:: Diary - July 2021 ::

:: Wednesday, 14 July, 2021 ::

There are a few TVR S Series owner's sites, aside from this one - although this one is obviously the best! The main reference, though, has always been the forum on Pistonheads, where there are many experienced owners will to offer helpful advice. Unfortunately, there are also a fair number of gee-gaws whose advice ranges from "close but no cigar" to "total random guess that has nothing whatsoever to do with the problem as described".

More recently, there has been a more modern trendy Facebook page, which unfortunately has no search facility, so you get the same questions over and over again. Stuff like "why do my centre console gauges steam up?" (Answer - no fucking idea but if you work it out, could you tell the rest of us) and "I've got these rare bits off a Granada for sale - snap them up at some vastly inflated price before they're all gone" (Answer - fits a Granada but not an S, but hang on and somebody will buy them anyway before realising".

So anyway - the latest one yesterday was along the lines of "Should the air ducting from the front into the footwells be heatproof and what temp."

The answer to that one is "yes it SHOULD be heatproof but it isn't. To complete their convoluted journey to the centre console eyeball vents (not the footwell or the dash) they should also be kink proof, crushproof and made out of stuff that doesn't look like a veteran turtle's nutsack. But they aren't any of those things. They are, in fact, made from the shitiest (and thereby cheapest) plastic that TVR could find in stock at the time."

But the main point is, that they serve absolutely no useful purpose whatsoever. If you have the roof on, those vents don't do anything that opening the widow an inch wouldn't. With the roof, they do even less. What they ARE good at, is waiting until you turn the wee eyeball vent and then sandblasting your face with a spray of dust, dead flies and bits of bee. Meantime, you're carting around half a mile of useless ugly shit-filled corrugated plastic, and I have been thinking for years about just ripping it out and tidying up the engine bay by a factor of 1 million.

So, let's just do that small thing! First step is to take out 2 screws at the back of the centre console, lift the rear of the console and pull it back until you can get the gear-lever through the hole. That lets you reach the back of the eyeball vents to pull the tubing off (if it hasn't fallen off already). You need to pull the console back to extract the tubing anyway.

Then remove the glove box or at least, the panel underneath it in the footwell.

Right - now remove the front of the tubing from the vents in the front of the bonnet. This a bit tricky with the wheel arches etc still in place, but it is possible! Then remove a gazillion cable ties fixing the tubing to anything it comes near. Then you can pull the tubing through the hole in the inner wing.

You might have to reach up under the dash and fiddle some tubing through the hole in the footwell, to make some slack to pull the rest through into the footwell. This is where I found that mine was 2 bits of tubing wound together, so came apart inside the wing - one bit pulled out, and the other bit pulled inwards, into the footwell. Extract it carefully from all the wiring and other obstructions under the dash.

Same on the other side!

Beware - I'm not joking about the amount of dust and crap that gathers in these tubes - mine were dropping dust everywhere!

Here's all the tubing off the car, on the famous bit of old carpet that now acts as a "watermark" background for these photos!

I think that the engine bay and chassis looks much tidier, and is certainly much easier to keep clean.

And the other side...

So that's another wee job completed. We'll probably regret it when it's pishing rain and the car is steaming up like Benny Hill's glasses, but we'll see!

:: Thursday, 15 July, 2021 ::

Well, today I decided that I had better seal up the holes in the inner wings were dim hoses used to be, so that I don't end up filling the bodyshell with water when it rains. So first of all, find something that fits the hole. I find that the caps from EvoStik spray glue fits perfectly - and I have 2 of those! Next question - how to fix it in. I cut two strips of very thing neoprene gasket material and stick them around the tops of thee caps. Then I can (just) manoeuvre the rubber seals tightly into the edges of the hole by working around the cap squeezing it inwards.

Lovely! I do need new stickers for that wheel arch though - sponsorship offers welcomed!

So with that done, I go to shut the bonnet - except it won't, the nearside bonnet pin is miles from the catch... While I lift it up and down waiting for inspiration to strike, I feel the bonnet move and there's a wee scraping noise from the hinge area... ahah!

The "hinge" is basically a big rose-joint bolted to the bonnet with two long bolts that let you extend or reduce the length of the rose joint - adjusts bonnet for-and-aft. That fixes to a long bolt mounted to the chassis on an adjustable bracket - adjusts bonnet up and down. After I take off the inner wheel arch, I can see that what has happened is that the lock nut on the rose joint has worked itself loose, and is now hanging on by about 2 threads. I can see where that locknut should be by marks on the bolt, so I move it to there, then I tighten the rear locknut to pull the bonnet forward. When I get it to the right place, the bonnet closes - and opens again!

By way of celebration, I go for a wee drive for an hour or so, just to make sure everything else is ok.

:: Monday, 19 July, 2021 ::

We haven’t had a TVR run since 2019, seeing as 2020 was a total travel write-off and this year hasn’t been much better. So today, almost 2 years after our last outing, we have planned a wee run for the day. The rules:

No overnight stays
Cover as mush distance as possible between essential stops for scones, meals, cakes and ice cream.

That’s it.

We decide on an early start so I meet up with Jim and Dave at 8am to travel to Scone (the place outside Perth, not the tasty delicacy) to meet up with Hugh. We set off on a drive over the river Forth and up through Fife, only to find that Hugh is there in the day car, not a TVR. He has been advised not to drive it for the moment - he should be ok in a few days, but not today. Shame - we were all looking forward to this.

Dave and Jim point out that I only have one working reversing light. Since that’s an improvement on “none” and not illegal anyway, I decide that’s a job for the “recovery list” to be checked when I get home.

Onwards through Blairgowrie and over the hills to Pitlochry. It’s at this stage that I start to settle in with the car after not driving it for so long. I’ve forgotten how bumpy and firm and downright brilliant it is. We do pass a Bentley going the other way, and I do, for a moment, envy the comfort and air-con on a road like this! But the sun is out and I’m thoroughly enjoying my wee car!

In Pitlochry we drop into a wee bakery that does a daily “speciality scone”. Today’s is “white chocolate and coconut” which sounds strange, but also nice! And it is! And it’s almost the size of a football which is also nice! Not as nice as Dave’s Jaffa Cake milkshake, admittedly...

So now, it’s onward to lunch near Oban. Yes, the other side of the country! This leg is where we start to encounter the brigade who teeter round corners - or indeed any slight bend that isn’t straight on - at 35-ish miles per hour, then speed up on the straight bits so you can’t get past them.

Soon, the corner-teetering brigade catch up to the next lorry-cortège brigade, who are unable to overtake anything anywhere, so we drive at the back of a convoy at around 35 to 40 mph for ages, before the lorry reaches its destination and we can go back to only teetering round the bends.

When we turn off towards Oban at Tyndrum, the road is a bit clearer, so we can trot along at a reasonable pace. About 10 miles short of lunchtime, my speedo flicks over to 108,000 miles.

Lunch is very pleasant, while we reminisce about the last time I was here - see the “broken toilet incident” of June 2015. Fortunately, none of the staff know me (or if they do, they do a good job of only laughing behind my back…).

Right - time for some fuel and the return journey. We head up past Ballachulish and get petrol and jelly babies in Glencoe village. Note to self - Haribo jelly babies are nowhere near as good as real ones.

Back down through Glencoe behind more corner-teeters, brake light flashers and anti-overtakers, and then through Callander, which is absolutely heaving, before we arrive at Stirling for a wee blether before the last leg home.

All in all, a fantastic way to spend a day, with good company and this superb wee car. And yet another day of no TVR breakdowns - getitupye Jeremy Clarkson.

:: Tuesday, 20 July, 2021 ::

So today, I decide to look at this reversing light - I uncoupled the bulb holder and wiggle the bulb and it comes on, but goes off again as soon as I let go. Swap the bulb with the fog light bulb - problem stays the same. So it’s the bulb holder.

I take it off the car, and after some tests, figure out that there seems to be a poor contact between the sockets earth terminal and the track to the connector. Back on the car, touching an earth straight to the bulb makes it come on.

You can’t get these bulb holders any more, and people that do have them (and various other rare spares) are hoarding them for their pension fund.

I manage a repair with a soldering iron to restore that connection.

It ain’t pretty.

But it works!

Back on the car, all sorted!

Then, while I’m writing this site update, I decide to see if a replacement bulb holder is available on eBay. That’s when I remember “hang on, have I not got a pair of rear lights with connectors in the garage?”

“Yes I do…” I remember getting them and deciding to tuck them away in the garage and keep them for a rainy day, or a pension fund.

Oh well, it’s fixed for now, but it’s good to know (but hard to remember, that's why I'll never be a hoarding profiteering git).