:: Diary - February 2013 ::

:: Friday, February 1, 2013 ::

Well that's a year today since I scraped the Lexus along a fence. Everybody has forgotten about it except the man who calculates the insurance premiums.

Anyway… back to the trailing arm, and getting it the right colour. I mix up a batch of the 2-part topcoat (Hardnose I think it's called) - you use a wee scoop to mix 5 parts of paint with one of hardener, in a separate tin (cut-off coke tins are perfect for this, I find).

Then it's a matter of getting the arm into a position where you can paint one side, and then turn it over to do the other side. I start with it flat, right-way-up, and then turn it up onto one end to do the underside, and down inside that box section.

That means it's propped up on the inner bush, and on two of the four old bolts I put in at the hub end, to stop paint getting into the hub threads.

I also remember to paint the chassis brackets this time!

After I've left it for about half an hour, I give it a second coat, and leave it to dry.

:: Saturday, February 2, 2013 ::

It's the local TVR Car Club meeting tomorrow, and the plan is to get the car back together today. One last thing to do before I start reassembly - I bought some black waxoyl to spray inside the two round tubes, and also down into that box section to make sure there's nowhere for water to creep behind the paint.

I heat up the trailing arm with my electric fan heater (not to the "too hot to touch" stage, just to warm it up a bit) and then spray the waxoyl into the box section

Then I spray along both round tubes from the open end.

While I am doing that, though, I realise that the topcoat isn't quite dry, and I've left fingerprints where I was holding it. It was bleeding freezing last night, and it says on the tin that drying can take longer in the cold. So I'll have to leave it to dry properly before I start putting it together. It's not going to be ready by tomorrow, then…

:: Sunday, February 3, 2013 ::

It's TVR Car Club meeting day today. Dave's car is SORNed, Jim's has the headlight out while he tries to get the bloody things to work, and mine has only 3 wheels - works for Morgans but not for TVRs. So we're meeting up and then going through in one "ordinary" car.

First, though, let's check the paint on that trailing arm. Nope, it's still soft. I check the tin to make sure I haven't picked up "anti-burglar" paint instead, but no. Then I check the mixing instructions in case I haven't added enough hardener, and realisation dawns. I the instructions say add one part hardener to 4 of paint. In my mind, that "1 in 5" translated to "1 TO 5" so I'm about 20% short of hardener (it's my age, you know…). THat isn't helped by the fact that it's freezing outside. It'll dry eventually I suppose...

Time to dig out the trusty fan heater again. I prop the arm on its side and point the heater at it, and leave it all day. The electric meter's spinning around like Kylie Minogue in a washing machine, but I need to get this ready to refit. At least I know nobody will be climbing up the trailing arm.

So anyhow, I set off in the Lexus to meet the others. After a half-hour presentation by Dave about remote control cars, gear ratios, tyre compounds and electric motors, Jim turns up and we set off in my car.

There's only 5 TVRs at the meeting today, and, for the first time for years, no new or prospective members.

Lunch is ordered (eventually) and we retire to the dining room, to die of starvation while everybody who arrived after us, gets their dinner first. I don't know what order their chef works in - alphabetically according to the third ingredient used, or something - it's certainly not "who ordered first". At least the food, when it arrives, covers the plate, not the usual "random morsels of food arranged on a plate the size of the moon, to make an interesting pattern" that we sometimes get.

Apparently the manager only works Monday to Friday. It shows.

Lunch conversation covers the usual eclectic range of topics, including the potential sale of my Cerbera, the ongoing repair of Adrian's car, the diary of TVR events for 2013, and Jim's prowess at adjusting bonnets (car, not Easter). Non TVR topics include guitars (including a junior busking demonstration), trombones, and various permutations of dogging / flashing attire, for some reason that escapes me at the moment.

Ah, the banter…

I've lost the plot… hang on… oh yes, we also see a couple of roe deer over at the back of the car park. They must have thought, like many people I meet, that TVRs were made by Triumph, and they were down hoping to find a couple of Stags.

Unfortunately, the man who normally flashes his bucks about isn't here today, so the deer lose interest and wander away.

And that's about it. 3 hours of blethering condensed into 3 or 4 paragraphs. We drive home, I drop the others off, and get home to check the trailing arm in the garage. The arm is warm, the paint is drying, and the electric meter is about 2 million units higher than when I left. The cloud of smoke over the power station threatens flights in and out of the airport 10 miles away, and all my neighbours' lights have gone dim.

I turn the arm around to bake the other side. I just don't care, me.

About 15 minutes after I get in, my daughter arrives home with a big smile on her face and says her car is vibrating. It's the front nearside, she says, which immediately raises my suspicions that she knows what's wrong but doesn't want to tell me. Tyre pressures are fine so I jack one side up to spin the wheel, and then pull/twist it to check the bearings / suspension joints etc. Seems ok, but when I get under the car and spin the wheel, it's got a huge flat bit on the inner rim. And I mean huge, you don't need a dial gauge to see it's nowhere near round.

At this point she admits that she hit a pothole on the dual carriageway near here, on her way to work on Friday. I know the very pothole, it's been there for over a year, and has been ineffectively repaired about a dozen times over that period, but I noticed during the week that it was back. In fact, they had one lane coned off today when I passed, while they fixed it (again). She's worried it's her fault. It's not, shit happens.

A quick ebay search shows several identical second-hand wheels up for sale (it's a 2004 Fiesta with the standard 5-spokes). Closer inspection reveals that all of them have flat bits on the inner rim. Further investigation shows that those particular wheels are bad for distortion on that inner rim. Again, shit happens.

I've found a couple of local places that say that they can repair wheel dents and buckles, so I'll get a quote - looks like a safer bet than buying some of the second-hand shite that's floating about. I'll also have a look in some of the better local previously-enjoyed parts emporia (scrapyards sounds so common, don't you think?).

:: Monday, February 4, 2013 ::

Nothing to report on the TVR front, except that the pall of smoke over the power station has led to localised global warming and it's snowing like hell. We also had a nuclear wind last night that blew the loft hatch out of the ceiling (honest, it did!).

Aside from boring old work, the main task for today is taking the wheel off Miss Git's Fiesta and finding somebody who can fix it. Eventually I find a place in Edinburgh, and leave it with them, for collection on Wednesday.

Miss Git's not happy that she'll have to drive 5 miles to work and back for a day with a space-saver spare. Her reaction is still pretty mild compared to the global war that usually breaks out when we run short of Pot Noodles, so I think I got away with it. Almost.

:: Wednesday, February 6, 2013 ::

I got up yesterday and looked out at the falling snow at 8am, and thought "Thank God I've got nothing to do today, I'll get out to the garage and get that trailing arm done." Famous last words. Cue phone ringing off the hook, hunners of emails, and one of the busiest work days I've had since I started on my own. All of which is a long-winded way of saying "The car is still in bits".

Today isn't a lot better. I have to go and visit two sites for new jobs I got yesterday. Seeing as they are both miles away, that takes most of the day.

I do have time to go and collect Miss Git's wheel, duly repaired. I decide to ask him about refurbing the TVR's wheels - he says he can get them done, but when I show him a photo of the wheels (taken at the biker's cafe at S Club 3 years ago) he says "Oh those are nice, how much do you want for them?" He's got a Ford RS Turbo and fancies shiny wheels in that style. I tell him that they are very rare and worth a mint. He goes off the ideal.

I don't have time to refit the wheel because she doesn't get home from work until 7 pm.

Meanwhile, in other news just breaking, the Cerbera has been sold and is being collected by its new owner tomorrow, so the dosh will be winging its way towards me shortly thereafter!

And just in time, too. A car I really like came up for sale yesterday. Unfortunately I won't have time to look at it tomorrow, and I am away all weekend, so I'll have to take my chances on it still being available when I get back. Oh well, fish in the sea, pebbles on the beach, all that stuff.

:: Thursday, February 21, 2013 ::

Yes, I'm still alive! Only just, mind, if you can call wading through endless shite "living".

Work has been really busy - I have invoiced almost half of my expected annual turnover already this year - and my year only starts on 1 February! Great for business, not so good for getting the suspension back on to wee blue cars. I was planning to do it last Saturday (at last!) but I got a job on Thursday that meant I had to spend the whole of Saturday in Aberdeen.

Also - that car I had my eye on had been sold by the time I phoned.

Never mind - today I decided to have most of the day off. The plans for the morning involved going to have a look at a car, to replace the Cerbera - but when I phone up, it's been sold. Serves me right for prevaricating since I first saw it a week ago.

So - that leaves me time to spend in the garage!

First I clean off the stub axle on the end of the driveshaft, and wipe it dry.

Then I manoeuvre the swing arm over the end of the drive shaft, and prop it up on my bits of wood, and then thump the bush into the chassis bracket, and get the bolt half-in. That lets me get a jack in under the inner joint, and line it up, slip in the adjustment shims and get the 4 bolts in. Then I push the bush bolt all the way through, but don't tighten it right up just yet (you should do that with the suspension in its "loaded" position).

Then I replace the shock absorber, which is easy enough. 2 bolts and it's on.

Then I replace the hub on the drive shaft, and bolt it to the swing arm, and tighten the hub nut (left-hand thread on the nearside, remember!) with the air wrench. Then I notice the brake backplate lying on the garage floor. Loosen hub nut, remove 4 bolts, thump driveshaft with hammer, remove hub, fit brake backplate, rebuild hub, fit 4 mounting bolts and then the hub nut again. That's better!

So… next step is to reassemble the brakes. First I assemble the wheel cylinder onto the backplate, and then fit the handbrake cable through the backplate and attach the spring clip. The rear shoe fits onto the handbrake cable first, then the front shoe fits onto the operating arm - it's a bit fiddly to fit it to the self-adjuster but it waggles into place eventually. Then I manage to forget how the adjuster and retaining springs fit on, it's been so long since I took it apart! Fortunately, somebody really clever has already put a "how-to-do-this-properly" guide on his website, and there's a photo and everything that's really useful when you're losing your marbles.

Yes, it's my own website I'm talking about. I must have been good at this once. But once only.

There's a fat spring that holds the shoes together, and a tiny spring that tensions the self-adjuster, then the bottom spring fits across between the shoes, and I stretch the shoes onto the lower pivot, before pushing the shoes back onto the cylinder pistons and then fitting those fucking stupid fiddly springs and clips to hold the shoes in place. A wee bit of grease on the ends of the shoes and the adjustment arm, wind the adjuster right back and then I can fit the brake drum.

Next step is to fit the brake pipes. I make up a new copper pipe to the right length, but I can't fit the flexible brake hose because I don't have any shake proof washers. So that's it for today! Nearly there…

I need to get shake proof washers, fit the flex-pipes, connect up the copper pipes at both ends, and bleed that corner. Then load up the suspension with a jack, and tighten the bush bolt and check the hub night tightness, and that's it!

:: Saturday, February 23, 2013 ::

It lives! Yes I finally got the bleeding thing back together.

Today's bit wasn't too hard, to be fair. First was fitting the flexi-hose with nice new shake proof washers, and then making up a new metal hose to go across the top of the arm and into the wheel cylinder. With all of that connected up, I can finally undo the "stopper" from the metal pipe on the car, and connect it up to the other end of the flexi-hose. Doing it that way round helps to minimise the amount of fluid pishing everywhere!

Then I lower the car so that the drum is sitting on my blocks of wood, and tighten up the bolt through the bush, and also the hub nut.

Just at this point, my neighbour comes over to ask about the car I was going to look at on Thursday, so he finds himself press-ganged into pedal-pressing duty while I bleed the brake.

Lift car, remove wood blocks, replace wheel, lower jack, and that's it!

Of course, I have to take the car up and down the street just to check the brakes work ok. Half an hour later I'm back. They do.

Another half an hour later and I've cleared up the clutter of tools and sockets etc. I think I'd be better putting the hooks in the floor and painting shapes of each tool - they spend more time there than in the cabinet.

:: Wednesday, February 27, 2013 ::

I have moved to the Dark Side. I have joined the ranks of "those who must not be mentioned at TVR meets." I am an outcast. A leper.

Today I bought this:

It's a 1989 Carrera 3.2, Fuchs wheels, stupid spoiler, starship mileage. It's lovely.

Why? Because I like them. Simple.

It took me 14 hours to get there, look at it, have a drive, negotiate a deal, and get home. At least it was a nice day out! I gave them a list of stuff to do, so I hope to collect it some time next week.

I am not going to turn this into a TVR / Porsche site though. This site will continue, but will be about the TVR only, as it started out. I might build a site for the Porsche, but to be honest, I doubt it.