:: Diary - March 2014 ::

:: Saturday, March 1, 2014 ::

Not much news recently. The TVR is in the garage waiting for me to find the time to drive it. The Porsche was in a different garage waiting ditto, although I did go and get it yesterday - it’s due an annual service, booked for Tuesday.

I need to have another go at the TVR’s driver door problem. It hasn’t dropped, and there’s no play in the hinges, but it’s rubbing at the back edge. It hasn’t been right since I lifted the body to weld the chassis, so I suspect it’s not sitting right, or needs the rubber packing (between the chassis mountings and the body) adjusted.

In the meantime, though, I decided the other day to have a go at making a Mk 2 version of the smoke tester - not because I need it just now, but just as an exercise in engineering brilliance.

First, as Goldilocks always used to say, here’s a list of what you need:

a tin, not too big, not too small;
a bit hose, not too long, not too short;
some hose clips to fit the hose;
a spiky thing to batter through the sides of the tin (about the same size as the outer diameter of the hose);
a hammer to hit the spiky thing with;
some sealer or similar sticky shit to seal round the hose;
some means of applying light air pressure to the tin (one of those tiny tyre inflators should do); and
a lobotomy.

You also need something to make smoke. I saw a you-tube video where the guy stuck a cigar (or a “cee-gar y’all” as he pronounced it - says all you need to know about his particular ethnic background) into the end of the hose, so that the airflow filled the tin with smoke. It seemed to work on his General Lee replica.

Alternatively, you can go all girly and use proper smoke matches from Screwfix - £2.99 for a box of 75. you get about 12 to 15 tests for that.

I decided to abandon the idea of making the holes in the lid, as on Mk1 - it makes the thing awkward to light. So the first step is to put the tin on its edge, and thump the spiky thing through until the hose just fits. I used 3 different things, first a sharp spike, then a socket t-handle, and finally the very end of the handle on a breaker bar - wobble it about a bit so that you get a good “lip” round the edge of the hole.

The man on the you-tube video probably just shot a hole through the tin. That would work as well, just make sure your favourite dawg isn’t eating your sister / wife / cousin (who might all be the same person) at the other end of the yard, in line with your proposed tin exit wound.

Then turn the tin over and make a hole in the other side (or if you’re good with the ole huntin’ rifle, you might be able to make both holes with the one bullet).

Then push a bit of hose through each hole, and secure with a hose clip around the “lip” you made. A wee smear of sealer round each hose entry, and you’re done!

And here it is! Note the “crossflow” design (first introduced by Ford in their 1967 cylinder heads) to improve “swirl” and “chamber evacuation” and all that other complicated engineering pish. I have also decided to use a shorter hose between the tin and the manifold, to make the smoke flow more efficient.

Speaking of chamber evacuation, remember not to use too high an air pressure or you’ll be getting a big fright!

:: Sunday, March 2, 2014 ::

It’s TVR Car Club day. I am up bright and early. Well, early anyway. I am meeting up with Dave and Jim at 11 am, so there’s bags of time. I need to go to the bank first because my daughter “borrowed” money from me last night to go out, and isn’t likely to be up in time to hand it back this morning. She says she will though, even though I tell her I’ll be leaving at 10:30. I need to get fuel as well.

No sign of her by 10am though, so I decide to have a shower and a shave and get going. She beats me into the bathroom by about 10 seconds. Never mind, 5 minutes for her shower and I’ll be off.

Except after 10 minutes I realise that she’s having a bath instead. This, judging by previous form, could take a while…

So I get dressed and go out to manoeuvre some cars around so that I can get the TVR out of the garage. When I get it outside I see that it’s really dusty, so I give it a clean with quick detailer.

Back indoor, and bath time is just over. It’s now 10:55. I complete my own ablutions, get dressed and leave at 11:05.

There is, naturally, a queue like a Russian bread shop, at the petrol station. This is caused partly by the dithering of filler-uppers, but mainly by people parking at the pumps and popping in to do their weekly shopping, have a breakfast coffee and a nice wee chat. And that’s only the staff. By the grace of God and the “pay at pump” option, I am soon(isn) on my way.

After a pleasant journey in a convoy of the 40mph everywhere club, I arrive at Dave’s. A wee chat and we’re soon off.

I notice that the car isn’t pulling very well - there’s a “flatness” under power - not bad but definitely noticeable. We have our wee run, and after just a few miles, I am again in love with this wee car - 11 years I’ve had it, and yet I still forget how enjoyable it is to drive. It’s nippy without being stupidly fast, it’s nimble, it sounds great - it’s brilliant!

After a bit of a hoon about, we get near the venue, to join a queue following a tractor. Now I don’t have a thing against tractors, they are just as entitled to use the road as I am - and anyway, if you didn’t have tractors, where would bacon sandwiches come from? What gets on my tits isn’t the tractor, it’s the queue of 20 members of the “40mph everywhere except when you’re following a tractor” club. They follow the thing for bloody miles, at 15mph, and won’t dare to overtake unless they are at the start of a straight road the length of Heathrow’s second runway, without a car in sight. Tractors are ok. Myopic Mr Magoos who can’t reach the accelerator, are not.

By this time, my car seems to have lost a wee bit more power. I wonder if it’s the timing or something? But we’re here, just as the rain starts, so it’s “roof on” dress code while we eat. And on the menu, is a mixed grill, that looks like it could choke a horse. We’ll have that then. And a sticky toffee pudding. And it’s lovely…

By the time we leave for home, the rain is on so the roofs stay likewise. Me engine isn’t well - does it have water in the electrics? the “flatness” is a lot more pronounced. It seems lumpy at idle too - as if one cylinder isn’t firing, but does have compression….

I get home and repeat the 3-car shuffle to get it into the garage. Then I lift the bonnet and have a look… and find that No 3 plug lead has fallen off the plug. and is just sitting loose - it’s sparking, but between the lead and the plug… I push the lead back on and re-start it, and it seems much smoother when revved. Plonker…

Forget the problems though - it’s great to have a shot of my wee car again, after a few months. Must use it more… if only the weather wasn’t so crap!

And that’s another thing - see, in all my years, I've accepted that the weather in Scotland can be, well, pish. But I've never before been so fed up of days and weeks and months of rain, wind, storms, gales, hurricanes and hoolies, as I am this winter, and we've still got 6 feet of snow, miles of black ice and stampedes of reindeer emigrating south with frozen knackers, to look forward to before we can put away the cork-lined pants for another year. I want to live somewhere warmer... Yes, I know about global warming and moving gulf streams and all that - but that’s no consolation when the puddles are over-topping your wellies, even when you’re up a ladder.

:: Thursday, March 20, 2014 ::

I’ve been getting reader complaints, that my my website isn’t up to date, so my long list of subscribers have nothing to read since they stopped publishing “The Beano”. There’s a very good reason for this - it’s that I haven’t done anything with the TVR for 2 weeks and a bit.

What I have been doing, though, just to pad this diary entry out a bit, is fixing the Porsche. Since I got it, it’s had this intermittent faint whine from time to time, so faint and intermittent that by the time you realise it’s there, you haven’t got time to diagnose what it is before it disappears again.

Well I got it serviced at the start of March, and since then, it’s been less faint and less intermittent. A bit of diagnosis shows that going round corners makes no difference, so it’s probably not a wheel bearing. It makes no difference if you knock the car into neutral and let it coast, so it’s probably not the gearbox. What makes a difference is a quick light dab on the brakes, and the noise disappears for 5 minutes then gradually comes back till you dab the brake again.

I’ve had this before, I remember, feck knows how many years ago, and what it was then, was the pads sticking slightly in the calliper, because there was no grease, so the pads were ringing as the wheel went round.

Well I took the front wheels off to take a look at the pads, and right enough they are dry. I push the pistons back in the nearside calliper and take the pads out, grease the edges and the backing shims and put it back together.

When I come to the offside one, I can’t push the pads back more than a couple of mm - the calliper is partly seized. I manage to get the pads out after about an hour of effort with an increasing range of drifts, levers and pullers. The pistons push back eventually but it’s hard. I grease the edges and shims and reassemble.

A wee road test shows that the noise has gone - but now the calliper has seized “on” so after 3 or 4 miles the wheel is hot. It’s knacked.

So it’s a night on the hunt for bits then. I find reconditioned callipers exchange for £99, and new pads for £30. I think the disks are fine, so that’s not bad… Not good enough for a tight-fisted old bastard though, so I find a “calliper repair kit for £16 - all the seals and boots you need to rebuild BOTH front callipers. It’s got to be worth a try - how hard can it be? The last time I rebuilt a calliper was about 40 years ago…

All of that was on Sunday, the seal kit arrived yesterday, and the pads today. So izzy-wizzy, let’s get busy, as Sooty used to say.

Well I won’t go through it step-by-step, but suffice to say that getting the pistons out of that calliper was a nightmare. I managed it by winding my compressor up to 120psi, finding a rubber washer that sealed around the edge of the inlet for the brake hose, and pumping the thing full of compressed air, while holding various thicknesses of wood packing pieces in place so that I could pop both pistons out without them ricocheting around the garage for 20 minutes.

The pistons clean up ok with no signs of scoring, and it doesn’t take long to get the old seals out, polish up the inside of the bores, and lubricate the new seals with brake fluid before putting them in. Then I coat the pistons in brake fluid, and push them in straight, with a bit of wood. There’s a cut-out in each piston that has to be set at an angle of 20 degrees to the leading edge of the brake pad, and there’s a special Porsche tool that you apparently need to set that. 5 minutes with a pencil, a protractor, a pair of scissors and the side of a Rice Krispies box solves that particular problem. Then I fit the dust boots and retaining clips. Caliper refurb complete!

I put it all back on the car, install the new pads on both sides, bleed the brake and have a test drive. Brakes work, noise gone, result!

And all for £46. These Porsches are bleeding expensive to maintain eh?

There you go - a wee “fix” of spanner activity to fulfil all your vicarious car-fixing hobby requirements.

:: Saturday, March 22, 2014 ::

Seems I spoke too soon about Porsche brake calipers.

Well I had a very short run out in it today, and when I got back, I gave the wheels a quick grope just to make sure they weren’t getting hot (sticky brake = friction = heat = hot hub + convection = hot wheel, see?). The two front ones are now fine - but I have a warm back wheel on the drivers side as well.

So it’s out with the jack (and the axle stands Mr Health and Safety Inspector, sir) and the back wheel is definitely difficult to turn with the handbrake off. Now the Porsche handbrake works on shoes inside the hub, but the footbrake works an ordinary calliper and brake pads. Is it the handbrake that’s sticking, or the footbrake?

So it’s off with the back wheel - and out with the selection of drifts etc to push the pads back from the disk. One of them moves ok, but the other is as stiff as hell, it’s partly seizes as well! Once I do get the pads back, the wheel turns ok, but locks when I pull the handbrake up - so it’s definitely the footbrake that’s sticking.

So it’s out with the pads, clean up caliper, grease back and sides of pads and replace - but one application of the footbrake, and it’s sticking again - you can turn the wheel, but it’s not right. Another wee run shows that it’s still getting warm.

So I have the same choice - rebuild the calliper or just replace it. The rebuild kit is the same price as the front - but I decide that I can’t be bothered, so I order a new calliper at a cost of £170 (with £60 refunded when I send the old one back).

You could almost think this was getting expensive, if you hadn’t previously owned a Cerbera.

:: Wednesday, March 26, 2014 ::

How do they manage it? How is it that the brake pipe system on any car, manages to weld itself into one solid lump, and won’t come apart? The worst I ever had was an old Metro I bought 10 years ago for my son - it needed a new brake pipe, about 6 inches long (that’s 150mm for those who can’t think in old numbers) on one of the rear drums, but by the time I found a connection that would come apart without an angle grinder and a hacksaw, I was at the master cylinder, so I ended up using over 10 metres of brake pipe and 2 flexible hoses before they worked again. I didn’t know a Metro had 10 metres of brake pipe, until then…

Anyway, 25-year-old Porsches have the same problem. The brake pipe connector won’t come out of the calliper, no matter how much penetrating fluid / freeze spray / swear words I use. It won’t come apart at the connector on the swing arm either - they just round off. One of the advantages of having a brake pipe flaring tool is that these things don’t matter a toss - you just cut the pipe off near the connector, and whack a socket on - that shifts the buggers. During this process, I do notice that the pipe bracket on the swing arm is solid, and stays the same shape as you spanner the connector apart. The brackets on the TVR are made from old foil takeaway boxes so deform if you fart in their general direction.

So the calliper is swapped, a new brake pipe is made up, the pads replaced and the calliper is bled. A wee test drive confirms that this time, it’s sorted!

Now I need to get the snipped-off connector out of the old calliper, box it up and send it off to get my exchange deposit back!