kws

I remember this sort of starter on my Mini too. The engine almost starts and bam, the starter kicks out. Love any updates on this, such a weird and cool car.

Some sizes here. Might be able to work out the measurements you need from it

I had nolathane mounts all around in a previous turbo DC2R and its was a horrible road car but would be good on a track. Very little slack when coming on and off throttle. On the road it was gross though. everything vibrated and shook. Couldn't use the mirrors much because they were just a blur.

I'm a little behind on posting this, as I did this work a couple of weeks ago, but since I'm now stuck at home in a COVID-19 Lockdown, I thought I would give a quick update. When I first got the car there was a brand new Bosch GT40 coil fitted. This concerned me for two reasons, first, this isn't a coil designed to work with an ignition system that is fitted with a ballast resistor (which the TVR has. Bosch makes the GT40R for this use), and secondly, although they are great coils they are known to have issues with electronic ignition and prefer to be triggered by points (the TVR has an electronic ignition). Fail. At first, I tried to replace it with the 40 year old original Ford coil that came with the car Although this worked, when this didn't fix the issue I was having (knowing what I know now, it never would have anyway) I tried swapping it for a slightly newer known good coil from my SD1 spares (SD1 has both electronic ignition and a resistor, like the TVR). This worked fine and has been in the car until now, but being that it's from about 1983 its no spring chicken, so I looked for an alternate option. I've been chasing a slight misfire/stumble when at cruise at operating temp, which I'm hoping is ignition and not fuelling, so the three things in the firing line were plugs, coil and ballast resistor. The plugs that came in the car were a bit old and had seen some shit during my initial attempts to get the car running, so replacing them wasn't a bad idea. A new set of NGK plugs went in. I went back and forth regarding the ballast resistor and coil. Was it best to keep the system as is and just replace the coil with another resistor coil, or bypass the resistor and fit a 12v coil instead? In the end, it was the resistor it's self that made the decision for me. In the TVR/Ford use of it, its a section of resistance wire, not a traditional resistor. I believe in the Ford applications its run in a single length and kept in the air stream, but in the instance of my TVR, it was just a coil of wire floating around on the fibreglass wing behind the air box, with little to no airflow. This had obviously taken its toll over the 40 years of its life, as the coil of wire was looking worse for wear with sections where it had clearly melted the insulation (and zip ties). Keep in mind that a resistor generates heat by nature; This wire would get too hot to touch when the engine was running. A plan was hatched. I would get a 12v coil and bypass the resistor. The resistor wire is joined into the loom via two bullet terminals, so that was easy to do. Just get a short section of decent gauge wire, crimp two terminals on it, and plug it in. Now that there is a solid 12v heading for the coil it was time to fit a replacement. I went with a Lucas Gold Sports coil, DLB105. I know not everyone is a fan of them, but it was a reasonable price, and would do what I needed. This was basically plug and play. Remove the old coil, Check the terminals are around the right way on the new coil, bolt it to the car and wire it up with the existing wiring. The car starts, runs and drives OK, so I guess that's a win. I haven't had a chance to get the car up to operating temp and see if it still stumbles, and won't for about a month now thanks to this pesky virus forcing the whole country into lockdown. Oh well, that gives me time to do a few more jobs on the TVR that I have been putting off, like front brakes and carpet. No excuses now.

My understanding is that if you are a worker in an essential business, you have access to what you need to get to and from work. If that means a mechanic to fix your car, or vtnz to keep it legal, prove you work at an essential business and go hard. Ie, if a nurses car needs a Wof to get to work, head into vtnz. I don't know how you would prove it if you took it in on behalf of the nurse though.

I was under the impression vtnz and the likes were a essential service?

That makes me sad. Needing a cert for carb-efi or efi-carb? Really? It also limits ALL reflashing and tuning for cars without a cert. Technically that means replacing the old Bosch ECU in my SD1 with Speeduino would need a cert. Is NZ slowly turning into Aus?

Also @Ulricht, sorry i didn't answer sooner, but I grabbed the number off the original injectors the other day, as you asked. Its Bosch 0437502019

It does seem that way. The first step is to run some injector cleaner through the system, and change the fuel filter. You might find if you haven't done this in the while it clears up a bit anyway. If it doesn't, you will need to start delving deeper (as long as you know its fuel related, and aren't heading into a world of pain for nothing if its ignition or intake/vacuum leak related instead). You should also do your valve clearances if you haven't recently. After going through the pain of making the non-functioning KJet in my TVR (which will be exactly the same as in your Sierra as its the same engine) work again, i made a series of guides to help anyone else through the testing, diagnosing, troubleshooting and configuring of the system. Part 1, The Basics Part 2, Testing Part 3, Tuning and Fixing Hopefully that helps you get it sorted. Happy to help if you have further questions.

It's very common in late model cars. Even the yaris I rented did it when you stomp the anchors.

Good. Was wondering if it was a loophole for those ones since they do illuminate steadily but only after a couple of flashes.

What about the high stop light flashers that flash it three times and then on solid? Shit that's annoying in traffic.

It also depends on the age of the car too. It's more expensive and invasive to revin something post 1990 or there abouts.

Time ran out. The Diff went in on the Thursday, Sunday was the show. Since we were back together and running, all that was left was a final push to get the car looking as good as it should. The first thing I needed to do was wash the car. I'm ashamed to admit that for the six months I have owned the car, I've never cleaned it. Not once, so it was still covered in the muck from sitting around for a couple of years, and from the trip down on the back of a truck. Oops. So with that in mind, after work Friday I pulled the car out of the garage and into the steep driveway for a wash. The paint came up well, but I noticed the front end felt pretty rough (its the original paint, the rear was painted after but of a shunt years ago), so out came my CarPro clay towel to remove the contaminants on the paint. The clay towel worked great, the paint is nice and slick now. After a quick dry, I left the car overnight, ready to start with the machine polish. Saturday was machine polish day. The whole front of the car was cloudy and dull with almost no shine. The rear was better, but still needed some attention. This is what I was working with Flat as anything. A quick test spot using my favourite combo of a green Hexlogic pad and Ultimate Compound showed promise though It took a bit of work, but it was cutting through the oxidation and bringing the metallic silver paint back. Unfortunately, the paint isn't great (although it is 40 years old now!). There is this large patch in the bonnet where the paint is discoloured And a couple of similar spots on the sides behind the front wheels. Strangely I did find a shadow behind the front wheels of where a TVR sticker would have been on each side The paint isn't perfect but for a 40 year old car I think it's doing OK. It shined up well and is showing a lot more gloss and flake now. Oh, guess what showed up whilst I was polishing the car... the bloody braided lines. Only two days too late. The real test was on Sunday when she was unveiled at the British and Euro Car Day show. This is the third time I have brought a car to one of these shows. I like to try and bring someone special each year if I can. British Car Day doesn't often have many TVRs. At most there tends to be one lonely TVR sitting off to the side, or bundled in with another group (that's where I found the 350i wedge back in 2016). This year, the lone TVR found a friend. Sadly there was a (not so) Mini between us, but I parked up nearby this lovely looking Griffith. This thing makes the Wedge look massive! The Wedge looked great out in the sun, and a lot of people were showing an interest in it. Kids especially seem attracted to its sweet 80s style The TVR was in good company too. The turnout at the show was good, although I'm not so fussed on all the new euro stuff clogging up the field. There was another TVR with weird doors that seemed to get all the attention A Morgan with gorgeous paint This cute little Auto Union DKW An awesome looking Renault Alpine that was parked next to some garish red and yellow things Plenty of Fords were in attendance Including this sleeper with a Lotus twin cam engine Of course, the Porsche crowed had a decent turnout. Most of it was boring to me, except for these two which stood out And I was starting to get worried, but eventually, a lone SD1 arrived. This one has been at the show before, but good to see it again, out and about Anyway, enough of that, back to the Wedge. After we left the show we went for a bit of a hoon to see if there was anywhere nearby that was an interesting spot to take photos. We found this old Ministry of Defence building down a back road That wasn't the end of the car being out and about this week. It was a lovely evening the other day, so since I had a fully road legal TVR, we took it out for the longest run since I've had it. It was about a 60km round trip, which uncovered a few things about the car. Firstly, it's surprisingly comfortable and easy to drive. It loves taking sweeping curves at speed, and makes some great pops and bangs on deceleration. The brakes have a nice firm feel to them now with no shudder. Unfortunately its not all roses. There is an annoying misfire at low RPM cruise. I think it's possibly the ignition system playing up a bit, or it could be running a bit lean at cruise. The only other real issues are the steering being super heavy at low speeds, and the exhaust is excessively loud to the point of being annoying. Nothing too major. I did get some photos in the sunset though There is still work to be done, but in the meantime, I think I will just enjoy being able to jump into the car, fire up the V6, and take it for a drive. I have spent so much time working on the car that I haven't had a chance to enjoy and bond with the car, it gets tiresome sometimes.

With show day now only a couple of days away, the rush was on. I had a car on stands, with a diff on the ground. Not ideal. Having found the shims to be ruined in the last post I ordered a set with a few different sizes from SNG Barratt in the UK, which arrived in record time. At the same time, I also decided that since the diff was on the ground, and I didn't want to have to pull it out again I would (stupidly) replace the diff output oil seal as that was leaking a few drops every now and then, so ordered a set of new seals. You can see the aftermath of the seal leaking here. All down the side of the diff. Also note the sweet two battery method for supporting the diff. This thing weighs a ton, so making sure it's well supported and stable is important. I did a lot of research into disassembly and reassembly of the output shaft, but by far the best resource was this Youtube video. The output shaft takes a bit of work to remove. After draining the diff, remove the lock wire and then the bolts holding the flange to the housing. With them removed its a case of using a soft hammer and a pry bar to lever the output shaft assembly out of the housing. I found it easiest to rotate the assembly and lever off the ears with the bolt holes. Eventually it will pop out. Looking a bit gross It looks like oil was bypassing the O-Ring, and leaking from the shaft seal. Disassembly of the assembly isn't hard. If you want to reuse the bearings and crush tube you will need to mark the nut and shaft (the shaft is SUPER hard and instantly rounded off the end of all my punches) and count the turns as the nut is removed. This is so you can tighten the nut to the same preload. Next tap down the locking tab, and remove the nut. The nut is HUGE and will be tight. I used a massive adjustable spanner. The nut requires a 1-7/8" or 48mm spanner. I happened to end up with both. The ring spanner is a couple of foot long. With the nut removed, its time to tap the shaft out. Support the assembly upside down (studs pointing down) from the mounting flange. Now carefully tap the end of the shaft with a soft hammer. This should start by freeing up the inner bearing, which can be removed, and then, in theory, should push the shaft out through the outer bearing, taking the seal with it. In my case this didn't go as planned, and the outer bearing more or less exploded and all the rollers decided they didn't want to be part of this anymore. This ruins any plans of reusing the bearings and crush tube. So with that in mind, I shot off a quick order to my Jag parts suppliers (Rodney Jaguar Rover Spares) and ordered some new bearings and a couple of crush sleeves. It turns out this bastard is the reason the bearing came apart That old crusty thing is the dust shield over the oil seal. Both that shield, and the oil seal were thoroughly rusted in place, so of course couldn't be popped out with the bearing as it should have. You cant see the state of this with the shaft/flange in place. I used a chisel to remove both One warning, that dust shield is obsolete now and unable to be supplied. After much research I'm of the opinion it's not needed, hence why Jag stopped making them and no one remade them. Some other models that use the same diff, and some later cars, don't seem to use them either. I guess if you can reuse yours, use it, otherwise I went without. One last thing I needed to do was remove the outer races of the bearings. I used a punch to tap these out While I waited for parts everything got a good clean in the parts washer. I didn't bother to strip off the old paint, as I wasn't going to do the rest of the diff either. A couple of days later, with new bearings and seals in hand, I set about refitting the new bearings. As mentioned in the video, I too ground down the old outer race and used that to press the new race in. This took off just enough that the old race wouldn't stick in the housing. I taped the race to a big socket and used this in the vice to press it in place And the inner race Next I packed the new outer bearing and insert it into the housing Followed by the oil seal. This was a prick to get into the housing. And then the shaft gets dropped through the bearing and seal, and then it needs to be tapped through the bearing. This takes a bit of whacking. It pays to check against the other output shaft as to how far you need to tap it down. I found it needs to go further down than you would expect, but if you don't go far enough it will upset everything from the flange outwards (brake disk sitting central in the caliper, and camber). If you go too far I suspect you will get binding on the housing, so take care. Once the shaft is in, flip it over and drop the new crush tube down the shaft and then the grease packed inner bearing goes in, followed by the locking plate and nut. Now its time to crush that tube. This takes a hell of a lot of force to do. The spanner I had was too short to get the required leverage, so I used my jack handle instead by placing the nut in the vice and using the studs on the flange to turn it. I protected the studs with some tube offcuts. In terms of setting the preload I will recommend you watch the above video as he goes into how to correctly set it, using a spring scale. Its not rocket science, but easier to just watch him do it. Once the tube is crushed and the preload is set, lock down the nut, install the new O-Ring and you're done. Reinstall the assembly in the diff. This will take some force with a soft hammer to tap it back in, just make sure the splines line up first. Now it was time to look at the nice new shims. Mmm, clean. They come covered in oil, but I chose to also slather them in copper grease to help stop them rusting or sticking in future. I went with the same stack on the right side, which was perfect for disk placement (central in the caliper), but the left side ended up needing another 0.10 shim to align the disk. I'm not sure if maybe it wasn't centered before I pulled it apart, or if the new rotor is slightly different. I test fitted the disks with the new shims and still got great runout readings, so proceeded with installing the calipers for the final time. I'm pissed off I have to reuse the old rubber flexi hose. I have a set of nice braided lines en route, but they have gone missing somewhere between the UK and NZ. They'll probably show up tomorrow... And the handbrake calipers went on next. I had some nice new brass springs to fit but I just couldn't free the old ones up, so gave in and fitted as they were. I did replace the two pins that were fitted dry as they had pitting and scoring. New locking tabs were fitted also. Now it was time for one of the worst jobs I've had to do on a car for a long time. Reinstalling the diff. If the exhaust hadn't been designed by an idiot it would have been fine, but instead, it had been built in such a way that there isn't quite enough space to slip the diff with brakes fitted between the two pipes, and it has no flanges, and the two pipes are welded to a bracket.... but we had to try anyway. On the jack it went (for now) And into the boot went a bunch of weights (to try and hold the back of the car down since there was no weight in it anymore) And then the struggle began. First, we tried to just lift it into place. Nope. No go. Wouldnt even get under the car on the jack. After much pissing around (including taking the diff off the jack, and realising we couldn't get it back on the jack under the car) we eventually wiggled it in on an angle, from the side, on the jack. It got pretty hairy. Then I tried to lift just the front so I could get the front mount in and use that to pivot the rear into place. Nope. Started to lift the car off the axle stands. Not good. We had been at this for a couple of hours now and getting pretty tired of it. Everything was fighting us. Even the damn arms were getting in the way. This one ended up being held forward by an axle stand and steadied by a couple of bungee cords attached to the house. Finally, plan B came into play. I tried to resist, but it just wasn't going to happen otherwise. Out came the reciprocating saw. It was cutting time. With the exhaust now in two pieces, things were looking up Now we had ample space for the brake calipers to clear the exhaust, and without much more faffing about, the whole lot slid nicely into place. Unfortunately, we kinda ran out of interest here, so sorry for the lack of photos. We bolted everything back together, and I sent my awesome helper/wife out to get some exhaust sealing tape and cement. She's a keeper for sure, not only did she return with what I needed, but also brought back some much needed sustenance. The idea was to use a clamp I purchased earlier for this purpose (always have a plan B), and clamp over the exhaust tape. The tape was to seal the gap, and the clamp to support the pipe and hold it in place. This plan worked well, and it seems we have an exhaust that is in one piece again and doesn't leak. The longish term plan is to have the exhaust redone anyway as it sits way too low, its too loud, and doesn't link the two banks so sounds weird. So, with everything buttoned back up, diff full of oil, rear brakes bled, it was time for a test run. The brakes are a little spongy, I suspect there is air in the front (the master cylinder level got a bit low in the couple of weeks of sitting without brakes), so will bleed that tomorrow, but the shudder is completely gone. Just smooth (if vague) braking. Obviously the worst was in the rear brakes, but I still need to replace the front rotors as they have worn undersize and still have excessive runout. Plus, who doesn't want flash slotted rotors? Everything seems to be working as it should too, which is promising. At this rate, it will be a push to get the car ready for Sunday, but since we are rolling, and driving again, that's a big weight off my shoulders. We can do it, it's so close.