Bodywork high trolley and a new roof and floor panels

It's been a REALLY long time since I've done much on the Vixen. Lockdown has kept me super busy, teaching students remotely and changing jobs (I am now head of technology and vocational at a school much closer to home - no more slow crawl down the A12 to Chelmsford - yay!)

Just before the winter I decided to move the body tub back into the garage. The tarpaulin "tent" I'd built to house the body on the drive, whilst working on the mechanical reassembly of the chassis, was looking pretty frayed and thin!

I knocked up a wooden frame out of 2x3's, slightly wider than the rolling chassis and put it on shopping trolley style castors. With a lot of heaving between us, my wife, daughters and I got the body onto the new construction and wheeled it into the garage! It only just clears the ceiling by a couple of inches, but sits about 3' above the chassis, allowing me to continue to access mechanical work in progress.

High-rise body tub trolley

Through the cold winter months, not much progress has happened, having watched a couple of interesting videos about removing the paint from a lotus elan of a similar age to the Vixen, I began the laborious task with careful use of a hot air gun and a scraper......this is going to take a LONG time!

Paint removal - very very slow!

Yesterday, I enjoyed a drive (now we are allowed) up to see Duncan Reuben, who has moulded me a new roof without a sunroof (one less thing to restore!) and a couple of new floor pan sections. What an Aladdins cave Duncan's workshop is - and what a helpful lovely chap!

The new roof section currently sits, like a hat on top of the Vixen tub - awaiting the warmer weather for attaching.

A very handsome new hat!

New floor panels from Duncan - waiting to be bonded to the tub

Engine block back into chassis!

Having carefully sorted out the piston alignment I set about reassembling the engine and have since I don't have an engine stand or hoist, a fair amount of heaving, grunting and colourful Anglo-Saxon saw the block off the workbench and onto some big wooden blocks for support, while i bolted it to its mounts.

This is the first time the chassis has had an engine in it since before I bought it!

The gearbox and its slave cylinder sits on the floor waiting for its new clutch

Yes I know the head isn't bolted on - I still have to sort the pushrods and tappet clearance...

Very pleased with the clean and now correctly jetted carb.

Just need to order the a new clutch, a gearbox rubber mount, an oil filter, a new PCV breather, an alternator belt, a starter motor and a distributor, coil leads and plugs and the drive-train can be completed! Ulp!

The last crate of engine/chassis bits contains the old clutch (trash) and the handbrake which is next inline for refurbishment.

Back to the engine...

So some years ago, I stripped and rebuilt the 1600 crossflow engine, putting in new main bearings, big ends, cam journals and piston rings. I also made some modest upgrades by way of a new head (with larger valves and hardened valve seats so the engine will run on unleaded) a Kent BCF2 fast road cam and a duplex timing chain.
No matter how I tried, I just couldn't get the timing set properly and something definitely felt WRONG.


Having sat in the corner of the garage for several years, the time has come to pull it all apart and start again......as soon at the head was off, it was immediately obvious that I'd put the pistons back in 180 degrees out - so the valve cut-outs in the piston crowns weren't lining up with the valves....STUPID BOY!!! Good job I never tried to actually turn it over...the damage would have been catastrophic!

Out with the pistons and back in the right way round!




Before...

Meanwhile, I turned my attention to the carburettor. It's a Weber 32/36 DGAV and was horribly dirty. I found an excellent company near to where I work https://www.weber-carbs.co.uk/ who kindly ultrasonically cleaned and lightly media blasted my filthy carb ready for reassembly.

Reassembly following cleaning and blasting...

NICE!!

TADAAA!

Just waiting for the new jets and emulsion tubes to arrive to correctly jet it for my engine (I may also order a manual choke conversion kit).

Rear End + Propshaft done and next the Gearbox

Happy Easter!

First the differential. After a LOT of cleaning with a wire cup brush and cordless drill followed inspection of the innards for wear, I replaced all of the nuts with stainless nylocks, using fibre washers to prevent the dreaded electrolytic corrosion between them and the cast ally diff casing.

During cleaning - about halfway through...

I drilled out the old, rubber mounting bushes and replaced them with a set of new superflex polybushes, before re-mounting the diff into the chassis and connecting up the cleaned-up driveshafts.

Looking nice with all the new shiny bits!!

Next was the propshaft, which although dirty, was in surprisingly good nick and with a quick wire brushing, degreasing and a coat of paint I refitted it onto the nose of the differential.

Before cleaning and painting

Cleaned, painted and fitted.

And so onto the gearbox! It is a Ford "Bullet" 2000E 4 speed box and was, without a doubt the filthiest thing I have dealt with so far. Nonetheless having removed the inspection covers, it transpires there is literally NO wear in the sprockets or selectors...YAY!!

So after A LOT of cleaning and degreasing, it has received a coat if paint and awaits a set of new gaskets, oil seals and a mounting rubber, before refit it to the car - not sure at this point whether to fit gearbox to engine and then both to the chassis, or gearbox in first and then engine...

There's also the small matter of the hydraulic clutch cylinder - which looks shot, but I have literally zero knowledge about these things - so some homework required on my part....

A Minor Landmark Moment!

It's been a long time coming, but the Vixen is finally back on 4 wheels (nearly) After shortening the rear suspension pivot bars and fitting all of the wishbones and lovely new shock absorbers + springs, It was time to refit the wheels!

The front wheels have rather a lot of positive camber, but I suspect that's partially down to the chassis still being suspended on the dolly I knocked up for it (none of the wheels are actually touching the floor yet!!) and partially down to the lack of an engine's weight.

Next job is to refurbish the differential, prop shaft and gearbox and refit them. Plenty still to do mechanically, thankfully the drive shafts are already done and the engine is 80% done too!

The differential is MG front

Bolted onto TVR's own rear casting

In the meanwhile I have treated myself (yes again!) to a lovely set of 3 'eared' spinners which should arrive tomorrow...I will have to clean and give the wheels a fresh coat of  silver paint to do them justice I think...

Onwards and upwards....someday in the not to distant future I'm going to reach the point where there are NO more crates of rusty stuff to bring back to life/junk and replace....someday...

Expense, Expensiver, Expensivest

Well another year has passed and since then bad and good things have happened with the TVR. Firstly the cracked rear uprights were sent off to a specialist welder who claimed they could be fixed.....and then promptly rang and said he'd tried and well.......they couldn't! At least I wasn't charged anything, but I had to source two newly cast uprights, which were EXPENSIVE!!!

So having had the new bearing shells pressed in by my local engineers, I proceeded to carefully tighten the drive flanges, crushing the newly installed crush tubes to the required end float. I then installed the reconditioned brake back plates and new brake cylinders, adjusters, shoes, springs and drums, along with new superflex bushes for the wishbones and upright.....ALSO EXPENSIVE!!!!

Finally I had to take a deep breath and order 6 new AVO shock absorbers and 6 springs from Adrian Venn at Exactly TVR. They look lovely but were also VERY EXPENSIVE!!!! I made my own lower pivot rods from EN14 steel, but as you can see from the photos, I need to cut them down a bit and cut some more thread on them as well as fabricate some spacers to fit between the upright and the shock absorber.

Next stop a rolling chassis!!

Joy, Frustration, Elation and Despair

It's been a good while I know.....

Joy:
This summer saw some new ball joints for the front suspension, repainting and reassembling the majority of the front suspension, with Superflex bushes.

Very pleasing!

Frustration:
I decided that the next thing to do should be the dismantling of the rear corners, this is something that I have frankly not been looking forward to, as I have read some tales of woe surrounding the somewhat delicate TVR upright alloy castings.

After many stuck nuts and much cursing..

 Just removing the shock absorbers and wishbones was a pain! The end bolts, despite wire brushing and judicious soaking in WD40 took 2 days of levering, hitting and swearing to remove... after which almost all of the rest put up only a minimal fight. The upright itself was absolutely filthy, caked in dried greasy mud, yeurgh!

Elation:
However after lots of scraping, brushing with petrol and power wire brushing the upright looked good! No electrolytic corrosion to speak of and no broken or badly corroded studs, yay!

Despair:
However on closer inspection the pivot bar seems to be fractionally bent and worse, there appears to be what looks horribly like a crack across one of the cotter pin lugs........this is potentially disastrous and finding a replacement could be VERY EXPENSIVE!!!!!