Restoration Diary
(Click on any photo to see a larger version)

February 2004!

The car now moves under it’s own power! - We no longer need to push the car in and out of the garage. This is our biggest achievement since the body went back on and marks the beginning of the end of the rebuild.

Our wiring is almost complete, as reported in past updates the under bonnet area is complete and we have wired in our Kenlowe fans and an FIA electric cut out switch. However, along the way we learnt several lessons. Do not have the main HT lead running next to the electronic ignition wire from the coil to the control unit as the car will not start. Obviously large electrical interference going on and it took us the best part of an hour to identify (and was spotted after reading the Do Not section in the instructions!). With the FIA cut out switch there is some additional wiring as well as the main battery feed. We spent some time looking at it and were quite pleased with it all figured out and in place, however, horror flashed Tony in the face when he returned to the garage after removing the said Cut Out to be faced with thick acrid smoke. We had forgotten to isolate our live feed to the main bulkhead connection and this resulted in a sturdy ceramic resistor acting as the earthing point shorting out the battery. Fortunately the smoke was from electrical insulation tape so no damage was done.

In spite of having two people working on most jobs and checking each other’s work mistakes do happen so it pays to check more carefully and with reference to instructions. The saying KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) is very appropriate given the simplicity of our mistakes. Anyway we are now wiser.

Our wiring has now progressed as we now have a new fuse box using modern blade fuses, we have used more than the original 4 fuses, fusing up all-important items separately. This will be useful if (not when!) fuses blow and tracing the fault. This job sounded complicated before we began it but it is quite easy, the main points to remember are that anything requiring power will either be unswitched (on irrespective of the ignition) or switched (the opposite). We were then able to use this property when rewiring the electrics creating common terminal points for taking power. We have where possible kept to the TVR schematic diagram as it is accurate, we have only amended it where we have updated equipment, although by noting what we have done it will be simple to fault find or add new equipment in the future.

Other wiring jobs we have tackled include wiring loom for the In Car Entertainment which is now installed, we just need to lay the speaker wire and make a pair of speaker housings for the front speakers, which were sourced from a recent Griffith having an upgrade. We have an electric aerial which will be installed once the car is sprayed. We have wired up our new rocker switches. We have also wired up their lights and the dashboard lights which of course come on with the main lights. Our indicators are wired up and we purchased a lighting stalk so we can now flash and use main beam. Other jobs which easily use up an evenings work include removing old wiring, embarking upon a job and finding a fault and then curing that before moving on. At present our light fittings are not installed so the real test will be when they are plumbed in again. We have wired up our alternator although the alternator itself is suspect, we will need to test it. The important wiring for the ignition does now work, including the ignition barrel which is now fully installed and working.

Wiring left to do includes wiring up the dashboard instruments and the major job of tidying the wires in front of the bulkhead, I won’t speculate too much about this yet as any plan we have may change as there isn’t much space! We need to wire up the interior light and our door switches for the courtesy lights.

We have recently had our seats recovered. Our problem was that both seat bases were jaded and saggy, and both seats had splits or tears in the vinyl. We spent a lot of time deciding whether to replace the seats with the same style ones again, buy covers or buy aftermarket seats. Eventually the most cost effective option was to get ours recovered, after receiving quotes from £300 to £500 for a pair we went with the £300 quote with Trim Tec http://www.trim-tec.co.uk/ based in Birmingham. It was encouraging when I dropped off and collected the seats that on both occasions they had a Chimaera in their workshop. It is run by a couple of older guys who really know their stuff and the finished result is superb. Black vinyl with red piping. I also bought some of the same pattern vinyl and piping to recover our centre console and door cards.

Current work on the car is focussed on the body. We have decided to get the topcoat sprayed professionally, we would liked to have done it ourselves but we had two things against us, time and space. In a single garage it is impossible to spray for than 1/3 of the car at a time, for this reason and the fact that we are still amateurs it would take us many weeks to do. So we have got a good quote from a local business. All we need to do is the preparation so we are finishing the priming of the bonnet and doors and checking the quality of the main body. We hope to send the car away for this within the next two months.

Then there was a big break for most of the summer up to about October.

During autumn the vast majority of the time was spent trying to get the bodywork up to a sprayable standard, particularly the bonnet. This wasn’t in ‘very’ bad condition, but had a few stone chips on the front, and some stress cracks near the o/s headlamp mounting hole. We had already tried to repair the cracks by the time we had put a good few coats of primer back on to the whole bonnet, but it kept appearing. So we re-filled it. And re-sprayed, and it came back. Ad infinitum. On advice we took a slightly more severe course of action to remedy this – with a flapper wheel we took a couple of mm off the surface all around the cracked area, and reapplied glass tissue and resin in very very thin coats to remake the entire area, finishing off with normal filler to complete the exact contours. We’re quite pleased with this, our first attempt at re-glassing an area, but time will tell if the cracks come back when the paint is on. We’ve heard this is a case of ‘they all do that sir’,  so we’ll keep and eye on it and see what happens.

Next up was take two with the N/S/R wheel arch. Some months (years?!) before when preparing the body for painting we had filled in and remade an area at the front of the arch that had obviously suffered some impact at some stage during the cars life. This was looking ok, but as it had been a while since the paint went on, and we were sorting out any imperfections for the professional coats, we noticed the paint starting to crack again. In hindsight grabbing hold of the lip and wobbling it did make matters worse, but it would have only have ruined the top coat had we not have taken action there and then. Filler wasn’t an option so we set to with the resin and glass once more. First step was to be a bit brutal and hacksaw an entire section out of the arch, in about 3” from the edge. We made a former from some steel mesh and bent this to shape in the void behind the lip, securing this with some P40. We used the flapper wheel to take a couple of mm off the surrounding area too, so the sheets of tissue would sit at the same level and not stick out too much. Then layer upon layer of matting, then tissue, were applied with some time left in between coats, over the space of about 3-4 weeks. Sanding down on this has started although we haven’t really got into putting filler on to complete the surface at this stage. The new GRP has been sanded just below where it needs to be, so all that remains is re-contouring and lots of guide coats to make sure we get it right. This is going to be trial and error to a certain degree I think, as its going to take a lot of work to get it absolutely right. Pictures of this to follow.

During evenings where it has been too cold to spend time in the garage, we’ve started looking at the door mechanisms, the frames, and window units. The old runners at the bottom of the frame were just remnants of rust by now after years of punishment, so we’ve remade these out of alloy L sections, riveted together. The frames themselves were fairly corroded, so one evening was devoted to sitting at the kitchen table with some Autosol and stockinette, and the results were very pleasing indeed. It was slow work, one section at a time, but the results are pretty impressive. The surface isn’t perfect (I wouldn’t expect them to be after 25 years!) so there are still little knocks in the metal that are fairly unnoticeable and are going to stay, but on the whole things are good, and set against the red bodywork will look fantastic. The door mechanism was next for attention, so we split each side into their three parts of handle section, central connecting rod, and latch, giving each a good clean up along the way. The two end pieces weren’t too bad, apart from some orange overspray from previous work, so just a wire brush and a soak in some WD40 was all they needed, finished off with a brushing of coppaslip to work into the moving parts. The connecting rods were fairly corroded, so these were brushed down and repainted for protection.

Next up will be the window mechs themselves, but first of all we need to find one of them that was obviously put in a ‘safe place’ some time ago – it has to be around somewhere! Hoping to get the bonnet re-primered when the weather gains a couple of degrees, and start putting things back together in earnest after the top coat has been re-done locally. As spring rolls on the prospect of using the car during summer seems like a distinct possibility, so we’re going to pull out all the stops and get it sorted this year – really! New target has been agreed as PistonFest in July, where all being well she’ll make her debut.

Light at the end of the tunnel – tasks remaining

Once the car has been sprayed jobs left will be to fit carpets (which we will get binded whilst the car is away at the body shop).
Refit door and window mechanisms, refit doors.
Refit interior trim, centre console, dashboard.
Refit lights.
Refit miscellaneous trim (e.g. mirrors, bumpers).
Then testing time prior to the MoT.

Erm, we also need to have a go at tidying the garage......: