:: Sunday, July 1, 2007 ::
Now that the wheelarch repairs have set, I rub them down with a Surform to remove my inept lumps and restore the original thickness. This works fine but shows up a couple of air bubbles. I mix up more resin, and add the shavings from the surform to make up a paste, which I press into the holes, and then leave it to dry again.
Then I nip down to Halfords in search of inspiration - how do I fill the massive screw holes in the car shell? I pick out a wee tube of araldite paste, the type where you break a bit off and then knead it together. It says on the packet that after it's set you can drill it and fix screws through it, so it's worth a try eh?
I press some into each of the screw holes and then smooth off the surface with water.
Now I'm away on holiday for a week so no more TVR-fixing for a while. When I get back I have to paint the inside of the arch, clean the front of the shell, smooth and drill out the wheel arch inserts, drill out matching holes in the bodyshell, and refit the things. That's a note for my failing memory, not a promise, by the way.
:: Monday, July 9, 2007 ::
After a week's holiday, I rub down the wheelarch repairs with a Surform again, to roughly the original thickness.
Then a trip to B&Q for some stainless steel screws and some large (1 inch) washers which I intend to paint black.
Back home, I paint the inside of the wheelarches with gloss black spray, then re-drill the mounting holes in the wheelarch (as near to the original position as I can get them).
Right, ready to refit to car!
:: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 ::
The weather forecast looks good so I go along to the garage and bring the car back to the house, complete with a boot load of tools, jacks etc.
First I want to refit the rear half of the front wheel arches. I clean the front of the bodyshell (normally hidden by the arch itself) and then fit the offside arch into the previous screw holes, which were ok. On the nearside, I fix on some bits of masking tape roughly in line with where the screw holes will be, and then holding the arch in place, I mark through onto the masking tape where I have to drill.
Drill 6 holes, fit screws and washers and it's on, nice and secure.
Then I remove the front halves of both front wheelarches, the bits fixed to the bonnet, and remove the edge seals. Both front arches have holes worn in them where the inner edge of the tyre has been rubbing when the wheels are turned, because the arches were fitted too low after the bonnet repair. After giving them a clean, again with engine cleaner, I fibreglass over the holes, using several layers of matting and moulding the shape over a piece of greased dowel. Then I fill in the holes from the rear with more chopped mat and resin to make sure it's rigid enough. I also have to repair a crack in one corner.
Leave that to dry for a bit, while I change the engine oil and filter, go to the shops, and generally faff about. Then I spray them with gloss black Hammerite and leave to dry.
When I get them refitted, they look a lot better than the tatty worn things I took off!
Also changed the engine oil and filter today, using a semi-synthetic (same oil as last time). I can't remember the brand now!
Also, while waiting for the wheelarch paint to dry, I paint the brake calipers with dark blue Hammerite (Red and yellow and black and blue, I can Hammerite a rainbow...)
Finally for today, I mask and paint rear wheelarches with - guess what? Yep you got it... black this time.
Oh yes - I also had to tighten up the nearside bonnet hinge, which has started to unscrew from the mounting. When I have it tightened, the bonnet isn't in quite the right position but I haven't got time to adjust it.
All in all, a productive TVR-fettling day!
:: Thursday, July 12, 2007 ::
Various things to do today so not a lot of time for TVR fixing.
I do however find time to give the car a wash, to get all the Hammerite dust off, then take it back along to the garage and put it away under its cover. I forgot to take a broom, and the floor is about an inch deep in red and brown powder, so it's going to get dusty again!
I also find time to go to a motor factors to buy some polishing pads and some Meguiars quick detailer.
I also visit a book shop, as I do occasionally, and am meditatively perusing great works of literature including "Thus Spake Zarathustra", Michael Caine's biography, and Noddy's Book of Rude Limericks, when I suddenly thought I was about to be run down by Genghis Khan's plundering hordes, borne on a thousand thundering horses. As I turned I discovered that this racket was coming from the feet of one person - a giant of a woman, built like a burst zeppelin collapsing over a clothes horse, teetering (or rather clattering) along on high-heeled hobnailed cork flip-flops which seemed to hit the floor about 20 times on each step. How she thought they were attractive footwear, I'll never know - maybe she thought that they would distract the eye from her legs which looked, to be fair, hideous - like 2 gnarled great sequioa plastered in a thick layer of Fray Bentos corned beef.
I have no idea what the rest of her looked like - I didn't want to risk catching her eye (or any other part of her teetering flailing anatomy) so I stepped out of the way. When I say "stepped" I mean ran like hell to the other side of the shop where I was protected by a solid counter and a shelf full of monster placating chocolate. I shit you not, it was like the Pamplona bull run, except in Waterstone's.
Fortunately she was distracted by wee Tyrone or Dominique or whatever the name of her malformed offspring was, and disappeared back out of the shop, the clattering cork trotters receding into the distance after about 15 minutes or so.
I'm still traumatised though, so no TVR work today.
:: Friday, July 13, 2007 ::
Getting closer to finishing the car for next week.
Today is dedicated to polishing the paintwork. First, though, I have to clean the floor, which is like a martian landscape, with a mixture of red hammerite dust, rust, cement powder and various bits of cable tie, plastic, dead screws, etc. After I have put the car outside and swept up the floor I extract all the empty envelopes, boxes, coke tins, wrappings, old bits of gaffa tape etc, and chuck them in a bag to take them to my bin at home.
That done, I'm a bit happier that I won't be kicking up a new layer of dust as I go round polishing. First I polish out some of the worst scratches with Scratch-X, although to be honest I don't want to get too precious about it. If you use cars, they get scratched occasionally, and if you're going to wrap them in cotton wool and burst into tears every time a mark appears, there's no point having the car.
That doesn't mean that they shouldn't look their best though, so a nice polish is always worthwhile.
In this case, it's another Meguiars 3-stage, starting with the paint cleaner, applied and polished off with a rotary polisher, then finished off by hand with a terry towel.
Then the polish stage, again applied and polished off with a rotary polisher and finished by hand. At this point it starts to rain, so I put the car back into the garage to finish it.
This photo shows the slight slope of the yard compared to the garage floor, and also the angle that I have to negotiate to get the car into the back left hand corner. The two wood blocks on the ramps, by the way, are there for a reason - the front wheels go over them just as the lowest part of the exhaust (the clamps under the sump) cross the threshold of the doorway, giving just that extra 1/2 inch of clearance that prevents the clamps taking chunks out of the wood sill.
Finally, the wax, applied by hand and polished up with the machine, then finished first with a terry towel then with a microfibre cloth. By this time the car is seriously shiny!
It's so shiny that you can see your face in it. Or, even scarier, mine...
I still have to polish up all the tricky bits, like the headlamp recesses, the front and rear valances under the bumpers and the door shuts and paintwork under the bonnet.
I also need to polish the wheels and de-fluff the hood (I sometimes use a cotton dust sheet rather than the full cover, and it leaves lint behind), and that's it just about ready!
:: Sunday, July 15, 2007 ::
This is my last chance to finish tidying the car before the big show next weekend.
First step is to polish the wheels - a 4 stage process starting with a wash to get the grit off, then a rub down with 800-grade wet and dry paper (used wet with a bit of washing up liquid in the water) which results in a nice matt finish, then a hand polish with Alu-magic, which seems to be good at removing any blackening, and then finally a polish with Meguiars metal polish and the polishing ball, and a final shine up with a terry towel. They look pretty good!
At this point Dave turns up at the house so I spend an hour gittering about S Club arrangements, etc, then he buggers off before his car is enveloped in a tsunami of snowfoam from my neighbour's Karcher. I've never seen anyone produce so much foam just to wash 2 cars - it looks like somebody's been practicing extinguishing a pile up of recently-fuelled jumbo jets.
Right, back to the car. I finish polishing the tricky bits - again the Meguiars cleaner, polish and wax on the front and rear valance, the front of the shell (under the bonnet) and the door shuts.
A bit of metal polish on various bits under the bonnet, and I also polish the side window frames - I think for only the second time since I got the car.
Then I get some aluminium paint and paint the wee alloy strip under the rear valance, under the fuel tank.
Finally, I remove all the fluff and lint from the roof, using inside-out masking tape wrapped round my hand.
And that's it - it's as ready as it's going to be, because I have no more time between now and Saturday morning.
:: Friday, July 20, 2007 ::
I go along to the garage to bring the car back to the house in readiness for loading it up tomorrow morning.
As I drive back to the house, I hear a slight blow from the exhaust. A quick dive underneath confirms that it's that damned downpipe jopint again. I have no exhaust repair stuff and it's too late to buy any. Attempts to scrounge some bits from my neighbour also prove fruitless. I'll just have to leave it as it is, and fix it if I get the chance.
:: Saturday, July 21, 2007 ::
I meet Dave and Jim at 9:00 at the petrol station along the road - all tanks filled to the brim, but what I didn't know was that, while they were waiting for me, they had also stocked up on liquorice allsorts and M&Ms or something for the journey. Greedy gits...
This morning I woke to reports on the TV of severe flooding, with several roads blocked, and police advise people to make essential journeys only etc. So naturally, after about half-a-second's careful consideration, we decide to set off anyway.
A quick glance at the weather, and two of us decide to travel roof-off, but Jim decides to keep the roof on so that he can keep the melodies of his Rod Stewart all to himself. This is good.
After a blatt of 120 miles, I pull the red white and blue convoy into services for a weewee, oh, and incidentally, a fried breakfast, which is of normal mediocre quality. The digestion experience is enhanced by a few minutes watching the guy cleaning the tables, who seems to think that finished plates sitting on tables creates some sort of toxin that attacks burberry baseball caps. He flies up to each emptying table, elbowing the erstwhile diners out of the way so that he can get all those plates in his trolley, all the cutlery in his bucket, all the cartons, napkins etc in his bin. Then the final touch - a couple of sprays of cleaner and a wipe, but not before spinning the cleaner trigger spray round his finger like Wyatt Earp doing the dishes. At least you don't have the usual motorway service problem of shovelling heaps of crap off your table so that you can sit down.
We then have a quick confab in the car park, glancing at the sky, trying to decide - roof on or not? Naaaah... sky looks ok.
10 minutes later we are driving through pishing rain, so I pull the convoy into the next garage, just as the rain goes off. Roof on? Naaah, it's just a passing shower, look at the sky... so we refill with fuel and set off again.
Another 10 miles down the road, the heavens open. Hysterical laughter ensues, but through judicious use of a terry towel alternately on the mirror and my glasses, I manage to keep going to the next bright bit, and then on for another 70 miles or so, to the next stop for another weewee, some tea and a sticky bun. Again in the car park we hold the customary "roof on?" ritual but again decide naaaah...
This of course is as good as a Mojave rain dance so in another 20 miles, the heavens really really open, and this time the motorway traffic slows to a crawl so the rain is coming in, instead of over, so rather than endure the amused stares of adjacent lane queuers, I dive down the adjacent slip road and finally put the roof on.
This of course is as good as an Aztec sun dance so the rain stops as soon as we reach the top of the slip road again. And the traffic has started bowling along again anyway.
After a total journey of 299 miles in 6 hours (including 4 stops), we arrive at our Travel Lodge, which we find after passing through the middle of nowhere, the back of beyond, and on for a few miles further. It has no restaurant, no sweetie shop, nothing. You get a bed, a chair, a telly and a window that doesn't open, and that's yer lot.
Inquiries of the fetching young lady at reception, reveal that the nearest restaurants are a mile away down the dual carriageway, which has no footways. Great.
We get a taxi into the town have our dinner and a few games of pool, then back to the battery farm for a kip, interrupted only by the dispersal of the grab-a-granny party in the room opposite, at 1:30am.
:: Sunday, July 22, 2007 ::
It's S Club Heaven day!
We're up at 8 (which isn't difficult when you're barely asleep anyway) to remove the roof covers, dry the cars, polish the wheels, polish the exhaust etc. This takes place under the gaze of various onlookers and passers-by. After an hour or so we start up (which really starts the curtains twitching).
We head down the dual carriageway to the Maccy D ranch for a high-cholesterol brekky, and then on into the town for the meeting.
Only 3 people are there before us, and they are all event organisers. We therefore get to park outside the door of the transport museum.
There's about 45 cars there, which isn't too bad considering that a lot of people have been put off by the bad weather and flooding. There are various people there from the PistonHeads site, so it's nice to meet and speak to people I have only ever fallen out with in writing.
I realise that the cars vary in quality from fully rebuilt to nearly needing rebuilt. I realise that mine is not too bad, but a few faults do stand out in this company, so a new todo list is required! These are mainly minor things just to tidy it up in the detail.
This car had a stunning metalflake paint job, basically the same colour as mine but much much more metallic. It also had different wheels, which raised a fair amount of debate - some people seemed to think they didn't suit the car but personally I like them - they added a lot to the "custom" look.
This is Harvey's very nice V8S.
Here's the Scottish contingent. In the concours event, Dave (the red one) wins best S1 and best S overall. Jim (the white one) wins loudest S (louder even than the Sagaris that turned up). I win sod all.
I don't care though. The car is very shiny and looks good, even in this company. I'm well pleased.
This is the engine compartment of the winning S3 - a lovely car and well detailed. Certainly a source of inspiration.
One of the details I need to address is the exterior mirrors. Mine are the older "Wedge" type and are bubbling badly, and I can't find where to get new ones. I am thinking of either refurbishing the mirrors I have (by stripping them and repainting them) or replacing them with something else. Some cars today have Audi mirrors fitted, which are ok, but one car has Mazda MX5 mirrors which I think look really good, and, importantly, have the same shape of base as mine so should minimise any need to butcher the door itself. This car belongs to Redcarman and Redcarlady who were very helpful in explaining how they did theirs. Thanks, if you're reading this.
Jim leaves early because he has to work tomorrow.
Dave and I have a look round the museum, which is excellent. They have a whole display dedicated to the Thrust land speed record cars, and a simulator which is really interesting.
By the time we have finished our tour and returned to the car park, everybody else has gone, so we are the 2 last to leave. We drive back to the hotel-thing, then do the mile-along-dual-carriageway walk for dinner, and a Maccy D ice cream to eat on the way back.
Then we are spotted by the (different) receptionist who tells us we have checked out because we only booked for 1 night. Em... no. Fortunately I have the confirmation so no evictions from the big hoose tonight.
All in all, a most excellent day!
And so to bed... fortunately we have the whole hotel to ourselves tonight so no shrieking pissed grannies out in the corridor in the middle of the night.
:: Monday, July 23, 2007 ::
We fuel up with petrol, an enormous packet of jelly babies then down to Maccy D for brekky again, then leave at 9:15, after the peak hour. The weather forecast is still poor - and breakfast tv is full of reports of flooding. So we set off anyway, but at least with the roof on.
At our first rest stop the roofs come off and stay off for the rest of the journey.
So that's a 615 mile round trip, some if it in warm sunshine, some in torrential rain, and the car hasn't missed a beat, nothing went wrong, nothing fell off, nothing... and the other 2 cars were the same.
Not bad for a home-maintained hobby car that hasn't seen the inside of a garage for 4 years, eh?
(touch wood)
:: Sunday, July 29, 2007 ::
Various wee jobs to do today.
First and most important is to fix the exhaust leak. I take off the clamp and scrape out the old sealer, then reseal the joint with Fireseal, wrap it with foil bandage and put the clamp back on, then leave it all to dry.
Next job - I noticed at the meeting last week that my polished and lacquered ignition coil was starting to rust under the lacquer. I take off the coil and paint the bracket to match the rocker covers. Then I paint in the flutes in the plenum in the same colour (the flutes matched the rocker covers 3 colours ago!)
Next job - fix the wavy back number plate. It's a couple of mm too wide for the space it has to fit in so although one edge is fixed properly, the other side has a big wave in it, where it can't stick down. Easy job - take it off, file down the edges with a hand file, put new sticky pads on and stick it back on.
What next? Oh yes - I take off the inner wheel arches so that I can count how many wires go to the front lights. I want to buy waterproof connectors because the connectors on the car are corroded to hell. Each headlamp has 4 wires, the indicator has 2 and the fog lamp has 2. Now I can buy the connectors!
While the car is up on the jack, I decide to give the front a clean (to save me bending down - sad or what?) to remove my collection of English insects, collected along the M6. Meguiars Quick Detailer sees to that wee job, no problem. I do however spot a wee scuff on the bonnet just under the TVR badge, and it doesn't wash off, so it needs to be polished out. I don't have any polish with me today though - I took it out of the boot to save space last weekend and forgot to take it back out of my shed..
I also notice that the nearside headlamp is cracked round its edge, and the reflector is starting to corrode. The headlamp trim rings on both sides are also corroded round the edges and so are the fittings. I'd be as well replacing the whole lot.
Finally, here's a pic of the driver's side mirror fitted to the car, showing the corrosion under the plastic coating. Looking through from the other side, it's easy to see that the inner side of the mirror is very rusty. I can't buy new mirrors like this - nobody knows whast car they were originally made for, and they weren't fitted to many of the S series cars.
I've been looking for suitable replacements, hence the photos of the red mirrors at the meeting last week. They are from a Mazda MX5 Mk 1 but are not electrical. I've been looking around for ages for cars with mirrors mounted on the doors (as opposed to the front corner of the window frame) but there aren't many around. Other candidates so far include the Daewoo Matiz (although the stem is a wee bit long) and the new mini (although the mirrors are ok the bases are maybe a bit too "heavy" for the S).
The other option is to dismantle and refurbish the mirrors I have, get the rust out of the metal insert (or make a new fibreglass one!) and paint and rebuild them. Not yet though - that's a job for after the summer (what summer?).
Later on at night, I order some waterproof connectors. I thought at first about buying two big connectors (say a 9-terminal) and using 4 for the headlamps, 2 for the fogs and 2 for the indicators on each side, so that disconnecting the whole front electrics would be easy. Then I realised that the headlamps, foglamps and indicators all come OUT through holes in the bonnet, so if I did that, then they would all be connected together and I wouldn't be able to remove just one (or indeed, any of them) because the connector would fix them all together behind the bonnet. so separate terminals is the way to go. I'll colour-code them by wrapping them in tape or shrinkfit or something so that I don't end up with flashing foglamps. Might be cool though...
I forgot to order one extra connector, to replace the two-wire plug that goes to the radiator fan. Ah well...
I've also just had a look for mini headlamps, but have got into a bit of a knot about the options available, mainly because I ordered chrome trim rings last year and they turned out to be too big (8 inch instead of 7 inch - although I suspect I was conned with that one). I also need the chrome retaining ring (that holds the lamp into the adjuster mechanism) and two new trim rings - mine are corroding like hell under the shiny surface! I'll venture further into the mini spares catalogues later in the week - there's no hurry with this, the light's still working.
:: Monday, July 30, 2007 ::
Following some assistance from Pies (the owner of the TVR S-series web site, not a collection of savouries, although they can be pretty inspiring at times too) I order 2 new headlight bowls complete with retaining rings and adjusters for a tenner or so each. Ebay is your friend...
I think I may also have sourced a spare headlamp, so that'll do for now.
Now I need to find a couple of trim rings and I'm ready to replace the front lights.
I saw another wee car with wee door-mounted mirrors today but it was going in the opposite direction and I didn't get a chance to see what it was. A Fiat I think, and a check on-line tonight shows that the new Punto has door-mirrors, although again the stem bit might be a bit too long. This is getting terminally sad...
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