Going for the Startup 3

Well, the car won't start without some electrics.

The loom of my car is nearly 50 years old. It has been cut into several major chunks, which I imagine allowed the previous owner to quickly dismantle the car, perhaps planning to re assemble the loom later using quick connectors. Not a bad idea, which I will probably revisit later, but for now, I decided to make up a skeleton loom to allow me to start the car. This is partly because after working on it on and off for six and a half years, I want to get the engine going, but partly because I wanted to understand how the wiring works.

At this point, I should say that the plan is to rebuild the car with dynamo and control box, as original, but later I will convert it to alternator power. Yes, mad I know, but I want to do it that way to learn how the system works, before changing it.

I'll post a diagram of the skeleton loom below once I have got it to work.





For the skeleton, I have extracted the basic ignition and charging  system from the diagram below. Its from a Series 2 Vixen manual that I bought early on to help me understand what bits went where. This one has the interesting addition, by a previous owner of the book, who was clearly fitting an air horn.

This diagram doesn't tell you that the wires are of differing thicknesses to cope with the current going through them. That bit, I had to get from the old loom. Also, some of the colours on the S2 diagram are not the same as the original loom on my car, so it may not be 100% helpful to S1 owners. If you are relying on the above loom diagram, be aware that the over drawn section obscures part of the ballast ignition circuit. You need to check it closely.


Just as you can't get the engine running without electrics, you can't have an electrical system without a battery, and in my case, you can't have a battery without a battery clamp, and you can't have a battery clamp if it has returned to nature:

           so that has to be fixed. But not before I got distracted and cleaned off the rest of the old paint from the engine bay, and theres another reason why this all takes so painfully long. 

There thats better. Don't worry, I vacuumed out the slot then ground it back.

Quick point: I cut out the rusted section from the top, because I mistakenly believed that TVR had let the steel section in and then glassed over it. However, the bulge that went over the section, was actually the result of the completely rusted steel expanding and pushing the mat upwards! In fact the factory appear to have cut two small slots for the protrusions pushed the steel up from below, then glassed it over underneath. I added two additional small bolts through the bracket to stop it being pulled through by the weight of the battery on braking or cornering.

5th July: Update. 

I've installed the skeleton loom and wired it up to the dash. I've bought a new battery and I've made a reproduction battery retainer; and following a short interlude with no power due to a missing wire between the battery and the control box, the car very briefly, turned over on her own key for the first time in at least 17 years and probably since 1986.

WOO HOO!!!

A few things to do before I try and start it:

Petrol pump needs sorting out,  I need some petrol pipe and I need to find some suitable fittings for connecting the pump to the pipe.

Points need doing

Connect up plug leads etc

Connect up oil pressure pipe, so I don't lose all the oil

Water in

Fit temperature sender, which currently doesn't fit, probably because the threads are full of paint. 

I hope. 

Watch this space.

22nd July update

After a lot of Googling and thread measuring, I identified the temperature sender thread in the crossflow head as 1/8 27 NPT and ordered a suitable tap, which arrived the morning I was due to go off on holiday, so I sneaked out to the garage and cleaned out the threads and quickly fitted the temperature sender, which now screws in fine.

29th July

Well, she runs!

I would add "Yeee Haaa!" but I can't get her to run for more than a few seconds at a time.

Initial problems with a slow turn-over were traced to loose earth connections, but she wouldn't start. I checked I had a spark and I did. Then I remembered I had intended to gap the points and had never got round to it, so  I did that...no luck. I rechecked the ignition timing, which was a bit out and at this point the engine began to "catch", but not hold. It popped and spat back through the carbs. At one point a blue flame leaped out , which was novel! At this point, I noticed some smoke issuing from the side of the engine and traced it to the hole in the inlet manifold where the crank-case breather was supposed to be plugged in...remember I said I would get around to that later.... Of course the missing pipe means there is a huge air leak weakening the mixture, so I plugged that back in and the engine then caught, ran very rapidly for about 5 seconds and then died. So, I have a spark, it occurs at the right time and so the issue seems to be fuelling; and so began an infuriating cycle of me adjusting the choke, throttle or starting jet and retrying until the battery began to show signs of weakening. So I put it on charge and shut the garage up for the day. 

I think it might be over fuelling. I am going to check the float levels and go through it again tomorrow if I can sneak out to the garage.

Going for the Start Up 2

I've inched forward with readying the car for startup over the last few weeks.

What I hadn't bargained for (although I should have got used to it by now!) is how long it takes to do the most trivial of stuff. Looking at the engine installed in the car, I thought "great, a couple of weekends work and ...broooom!" But of course, it doesn't work like that when you bought the car as  boxes of bits!

What slows you right down is the small stuff thats not there:
Coil...Does my car use a a ballasted ignition system? (yes)
Which one of the 3 distributors I have is the right one? does it even matter?
What size thread is the fitting for the oil pressure take off. What IS the oil pressure sensor?
Cooling system piping, thermostat housing (I now have three!) etc etc.

Identifying the correct parts and tracking them down is a huge job, but oddly satisfying, although, some expensive mistakes have been made! For example, when I was close to getting the engine in the car a couple of years ago, I bought a whole load of parts, some of which I now find are wrong and bought too long ago to take back (Sixty quids worth of non ballasted high performance coil I am looking at you here!). I hate to think what I have spent on wrong parts in the last year.

Anyhow, moving on,  I got the carb on easily enough, but the next issue was that the nice alloy rocker cover I bought years ago in anticipation of this stage, actually gets in the way of doing up the rear carb nuts So, off it comes, to be subbed for the manky old original cover that came with the engine. I don't have the original fittings, so order new nuts and washers. Next the nice shiny stainless exhaust manifold (headers). These fit perfectly, but I had bought the wrong exhaust studs, so new ones were ordered.

Next, the new starter.....I only have 2 of the correct size nuts....and so it goes on, you get the picture.

Cant find the breather pipe from the crankcase breather. I know I have it somewhere, turn out all the boxes of bits, find it, fit it.....it fouls the heater valve, so can't fit both breather and valve at the same time. Argh.... Ive put that issue to one side whilst I try to identify a right angle fitting for the manifold.

Fit the radiator, which is a separate histoire, all on its own.

The car came with an absolutely knackered radiator, rusty and falling apart, except that, it had perfectly good lower and upper chambers. I was in need of an expert to restore (note the word) it. It needed a new core and new side brackets, to which the original fittings could be attached once they were cleaned up. Easy enough for a company who specialises in restoring historic radiators you might think. I found such a company an hours drive from my house; lots of examples of their work on their website, all lovely. So after a chat about what would be needed I dropped it off.

What I got back was an abomination. They had replaced the side brackets and reattached the fittings, without de-rusting them. They had separated the top tank (unique to these particular TVRs, so only a couple of hundred made) and used a chisel or some such to get rid of the deposits so the the top tank was distorted and covered in pimples. Then they appear to have given the job of reassembly to a work experience school child who re-soldered the side brackets leaving solder blobs all over it, and made no effort what so ever to make the new brackets look like the old ones.

I took it to another restorer, who looked at it and said they might be able to improve it but they wouldn't be able to put it back to original. They offered to make me an alloy one for £550. I don't really like the look of alloy radiators, so I am currently stuck with a functional but aesthetically ruined radiator. So if anyone knows of a series one or early series two radiator, in any condition as long as the top tank is there. Please let me know.

Writing that wasn't even cathartic; I am still mad.

Anyway, thats fitted now.

There are issues with using the header tank I have, for a number of reasons; mostly in that its totally U/S

Its an odd, rather home made looking, little thing and different to the usual header tanks TVR used, so I suppose its likely to be a  home-made replacement, but you never know. A while ago another owner was having an alloy header tank made, so I got the fabricator to make me one too. This is similar to one of the standard TVR tanks; a bit dusty from shed storage!

Fitting this one would involve having to fit the nearside wing (on which it is supposed to be mounted), which would be a faff at this point, since I am only supposed to be side tracking myself by getting the engine running. TVR used several approaches to header tanks for the  early cars. I have seen two that were factory fitted and a couple of others that may have been.

 In line filler neck, I've seen several of these. 

Cylindrical header tank, I am told by those in the know, that these two are original fittings

And this arrangement, which I am not sure is original, but may well be as I've seen two of these:

So far all the tanks I've seen have been on the nearside wing. My oddity, however, appears to have been mounted on the offside wing according to the mounting holes. I am quite tempted to refit a similar tank, but for the moment have decided to buy a cheap in-line filler neck and fit that between the thermostat housing, and the rad, just to get the car going. The radiator top and bottom outlets are 32mm, but the Cortina crossflows thermostat housing is 38mm, so to keep it simple, I have got hold of a Fiesta Mk1 housing, which is 32 mm and, as a bonus, has a threaded hole to take a thermostatic switch for a radiator fan, which is nice.

There thats better, cooling system all in. Awaiting repainted rocker cover.

There, thats better! Now, where was I...?