:: Diary - March 2007 ::

:: Saturday, March 3, 2007 ::

I haven't had a chance to get the front suspension all back together again, and today is the day of the TVR Car Club meeting. I spent most of last night arguing with myself, that I had time to do it and still make the meeting - but I still have 2 wheels to polish and about half an inch layer of Hammerite dust to wash out of everywhere, so I decide that I'm not going to be ready in time.

Besides, the weather forecast says rain and loads of it.

So I go to the club meeting in the other car.

Another good turnout, including several new members which is very promising.

Dave has got me thinking about going to the national S-Club Heaven meeting in July, the last weekend of my holidays. This is the one national event each year for all the TVR S types in the country. Very tempting, even if I go only once...

:: Sunday, March 4, 2007 ::

Along to the garage to put the front spring / damper units back on, then the wheel arch liners and replace the newly-polished front wheels. That was the easy bit.

Then I take one of the back wheels off to polish, and I immediately realise that they are in a worse state than the fronts were.

This is one of the polished front wheels, which doesn't look too bad. It's not as good (yet) as I had them last year but it's at least presentable.

This is the back wheel on the same side - badly pitted, no shine and not nice at all.

I attack it with fine wet and dry paper then a variety of polishes, and after about an hour I have improved it to the state that it looks only mildly stained - nowhere near as shiny as it should be. I need a bigger array of polishing mops than I have at the garage, so I take the two back wheels back to the house for some serious polishing attention.

I'm still a bit disheartened that the wheels have got into this state though - I suppose that's the downside of using the car in the winter though. Either I keep polishing them back up, or I get another set of wheels and tyres for "day use" and keep a pristine set for shows etc. That would make me an extremely sad person so I'll definitely consider it.

:: Saturday, March 10, 2007 ::

After a week of work during the day and dark nights, this is my first chance to tidy up the other two wheels. I start with the one I got half-way through last week.

First a bit of a rub down with 400 grade wet and dry paper to take of the worst of the corrosion. Then the real polishing starts, with the metal polishing mops.

Step 1 - 150 grade abrasive mop in my trusty electric drill, applied gently to remove the surface corrosion.

Step 2 is 300 grade abrasive to take out any tiny scratches left by the first abrasive process.

Step 3 - gray grease polish applied by mop. All going well so far, until my trust 24-year-old drill packs up. Kaput. I leave it for 20 minutes in case it just needs to cool down, while I stand up and let some blood circulate through me legs from the knees dowm All this kneeling on concrete slabs isn't good for me.

Anyway, 20 minutes later and drill still no startee. Bloody thing - only 24 years it's lasted, you'd think they'd give a decent warranty on these things. So a short diversion while I walk down to B&Q to buy another one. I pick a half-decent one after much deliberation, and am then undercharged by £20 when I go to pay for it. I did tell them but the lovely lady said thanks, but she'd check later after I'd left, which was nice.

Back to the house, finish step 3 and then steps 4 and 5 using finer polish each time.

I than hand polish the wheel with some ordinary metal polish and a polish ball, then a final polish with rags, and it looks a lot better.

As they say in Haynes manuals, "repeat for other side". Sounds easy but I'm already knackered after just one. My legs have gone to sleep again from the knees down.

I started this process at 10:30 this morning, and finished at 4:30 as it was getting dark - 6 bleeding hours! It was too dark to take photos but I'll take some tomorrow when I put the wheels back on the car. They're not as good as they were last year, but still pretty good.

:: Sunday, March 11, 2007 ::

Put the back wheels back on, then drove the car outside so that I could wash it and also sweep the garage floor underneath it.

After sweeping up half a tonne of granulated Hammerite, bits of exhaust bandage and other assorted rubbish, I wash the car down to get all the Hammerite and dust off that too. As I am putting the car back in the garage I find that it is still jumping out of reverse - again it might be because the gear lever isn't able to move far enouth in the hole in the console. I'll have to look at that.

Then I dry the car off and apply some wheel wax to the wheels.

It doesn't look too bad at all! Still needs a proper clean and polishg but much more presentable than it was.

This is the same wheel that I photographed last Sunday.

I need to adjust the gear knob again, and tighten up the door mirrors. The hood could also do with a good clean.

I put my dust sheets back on (they have shrunk significantly!) and go home.

Later at night (well as I am writing this) I remember that I forgot to tighten the wheel nuts up properly before I put the car back in the garage. Oh dear.

All this work has been done to prepare the car before a wee rally next Sunday for a charity which aims to build a new school in Kenya. A small group of people are raising the money on our own and this will be one event towards that - some of the competitors will be taking it seriously as a fully authorised road rally, while some of us are doing it solely as a fun way to raise money.

:: Wednesday, March 14, 2007 ::

I decided to buy a new indoor car cover to keep the dust and condensation off the car when it's in the garage. Found one on the 'bay for a fraction of what I paid for the last one. That'll do!

:: Saturday, March 17, 2007 ::

Along to the garage for final prep for the car rally tomorrow.

I remember to tighten the wheel nuts.

I also remember to tighten up the door mirrors.

I even remember to tape over the battery terminals (a scrutineering requirement for MSA events).

I put the new car cover on. It fits like a glove. A glove on a deformed foot, right enough, but it's much better than cotton dust sheets.

I forgot to adjust the gear lever. Hope there's no reversing in this event tomorrow! I'll maybe do it while I wait for scrutineering.

Weather forecast says snow. Super CJ.

:: Sunday, March 18, 2007 ::

What a day!

This is the day of the “Rallye in the Park” – an event held under MSA rules, but to raise money for our appeal to build a school in Kenya.

My co-driver was going to be my son or my brother (no they are not the same person, I’m not from Alabama) but they both found other things to do today – so one of the older BB boys is my co-driver and navigator.

What a day – a couple of on-road reliability trials (ie you have a certain time to get from A to B and are penalised for being too late or too early), plus 17 timed tests at a race circuit and at a disused airfield. The race circuit bits are ok – in and out the cones on wet tarmac, nothing too strenuous (although remembering the course is hard!) but the airfield bits are different – a mixture of concrete runways and gravel tracks, twisty sections where keeping the car going straight is harder than making it go fast.

The more seasoned competitors seem to manage both but I am continually distracted by the number of bangs and pings from underneath as stones hit the exhaust and vice versa. Plus I’m a wooss. Still, several tail-out moments are induced, and although I might not be fast, I’m well within my limits, minimising the chance of a visit into the scenery, and it’s damn good fun.

Example: finished test 3 (a blooter about through some gravel and cones) and as we moved away from the marshals with our time card, the gear knob came off, and we had another starting in one and a half minutes. Test 4 was completed with the co-driver holding the gear knob in place as we drove, with me changing gear by moving his hand. That got us to “interstage service” where we could tighten the gear knob again – the only penalty this time being that we were not as far up the burger queue as we might have liked.

All of that plus a free burger and drink, a couple of sandwiches, bits of chocolate, crisps etc. What could be better?

By the time we finish the car is absolutely manky – plastered in mud and dirty water up both sides, and the underneath is dripping a brown gunge.

This goes totally against the grain of the normal polishing and cleaning regime, but it’s the first time in 4 years that I’ve driven the car off the public road at anything like its potential, and it was enormous fun. Not the sort of thing I’d like to do every weekend, or even every year, but after not driving the car for 7 weeks (I think it is) today has just been absolutely superb.

So while I’m not giving up the polishing and tidying, I’ve reminded myself that I have this car to enjoy, not to torture myself with working on it all the time, and that’s what I’m going to do.

On the way home I drop into Morrisons supermarket and buy 10 minutes of jet wash time, which is more than enough to remove all of the accumulated crud that I can see, although by this time, admittedly, it’s dark so I can’t see underneath properly. The chassis does look clean, though so I’m a bit happier.

I think I’ll use the Morrison jetwash again to clean up the chassis (not just this weekend’s crud but generally).

The only problem I have left is that it’s dark so I can’t take the car back to the garage, so I’ll have to park it in the drive and swap it over on the way to work tomorrow. This is a logistical pain in the wossname.

Anyway, here's some pics of the day:

:: Monday, March 19, 2007 ::

Took the car back along to the garage after work.

I was a bit disconcerted when putting the car away, when the exhaust scraped a huge chunk out of the wooden door sill. There's no sign of the exhaust being lower than it was before, so perhaps a spring is broken.

I need to check it out.

I also notice that the car is still filthy underneath so I need to wash it properly.

:: Saturday, March 31, 2007 ::

Had to leave the car alone last week, because my back has been killing me for 3 weeks and not getting any better.

A bit better today though (after a bit of spine therapy) so I go along to the garage to collect the car. Again the exhaust catches on the garage door sill, for no apparent reason. This is bad news.

Back to the house, and I start to jetwash all the mud off the chassis, mainly around the wheel arches. The front comes up ok - you can get around the front wheels with the bonnet up.

Then I come to do the back, taking the wheels off one side at a time so that I can clean down the wheelarches and suspension. As soon as I take the rear offside wheel off, I am greeted by a sorry sight...

The suspension swing arm has almost corroded right through. There is a huge rust hole in the side, and a crack underneath (where the yellow arrow is pointing in the photo).

This shows it better from underneath. The crack has opened up and the arm looks as if it is about to break through.

This is the same part photographed when I replaced the rear brake shoes in 2004, just after I had a patch welded over some wee rust holes that appeared at the time. I knew then that I was only borrowing time, because these arms are notorious rust spots on the TVRs of that vintage, so I suppose I can't complain.

If I hadn't done the rally it might have lasted a bit longer, but could really have failed at any time, when it gets to that state. This causes the wheel to fall off which is less than ideal mid-hoon.

The arms can be rebuilt but new ones are available for about £220 - a lot of money but there's no option. Fitting them is a bugger - you have to remove the spring and damper unit, remove all the brake system, backplate, shoes and pipes, the wheel hub, the driveshaft and wheel bearing assembly, before using some heavy duty brute force to get the swing arm off the chassis.

Reassembly, as they say, is the reverse of removal, except with a new selection of swear words. Then the suspension geometry has to be set up.

The specialist garages charge about £250 labour to change a swing arm.

Now I know how to do this, and a younger and less decrepit version of me would have had no hesitation in getting fired in about this over a couple of weekends. Unfortunately the ensuing Chiropractor fees would probably be more than the labour charge, so I think I may break the habit of a lifetime, and pay somebody else to do this just for now.

Nevertheless, I clean the rest of the bodywork and wash the car properly. It looks absolutely superb provided you don't look underneath.

No TVR driving till this is fixed, though...