:: Diary - November 2019 ::

:: Friday, November 8, 2019 ::

It's like waiting for Santa, but the day os here! The car is ready, so today I have to go and collect it.

This involves a five-stage journey, starting at 7am, just to get there - lift to station, 3 trains, then another lift to his garage. All in all, it goes well - except that the second train is 8 minutes later, and I only had 12 minutes to change trains to start with. Also, the carriage I get off from, is so far from the platform gate, that I should really have got a bus back. So it's a brisk walk / jog to catch the second train.

The weather was a waste of time - it was supposed to be dry, but there's flood warnings and people sleeping overnight in shopping centres because they couldn't get home. Brilliant, just brilliant...

Anyway - I get to the garage, and there she is - looking fandabby, new wheels shining, chassis all pristine. He puts it on a ramp so I can have a look underneath, and it looks just great.

So, money exchanged, invoice received, and I'm off! I haven't replaced my satnav yet, so directions are simple - go north till you find a place name you recognise. Simple!

As soon as I get on the motorway, the rain reaches a new intensity. It's absolutely bouncing down. This enhances the entertainment of the drive no end, as you'll realise. Progress is still good though, and nobody is being daft, so it's ok...

40 miles later I reach Scotch Corner and turn left. The rain goes off, and after a few more miles, the roads are even dry! Now I'm enjoying motoring along, overtaking on the dual carriageway sections, and finding that on the single carriageway bits, the car seems a lot smoother when I'm following lorries or caravans. There's no crashing or thumping on bumps, no squeaky dashboard or doors. He's also replaced that new steering joint (the one I replaced just in April) and also removed some play from the column itself. It all feels well put together (which is pretty unusual for a TVR!)

After another 50 miles, I turn right onto the M6 at Penrith. It's still mostly dry and the car feels great!

I stop at Gretna for petrol (and the loo) after a total of 120 miles. After freeing a young seagull that's stuck in the glass entrance, I also have a wee bite (well several large bites) to eat, then it's onwards again for the second leg.

And that's me home, 200 miles from the garage, really happy with my wee car! I go indoors and make a note of all the things I noticed on the way - passenger door doesn't lock (it's been like that intermittently for ages), ride height is too high, gear knob is coming loose (as it does, constantly), stuff like that.

:: Saturday, November 9, 2019 ::

First step today is to adjust the tyre pressures (which are all slightly too high) and adjust the ride height. Time for some gratuitous photos of my car's naughty bits! I jack up each corner (very carefully, with a rubber pad under the chassis!).

The front suspension with new Gaz dampers and springs. I lower the bottom spring cup by 3 turns on each side.

Here's the underside...

The rear crossmember...

and the rear suspension. I can only lower it by a turn and a half, because then the spring is loose, and I don't want it coming out and catching on the edge of the cup.

I'll ask him about that on Monday - do I need longer springs (to reach the lowered cups) or shorter ones (to lower the car, but then I need to adjust the cups up, does that raise the car again? I can't figure it out!)

For the moment, though, it's not too bad...

Then, I decide to think about an emergency boot release. The car has an electric boot switch, which has always been reliable. One of these days, though, if it goes wrong, you can't get the boot open without cutting a hole in the shell. Some cars were supplied with an emergency release system (which I'm not going to describe here, obviously!) but mine doesn't have it.

So I have a play with the boot release and solenoid, while I try to figure out how to rig something up, and what parts I need. A bicycle brake cable, mainly...

Next - the passenger door lock. It doesn't lock with the key, but until recently, you could at least lock it from inside the car. I noticed on our last trip that it wouldn't lock at all... I take the door trip off (as I've described dozens of time before) and then unclip the 3 operating rods from the lock mechanism - one from the handle, one from the key, one from the internal lock button. They are each held in with a wee plastic clip that rotates to unclip the road, which then pulls out of the lock. Make sure you know which rod came off where!

Then there are 3 screws in the back of the door, that release the lock so I can wiggle it out past the window runner.

I work it by hand, and find that it's packed with hardened grease, so all the mechanisms are sticking. I clean it with brake cleaner and then WD40, then old it thoroughly with 3-in-1, working the various levers to free them up. Then I install the lock back in the door, reattach the 3 operating rods, and try it out. Perfect!

So I put back the door trim etc, and turn my attention to the gear knob, which just needs the collar removed and the grub screws tightened.

Still a fair list of things to do, but that's enough for today. Apart from a wee drive, of course!

:: Monday, November 11, 2019 ::

I'm a muppet.

I'll say that again for the hard of understanding. I'm a muppet.

I phone up the man who repaired the car, to ask about the spring length. He says that you can buy "helper springs" that flatten under the car's weight, but extend to hold the spring in place when the suspension is on full droop. Of course! I realise that I knew about them when I away back when my memory worked. Them's what I need!

So I order a pair - 2 inches when extended, almost flat under compression.

I also go out and buy a bicycle brake cable and a wee adjuster nipple.

:: Tuesday, November 12, 2019 ::

I jack the rear of the car up and take the wheels off. I cut up some rubber sheet to put on top of the jack and axle stands!

Then I remove the dampers and springs by undoing the top and bottom bolts on each side. I wind the adjusters down as far as they go, and slide out the top cups and remove the springs. Ready for reassembly!.

Then I make up an emergency boot release. I don't want to be too specific about the details, for obvious reasons, but it involves the bike brake cable, cut to size, a crimper, and two tie wraps. I 1st it throughly before I shut the boot. The button still works, and so does the emergency cable!

There's a job that it's only taken me 17 years to get around to!

:: Friday, November 15, 2019 ::

The helper springs arrive today, so I put them on, then the standard springs, then the top spring cup. Then I wind up the height adjusters on both sides so they are both the same.

Then I refit them to the car - fit the top first, wiggle the bolt in, then put a washer and bus on "blind" - it's fiddly but doesn't take long. Jack under the trailing arm, lift the arm to get the bottom bolt in - tighten it all up and we're sorted!

With the car off the jack, I have a hunt around for something to use to measure the ride height under the chassis - it should be 170mm, although I had it a wee bit lower than that before. A brake adjuster spanner is exactly the right length!

Jack it up, wheels off, adjust the bottom spring cup down a couple of turns, wheels back on and lower, roll the car back and forward a bit to settle the suspension. Still too high! Repeat process, measure again - spot on! It might settle a bit, so I'll check it again after a wee drive.

Not today though - it's wet outside!

:: Thursday, November 28, 2019 ::

Time to get on with the various other wee jobs to get the car sorted out. First, though, I need to tidy my garage! There is so much stuff lying about the floor that you can hardly move, and there are no work surfaces to work on because they are covered in other stuff.

I move the car outside to give me some working space, then get started. That turns into a marathon task of its own, resulting in a bin full of cardboard boxes and paper, and two bags of rubbish. But also, a usable garage!

For a long time, the TVR has been almost undriveable when it’s cold (the car, not the weather!). It wouldn’t idle and it wouldn’t pull away without stalling - leading to some hilariously pant-soiling moments on our trips when we’re just leaving car parks before I’ve had a chance to warm up the engine.

It runs fine once it’s hot though, so it’s not a fundamental engine fault. It must be something to do with the cold running (controlled by the ECU - life was so much simpler when you just pulled the choke out so that the engine ran on pure petrol and got about 2mpg)...

Well, while the car was away, he replaced the throttle pot, and that’s made things a lot better. The other thing to try is to replace the coolant sensor (not the one that works the temp gauge, but the one that sends a signal to the ecu to tell it how warm the engine is).

So I ordered a new one for less than a tenner, so let’s see if it works. It’s not that hard - disconnect the electrical connector (underneath the throttle butterflies at the front of the plenum) and then use a 22 mm spanner to unwind the old sensor. I have the new sensor in hand, so as soon as one comes out I screw the new one in before too much coolant escapes. Tighten it up, reconnect the wiring and start it up.

It idles! Not that smoothly, admittedly, but it idles! And it drives down the street and back without hiccuping, stalling, or spreading itself over the front of an approaching bus. All good, I would say!

The next task is to fit a fire extinguisher, which is a dawdle - drill a couple of holes on the floor in front of the driver seat, and screw up in. Can’t be easier!

:: Saturday, November 30, 2019 ::

The next wee job is to repair the wee rubber pads on the body shell, that the bonnet sits on. They stop it rubbing the paint off, and also stop it from rattling. The ones on the car are ancient, and some are wearing through (and to be fair, some of them were "temporary" made from door seals, 10 years ago).

So I peel off all those old bits, and then remove the residue with white spirit. There are two at the bottom of the windscreen, two on the body shell above the wheel arches, two on the bonnet that sit on the last two, and a couple on the top of the shell's side panels. I work around then, making up cardboard templates and then cutting them out on to self-adhesive neoprene sheets.

The bonnet fit isn't right - it's slightly too high and slightly too far forward - but I'm not up to adjusting it today... that can be a marathon job, so it can be put off "temporarily".

I also want to tidy up the engine bay - paint the engine heads and the timing case etc, clean up the rest. The first task there is to remove some of the ancillaries, starting with the alternator. I disconnect the battery, then the alternator leads, before loosening the adjuster and removing the fan belt. Then I unbolt the whole mounting bracket - two M6 bolts at the from, and an M8 at the rear - and take off the whole alternator assembly.

And that's as far as I get before dinner time! Tune in for the next exciting instalment!