1974 TVR 2500M driver restoration

Any chance I could get that handy excel sheet from you?

CoolHandMoss said:

Keepitcleanwiring has some appealing options. You'd lose some originality with the lack of the fuse blocks and different connectors but such an easy solution. Wiring had me so stressed out until I just resolved to scrap all the original wiring and spring for one of those. 

I did look at them when I was figuring out what I wanted to do about the wiring but in the end I just couldn't justify paying something like 3x the cost for a harness that I would still have to tailer a bit for my application. I ordered almost everything I need for about $400 and it will just take my time in organizing everything. But that's part of the fun isn't it!

TVR Scott said:

Any chance I could get that handy excel sheet from you?

'Course. Email sent. Let me know if it doesn't come through.

Viper, for your valve train, buy this retaining screw from TRF. Loss of the stock screw results in an oil pressure loss to the valvetrain and partial loss to the engine. 

This screw can be drilled for safety wire like I did here. It's a must IMO.

In reply to oppositelocksmith :

Thanks, I'll definitely look into that!

In reply to oppositelocksmith :

Follow up question: Are these the stock retaining screws I found in the oil pan?

In reply to ViperT4 :

Sure enough! And you have 2 of them there! Only one needed per stock.

YIKES!

"Crap, where did the rocker shaft lock screw go?" "Hey Bill, here is another one, don't worry about it.".....Is there one in the shaft now????

TurnerX19 said:

"Crap, where did the rocker shaft lock screw go?" "Hey Bill, here is another one, don't worry about it.".....Is there one in the shaft now????

Yup, probably what happened. There was still not one as I tore it down. Now I've ordered a new shaft and rockers.

It looks like the rockers were welding themselves to the shafts as it ran. You can see where material was pulled out of the rocker and corresponding raised sections on the shaft.

In an older Shelby vs Ferrari documentary I've seen an old Ferrari employee talks about Enzo keeping a room with all of the failed parts from racing cars and calling it the "Museum of Horrors" to inspire the engineers about what not to do. I may have to start my own collection with old parts from this car!

In reply to ViperT4 :

We have a "Wall of Shame" where all of the trashed components are nicely mounted and labeled. It's getting pretty full . . . 

Not too much doing yet with the engine. Reconditioning the head with guides/seats is complete but the milling has yet to be done. The block is getting new .030" over pistons (County), which are in the shop's possession so they should be able to do the finish honing soon. I bought a press and installed new wrist pin bushings in the con rod little ends. They're also at the shop waiting to be reamed for clearance.

In the mean time I finished reassembling the new rocker assembly. I reused the pedestals but everything else is new. I also completely rebuilt the carbs. I blocked off the temperature compensator but kept the bypass valve functional.

Hopefully will have the engine back from the machine shop and ready for final assembly before the end of the month but who knows. This weekend I'm going to the vintage races at Watkins Glen so I'll be getting plenty of inspiration! Out of the Woodwork, the North American TVR meet is in Watkins Glen this weekend so hopefully I'll get to check out some of those events as well.

Have fun at that TVR event.

i had a time getting my block done last summer. Drove 8 hours one way to get to a shop that could do it 2 months later. 

Measure your head before paying! Twice now I’ve had shops charge for thicknessing the head, but they truly only skimmed it each time. Two different shops, years apart. Gave both very clear specs.

Lots of stuff in the works here but not much to post about yet. I did get to play mad scientist this week. For some reason my sandblaster wasn't touching the rust on the exhaust manifold so I decided to try out removing it through electrolysis. I used about a tablespoon of baking soda per gallon of water and hooked up jumper cable with the positive lead from a car battery to the sacrificial piece of ferrous metal I had and the negative lead from the negative battery terminal to the manifold. I also put my battery charger on the battery.

Before:

Cooking away. That cloudiness isn't a reflection, those are bubbles coming off the pieces:

After:

I'd say it took 99% of the rust off in about 20 hours. Once I pulled it I primed it right away so it didn't flash rust and I'll be painting it with POR15 cast iron manifold gray.

Wow! That electrolysis  dip really seemed to do the trick. I'll have to remember that. Any pictures to post from Woodwork? I wanted to go, but will probably wait until I can drive my TVR there. Maybe next year? Eh, probably 2023!

In reply to Stu Lasswell :

Schedules didn't really align unfortunately. I only went on Sunday and I think all of the Woodwork activities were Saturday. Definitely would like to go with the finished car next year! 

Dropping this here for myself and anyone else that wants to use this idea. Seller on BAT restored a TVR and used this to turn the wheel while sanding to the desird finish. Pretty ingenius!

Alright getting this thing back on track. Wife and I have been beginning to move from NY back home to WI so that was taking a lot of the free time. Since my last updates I've mostly been focused on getting the engine back together.  There's nothing real special about my combination but for those curious here's the bigger points:

Block bored .030" over, deck height kept stock

Cylinder head milled to achieve 9.5:1 compression; new valves and guides installed and umbrella type seals added

GoodParts GP2 cam and valve springs to go with it

Strombergs rebuilt by yours truly

Distributor rebuild and recurved by Bob at British Vacuum Unit and converted to vacuum advance.

Everything else basically got cleaned up and refreshed. I needed a new rocker shaft as mine had some grooving in it I didn't like the looks of. I ordered a new Powertune brand fuel pump. Can't recommend. The first time I manipulated the manual primer the cast metal cracked in two on the inside. I decided to use the bottom half of the factory pump and the top half of the new one.

A little engine porn-

I also had a shop fab up a simple oil pan baffle since I like to attack the turns with this car-

I'm now getting the vacuum/heater/fuel hose routing sorted and will get the rest of the accessories added over the next week and then probably have it in the car pretty soon thereafter. I scored a slightly used Monza exhaust a TR6 owner didn't want anymore for $120 today. I'll have to cut it up a bit and I don't know if it's what I'll use long term but it'll get me going in the short term.

And the faulty fuel pump

No moss gathering around you, is there?! 

Over 60 degrees outside, the middle of December in New York? Yes, please! I took advantage of the warm weather blowing through to get some good work done on the TVR today. Got the engine fully installed, mated to the transmission and driveshaft connected. Then I got the brake hard lines from the front and rear wheels to their respective T's flared, bent and installed. For my first time doing that I was expecting to fight with it and take a long time, but it was pretty simple! The good flaring tool I bought made all the difference.

Engine in the chassis. I'm calling this drivetrain done!

Some things I don't think I mentioned previously are new alternator, spin-on filter conversion, new Bosch coil, and a gear reduction starter. The starter seems like it will work ok with the Fidanza flywheel. I checked the reach on the starter gear and I should have about 9-10mm of engagement with the ring gear, which seems to be about 2/3 of both the ring gear and starter gear width. Gotta believe that's good enough.

One thing I'm not wild about is the transmission mount setup. It's factory, and looking at it there's no wonder the OEM ones I took out were in the shape they were in. The weight of the gear box is way out in front of the transmission mount so there's a lot of force causing the rubber mounts to bend. I'm a little surprised I couldn't find anything about a better solution on the Triumph forums. You can see below these are brand new mounts already starting to flex, and they'll only get worse with time.

Flash back to the older ones:

Anyway, after that I tackled the brake lines. I used a line bender a little but these 3/16" ni-copper lines were easy enough to bend by hand so that's mostly what I did. The flaring was what I thought would take me the longest. I originally had bought some of the cheep flare tools like you can rent from the parts stores, but everyone is right about those- don't even waste your time. So I returned them and bought a TGR Line flaring tool off Amazon for $190. Worth every penny. There's plenty of info on that kind of tool online so I won't do a full tutorial but I'll go through the basic steps.

Place tool in table vice and lay line in the correct size die.

Place the top half of the die and set the clamp over it. With the wheel set to "Operation 0" pull the lever to set the line flush with the end of the die,and crank down the clamp tight.

Turn the wheel to "Operation 1" and pull the lever. At this point you have made a bubble flare:

If you want to make a double flare turn the wheel to "Operation 2" and pull the lever again.

Everything came out nice and clean on the first try. The hardest thing to remember is to put on the brake fittings before you do the flares, and in the proper orientation!

For securing the lines to the car I had bought some conventional line mounts where it's essentially a metal loop with rubber to hold the line and would be held in place by a screw/bolt into the chassis. Putting a bunch of new holes in the chassis tubing didn't excite me very much but I didn't want the lines sitting right up against it, even though that's how they were from the factory when secured by zip ties. I saw someone's build on the internet where they cut a small piece of rubber hose and placed that around the line before doing the zip tie around it and that what was a pretty good compromise, so that's what I did.

Last but not least I cut some new body isolators from rubber sheets I got off amazon and put the body back on the chassis. We're moving next week from NY to Milwaukee so I don't know when the next update will be. But looking back over the progress so far, in just under exactly one year I'm happy with what I've accomplished, what I've learned and I'd say I'm in a pretty good place to finish up sometime in calendar 2022. I really wanna drive this thing again!

Also, a question. I found this small piece amongst the hardware baggies I took off the car and have no idea what it is nor any recollection of taking it off something. Anyone know where this goes?

In reply to ViperT4 :

If that is as small as I think, it is a choke or throttle cable end clamp. Usually they have a hex head, but someone didn't have such when they lost(or broke) it, so straight blade it was.