:: Diary - November / December 2005 ::

:: November 5, 2005 ::

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder treason and plot
The carpet's stil soaked and the exhaust is still blowing
I'm tempted to blow up the lot.

I'm at a bit of a low with the car at the moment. There is another damp bit on the carpet, and although I drop the footwell panel and pull out the fusebox and ecu etc, I can't see where it's leaking. The carpet is damp under the front of the door and I still suspect the door seal.

I think the exhaust is going to need a new manifold - looked up prices and they are £300 a pair. That doesn't include the grief involved in fitting them - most specifically the risk of the studs breaking off in the cylinder heads, requiring engine taking-outness to fix them.

I also need 4 tyres - £280. Can't complain because I've really needed the tyres since last year.

I set off for the club meeting in the dry, and arrive in pissing rain. Good meeting though.

The weather clears on the way home so I take the roof off, and it's a different car - the noise and open air and - worth every penny!

:: Saturday, December 17, 2005 ::

Having not used the car for 5 weeks, today is fairly bright but cold, so I decide to have a wee blatt. The car bursts into life on the first turn of the key, and after a quick check of coolant, tyre pressures etc I'm off at 8:30 am in the frost. Roof off, of course!

The temperature is only just bearable, and after a good open-topped blooter, I end up 100 miles away, and the car doesn't miss a beat.

The journey back is just as good, although because I've been faffing about, it's dark and starting to get frosty again by the time I get home. This reminds me of two things: 1. I need tyres; these ones hadly grip on frost roads, and 2. the headlights are rubbish and I need to fit those upgraded bulbs I bought.

At least I'm a bit warmer!

:: Tuesday, December 27, 2005 ::

I intended to have a holiday blatt today but the roads are just too icy. Well only a little bit icy but that's enough. It's not that I'm scared of skidding off, it's more that I have borne witness to countless incidences of sub-zero numptiness, with dozy twassocks launching themselves into the snow-covered landscape that they were admiring with "Ooooh!" and "Aaaaah!" only seconds before locking up on full understeer. The last thing I want to do is place my wee car between them and their (admittedly unwittingly) chosen item of skid-arresting solid scenery.

So the wee car stays at home.

I do however decide to replace those headlight bulbs. The nearside one is a dawdle - unscrew one screw and remove chrome ring, then a second screw, unhook the lamp from its adjusters, change bulb and reassemble. Piece of the proverbial.

The offside one, however, decides to be a total bastard. The chrome ring comes off ok, but the lamp mounting screw is rusted solid, and the crosshead is badly chewed. I can't get pliers or anything on it while it's mounted in the wing: the curve of the lamp recess gets in the way and I don't want to scratch the paint. I remove the three screws mounting the headlamp bowl into the wing, but the bowl won't come out because it's held in place by the wiring.

As I merrily hum "Da hip bone's connected to da... thigh bone..." I remove the inner wing so that I can reach the wiring loom, which is neatly cable tied to the chassis, so has to be chopped loose. I remove the headlamp bowl and cut a slot in the chewed screw so that I can get a flat screwdriver on it: it capitulates and comes out no bother. I use the term "no bother" to reflect the act of actually removing the screw, not to reflect the dismantling of a large chunk of the front of the car to actually get to it.

Reassembly is a reversal of removal - I hate it when manuals say that: they usually omit the bit that says "except for the tiny special screw that you can't buy anywhere else which will drop out at this stage and instantly adopt Klingon "cloaking" capabilities so that you will never find it until 6 months later when you kneel on it and are then able to prise it from the flesh of your knee with that funny thing on Swiss Army knives that you normally use to get stones out of Boys Scouts' hooves (or something like that). Anyway, in this case it does all go back together easily. I notice that both chrome rings are past their best, so I resolve to get another couple from a minispares shop next time I am passing.

I need to adjust the lights but I'll leave that until it's not icy and I can go to the multi-storey down the road which is dark and level.

As I check that the lights are working, I find that the nearside foglamp isn't working. Cross one thing off the list and put another on! That's for tomorrow though...

C'est la vie!

:: Wednesday, December 28, 2005 ::

Da thigh bone's connected to da... knee bone...
Da knee bone's connected to da... ankle bone...
Da ankle bone's connected to da... big tackety boot bone
which is about to be connected violently to the TVR door bone if it keeps this up..."

Well I started by looking for the reason that the nearside front foglamp wasn't working - and I eventually managed to trace this down to the connector behind the wheelarch - a bit of cleaning and as good as new! I'm glad it was that simple - my voltmeter wouldn't work properly, I think because the meter battery was too cold. I took the battery out and stuck it in my pocket to warm it up for later diagnosis.

A quick check and yay! All the front lights work properly!

The back ones don't though. No rear fog lamps.

I remove the lamp holders and use a piece of wire to short out various contacts to light up all the bulbs, showing that the fault is upstream, either the fuses or the switch. I do notice that both lamp connectors are very loose and have previously been taped in place, so I must try to sort that one day. Maybe. I try to figure out which fuse it is, but there is a notorious discrepancy between the published TVR wiring diagram, and what they actually installed in the cars at the time. In other words, the cars seem to have been wired with whatever colour of wire came to hand at the time, so any similarity to the wiring diagram is entirely coincidental.

Eventually I manage to find the correct fuse, but it's ok. Getting to the switch means removing the centre console and I don't fancy doing that today, it's freezing. Then in a flash of inspiration, I decide to check the 5 relays, by removing them. One has quite badly corroded contacts, so I clean them up and shove it back in.

Result!

Not only do I now have fog lamps, but the switch warning light works too, and it has never worked since I bought the car!

The voltmeter works as well when the battery has defrosted.

I console myself with the fact that, had I bought some item of Italian exotica, then this re-wiring lark would be almost a daily occurrence, so then I don't feel so bad.

Here's a gratuitous photo of the car warming up in the freezing cold, just because I thought it looked nice.

Later, I order 4 tyres from etyres, for fitting on Friday.

:: Friday, December 30, 2005 ::

The man from etyres turned up this afternoon and spent an hour and a half changing all four tyres at the house. When you allow for travelling time, waiting time etc, if you went to a high street tyre depot, plus the fact that you can get on with other stuff while he gets on with your tyres, that's not too bad at all. Add on the fact that the tyres were considerably cheaper than "High Street" prices, and you've got to be on to a winner.

Steve from etyres was very good - he asked me about jacking points etc and took a lot of care not to damage anything. As they work as a franchise, I can't speak for other areas, but if you need tyres in Central Scotland, he's your man!

I got Bridgestone Potenza RE720s, the closest I can get to the original tyres fitted to the car when new. I don't have time (and it's too wet) to go for a drive on new tyres to try them out.

:: Saturday, December 31, 2005 ::

Had a drive around some local farms and industrial estates today, to track down a garage where I can store the car over the winter. After asking around, I cut it down to one distinct possibility. Obviously I'm not going to say here where it is, but it's about a 5 minute drive from the house, and a real swine to walk to. The car would be dry and secure, and with night-time on-site security. Unfortunately the owner is away for a couple of days so I'll have to wait until Monday to get a price and see if he has space.

Option 2 is to store it at work, although that is 37 miles away so not entirely convenient for working on it or collecting it when I want to use it. It would be cheap though!