Woodys TVR Chimaera

Roll Bar and Harness

2009-04-28T17:19:00.006Z

Roll Bar Fitting
I took delivery of a TR Lane Fabrications roll bar a while back now and finally got around to fitting it this spring. Fitting was eventful as with anything that's made to fit handmade motors and is not fabricated on site...
The first step was to find the seat belt anchor points on the chassis, with the roll bar came a treasure map to locate these, so it was just a matter of drilling a few holes and removing the glass fibre around the anchor points. This is a bit of a pain due to the lack of space behind the seats but with a bit of patience and test fitting big enough holes where created.

The bottom of the roll bar is secured behind the seats by the bolts that holds the body to the outriggers, so it's a matter of carefully pulling up the carpet and removing these.

Bolting the roll bar in place was aided by the use of a ratchet strap as it just wasn't the correct size to fit the car. I firstly loosely bolted the bottom of the roll bar in place...

Then using the ratchet strap I had to persuade the top bolts to line up with the anchor points on the chassis, so as always after a lot of swearing the roll bar was fitted!

I did have to you a couple of spacers and washers on the top bolts to raise it slightly for better fitting.

When I fitted the seats back in the car I found that the plastic backs to the seats were causing them to too far forward so they got removed and a better driving position was achieved as opposed to having head resting on the windscreen!

Harness Fitting

When I ordered the roll bar I got them to put inserts into the rear bar so a harness could be fitted. So I got a hold of a used 4 point Luke harness from eBay, now for fitting it.

First I needed to tap a 7/16" UNF thread into the rear inserts, so back to eBay and got some from RDG Tools. After a 9.9mm drill and a certain amount of oil to expand the existing hole it was time to tap a thread, again using a fair bit of oil I used a T-bar to start the process...

...then once the thread was established I swapped to a monkey wrench for ease of use.

Finally when the tap made it out through to the other side the process was done

When the harness arrived the seller had kindly sent 4 harness eyes with the belt so it was just a matter of tightening in 2 of these to the rear bar.

Fitting the 2 bottom eyes was a matter of taking the seat out and replacing the normal seat belt anchor bolts with the harness eyes, this was straight forward until I had to replace the seat...the harness bolt which is attached to the tranmission tunnel caught on the seat, but after a removing a few inch of the glass fibre on the seat bottom everything went back together...

Tuscan Seats

2008-05-30T20:42:00.009Z

Took delivery of two Tuscan seats from Bell Hill Garages, bought them from their eBay shop, delivery took a couple of days, fantastic service and great communication from the team down there.

So back to the seats, ok they are second hand but under a bit grime they are in good fettle. The grime just took a bit to remove about an hour per seat, first with Auto Glym Leather Cleaner and then with baby wipes :) well judge for yourself...

...and yes the standard size wheely-bin is the perfect tool for the support the seat when cleaning!

Now to the fitting...

Removal of the original seats was easy, 4 13mm nuts hold them in, the front ones are hidden in a recess in the floor pan.

The standard Chimaera seats have different fixing points to the Tuscan seats and are also different between the driver and passenger seats, the Tuscan needs holes 12" apart, as you see below the drivers side are at 10.5"

...ahem excuse the stain on the carpet

Fitting was fairly straight-forward, I dropped the front bolts through the existing front holes and the rear bolts made indents in the carpet, so drill the indents, refit the seats and bolt up. Job done.

I think they look very good, much better than the originals and they hold you better. The seat height is only just a little higher than the standard, I just hope the roll bar I have on order will still fit :)

Summer jobs...

2008-05-24T19:13:00.002Z

Since getting the car back on the road I've got the bug to throw more money in to the bottomless pit that is my blue TVR :o)

I've got the performance to where I want it (for now) so I best look at safety so I've ordered a roll bar from TR Lane Fabrications. I'm getting it prepared with the ability for me to fit harnesses too.

On order are a pair of Tuscan seats too as I've never liked the standard seats. Should give better support and look a bit better too.

A bit more mundane is that I'll be fitting a new headlight reflector woohoo!! as the offside headlight is a nice rust colour :/ order the parts (reflector, 3 bolts, 3 wing nuts, 3 holders) from Racing Green along with a new boot gas strut (I've got bored of propping the boot open with my head!) and a magnet gadget that surrounds the oil filter to capture all the metal particles swimming around the engine oil.

Might think about a fire extinguisher too...

At last...wishbones!

2007-12-28T07:42:00.003Z

Finally I've managed to get a hold of a pair of wishbones, it's only been...3 month!!! Anyhoo, many thanks to Douglas Valley breakers for sourcing a pair :)

So now I need to remove the old bushes, clean them up, re-paint them, fit new bushes and fit them to the car...simple!

Removing the old bushes was a matter of brute force and hacksaw, generally it's as easy as making two cuts in the bush so a section of about 1 cm can be removed, this allows the old bush to be knocked out.

The picture below shows the components of the Powerflex bushes with the bolt kit purchased from Steve Heath: bolt, metal washer, nylon washer, rubber bush, metal insert, rubber bush, nylon washer, metal washer and nut

Here it is fitted together:

So after I replaced the lower ball joints with new ones that was all the prep complete, time to fit to the car.

I forgot to take photos of the actual event, it wasn't THAT exciting :o) ...it was a matter of sticking the car on axel stands, remove the wheel, put a liberal dose of penetration oil on the old wishbone nuts and bolts and the big ball joint nut, go have a cup of tea, remove the lower shock absorber bolt (don't forget to support the wishbone assembly with an axel stand or jack), remove the ball joint nut and then the two wishbone bolts.

Fitting the new wishbone was pretty much the same (but in reverse) the only adjustment I had to make was to use thinner nylon thrust washers to get the wishbone the fit.

With the job complete it's time to get the car through its MOT and back on the road...

Stop the Bouncing!

2007-09-17T20:07:00.000Z

It's been a while since the last update, so what's happened...well not a lot really, over the summer I fitted a set of Gaz Gold shock absorbers purchased from Absolutely Shocks.

Fitting was really quite easy, well it was after I found some initial settings on Pistonheads.com. These initial settings refer to the number of clicks towards plus from full minus setting and the distance the spring retaining collar is screwed onto the barrel of the shock, measured from the bottom of the thread.
These settings are not to be taken as the correct ones for all cars and preferences but they are a good starting point, at least they will get you to your favourite dealership or indie garage for a proper set up.

So the settings I used are;
Rear: 18 clicks, 35mm.
Front: 12 clicks, 25mm.

I also bought a new set of bolts from Steve Heath Engineering Ltd, which saved me having to clean up the old ones, and just generally for peace of mind.

As mentioned before the job was quite straightforward, jack up the car, remove the wheel, unbolt the old shock (liberal dousings of WD40/penetrating oil maybe required), adjust the new shock to the initial settings, and fit with new bolts, wheel on, lower car. Job done, about 30 minutes a corner...

...well it would have been until I got the front off-side...

...whilst unscrewing the lower bolt from the wishbone I noticed a bit of rust on top of the lower wishbone, on further inspection I did actually manage to put my thumb straight through it! Sod! So now I have on order, two new lower wishbones (rarer than rocking horse poop), a set of powerflex bushes (I can't resist a small upgrade) and a new set of bolts. Hopefully all this will arrive this week and I can get it all fitted this weekend, next will be to get the car MOT'd and the suspension geometry set up correctly.

Pity I've missed most of the good weather with a dodgy wishbone.

ps. I did take it out after fitting the new shocks, and yes they make a BIG difference, transforms the car around the corners, it actually stays in a straight line when going over the many potholes around Leeds!

Serviced and Fettling

2007-06-11T19:43:00.000Z

Just got the Chimaera back from a 6000 mile service at Automedon over in Blackpool.
Went and picked it up on Saturday, made a day of it, had a little run down to Southport before heading back to Leeds. The car never missed a beat, ran like a dream.

I treated the beast to some new wipers on it's return home, so back to eBay and bought some Trico Innovision wiper blades, they're the ones that hug the screen like the ones on all new VAG cars. So we shall wait and see what they are like, I didn't throw the original ones away...just in case.

Did a bit more fettling too, after the recent torrential rain the mats on the drivers side were soaking so time to try and find the point of water ingress.
The obvious culprit was the cover to the brake cylinder on the wing under the bonnet. So it was time to remove the cover and get rid of the 10 years of silicon that had been put on by every mechanic that filled/checked the brake fluid level. After cleaning off all the old sealant it was on with the new silicon and replace the cover in a much more snug manner.
I also gave the hood a good painting of Fabsil, it wasn't looking that waterproof the last time it rained.

Other stuff I sorted was the trim in the boot that had come away from the bodywork, a rubber piece had dropped off the door got glued back on, and I noticed that a couple of bolts that hold the hood to the body had lost there nuts! An easy fix. Job done.

Just waiting for my new shocks to get delivered, more on this later...

ICE

2007-04-23T17:09:00.003Z

I've seen a few posts on Pistonheads.com asking about how people have fitted their component speakers, so I thought I'd show how I did mine!

I fitted a set of 5.25" Focal V Slims to the front, the main units fit perfectly in the standard holes, I did have to drill new holes for the screws but apart from that straight forward. The crossover got secured to the inside of the door panel. The 1" tweeters were fitted to the top of the door card facing the front seats.

The rear speakers used to be a set of JBL 6 x 9" units when I bought it, these were fitted to a piece of MDF covered in the same carpet as the interia. Given that it used to take up all the room behind seats I decided to get rid of it. A couple of screws later and it was out. In there place I got a couple of Infinity 5001i units, these are fitted in the air vents on the rear bulkhead, I used a couple of 1" square blocks of wood on each speakers as spacers, so that the vents still did there job and the speakers pointed in the right direction.

The bass is sorted by fitting a slim line Alpine SWD-1600 subwoofer behind the passenger seat, always makes the ladies smile...dunno why ;)

I swapped out the head unit for another Pioneer model (DEH-P5600MP), the main reason is that I could still use the existing CD changer in the boot. I also bought an extra unit so I could use the AUX input on the HU, this means I can plug in my mp3 players or TomTom.

OK a lot of people say that I should be listening to the cars V8 soundtrack, but if I'm just pottering around town I like to have something to sing along to :)

New Shiny Bits!

2007-04-23T07:47:00.000Z

Feeling a bit flush I went and bought a Leven Technology alloy gear lever surround, some people think they look a bit 'Max Power' but I'm very happy with the results, as with other Leven goodies, I think it makes the interior look a little tidier. So now for the fitting, ok it's pretty straight forward but a bit fiddly...

First pull the gear lever gaiter out from between the transmission tunnel and console, and put the top alloy surround over and on the gaiter. Holding the surround down in place I selected each gear in turn making sure there was enough fabric spare to allow movement, when I was happy that I could still hit all the gears I took a bradawl and made the seven holes required, take time over this step as my fabric was quite stiff so it was quite difficult to trap under the surround when test changing the gears:

Next was to test fit the surround by putting the bottom plate underneath the gaiter fabric and loosely fixing the top surround on with the bolts, I again tested that I could locate all gears easily:

Now to put the whole thing together, I disassembled the surround and removed the covers on all the sticky pads on the lower plate, now bolt the whole thing back together to make a tight seal so the fabric sticks to the bottom plate:

Nearly done, time to trim the excess fabric, I did this with scissors, easy enough! I suppose you could leave all the material on, as it will be hidden in the console but in the interest in saving weight in the car off it came!

After waiting a few hours to let the fabric bond to the bottom plate properly it was time to do the final fit. With my car I had to drill holes into the console, as the bolts wouldn't fit on the inside of the original gear lever opening, this was done carefully with a hand drill and a 4.5mm bit. The first stage of the final fit was to maneuver the bottom plate through and under the gear lever opening, it's a bit of a squeeze but is possible, bolting down the top alloy surround was helped greatly when I found out I could reach and hold the bottom plate by putting my hand through the handbrake opening :) Getting the two bottom bolts in made it a whole lot easier to locate the remaining bolts.

After tightening all the bolts it was job done I think it looks quite good, well worth all the swearing and sweat!!

Your car? Pretty car...

2007-01-29T08:38:00.000Z

Seen as I had a few hours spare I thought I'd give the motor a bit of a cleaning. Very pleased with the results as you can see from the picture below:

This was achieved with a whole load of Meguiars kit.
The steps I followed are:

Washed with "Gold Class Car Wash Shampoo and Conditioner"
Clay the car with "Quik Clay Detailing System"
Clean the paintwork with "Deep Crystal Paint Cleaner"
Polished with "Deep Crystal Polish"
Finally waxed with "Deep Crystal Carnauba Wax"

In total it took me 3 hours and a lot of elbow grease, definitely thinking about investing in good polishing machine. But I've got a good shine on the paintwork and a lot of small scuffs and light scratches have gone, which is good.

Alarm Problem

2007-01-23T18:38:00.000Z

Well, it finally gave up the ghost, since I've had the Chimaera the alarm has been more and more hit and miss whether it would unlock the car or not, until it just got unusable and therefore so was the car.

So I gave Carl Baker a call at Car & Bike Installations Ltd. We came to the decision that the best way to solve the problem was to send the alarm unit down to Carl and for him to code two new fobs to it, seen as the alarm couldn't be put in to "program a new fob" mode with the dodgy fob I had.

First I needed to remove the alarm unit, this involved lifting the dash on the left hand side, so I removed the two screws that hold the "glove compartment" under the dash and removing the two nuts and washers that hold that side of the dash on.

Now to remove the unit; I propped up the dash with a spanner so I get to the alarm unit, easily identified by the red M99T sticker on it, just a matter of carefully removing the connections from the back: the two white blocks locked by clips and the three smaller connectors below them.

So the unit got sent off to Carl and a couple of days later I got it back :)

Refitted it and all is well again! Two new shiny fobs and a car I can use again!

New cup warmer :)

2007-01-19T17:09:00.000Z

...well nearly. Just fitted the new exhaust heat shield from Steve Heath Engineering Ltd. So simple to do, just needed two open ended spanners, 10mm and 13mm. Loosened 2 of the bolts that hold on the PAS pump, slide on the shield, tighten them up. Job done.

Here's the result:
This now protects the swirl pot, serp belt and otter switch from the heat of the exhausts :)

Time to wrap up...

2007-01-09T13:54:00.000Z

Well the winter months are here so it's time to put the TVR to bed for a while, on with it's hat and attach the accumate battery conditioner. I regularly start it up and move it around just to make sure things are still working...

...also there's a new "everyday" car on the scene! Gone is the SEAT Leon and I'm back is an Audi A3! (Had a S3 before the Leon)

I went for the snappily named A3 2.0T FSI S Line DSG, which means it has the flappy paddle gearbox. So far so good.

Induction Mods

2006-11-13T09:09:00.000Z

Right time to have a look at the induction side of things, cooling the air getting into the engine, with a plenum isolator plate and heat reflective sleeving for the induction pipe, and helping it get air into the engine with new carbon fibre trumpets.

Heat reflective sleeving:
Easy enough to fit;

Undo the clips around the AFM and plenum
Unplug and remove the AFM (you don't have to do this but it makes life a lot easier)
Now you can slip the sleeve all the way down the long induction pipe until you hit the front bulkhead
I also covered the 90 degree bend in a couple of pieces of the heat sleeve, just to make sure

Trumpets and Isolator Plate:
This is a bit more involved, instructions to remove the plenum and trumpet base can be found here

A few pictures of the various stages;

You can see the various pipes and throttle pot removed from the plenum:

With the plenum removed; don't forget to remove the vacuum pipe to the FPR, it's at the back of the plenum:
Disconnect the vacuum hoses for the brake servo and carbon canister then remove the PAS reservoir (if fitted):

With the trumpet base removed; mine needed a bit of persuading, as you can also see, the use of kitchen towel to stop any crap getting into the engine:

Now to remove, clean and fit the new trumpets to the base.

Removing the trumpets can be a bit tricky, one method is to heat the trumpets and base in the oven for a while to melt the glue and they should just pop out, this can cause arguments with her indoors as she chokes of oil fumes!

So I played it safe and went for the brute force method, as I wouldn't be needing the trumpets in the future. I took a mid-sized hammer individually tapped the trumpets, on the side, so they started to rock in there slots. Eventually this broke the glue and they popped out one by one.

Cleaning the base was straight forward, degrease the thing using Gunk, and gently remove all the old glue with a Dremel, as you can see below it's a bit cleaner:

Now to fit the trumpets. Practice fit all the trumpets to the base before hand to make sure you know which way round they all go, hint: the trumpets meet on the straight edges:

Right now to prep the inlet manifold, this is just the process of removing all the old sealant from the mating surface:

Now to create an intake sandwich, on the inlet manifold a coating of red sealant then the t-spacer, another layer of sealant then the trumpet base. The base is then torqued down to 14-16 f/lb. I now reattached the vacuum pipes that lead to the front wing and the PAS reservoir.

Now to fit the plenum, putting sealant around the trumpet base, I squeezed the plenum between the last trumpet and the metal cover on the bulkhead. Remembering to reconnect the vacuum hose to the FPR beforehand.

Now to put the rest of the hoses and electrical connections back on; the stepper motor, the throttle pot, the dizzy vacuum advance, the breather hoses and the induction pipe.

Job done!

Does it start: YES....good start!

How does it drive? Well after getting the engine up to temperature I managed to get my right foot down, the car seems to pull a lot stronger mid to top range. On a rolling 2nd gear start it felt quicker up the speeds where I'd be saying goodbye to my license, glad I was on a private road.
Update: Note to self; when the roads are ever so slightly damp and you are at accelerating in 3rd gear, hitting around 3500 to 4500 revs the rear tyres (which have LOADS of tread) will spin!!!! :)

When I got back I got the bonnet up and the plenum was very cool to the touch, IIRC I wouldn't have been able to touch it before! Let's face it the bonnet stay was burning my hand when I put it in place!! I also felt as far as I could under the heat reflective sleeving on the induction pipe and the pipe was not as hot as it was previously

MPH06 and Seat Belt Locks

2006-10-31T08:05:00.000Z

Well popped down to MPH06 last Sunday to see Clarkson and his gang do the usual tricks, very good way of spending a day! Especially when they had models like this in the halls...

CG-Lock also had a stand there and I'd been looking at these for a while, after just missing out on the group buy on Pistonheads. I now have a shiny new CG-Lock in my possession!

Fitting: In the dim and distant past I remembered that you need to alter the way that you fit them to a Chimaera, as it has a multi-pass tongue on the seat belt. A little digging and emailing and TVRBob had the answer and a full pdf document on how to fit it!

Right now for a test drive...

Chips Chips Chips

2006-09-27T06:59:00.000Z

Well I took the plunge, based on the fact that it's a long way from Yorkshire to go to get Mark Adams to custom map an ECU chip I bought one from his shop on eBay instead!

Fitting was quite simple, if not a bit nerve racking (must not get static on the chip! must not get static on the chip!) and the instructions included with the chip are very informative and straight forward, luckily I had an ECU that the chip and decoder board slotted straight into with no messing.

It was all a matter of whipping out the ECU from the passenger footwell, undoing the torx bolts holding on the cover, carefully removing the standard chip, replace with the decoder board, add the tornado chip and refit!! :)

So now for a test firing, ignition...the fuel pump whirrs away, which is a good sign...engage the starter motor...the engine does a few revolutions (to build up oil pressure) and then sparks into life, GET IN!

Right time to take it for a spin; first impressions are good, the engine behaves well at low speeds (town driving) much more refined and smooth. It had a tendency before to be lumpy while crawling along at low speed, this seems to be all but eliminated. On the open road the car responses to the right foot a lot better, pulling up the rev range smoothly. I've still got a slight misfire but I think that's down to the plugs. I need to check them over...time to return to base.

New front boots and a rattling rear

2006-09-14T08:52:00.000Z

Had a couple of new front tyres fitted, Toyo Proxes T1-R's, the Bridgestones were looking a bit too warn, pretty much between 1.5 and 2.5mm left. It looks like they don't make the T1-S's anymore or at least blackcircles.com can't get a hold of any :/

All I need to do now is put them through a few heat cycles and about 500 miles to get rid of the mould slip and they should start to stick to the road like very sticky things!

I had also noticed that the rear end was clunking a bit when going into bends, and when the car was in for it's MOT the mechanic pointed out that the rose joint on the near-side anti-roll bar was a bit loose/warn. So it was time to raise the back end and take a look, sure enough the rose joint was a tad loose. I do have to hold my hand up and take the blame on that one, got distracted when fitting them :/ Now all the nuts are tight it's a lot quieter, there's a joke in their somewhere...

Mod-Wise Boot Opening and Light Kit

2006-09-07T08:15:00.000Z

Well another day and another Mod-Wise kit to fit, after this I should have the ability to open the boot from the outside, without having to put the keys in the ignition and press the button under the dashboard, and I should be able to see in the boot at night!!

Here's how I went about it:
Fitting the relay to the boot actuator. This was a matter of pulling up the carpet in the boot to the right hand side of the boot catch (as you look at the car from the rear) and finding the wires that feed the boot latch actuator, here are mine (picture taken from inside the boot looking backwards, the light pod is the off-side rear):

Now attach the wires with the supplied clips, and I've also taped the relays in place with good old duck tape!

Now it's a matter of feeding the door micro-switch and it's wire around the boot, again I used little strips of duck tape to keep it in place, and fed the switch over the near side wheel arch and through to the passenger door lock actuator. This was the trickiest bit of the job, getting the micro-switch to work consistently when attached to the lock mechanism, I had to very gently bend the long switch arm so it stayed in place when the lock mechanism was moved between the locked and un-locked positions, also at this time I tapped into the live purple wire that heads to the interior light:

Right now to sort out the reed switches and the LED lights in the boot, first the reed switch for the boot. I decided to put this through a hole I found under the boot catch plate. I had to enlarge it slightly but then it enabled me to put the reed switch through and have it behind the number plate:

As you can probably just make out from the picture the wire is held in the hole by duck tape, who invented this stuff? They deserve a medal!! Right, so after checking that it was working it was time to fit the light reed switch, I fed the wire up the off-side side of the boot and placed the reed switch on the bracket, putting the magnet on the rod that holds the boot open (I can't for the life remember what it's called) I was able to activate the switch when the boot opened:

Fitting the LEDs was straight forward again, just a matter of feeding the wires around to where you want the lights to be and using the small magnets behind the carpet attach the light in front of the carpet. I placed one, as shown, under the off-side rear wing, the other had to be placed on the rear panel facing forward because the wire wasn't long enough to reach to the near-side wing. Let there be light:

All that there was left to do now was to hide the magnet somewhere on the key fob so I could use it to gain access to the boot, I had the idea of putting it in the remote blipper like so:

Which was all well and good for a few days then the blipper stopped working! Taking the magnet out made it start again! Coincidence? I don't think so! At the moment the magnet is just clinging to the key fob until I find it a permanent home!

Mod-Wise Two Stage Cooling Kit

2006-09-06T07:43:00.000Z

I noticed during this weeks MOT that the left hand fan wasn't working, I did wonder why the temp was creeping up in stationary traffic, when it hadn't done so before. So it was time to get dirty and sort out the electrics and to fit the Mod-Wise two stage cooling kit I'd ordered even before noticing the stationary fan!

First get the fan moving again, simple answer, dirty connections. The plugs that sit straight behind the fans were the culprits, the first ones you come across if you follow the wires from the fan itself. So it was a matter of a quick poke and scrape around with a suitable screw driver and some wet 'n dry, short out the connectors to the otter switch with a paper clip and hey presto, spinning fans!

Now for the kit, generally following the instructions given in the kit by Mod-Wise and the additional instructions on The Chimaera Pages, these gave me enough information to fit the full kit.

I will be attaching the additional power supply this weekend, this allows the fans to stay on for one cycle after the engine has been switched off.

Dashboard Replacement

2006-08-02T13:22:00.000Z

During this summer the veneer on the dashboard started to crack a bit more, so I decided to replace it with a Leven alloy item. After reading up on www.chimaerapages.com and using Steve Heaths bible I set off removing the old dash and putting the new shiny one in...Here's a bolt by bolt guide on how I completed it-

Dash top removal:

Unscrew the passenger "glove box" under the dash
Find and remove the three elusive bolts that hold the dash top on
Now try and move the dash top into a position where you can get the right hand side bolt to come free, this was completed with a lot of swearing and sweating

Dashboard removal:

Work your way along the dials and switches removing them from the old dash one-by-one and reconnecting them separated from the dash
Unscrew the screws that hold the heater controls to the dash bottom, keep hold of the bolts that are used as spacers between the controls and the dash bottom
Now you should be able to lift the old dashboard from the dash bottom
There are three small nuts and bolts that hold the heater controls to the dash board, remove these and carefully separate the two
Carefully tip the dash forward to remove the wires from the MIL and Inhibitor LEDs (see pics) along with the nylon nut that holds the PCB of the main indicator/main beam/hand brake/frost LEDs
Now you can remove the dash!

Radio panel removal:

Remove the radio
Remove the radio cage
Remove the four self tapers that hold the panel on
As with the dashboard remove all the switches and alarm LED one by one, reconnecting them away from the panel

New dashboard preparation

On the old dashboard make a note of the position of the bolt that is glued in between the tacho and speedo, mark on the new dash the exact position and remove from the old dash
Remove the glued in LEDs, be very careful, seen as it was 9 year old glue holding them in it had gone quite brittle, so with a little persuading they came free from their holders
Remove the LED holders from the old dash, I used a screwdriver to carefully lever off the locking thingies around the holders
Now transfer the LED holders to the new dash, I reused the locking thingies, placing the dash on a suitable bit of cloth and using a suitable sized socket from my socket set and a suitable sized wooden mallet the locking things where persuaded back onto the LED holders! Make sure the holders are correctly aligned before striking the final fixing blow!
Once all the holders are in place, time to glue! Put a few dabs around the LEDs and put back in their holders. Glue the bolt back on in the place you marked earlier
Now leave and don't touch until the glue has fully cured

New radio panel preparation:

Mark on the rear of the new radio panel exactly where the two pieces of angled steel are glued on the old radio panel
Remove the two steel angles and nut that are glued to the old panel
Glue the three items to the new panel and leave to until fully cured

Fitting the new dashboard:

Quite easy really, do the steps completed in the removal in reverse!
Watch out for the LEDs around the heater controls, they're a bit of a snug fit, also the hole for the top small nut and bolt that hold the heater controls to the dash was a bit out of alignment on my dash (so I didn't refit it, the blower switch does a good job of holding it all together and the bolt hole is hidden by the top dash panel)
I found it a good time to straighten all the metal work that hold the clocks in on the dashboard, sort out all the i.c.e wiring.

Here's some pics of the wiring and dash (helped me when reconnecting the new dash):

Inhibitor LED Wiring:

Tachometer Wiring:

MIL LED Wiring:
Knowing TVRs the wire colours may change, so I accept no responsibility if you wire your dash up incorrectly, should have taken your own photos!

As you can see the PCB won't fit through the hole! Time to *gently* break the LED out of its holder:

Here's the results...

...goes well with all the other shiny Leven accessories IMHO :)

Cars and Cars @ VUE

2006-08-02T08:21:00.000Z

Organised via the Pistonheads web site and VUE cinemas there was a meet and film night on the 28th July. Here's my pics...

The story so far...

2006-08-02T08:15:00.006Z

Right to bring it up to date here are the mods/work I've completed so far...

Outside:
Clear indicators, front and side
Replaced rear screen
Fitted wire mesh to bonnet holes/louvres
Leven petrol cap

Inside:
Leven stalks
Leven pedals (inc. new accel. linkage)
Leven air vent covers (top and front)
Leven handbrake lever
Leven steering wheel screws
Leven alloy dashboard
Leven ashtrays
Leven gear lever surround
Pioneer DEH-P5600MP CD/MP3 headunit
Focal V Slim 5.25" & 1" component speakers in front
Inifinity 5001i 5.25" speakers in rear
Alpine SWD-1600 subwoofer
Chrome cigar lighter
Alloy tax disc holder
Mod-Wise boot opening and LED light kit
Seat Belt CG-Lock
4 point harness
Tuscan seats
Headlight reflector
Roll Bar

Greasy Bits:
Mod-Wise hot start kit
Mod-Wise 2 stage cooling kit
SH drop links front and rear
Magnacore 8.5mm HT leads
Bosch Coil
Braided brake pipes
Braided PAS pipes
Leven oil filler cap
SH swirl tank plug
ACT induction kit, fully covered in heat reflecting sleeving
Silicone water hose kit
ACT swan neck pipe
Mark Adams Tornado chip
Magna Parva t-spacer (plenum heat isolator)
ACT carbon trumpets
SH exhaust heat shield
Gaz Gold shock absorbers
Powerflex bushes
Oil filter magnet

Outstanding Work:
New windscreen due to de-lamination (got it painted so it doesn't look so bad)
Have RR session
Set up suspension geometry
Fire extinguisher

Welcome

2006-08-02T07:01:00.000Z

Welcome to my new blog!

I've owned a 1997 TVR Chimaera 450 since June 2004 so I thought it was about time to make notes on some alterations I've made to it, so I can hopefully maybe help other people.

Here are some pics from just after I bought the car: