:: Diary - April 2025 ::
:: Tuesday, 1 April 2025 ::
Is that April already? The weather has been really good, so there has been gardening and other outside work to be done, so it's very handy that
both TVRs are now here in my home garage, where I can nip out for a few minutes for a bit of therapy.
Last night's therapy was to remove the Vixen's carburettor and replace the manifold gaskets, to try to cure a suspected air leak that was causing
uneven running and a misfire / flat spot when accelerating on low throttle openings. Well today I got a chance to try it out - and it seems to
havc worked! It starts better, and definitely runs much better while it's warming up on choke - it was surging and stalling before. Once it has
warmed up, idle speed is more even.
On the road, it's much easier to pull away from a stop - you had to rev it a fair bit to prevent it bogging down, and it had no pulling power in
higher gears, but now it seems much smoother.
A bit of old skool diagnosis and repair, on the Ford crossflow engine of my mispent youth, learned at my father's side. No plug-in computers, no
diagnostic machine, no emissions equipment, just ears and half a brain (and even that's maybe being optimistic). There's also no certainty that
you've got it fixed, but that's part of the ancient game!
I'm a happy pixie (well, happier, let's not get too excited)!
I also had a phone chat with Dave about our excursion to the TVR Car Club's season opener event this weekend. The plan is: meet at 9am on Saturday.
The rest of the "plan" TBC in stages, starting at around 9.05 on Saturday, when we'll all work out the first leg of our journey to a suitable
breakfast / lunch stop. Stage 2 of the plan TBC at that point. As you can see, meticulous attention to detail is key.
He also tells me that he has the engine back in his Griffith, although it has still to be properly mounted and the ancillaries fitted. Good progress!
:: Wednesday, 2 April 2025 ::
And that's another thing...
This is the time of year for roadworks. Bleedin' everywhere. Reason is, that Councils have an annual road maintenence budget. If they don't spend
it this year, they don't get it next year. This inevitably means a mad rush to get jobs done before the end of the financial year (April). So you
have loads of road works going on, during the period of shittiest weather, which doesn't help to minimise the time or the cost. It has been like
this since time immemorial - I used to work in a Council roads department up until about 35 years ago, and every year was the same...
When I was out trying the Vixen yesterday, I went for a wee blatt to check it was ok at higher speeds (for a Vixen). There used to be miles and miles
of national speed limit roads around here, but now they have all been reduced to 50 or even 40, so to get uo to 60 or more, you really have to head
for the motorway (if it's not too busy - at busy times, that's a crawl and all). So, blatt along the motorway for 1 junction, turn off and head
back. It's a fairly straight road back, through an industrial estate - erm I mean "business campus" - past the shopping centre, and into my street.
Simple.
Except that about 1/2 a mile from the motorway, the road is closed because Scottish Water are doing an emergency repair. One diversion sign points
left. That's fine, I go along here for one junction, turn right at the railway station, down past the hospital, easy...
Then I remember that there have been temporary traffic lights for road works at the hospital for the last week, although there haven't been any
great queues. Not today though... this being the diversion route for road works no 1, it's heaving, and the queue is 2 junctions back up the road.
I can't even see a diversion sign from back here... so I turn left again, through a residential area where I used to live, to search out diversion
route 2...
Another 1/2 a mile further on, the slip road on to the dual carriageway is closed because of road works by Scottish Gas. After negotiating another
set of temporary lights, I'm now on to diversion route 3, diverting diversion route 2 from diversion route 1 from the original route I wanted to
take. As you can probably guess, I am now further from home than I was when I turned off the motorway...
There are no diversion signs along this diversion route. That's another other thing - a sign that says "diversion" right at the road works and then
no more signs to help you around the route they have in mind. Fortunately, I have lived here for donkey's years, so I can work out my own route, but
for a stranger, or someone following a sat nav, it's an absolute nightmare.
Maybe Council road guys should be taken to an area that's not their own, dropped off at a set of road works, and then told to follow the diversion
signs until they get lost, while somebody else does the same to road works they have planned? Then, once you find both of them in the middle of
feckin' nowhere, you put them both in a room to fight it out? That'll learn them.
It has been a slow day for TVR news... I'm sat here waiting for the gas man to arrive and my mind is rambling already.
:: Wednesday, 2 April 2025 Part 2 ::
Right, ok, back to TVRs...
The Vixen has a radio that doesn't work. It fills a hole in the dash but it doesn't work. I tested it with a separate feed but it's dead. Plus, it
has no speakers.
It fills a hole in the dash, but that's yer lot. To be fair, if it did work, you wouldn't be able to hear it. And even if you could, I probably would
never use it. The S has a radio / CD player and I never switch it on - I think I've listened to it while driving, maybe 3 or 4 times in 22 years...
So I was thinking - would it not be better to make a wee cubby hole to stop my jellybabies spilling all over the floor? Seems like a more sensible
use of space, no? So I bought a cubby box from the local Halfords for a tenner, and set about fitting it.
First, take out the centre console - two bolts at the front and one at the back. Then remove the gear knob and the handbrake gaiter. The radio is
one of those ancient two-spindle jobs, so you have to take off the knobs and unbolt the spindles so that the radio falls out the back as you pull
the console off.
The hole in the console is DIN-sized, but there are two metal plates screwed on the front, under the vinyl covering, for the spindles to go through.
I need to remove the vinyl to get to the screws...
Fortunately, the vinyl is all just stapled on. I peel back the two outside edges to get to the screws holding the centre panel in place. With that
removed, I can pull out the staples and remove the vinyl, and unscrew the plates. THen I replace the vinyl with new staples, screw the console back
together and re-trim the edges.
I have to trim down the back of the cubby box a wee bit with a multi-tool, to remove a couple of plastic fins that hold it into a plastic dash. Don't
need those...
Then refit the console to the car and trim the vinyl cover a bit, and insert the box. Much more useful than a radio!
Now that I think about it, I don't need that ashtray either!
It fills a hole in the dash, but that's yer lot. To be fair, if it did work, you wouldn't be able to hear it. And even if you could, I probably would
never use it. The S has a radio / CD player and I never switch it on - I think I've listened to it while driving, maybe 3 or 4 times in 22 years...
The hole in the console is DIN-sized, but there are two metal plates screwed on the front, under the vinyl covering, for the spindles to go through.
I need to remove the vinyl to get to the screws...
Then refit the console to the car and trim the vinyl cover a bit, and insert the box. Much more useful than a radio!