A Blind Bought TVR Tasmin

[kws]

Last weekend was a productive one on the TVR, starting with wrapping up the fuel hose replacement job I started earlier.

I was held up with the wrong filter, so I did some more research and ordered what I hoped was the correct filter (using the number off the existing filter)

Thankfully it was the right one. The early cars with the filter under the car use a Ryco Z399 filter.

A set of nice new copper crush washers and on went the fitting

I had to replace the hose from the pump to the filter, as I was doing away with the accumulator, and the existing hose was both incorrectly rated, and starting to perish

1/4" hose is pretty small, and not that common here, but I found Repco stocks Gates Barricade hose, which is bloody expensive per meter, but some of the best hose available.

You'll note in the photo above that the old hose is J30 R6 rated, which is safe to about 50PSI in an injection system (despite saying a higher rating on the hose). The Bosch MFI system runs at about 80PSI, so although that hose had been working OK, I wasn't going to trust sticking with an R6 hose. The Gates Barricade hose is safe for 225PSI as it is a J30R14T2 rated hose.

Since I had been doing all this work on the bench first, it was time to move to under the car, where I got a timely reminder to always check your lifting points. The TVR had been in the air on the Quickjacks for a week now, and unknown to me it had settled on the front blocks, and they had started to tilt and slip. It's possible it would've been OK, but it's not worth the risk. I dropped the car back down and reseated all the blocks. ALWAYS check the car is secure before getting under it, even if that means giving it a good shake or shove. Better it falls off the stands onto the ground, than onto your head.

With the car safely in the air again, I refit the new filter to the mount and secured the bolts and ground straps. I wanted a nice straight hose from the pump to filter, but due to the proximity and angle, the only way I could do it was a loop back from the filter. At least this time I don't need to wrap the hose in tape to stop it from being rubbed through where it was touching the body, as it had been...

And here is the new hose

Once everything was happily in place, I torqued both banjo fittings up with my torque wrench. They don't take much, just 18-20NM, but it's essential they are torqued correctly. I have heard much talk about not using the moulded hex on the ends of the filter or disaster can strike. I don't know how true that is, but I didn't need to secure the filter as the mounting clamp held it tight anyway.

After mixing some more injector cleaner into 10L of fresh petrol, I slowly poured it into both tanks, keeping a close eye on the new hose joins. When everything appeared to be dry and sealed, I reconnected the battery, and turned the key and listened as the system primed. I let it prime for a short time and checked all the high pressure lines, and once satisfied they were dry, I fired the beast up. Everything still looked good. Winning.

With the car still in the air, I planned some more maintenance. I wasn't sure when the last time the driveline oils were done, so like usual, I spent hours pouring over fluid specs, and eventually settled on a Nulon fully synthetic 75W-85 GL4 for both the gearbox and diff. Nulon sells it in these nifty little baggies, which at first I thought were a gimmick, but I'll tell you now, its way better than a bottle.

The gearbox is a bit of a pain to get at due to the exhaust, which chills out directly under the drain plug, and allows only a small space to access the fill plug. Always undo the fill plug first, just in case.

One thing that always bothers me is getting oil on the exhaust, as even if you hose it with degreaser or brake clean, it'll still stink as it burns off. There was no way to avoid oil pouring on the exhaust with the TVR, so I settled for being smart and using some plastic sheet wrapped around the exhaust. Worked a treat.

The old fluid actually looked really good, so I suspect it hasn't done a lot of miles in the car, but its probably still been in there a few years.

The diff was easier to access, with the drain plug smack bang on the bottom, and the fill plug on the back. Both were bloody tight but came off when I asked nicely.

Yeah, the diff will probably need some seals at some point, but that's down the list a bit for now.

I used three and a half bags (1L each) between the gearbox and diff. Here we see the squeezy bois chilling at the watering hole

One thing I noticed with the bags is that it can be hard to get the last little bit out. What you can do is join the two bags together, and drain one into the other. I also reused hoses between bags, leaving me with one unused, clean, hose to stick back onto the half full bag to use later.

With the fluids changed (except engine oil, I still need to do that) I lowered the car back down and took it for a quick spin. Unfortunately the running issue seems to be getting worse. It used to just be under load at about 4000rpm the engine would fall flat and cut out. Now it happens randomly and is almost undrivable.

 

 

Watch the video with subtitles on as I note where it has issues. You can see it revs happily with no load at the end.

I had my suspicions of what it could be, but I needed to do more testing.

[kws]

As mentioned previously, I'm having some running issues and I need to try and work out what it is.

The issue has been getting worse the more I run and drive the car. It previously only happened under load at about 4000rpm, where the engine would fall on its face and cut out like you had turned the key off. If you kept the throttle steady it would recover with a surge as the revs dropped, but as soon as it got up to about 4k again, it would cut out. When stationary, and not under load, it will happily rev to its 6k redline.

It's a very annoying issue. I had a couple of suspicions of what it could be, but I needed to do some testing to narrow it down.

My first suspicion was that I must be losing spark, as the engine cuts so abruptly and I felt that if it were fuel it would kinda stutter out.

The first thing I noticed was that the replacement coil the previous owner had fitted was a Bosch GT40. This is a 12v coil, and from what I have discovered, widely known to have issues with electronic ignitions. Now, the ignition system on my car is both a ballasted system and electronic. A ballasted system runs a resistor on the power feed to the coil, dropping the voltage, meaning the coil doesn't see 12v. So I was already running the coil under voltage.

After testing and confirming the resistor was still in place, I removed this coil and refitted the original Ford coil that came with the car.

Changing this resulted to a smoother idle (maybe, but probably a placebo), but the engine still cut out.

The next thing was to check the lead positions, cap and rotor. I note that the cap and rotor have been replaced, and the old ones were with the car. The old cap is stuffed, but the old rotor looked OK, so I swapped that in after a quick clean. No change.

Next was to confirm if I did lose spark or not. The only way I could think of was by thinking out of the box and using my timing light... So I connected it up, and strapped it to the wiper so I could see it when driving. Sure enough, when the engine cut, the light was still flashing away happily. That indicates I have spark (although, not if I have a good strong spark, but some spark is better than none).

So this points me down a different path. I have air, and I have spark. Could it be fuel after all?

I posted up on a few forums asking for help, and got some great tips on where to start looking. One of the easiest to do was to check the sensor plate in the AFM was clean. This plate is hinged, and lifts up with airflow as it gets sucked into the engine, which in turn pushes a plunger up and down to control fuel flow. Well, although the top looked reasonably clean, the underside was filthy (probably thanks to the incorrect air filter that was fitted)

I gave this a thorough clean and made sure it was spotless. This made no change, but its good to know its clean now.

I also, once again, checked the intake tube and boot for splits or cracks, but none found. All vacuum lines (all two or three of them) were checked, all OK.

One thing that makes me suspect its possibly fuel, is the state of the new plugs I fitted. Even after a couple of runs around the block, a couple look almost unused. Maybe lean? From 1 to 6 in order.

This is leaving a couple of possibilities, ones that I cannot test without further equipment. First is an intake manifold leak or the likes. Today my smoke machine arrived, so I could test this.

It's just a cheapie, but makes a good amount of smoke, and has a pump to actually blow it out under pressure.

After a quick test, I modified it to work how I needed it to. I salvaged a cap from a CRC rust convertor can, drilled a hole in it, glued some hose into it, and glued the cap onto the front of the smoke machine (as it just has a big nozzle on the front normally, for maximum smoke dispersion in da clubz)

This hose then goes into a rubber glove with a finger cut off it. I find using one of these seals the intake pipe nicely with the wrist of the glove, but doesn't crush the rubber hose.

I don't know if it's good or bad, but smoke testing the intake shows there are no intake or vacuum leaks. I tested with the throttle open and closed, to check the intake hose for leaks as well as the plenum/manifold, but nothing, not even a weep.

So what left? Well, two things really. I need to test the fuel pressures of the system, but because the fuel fittings use banjo bolts and hard lines instead of rubber hoses, I can't use my existing pressure testing kit. I have a new kit on the way, which has all the fittings I need to connect into the KJetronic system. This will tell me if there is an issue with the Warm Up Regulator or the main pressure regulator. The whole system relies on having the correct pressures, so even a few PSI difference can make it all turn to custard.

The other thing I need to do, once I have tested the pressures, is to remove the fuel distributor and injectors. I need to see if the plunger in the fuel distributor is clean and moving freely, or if it's sticky. I also need to check the flow and spray pattern from the injectors. It's possible either, or both, of these things are causing an issue.

My main theory at the moment is a sticking fuel plunger, which is causing the engine to starve of fuel when it demands more. The worst thing you can do with a KJet system is to leave old fuel in it and not run the car regularly. This car has been off the road for years, and I don't know when it was last started and run, or how old the fuel in the system was. KJet runs at such fine tolerances that even a slight gum or varnish on a component can make it upset.

I'm determined to work this issue out and get the KJet working properly as it's a cool system, and one I haven't worked with before. I have everything I need to convert to EFI and Speeduino, but I'm trying hard to resist that urge.

Now we wait. Once the pressure test kit arrives, Its game on.

[kws]

Since I'm still waiting on the pressure testing kit to arrive, I got impatient and did some more testing.

I wanted to remove the injectors and see if any of them were leaking and what the spray pattern is.

The intake plenum needs to come off. before this can be removed though, the coolant block on the front needs to be unbolted. Unbolting this saves disconnecting the coolant hoses.

All the other hoses got removed, and the 7th injector was removed from the plenum. The plenum is held down with eight long bolts that go into the inlet manifold. Just a note, these bolts aren't sealed off from the inside of the plenum, so will need sealant on them upon reassembly.

With everything disconnected and unbolted, the plenum just lifts off

Removing the injectors is fairly simple. The clamp on the pipes (which goes above, below and between the pipes), as visible in the lower Lh corner of the above photo, has to be removed to allow enough slack in the pipes, but otherwise its a case of removing the single bolt per injector, and then pulling it free from the manifold. They are meant to be sealed in, but mine came out suspiciously easily.

The rubber collar is weird. I presume/hope there is a normal O-Ring under it, as that is what all the parts manuals say it should have, and there seems to be no part for that rubber collar. I'll have to carefully remove and reuse the collar.

All the injectors look pretty rough, but I guess thats what 39 years of sitting in the intake looks like. The ends all look clean enough, with no obvious buildup. I did note that cylinder 6 was very wet upon removal, and a couple of others were damp. The engine has been off and cold for about a week, with no pressure in the lines.

Testing them isnt rocket surgery, just pop them all into jars, fire up the pump and see if they produce any fuel (which they all did to some degree), which indicates either the fuel plunger is letting excess fuel through, or the injectors are leaking. Further investigations show its probably a 50:50 on leaking or adjustment causing it.

With the pump running, lift the sensor plate in the AFM to its stop and observe the flow and pattern from the injectors. All mine seem to flow roughly the same, but the flow pattern out of all of them appeared to be rubbish, with minimal misting and heading off in all directions. That's good, it confirms that buying a whole set of replacement injectors was the right decision!

One other thing that has been bugging me, was the sensor plate in the AFM. This is meant to be a finely calibrated instrument, but I think someone has mucked with mine before.

You can see in the above photo that it looks like the sensor plate (the disk in the middle of the cone) is sitting high with a gap under it. Well, it is.

From the below diagram, you can see the sensor plate sits at the bottom of a cone. As air comes in from the filter at the bottom, it comes in under the plate and a combination of that air coming in, and engine vacuum in the intake, lifts the plate to allow air into the intake. Lifting the plate also lifts the fuel plunger, increasing fuel flow.

The plate should be set to a specific height, which is more or less with the highest point of the plate flush with the lip at the bottom of the cone (before where it tapers outwards again, under the plate).

Mine was clearly sitting a lot higher than that. Not to mention the other issue...

The plate was off-centre. I even thought the plate was too big to fit through the opening, but it was just because it was off-centre.

I carefully backed off the center bolt, and centered the plate (this should be done with feeler gauges, but I did it by eye this time)

Now it fits through the opening

It was still sitting too high though

There is a spring under the plate that sets the height. The manual says to adjust it with pliers, but I'm damned if I can bend the thing.

I'll keep at it and see if I can tweak it.

The other thing I noticed is that you can hear and feel the plunger moving when you manipulate the sensor plate. I'm not sure how normal it is, but my plunger seems very slow to return to the zero position. It doesn't seem to bind and it moves smoothly, it's just slow to return. I'll be removing and cleaning this in the future anyway.

So that's where I'm at. I'm waiting for a set of new injectors to arrive, and I need to remove the fuel distributor and WUR to clean them out. I'm planning on setting everything up from zero since I have no idea what's been done to this by previous bodgers.

[kws]

Its been a while since the last post; almost exactly a month. Although it's been quiet on here, work has been slowly progressing on the TVR.

Unfortunately I've been suffering serious issues with motivation recently, and getting down into the garage to work on the car just wasn't happening often. It hasn't helped that for every little scrap of success I've been having with the car, I would get a big wad of failure dumped on me. It seems like a constant battle at times.

When I could get into the garage and plug away at the TVR I did. I have done a lot of testing, cleaning and investigation into the K-Jetronic system trying to chase down the running issue it has. This will be the subject of a post in the near future, but I'm learning a lot about the system and how it works. Hopefully that knowledge will lead to me getting it working correctly, and helping others along the way.

In the meantime, I did have a couple of small successes. One was the gas struts for the bonnet and boot. The old ones were well poked, and held nothing, so other means of support were employed. The bonnet and boot may be fibreglass, but they sure ain't light; I didn't want to take one of them to the noggin.

Not flash, but they worked. The boot had the wood plank, and the bonnet had an aluminium tube.

I did some ringing around and research into the option of having the existing struts regassed, as finding a set of struts in the correct length and with the low pressure they require (100NM) locally didn't seem possible, but the cost of regassing the struts, if even possible, wasnt much less than a new set of struts from SGS Engineering in the UK.

The old ones appear to be the original Stabilus Lift-O-Mat struts, as the date mark on them is 04/80. They did pretty well to get this far!

Upon removing them, three had some pressure, although minimal, and one of the bonnet ones was completely dead. Removal was easy. The old ones had plastic locking pins that needed to be removed and then the ends could be popped off the ball with a long screwdriver. All of the ball joints had to be removed to replace with the new shiny ones, which is easily done with the appropriate spanners.

The replacements are lovely and shiny, I'm glad I went for the new option as the old ones just never would've cleaned up as well. They are Nitrolift branded, and gassed to the correct 100NM. It appears SGS custom build these for each order.

The ends are particularly nice

They fit and work perfectly. Much better.

For the money spent, its a great upgrade from the saggy old struts.

Moving on, the second win I had was finally working out what the ashtrays are in the early Tasmin.

My old ones were badly rusted and falling to bits. They weren't useable and looked terrible. I suspect this was from rainwater coming in the window due to the failed/damaged seals. The front was literally being pushed off by rust, on the driver's side.

There had been a lot of information/discussion on the internet about the ashtrays being from a Jaguar XJ6. I can dispel this myth now, they are not. You could probably make them fit, but they aren't the original ashtrays.

I purchased a pair of ashtrays from an XJ6, and when compared to the TVR ones the difference is subtle, but there. Jag on the left, TVR on the Right. The Jaguar ones are rounded on the sides, and slightly taller. The mounting tabs for the ashtray into the housing are completely different too.

Speaking of the housing, that also differs from the TVR one. TVR Left, Jag Right. Jag is slightly smaller in all directions except depth. Its slightly deeper and has a sloped back on it, whilst the TVR one is flat on the back. The mounting hole also doesn't line up.

So, with that bitter disappointment, and waste of money, I kept digging. I eventually found that the 2 Door Range Rover Classic used the same ashtray as the TVR, but finding one of those was proving impossible. It wasn't until a member on the TVR Wedges Facebook page pointed it out, that it was suddenly obvious where the ashtrays came from. I almost felt embarrassed I didn't notice it... they're from a Series 1 Rover SD1!

There it goes, sitting there, in the door. Finding one of these was a lot easier, albeit blue is a rare colour so I have ended up with a pair of tan, like the above photo.

It turns out that TVR modified the Rover part slightly, by removing the foam tape off the back of the housing, and bashing the mounting hole with a hammer to flatten it off (sits proud normally, and the ashtray won't sit flush in the door).

They aren't perfect, due to the tan, but I'm keeping an eye out for a blue pair, but will give dying these a go at some point. Better than rusty old ones falling out of the door!

So once again, I've been left with some small victories, which are better than nothing, but the KJet system continues to fight me. More on that later though, as thats been a big, ugly, process.

[kws]

Another small job I wanted to take on whilst the car was in bits, was to check the valve clearances. I had no history of it being done, and its a fairly important thing to check on these engines, and not hard to do.

Valve clearance is the small gap that must exist between the rocker arm and the top of the valve stem. This gap allows for expansion of the parts as they heat up (mainly the valve), so that there isn't either excessive space between the two (valve won't open as far or as long, and will make a loud tapping noise) or too little (valve may not close, and can result in a burnt valve).

Some engines have the means to self adjust, usually via a hydraulic lifter (those things that make Mitsis go "tick tick tick"), but on these older engines (and even some modern engines, like Hondas) the clearances were a scheduled service item and needs to be checked and corrected.

On this engine it's nice and easy to access with the intake piping out of the way. It's just a matter of removing the valve covers, of which mine were leaking anyway.

It turns out that a few of the valve cover bolts weren't even finger tight, so no wonder the oil was getting through the gasket!

With the covers off, you need to use a socket and ratchet to rotate the engine so that the crank timing mark lines up with TDC on the front pointer. If its correct, you should find that No 5 cylinder valves are "rocking" and this is when you measure No 1 cylinder clearances. "Rocking" is the term for when you watch the rockers on that cylinder and you will see the both are at the same height, but if you rock the crank one way, one rocker will push down slightly, and if you rock it the other way, the other rocker will push down.

Ford Cologne engines are a little special, so the layout isn't quite what you expect. Take note of the layout of the intake and exhaust valves, they aren't always in the same order.

The clearances should be as follows. These are done on a cold engine (about 20c ideally). The exhaust has a bigger clearance due to the additional heat the valve is subjected to.

When checked with a feeler gauge, there should be a slight drag on the blade, but not too tight, or too loose. You kinda just do it by feel and get to know what it should feel like

When one cylinder is done, check the list to see what rockers will be rocking next and turn the crank (in the direction of normal rotation) until those rockers rock, and check the clearances on the opposing cylinder in the list. Easy.

If any of them need adjusting, there will be a screw on the opposite end of the rocker, that either needs to be loosened or tightened to open or close the gap. Most cars have a locking nut to stop it rotating, but the Cologne doesn't, so turning the screw will adjust it, and it self locks. Mine were very tight, so I used a six sided socket and rachet to turn them. A little goes a long way though, so sometimes even a slight tweak of the screw will be the difference between loose, and the right amount of drag.

Five of six cylinders had valves that were too tight to get the blade into, and one cylinder was loose as a goose. I don't know what this means, hopefully it isn't a sign of valve recession due to a lack of lead, but time will tell. It could also just be bad adjustment from a previous mechanic....

[kws]

Well yeah, Bosch K-Jetronic.... I now understand why it's so widely hated.

This will be a rather large post, as this covers about 6 weeks of work.

The TVR has been out of commission for a while now, since the running issue was getting worse to the point it wasn't able to make it down the road anymore.

The last update regarding the engine saw me remove the plenum and injectors to test them. This lead to the discovery that the flow was there, but the pattern was rubbish, so new injectors were sourced.

New Bosch injectors for the cologne are big money, and I'm trying to sort this issue for minimal cost (within reason). There is a lot of discussion online about using Mercedes injectors in various KJet powered cars (mainly VW), and it all seems good, and the injectors are much cheaper. I found one single blog post on a foreign website, that once translated confirmed that the Merc injectors do indeed work on the Cologne V6. Good enough for me.

The injectors in question are Bosch part number 0437502047, and I also got new seals, Febi 034133557E. I sourced both from FCP Euro.

The Bosch boxes made me laugh. MECHANIC ONLY!

You can see the obvious difference here. The new injectors are shorter, both in the overall length, but also in the hex part at the top.

I can now confirm that these do indeed fit, and if you check the link to the other blog above, you can see that the injector does stick out into the intake tract less, but won't be an issue (and some say is better for intake flow).

You can see the shorter hex here

These are the plastic retainers. These sit on top of the O-ring, and appear to be what actually holds the injector into the manifold, by the metal retainer pushing down on the plastic retainer, which pressed down on the O-ring. The tapered face visible in the first photo is what sits against the O-ring.

Due to the replacement injectors having a shorter hex, you cannot fit the retainer and O-ring, and then still have space to tighten the injector pipe. I found it easiest to slip the plastic retainer, O-ring and metal retainer on, leave them at the bottom of the injector, and then fit and tighten the pipe on the car. Once tight, then you slip the retainer and O-ring up into place.

So that finally solves the mystery of the injector seal. It's a normal KJet O-ring, with a plastic retainer on it.

With the new injectors sorted, they all got refitted into the manifold and secured with the metal retainer and screw.

Next was to remove and clean the fuel distributor. This is the big weird thing on top of the air box, which feeds all the injectors. This has a plunger inside it, which the sensor plate presses up on as it opens. This plunger is known to get sticky when cars are left sitting. Mine was slow to return, and wasn't moving as free as it should.

Carefully crack off all of the banjo fittings, including the feed and return on the side, and then remove the banjo bolts. Take care to collect all the copper washers, as there will be two on each banjo fitting. With the fuel lines disconnected this gives access to the three flat head screws that secure the unit to the air filter housing. Remove these screws. Now the distributor can be CAREFULLY removed. Make sure to slip a hand under it and stop the plunger from dropping right out. If it falls out and gets damaged, the whole distributor is a write-off!

You can see the plunger in the center of the unit.

With the unit on the bench you can turn it over and let the plunger slip out. If it doesn't freely drop out, it may need some compressed air in the top fuel fitting to push it out. Mine dropped out OK. Be VERY careful handling the plunger, and keep it very clean.

I cleaned the plunger and its cylinder in the main unit, and sprayed and soaked all fuel ports with carb and brake cleaner.

In the injector outlets there are individual filter baskets. I used a long, thin screw to gently screw into them, and then a sharp pull freed them

They all had some traces of dirt on them, but nothing major. I soaked them in brake clean overnight and then refitted them

The regulator was the last part to clean and overhaul. This resides on the side and is a 5/8" hex. I ordered a replacement seal kit from Delorean GO as they use the same part in their Kjet setup.

The regulator kit is PN 102807A and I also got a new seal for between the fuel distributor and airbox, PN 102855

I used a small pick to remove the old seals, and replaced them with the new green ones. The old ones looked in good shape, I wonder if they had been replaced recently to try and fix the issue? Be careful handling the regulator too, just above the o-ring in the below photo are two very small shims. These set the fuel pressure, so don't lose them! You can add or subtract shims to increase or decrease system pressure.

I also did the o-ring on the regulator piston, but no photo of that.

That's about all I could do with the distributor without splitting it, and that is a risky job that could result in further damage or leaks.

The next part to clean out was the (incorrectly named) Warm Up Regulator. This is the main control pressure regulator (the one above only controls the system pressure), and controls how rich or lean the engine runs. It has two bolts holding it down, two fuel banjo fittings, a power connector, and a vacuum hose.

Mine was pretty grotty. A lot of parts on the engine have been badly painted grey, which is flaking off and being ugly. I'll deal with that another time.

I could see some dirt in the inlet mesh already, so not a good start.

There isn't a lot to break on these, but take care taking it apart. Opening it up is easy; there are four screws on the bottom, which when removed will split the two halves.

There are a few things of interest inside the top half

• Orange Arrow - Adjustment pin for COLD pressure
• Green Arrow - Heater element
• Blue Arrow - Bimetallic Strip
• Red Arrow - "Mexican Hat" and pin
  
  

Bascially, when the engine is cold it needs a richer mixture, like a choke on a carb. A LOWER control pressure will give this result. The springs in the bottom half press on the mexican hat, which pushes on the pin, which then places pressure on the diaphragm via a little cup. This force is countered by the bimetallic strip, which pushes down on the mexican hat when cold, reducing the internal restriction. Of course you couldn't run that rich all the time, so to lean it out when warm, the WUR is warmed by both engine ambient heat, and by a 12v heating element. This heat causes the bimetallic strip to slowly bow upwards, which releases pressure against the mexican hat, allowing it to rise up and towards the diaphragm, creating an internal restriction, raising the control pressure, and leaning the mixture. The cold pressure is set by adjusting how much the bimetallic strip pushes down on the mexican hat when cold. This is done by moving the adjustment pin up and down.... with a hammer and punch.

Anyway, to continue disassembly you need to remove the clip that retains the heater connector. A large screwdriver to lever it out does the trick

And then remove the 10mm nut from the bimetallic strip and remove it. Take note of the washer placement

This is the fuel unit containing the cup and diaphragm. I have removed two of the screws already. The cup is in the middle, filled with grease (to lubricate and retain the pin)

CAREFULLY remove the disk and diaphragm. Don't damage the diaphragm as its hard to get a replacement (although there are some rebuild kits on eBay now which may work).

Removing these gives you access to the o-ring and fuel ports. One of them has a very fine five-layer mesh filter in it. Internet wisdom says to clean it, but not to remove it as it can cause issues with pressures if you do (reduces restriction). I hosed it from inside out with brake clean, and got a whole heap of what I can only describe as a fine sand from it. There was heaps.

After much testing, I eventually went back and actually threw the disassembled top half into my ultrasonic cleaner, which seemed to clean the filter out well. I tested it by shining a light through it, and there were some big differences in how much light came through. There was almost no light passing through at first, before cleaning.

Cool moody shot from that night

I refit the distributor and WUR, and refit the fuel pipes

I also plumbed in the fuel pressure testing kit, between the fuel distributor and WUR.

The system pressure was a little low, it should be over 5BAR

But the cold control pressure was crazy. It should be about 0.5BAR, not 3.6BAR!

Keep in mind this is after only cleaning, but without any adjustments. No wonder the car was leaning out hard. Remember, higher pressure is a leaner mixture.

This triggered the next couple of weeks messing with the system trying to iron out the pressures. I tried many things, including running the WUR naked, with no internals

And setting the pressure with the adjustment pin, located here

Then it all started to turn to custard, and the system pressure was low at about 4BAR, and wouldn't come up even with additional shims in the regulator. This lead to buying a replacement fuel pump.

The old pump is pretty easy to remove. Four bolts hold the mount to the car, two hoses, and two wires need to be removed.

I clamped the feed hose as the tanks had fuel in them now and set about removing the pump

Pump on the bench

The pump has an inlet filter in it, and this is what came out of that filter. It's not rust, which is good, but almost looks like fluff, some organic matter (bits of leaf?) and a lump of metal, which kinda looks like lead or solder. I might get a pre-pump filter.

The new pump is bigger and slightly longer, but otherwise a direct replacement. I couldn't reuse the sleeve from the old pump, but reused the rubber insulator

The old pump was a Bosch 0580464125. A good pump, but mine wasn't having a good time anymore. The replacement is a generic pump which met the required criteria (high flow, and up to 8BAR pressure).

The new pump sounds nicer, but the system pressure hasn't changed much at all. I tried adding a whopping great washer as a shim on the regulator and finally got 5BAR pressure, but I'm sure that isn't right. I have had the WUR open so many times now that I can open it in about 30 seconds for adjustment, but I'm still getting weird results.

Right now, the system pressure is around 5BAR with the extra shims. The cold control pressure should be about 0.5BAR (as that's what I dropped it down to after resetting the pin) but either it's very slow to rise on the gauge, or doesn't rise at all now. Warm pressure is about 2BAR, 0.9BAR too low.

The new pump can obviously do the pressure, but its either being restricted or bled off somewhere. There are no leaks, and the fuel filter was replaced when I got the car (although I do now wonder about it after the pump packing a sad).

Anyway, I reassembled the intake today, and removed the pressure tester

And fired the car into life. It had some issues at first, but tweaking the mixture screw sorted that out and it idled OK, albeit a bit lumpy and revved on about 5 cylinders. The more I ran the car, the more it was happy to pick up all the cylinders and rev again. I set the idle by ear, and so far I have taken it for a dodgy run back and forth along my road, which it seemed OK. I haven't been brave enough to take it further yet as I might take a support car with me just in case it dies in the middle of the road again.

I still want to know what the pressures are doing, but I suspect there is an issue with my pressure tester. Either that or I have a weird issue in my KJet system. I'm trying to source a second testing setup now to compare and see what happens. If I can set the pressures correctly, in theory I should be able to get a nice happy running car. Fingers crossed.

Oh, it wouldn't be my car if it didn't spill some coolant. Thankfully I believe this is just from me overfilling the radiator, as it was from the overflow.  Looks like it'll need a flush at some point too.

[kws]

Just because I've been playing with the Saab, doesn't mean the TVR has been neglected. If anything, I've hit the TVR with some renewed vigour this weekend and got a couple more jobs sorted.

After having issues with the KJet system from the previous post I've left the poor TVR alone for over a month and just ignored it. Motivation has been very low, and to be honest I got to a point where I loathed seeing the car sitting in the garage. Not a good place to be.

This weekend though, I found some motivation.

I started by taking the Saab out and grabbing some more fuel to add to the tanks of the TVR, just so I'm ready to take it out on the road and see if it runs OK or not. I didn't get that far today, but I did fire her up and got the engine up to temp. Amazingly even after sitting untouched for over a month, the engine started first turn of the key, before a complete revolution of the engine was completed. A very good cold start indeed.

Since I wasn't taking the car out for a run I decided to jump into a couple of other jobs I needed done.

First was to install the replacement interior mirror. You don't realise how important one if until you don't have one, even if your rear window is cloudy. The original came with the car, but had been knocked off the windscreen and was badly cracked

It looks like it had been glued on with super glue or something

I don't know what the original mirror was from. I had been told it was a MK5 Cortina mirror, but the Cortina mirror I purchased isn't the same, although it does work fine (and has dip, which the original mirror doesn't). In future though I'd look for a mirror with curved glass, as the Cortina flat glass doesn't give a very wide field of view (guess its made to view through a 4 door sedan, not a very short 2 door).

The mirror I purchased came with a pair of "mirror pads" used to stick the mirror to the screen. They appear to be normal double sided foam tape, but maybe of the VHB (Very High Bond) type.

The only instructions on the pack were to make sure both surfaces were warmed thoroughly, with a hairdryer or similar. I used a heat gun to gently heat the mirror base up before sticking the pad to it, and then gently warming the screen up to attach it. Seemed to work, it's still on the screen and seems well enough stuck. Time will tell if it holds up long term. At least this is one less thing on the list to do

As you may spot, one other thing I changed was to go back to the leather Momo wheel. As much as I love the Futura, the wood rim is a bit slippery when you only have armstrong steering, and the leather gives much-needed purchase to turn the wheels.

The last job for the day was one I had been putting off as it didn't seem like much fun; replacing the weather seal strips around the door and roof openings. The old seals were well buggered, with the D shaped sealing surface being torn from the U shaped mounting section in multiple places. No doubt this was the reason for the car being a swimming pool when I got it, the seals weren't keeping anything out.

Someone had tried to use glue under the seal to help hold it in place. It didn't work. They had also tried to supplement to the destroyed seal with other random bits of seal... that too didn't work.

I had ordered 10M of the seal from Racetech in the UK. In hindsight, this is a pretty generic sealing strip, and probably could have sourced it locally or from eBay for less, but oh well. Its this profile

I started on the rear hoop, as it was the shorter section and easy to access and work with

It's as easy as gently pressing the channel into place over the edge, and gently tapping it in with a soft face hammer until you feel/hear it bottom out. The corners are a little fiddly but on the rear hoop its good practice for the harder ones around the screen.

There are a few places where it gets a bit tricky. One of them is the back of the door opening. It has a vertical piece, which meets at the bottom with the horizontal piece. I followed what the seal I removed did, and trimmed the ends of the new seals at about 45 degrees, and forced them into place. The seal can be cut/trimmed with a set of decent side cutters. It does have a metal spine which makes it a bit harder to cut.

The rest of it is a case of going around and tapping the seal into place. I used one continuous run from the back of the door opening, up and over the screen and down to the opposite side door opening. No joins, no less leaks.

Its a time consuming job, especially around the 90 degree turns at the top corners of the windscreen frame, which is a place you need to be very careful of as it can take a bit of extra force to get the seal to seat, but take your time and it should go well. The new seal is much nicer and makes far better contact with the doors, roof panel and windows. It might even keep some water out. I'm not kidding myself though, the seal is a last resort; this is a summer car.

From the 10M roll, I have enough left over to do the top and sides of the boot opening, but not enough for the whole thing. Maybe order another 1M if you want to do that too.

So today was a good day. A couple more jobs off the list. I'm waiting on a flash new hand made German Kjet tester to arrive, and then I will try to set the pressures again. If I still can't, it'll be back to the drawing board. I'm quickly running out of time to go for a WOF inspection to get the car roadworthy, so I'll need a good solid push over December to get the car ready. In the mean time, everything is closed up, with the roof on, to bed the new seals in. First time the roof panel has been on in ages.

 

[kws]

In the quest to both right previous wrongs and make things on this car actually work, I had to have a look at the braking system. It worked, kinda, but needed to be better.

Sitting around for a couple of years does no car any good, and the TVR hadn't had love in a while, so it was anyone's guess when the brakes were last touched.

The main braking system worked OK, albeit there is a fairly bad pulsating through the pedal when braking. I'm hoping this is due to the rust-covered rotors, and not a sticking caliper. The hand brake just doesn't work at all; you fully engage it as hard as you can hulk the handle up, and you can still easily roll the car along the garage floor. Not ideal.

The brakes on this car are... unique. The front calipers are normal, from a Granada I believe. On the Tasmin its two-piston calipers and solid rotors up front. I think the bigger engined cars upgraded to vented rotors with the same caliper (with spacers in the caliper to accommodate the wider rotor).

The rears, on the other hand, are more unusual, having been taken straight from a 70s Jaguar XJ. They're inboard, with the whole brake system in sitting next to the differential, instead of out near the wheels. Way overkill for this little car (so is the differential tbh).

This makes servicing the rear brakes a little less than ideal, as everything is tucked away in the middle of the car, surrounded by bits of suspension and tube frame chassis.

The first step to doing any work on the brakes was to get the car in the air. Unfortunately due to the placement of the frames I couldn't use the Quickjacks to lift the car this time as I wouldn't have the space to change the oil if I did (frame would be right under the sump). The TVR isn't too hard to put on stands though, but the front is low enough that I cant get the jack under it without running it up on boards first.

Before working on the brakes I took the chance to change the oil. It didn't look too bad on the dip stick, but it had to be at least two years old, and who knows how many KM since it was last changed. I drained it out, to find it was a dark grey/brown colour and smelt quite unpleasant. I guess it didn't like sitting either.

A new Ryco Z71 filter and 4.7L of Penrites finest HPR30 finished off the job nicely.

I haven't run the car much since, but the engine does seem to be a little quieter when cold, but now I know and trust what's in it.

Moving right along, onto the brakes. I wanted to check the non-functioning hand brake first, as that's the main issue that will stop the brakes passing a WOF inspection. The system isn't too complicated; There are two little calipers attached to the main calipers in the rear, which are actuated by a cable, to clamp onto the brake rotor. These little calipers are meant to be self-adjusting, but they're known to not self adjust very well and need to be set up right.

Obviously the cable had too much slack in it for a start, as the lever almost points at the sky when pulled, but the real issue is the adjustment of the pads, as there was little to no clamping happening.

To adjust the hand brake, first back the cable completely off using the 13mm nut (green arrow) on the end of the cable. There is another 13mm nut (orange arrow) on the other side of the lever, out of sight, which will need to be "tightened" to allow the slack to be taken out of the cable.

Next the split pin in the adjuster needs to be removed

And using a big screwdriver, turn the screw clockwise until you cannot spin the hub anymore. Now back it off until you can slip a split pin through again, and that's that side done. Now adjust the other caliper the same way.

To finish the job you need to tighten the cable to remove slack. First back the hidden nut (orange arrow in above photo) off and using the nut you can see, wind in on until the slack is taken up, and then wind the hidden nut back towards the lever to lock the cable into place. With any luck, it should all be adjusted now, and ready to go. Three clicks of the lever is ideal.

Since I was under here, I took this as a good opportunity to flush the old brake fluid through and replace it with new, and bleed the braking system. Once again the old fluid is who knows how many years old, and was looking rather brown. Brake fluid should be replaced every two years as it absorbs moisture in the air, and becomes less effective (and can cause issues with blockage and rust if it's really bad).

I used my new vacuum bleeder to suck the old fluid out of the master reservoir. I've seen better fluid. It should be a nice clear yellow. I topped up with fresh Dot 4 fluid.

What came out of the rear brakes was darker than that, so obviously its been a while since the rears had been flushed. Not really that surprised, since the bleeder on the rear is such a pain to get to. Its tucked away behind this tube. Very hard to see, and limited space to swing the spanner.

There is only one bleeder on the rear; on the passengers side. The calipers have a link pipe, so bleeding one bleeds both. I made sure to suck through a lot of fluid to flush both calipers.

With the rears flushed I moved onto the front. The front is comparatively a breeze to work on, even if someone had put a brake hard pipe right in the way of the bleeder. Nothing a gentle bend cant fix.

Strangely, the fluid that came out of the front calipers was much cleaner than the rear. I suspect someone had bled the fronts without bleeding the rear. Nice one.

The vacuum bleeder is good for sucking fluid through, but I have more faith in the old one-man bleeder for actually making sure no air is in the system

You may note that a couple of photos show no brake pads. This was the next job after flushing and bleeding the brakes. I removed the pads to check the pistons weren't stuck and could be pushed back. Turns out the front pads are a set of near new Redstuff Ceramic pads. These are a good high performance street pad. A good upgrade.

Both front calipers responded well, with the pistons moving freely back, so that's a relief.

The rears aren't as much fun to work with. I found it easiest to work on my back with my feet out the back of the car. The pads are held in with two pins, which are secured with an R-clip each (like the fronts). I found on my car that one caliper had both pins inserted the same way, and one had the pins inserted from opposing sides, which meant that the location of the R-clip was different on each caliper

I used a small flat blade to pull the clips out, and then the pins just pushed out by hand. The pads took a little levering to get out but weren't too hard. The pistons on both rear calipers moved freely also, so another win. I'm sure I have receipts for the brake calipers being replaced a few years ago, so might explain why they're still in good shape. So hopefully that means the rotors just need a good hard pounding to get the rust and rubbish off them, and we might have some luck.

Unfortunately even with the hand brake adjusted as it is (three clicks maximum), it's still not quite enough to hold the car on my driveway. It should be enough to pass a warrant, as my driveway is trial by fire and far too steep, but I'm hoping I can bed the pads in and get better performance once I drive the car a bit and the rust is knocked off.

I'm getting closer to having the car ready for its WOF inspection. Slowly but surely, we will get there.

In the meantime, I made the car look a million times better, with one easy step. Tyre shine. The old 10-15 year old rubber was looking somewhat dry.

[kws]

Looks like I might finally have the KJet pressures right. Its running and idling much better. First time its idled under 2000rpm.

 

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[kws]

Sigh, It seems like my life is a never-ending cycle of messing with KJet fuel pressures.

But hopefully, this will help

My quality German made KJetronic pressure testing setup arrived. Huge thanks to MissingParts on eBay, as this is some proper quality gear, and for less than I paid for the other setup.

Nicely crimped ends, with quality rubber and fabric braided hoses

The seller has a great sense of humour. "For oldtimer cars" 

I hooked the new setup up, which was a lot easier with the banjo fittings, rather than the generic screw fittings

Now it was time to confirm the readings from the old gauge. Previously the cold control pressure was stone dead on the gauge, at near enough zero psi. This gauge, not so much.

We want cold pressure here, near the green line (depending on ambient temp), otherwise it's too lean when cold

So, what about the system pressure, which wouldn't go over 5bar, no matter how thick of a shim I fitted? Off the gauge; over 6bar

And we want that at 5-5.5bar, on this green line. Too high and the control pressure will be too high also.

Well damn. No wonder it still wasn't happy.

I pulled the two additional shims out, and we dropped to 5bar system pressure. Better, but not perfect.

I knocked the adjustment on the WUR to get the control pressure down to the required half bar, but the car wasn't running right.

The next step was to step back, reset everything and presume that everything I had done with the old gauge was buggered.

Because the system pressure was a tad low I wanted to add my small extra shim and see how that increased pressure (i carefully measured it when I made it, to add 0.5bar). Hah, perfect!

I found this amazing step by step guide, which I followed and it worked perfectly. Big thanks to the author of that.

The first step was to make my WUR adjustable. This is so that if I knock the pressure adjustment down too far I can use a nut to pull the pin back out, instead of having to remove and disassemble it to tap the pin back out by hand. I drilled and tapped the pin to M5x0.8 and using a screw, nut and washer, made it adjustable. The guide that I used is here. The basics of the mod are that you screw the screw in tight (or Loctite it in so it cant turn) and then tighten the nut down to pull the pin out of the body. To push it back down you wind the nut completely out, against the head of the screw and then use a punch and hammer to tap the screw/pin down again.

It would be a lot easier to use if the screw didn't have a flange as there is limited space when mounted on the car, but its what I had on hand.

With the WUR apart again I replaced the O-Ring for the diaphragm and flipped the thin metal diaphragm to the other side to even up any wear.

Following the guide, I found that my initial pressure with no springs/strip was OK, and the pressure could be increased to the correct level by hand. Good.

The next test had me checking the heater works, which when holding it in my hand with power applied, I could confirm it did get warm to the touch. Good.

Next was to test the pseudo-warm pressure by reassembling the WUR with the springs, but without the heater/strip. This applies pressure to the mexican hat and diaphram, to emulate the warm pressure. This should be 3.5bar or HIGHER.

I had just under 3bar. Not enough. This is where I had to get creative and work out how to adjust this. On other WUR, there is an adjustment screw under a brass cap on the base. You drill through that cap, and there is a hex screw to raise or lower the platform the springs sit on. I tried drilling what I thought was the cap, but turns out the base for my platform is actually a pin pressed into the housing. Its the recessed circle with a hole drilled in it.

So, with callipers in hand, I tested/measured to see if I could use a hammer and punch to also adjust that like you do the cold pressure pin. Sure enough, some careful whacks of the adjustment tool, and I had raised the platform, thus increasing pressure on the springs. 4bar is perfect.

I fully reassembled the WUR, heater/strip and all, and reinstalled on the car to test/adjust the cold pressure. I got this easily down to a solid 0.7bar (within the margin of error for the ambient temps, I didn't want to mess around too much getting it lower)

I connected the heater and watched as the pressure slowly increased. The heater and strip were working perfectly.

I got it near the required 2.9bar, but it was still a tad low with the engine running at temp, so I used the one last adjustment available; tapping the main circular unit on the WUR down. This is the part that the two fuel hoses bolt onto. This is also pressed into the body, and like the other two adjustments can be carefully tapped down with a punch. This takes very little to increase the pressure, but be very careful not to punch it down too far or the WUR had to come completely apart again to tap it back out. I alternated tapping the punch on both sides, where the arrows are pointing.

This resulted in a nice 2.9bar when warm. Excellent.

After some tweaking of the idle and CO screws, the results were immediate and obvious. The car ran and idled better than ever, including idling under 2000rpm for the first time. I set the idle to about 1000rpm, which is higher than factory spec, but it felt happier there than the 800-900rpm recommended.

http://youtu.be/3VVylMr5BVI

The only thing left to do was to put on my big boy pants and try taking it for a run. The last time it was on the road it constantly tried to die on me and left me blocking intersections. Not ideal, and no wonder I was nervous.

This time, it started and was driving perfectly. It was pulling strong and felt good... until the hesitation kicked in again at high RPM under load.

The exact same issue as before I rebuilt the Kjet system.

I came home with mixed emotion. The car ran and drove well unless I got on the throttle. Kind of a win, but also a fail.

Mrs Petrol and I were discussing the issue and she reminded me that her old Alto used to buck and hesitate if the fuel was too low...

Surely that's not the issue? Nooooo

If you look at the design of the tanks, the feed to the pump is at the front of the tanks, toward the front of the car. It's possible that under acceleration the little fuel in the tanks was sloshing away from the outlet and starving the pump. Maybe.

The orange arrow is pointing to the fuel outlet on that tank, the other is on the other tank in the same location.

Well, I guess I limp the car to the gas station and chuck some gas in and see what happens.

Well, what does happen is that if you don't have both fuel caps open when you try to put any fuel in the tanks it all comes rushing back out and pukes down the side of the car and onto the ground. Oops.

I added 20L to each tank, at great expense, and guess what, my Wife was right (like usual), the hesitation is completely gone, and it will happily rev out to redline under WOT. Amazing.

The sound and feel of the car is crazy. It's so loud, but makes a great noise. You sit so low, but the car feels big. Even when it's not moving everyone is breaking their necks to see what it is. It's not a car for the shy.

It does leave me wondering a little, if I had just filled the tanks when I first got the car, would it all have been OK anyway? The main issue I had before I rebuilt it all was that hesitation issue. In saying that, it's starting, running and driving better than it ever has since I got it, so the work was well worth it regardless.

I'm stoked. Still some things to tidy, but it is almost ready to go for a WOF check.

[kws]

Time for a new page I feel.

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This one is a bit long

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And I'd like to finish it with a sunset photo of my car

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.

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xoxo

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..

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T V R

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Wedge