At last...wishbones!

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!

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

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

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!

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...

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:

1. Washed with "Gold Class Car Wash Shampoo and Conditioner"
2. Clay the car with "Quik Clay Detailing System"
3. Clean the paintwork with "Deep Crystal Paint Cleaner"
4. Polished with "Deep Crystal Polish"
5. 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

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 :)

...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...

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.