact that it's all black doesn't make for good pics (and it doesn't help that I didn't clean off the grease that I inevitably got on it messing about trying to get the bushes to play ball). However, the chassis has had a huge amount of protection applied, and likewise the wishbones. Maybe I'll get creative with the colour scheme next time.

In other news, Racing Green didn't deliver the front lower wishbones I ordered this time last week, so I postponed the geometry set up at Dan Taylor's because the car won't be ready.