:: Diary - May 2013 ::

:: Wednesday, May 1, 2013 ::

I managed to entice Git Jnr to help me lift the bonnet back on. I take the car outside to give more bonnet manoeuvring space, and jack the front of the car up and remove the wheels. Then I set up my adjustable padded stool in front of the car, at what I think looks like about the right height.

Then we lift the bonnet and rest the front valance onto the stool, then run it back to the car on its castors. It slots into place perfectly! I replace the two hinge bolts through the rose joints and into the chassis bracket, and tighten it up for now. I can footer about with the adjustments later.

I put the wheels back on and put the car back into the garage.

:: Friday, May 3, 2013 ::

I was at my first meeting of the Porsche Club last night. I learned one important thing. It was dark coming home and the headlights are absolutely shite.

Oh no wait, I learned two things. It was also raining, and the wipers are absolutely shite.

Oh hang on, three things. Apparently, there are hotels where the staff dress better than the clientele, where they circulate around to make placing your order easy, where they can count your bill correctly, and where they have been properly trained to remember who ordered what, so that they don't just stick their head out of the kitchen door and shout "hands up for gruel". Some even adhere to outdated Victorian values like "somebody being in charge", and calling you "Sir" instead of "mate" (which grates anyway, but is particularly inappropriate when you've been going to the same place for bleeding years and yet still nobody can remember your name). Yes I know, it's unbelievable and amazing, but it can be done, without going to the extent of fawning obsequiousness, or the opulence of the Savoy Grill. A pleasant change.

Anyway - today I decide to adjust the bonnet on the TVR, and finish putting everything else together. First I remove the two bonnet locking pins, and check the panel gaps. The front seems too high, so I lower the hinge bolts on the chassis bracket on each side.

The gaps between the bonnet and the body tub, at the top of the wheel arches, are ginormous, so I adjust the hinge bolts on the bonnet to pull the bonnet back. Adjustment of one side affects the other, so after various trial and error alignments, I'm happy that it's sitting perfectly, and lock up the adjusters.

Then I put the locking pins back in, at the same locations as they were, and stick tape over the lock holes in the tub. A wee blob of grease on each pin, then lower the bonnet to mark the tape. After more loosening and adjustments of the pins, and new clean bits of tape, I have it all lined up.

Next step is to reconnect the fresh air hoses to the front vents, and then reconnect the wiring connectors to the lights, and tie wrap the cables to the chassis and bonnet.

Next step is to refit the front and rear inner wheel arches. The front ones have to be wriggled into place and secured with two bolts each, the rear ones are screwed to the bulkhead.

Finally, I refit the gas strut. This is where I realise that I should have done this earlier. The spring pressure in the strut is enough to push the bonnet slightly back and sideways, so the alignment is screwed. I also notice that, while the middle of the bonnet, above the wheel arch, is at the right height, the back edge is too high. I need to raise the front a wee bit to let the back edge settle down, and set it up again.

It's a bugger, but I may as well get it right. I'll have to take the front inner arches off again, and I don't have time just now, I have work to go to.

:: Saturday, May 4, 2013 ::

OK. Hands up, everybody who thought that I would faff about for ages, and then realise at the last minute that I'd left it all too late, so wouldn't have the car back together and ready for the TVR Car Club meeting tomorrow.

No Adrian, you can put your hand down now.

Yes, I went out today ad removed the wheel arches again, and loosened the hinge bolts where they tighten into the chassis. Then, with a jack and block of wood wrapped in a towel under the foglight, I lift the bonnet by about a centimetre and tighten the bolts again. Then I remove the bonnet pins, and adjust the hinge bolts on the bonnet itself to pull the bonnet into position, where it's not affected by the locking pins pulling it sideways.

Then I replace the bonnet pins and put masking tape over the bonnet holes, and mark the tape. Lift, move the pin slightly, and try again. Repeat a few times until the pin falls into the lock.

Tighten everything up and try again. The alignment looks good, but the bonnet isn't easy to open. It does, but it's not great. I can't adjust the pins any further though.

Then I refit the inner wheel arch.

The chassis looks a lot better than it did when I started!

Thanks are due again to James for donating the new hinges, after he sold his own S. Greatly appreciated.

Finally, just to prove that I do still have a whole car, and not just a random collection of photographable bits, here's a picture of it outside.

So we're ready for the TVR Car Club meeting tomorrow. Fortunately, our usual venue has a wedding booking, so we are going somewhere else. Anywhere else. I also happen to know that they have a booking for "our" Sunday in July. I wonder when they'll tell us? Not that I care, because I have a Sporting Bears event that day, so I wasn't going anyway.

:: Sunday, May 5, 2013 ::

It's TVR Car Club day! Yay! And the sky is blue, the sun is shiny! Double yay!

First we have a 3-car shuffle to get the TVR out of the garage and to the front of the car. Just as I finish, the rain comes on. Where the fuck did that come from? I put the roof on and go indoors. The rain goes off. Aye ok, very funny.

By the time I leave, the sun is out, so I take the roof back off and set off. First stop is Dave's house, were his car is looking good for its first meeting in 2 years. Jim arrives shortly after. Surprisingly, there's no Mike.

We set off to drive to the meeting, and after some silly noise through a wee tunnel near the Forth Bridge, and being covered in a sandstorm after some twat of a lorry driver decides to drive on the verge on the dual carriageway, we arrive at our venue for this month. I should mention that, as a responsible and caring leader of the convoy of very good friends, I was careful to highlight a particularly treacherous length of innocuous-looking road near Dunfermline, that can inexplicably cause boot-changing injuries to TVRs. Well. one TVR. I also have to dive out of the car at a set of traffic lights to shut the bonnet again, after it pops open a few miles earlier. Unfortunately, it takes me 2 milliseconds longer than I anticipated, so the amber appears as my arse hits the seat. Cue much angry honking and shouting from the drivers behind. That's Jim and Dave, if you haven't been formally introduced. Bastards to a man.

When we gat to the meeting, there are 15 cars, including 4 new boys, so that's better than usual. After some chat, we go in for some lunch.

The restaurant is nice, the staff are very good, but they give us one bill for our table of 15 people, so we have to calculate the split. Although none of us can actually count, it all works out!

We then go out to discuss Phil's water pump, which is leaking a bit. Well, a lot.

We also discuss Hugh's cooling system - he hasn't got the car with him so it's diagnosis of a problem over 40 miles away. I tell him to be systematic and not just jump to conclusions and start changing bits at random. I've always found the 2.9 engine to be pretty bulletproof (having got to 194,000 miles in a Granada, and added 40,000 miles to the TVR), so if it's overheating, it's more likely, in my opinion, to be a problem with ancillaries - fan, fan switch, thermostat, pump etc, than head gaskets and all that shit you get with modern "designed by computer to the (lower) limit of durability" engines (aka "built-in obsolescence so that you'll scrap the shitbox and buy a new car sooner"). We'll have to see, though.

So it's time for home. Fortunately, the rain stays off, so it's roofs off again. The car is going well, it sounds good and everything seems to be working. There's a peculiar intermittent rattle when I go over bumps though, and I can't figure out what it is. I haven't had any suspension or other bits off, so I'm racking my brain trying to figure it out.

When I get home I repeat the 3-car shuffle to put the TVR away in the garage. I'll take it along to the farm next week, so that I can get the Porsche into the garage to fix the headlights (that's "fix" as in "make them work better than a glowworm behind a welding mask"), and do a few other wee jobs, but I need to keep the TVR here just now because it has its MOT test on Friday.

:: Monday, May 6, 2013 ::

I decide to have a look for this funny rattle. I open the bonnet, and I hear a rattle from the passenger side. This could be an easier diagnosis than I expected it to be.

I decide to take off the front bits of the inner wheel arches, for two reasons. First, I am going to adjust the hinges slightly so that the bonnet sits a wee bit better and won't pop open. Second, at the MOT last year, the man pointed out a wee bit where the tyre just rubs on the arch on full lock. He said I should trim the arch back but I kinda forgot. If the arch isn't there, it can't rub though, eh?

When I take the nearside arch off, I find a nut lying under the fog lamp, rattling backwards and forwards. It's a lock nut off the hinge. Ah. I put it back on and tighten it up with a bigger spanner than I used last time (I only used a wee stubby cos access isn't good) and test the bonnet fit again. Better, but not quite. I shorten one side and lengthen the other to adjust the bonnet sideways slightly, and after a couple of trials, it fits and shuts much better. Then I make sure I tighten all the nuts.

:: Friday, May 10, 2013 ::

It's that time of the year again. A time when all conscientious TVR owners pass their cars over for a completely unnecessary annual check, to confirm how brilliantly they maintain their cars. The less conscientious simply resign themselves to the likelihood that they'll have to throw some money at it. Meanwhile, the rest of us are crapping ourselves because we know how random bits can fall off or stop working for no apparent reason. Yes, it's MOT Test time!

Another 3-car shuffle to extract the TVR from the garage at the back of the family fleet, and I decide before I go to put the window up because it's a wee bit draughty this early in the morning. It doesn't budge. I try pulling on it while pressing the switch. It doesn't budge. I stab the button like a lab beagle trying to get enough fags to see it through the weekend. It doesn't budge. I swear at it. It doesn't budge.

What was I saying about bits failing at random?

I don't think windows are part of the MOT (and if they are, then "stuck open" is probably more likely to result in a pass, than "stuck shut so that you die in an inferno") and anyway I haven't got time to do anything about it just now, so off I go.

The tester is one of the grumpiest people I have ever met (and that's saying something, believe me), but he's fair, and this is the eleventh time he's tested this car, so he treats it like his baby. The result is a pass! And no advisories, although he does point out that the clutch cylinder is leaking very slightly at the pedal rod, and that the diff has a tiny bit too much backlash. Those aren't MOT testable items, he's just letting me know.

While he's testing, and we're chatting, I ask him about overheating on 2.9 engines. His response is "these things are bulletproof, I've never changed a head gasket on these, or the 2.8." He also uses the expression "not like all this modern shite". That kind of supports my view when I spoke to Hugh on Sunday. He might be unlucky, but I suspect the problem is more likely to be somewhere else.

So it's back home, where I almost run over the (detached) wheel arches as I reverse into the garage. I think I'll just put them back on the car, just for safe keeping, until I get round to sorting this "rubbing" issue.

:: Saturday, May 11, 2013 ::

Right, I had better fix this electric window. I look at the fuse diagram, to see which fuse it is. The electric windows share a fuse with soothing else that I can't remember just now, but whatever it was, it's working, so it's not the fuse.

OK, so it's either the wiring or the motor. It's door card off time!

Just before I do that though, I give the button a desperate jab. The windows goes up. I jab the other end. The window goes down.

What was I saying about random bits failing?

Sometimes, just sometimes, man's red fire has its attractions.

:: Thursday, May 16, 2013 ::

Three of us have arranged to head up to Knockhill race circuit tonight to a track night. I meet up with Dave and Jim, and think about putting some fuel in - it's sitting at 1/4 full though so that should be plenty. Have you guessed where this is going yet?

It's evening peak time though, and there's a massive queue at the Forth Bridge. I am one car behind Jim, but that one car lets everybody and his brother cut in from the closed lane, so by the time we get on to the bridge, Jim is miles in front. And he probably doesn't know the way.

Having let everybody cut in, our man in front decides to cruise along in the outside lane after they have all fucked off over the horizon, so it takes miles to catch up to Jim. We do though, and then it's off the motorway and a blatt along the wee roads to the circuit. Just on the access road to the paddock, my car gives a wee hesitation, and then almost stops for a second but gets going again. I am out of fuel, miles from the nearest fuel station. The gauge still says 1/4 full. Ah.

I ask a passing Knockhill employee if he can help, and he says it'll be fine and he'll come back. He doesn't.

We give up and decide to have something to eat, and the best from a limited selection, seems to be the chicken wraps, which turn out to be yesterday's chicken burgers cut into strips. It ain't no 5-star meal, but it files an empty belly.

But not an empty petrol tank. I decide to speak to a lad washing a van outside one of the circuit garages, and it turns out he knows my son, and remembers us being there a few weeks ago in the Porsche for a couple of driving experiences. My petrol problem is suddenly solved!

And at least now I know that when the fuel gauge says "1/4 full" it means "dry as a bone".

So that's us ready for the drive home. In pishing rain. With the roof off. Magic!

I prudently stop for fuel half-way home, and brim the tank.

:: Monday, May 27, 2013 ::

Bet you've been wondering what there's been no updates? Well, I've been busy with work - much more than I meant to be. But you can't turn it down, and let somebody else get a foot in the door, can you?

Hugh phoned on Thursday for a bit of brake re-assembly advice - mainly bleeding the bloody thing from dry. He tried one of those "Eeezibeed" kits that you connect to your tyre, and found it as fucking useless as I did. Trevi fountain impersonations - brilliant. Bleeding brakes - not in a million years. I used a vacuum pump which was a big help - without that, you probably have to bleed the cylinder before you connect up the pipes.

He also needs new bleed screws, but can't find them. I know my local motor factor sells them so I promise to buy some.

I bought them on Friday, then took the TVR along to the farm (yes I still have my wee barn) so that I can get the Porsche into my own garage to clean it up for its debut Sporting Bears show next week.

I phone Hugh on Saturday and (only just) realised that it was his wife who answered the phone, before I blurted out "I got hold of your nipples". Disaster averted.

So I've spent the last 3 days in the garage cleaning the Porsche. It had a wee yellow bit round the exhaust, so I used a paint cleaner to clean that up. That only highlighted how yellow the rest of the car was, so I've had to polish and wax the whole thing. I also recoloured the cracks and scuffs in the seats (using Gliptone this time, not the full "strip and recolour" I did with the TVR), polished and touched in the wheels, and tidied the engine bay. Not quite finished yet, but it's looking good.

After the show on Sunday, I'll have to get the TVR back here and get that tidied up for its holidays. More polishing!