My 1973 TVR 2500M : Renew and Restomod

Love the Duster!  I think they look pretty good on my ‘69 Cougar too

Official Correction:

17" wheels may look weird on an LBC or other vehicles of short stature from the 70's.

They can and often do look badass and super cool on muscle cars from the 70's.

Forgot to post these pics of the purge plugs I made.  Just some quick and dirty lathe work, but a lot cleaner and easier to work with than foil tape.  Here are the plugs for the 2" tube:

And the other end with the v-band clamp:

In reply to TVR Scott :

Cutting through a neighborhood on the way to lunch today, in a driveway on the other side of a soccer field, I see an unmistakeable front end. I tell my boss “we gotta take *that* street back to work, I’m pretty sure that’s a TVR!” So we did. And it was. A 1973 TVR 2500M, to be exact. Owner was pulling into the driveway as we drove up, so I got to chat with him for a minute. Also seen in his driveway were a Lotus Elite and a Volvo PV544. No, I didn’t get any pix, but I know where he lives.

So, since youre one of the tig gods.....

Whats the purpose of the purge plugs? Something a newbie needs to worry about?

Dusterbd13-michael said:

So, since youre one of the tig gods.....

Whats the purpose of the purge plugs? Something a newbie needs to worry about?

I did a big write up on back-purging gas way back on Page 19.  That was when I first messed around with the Nitrogen as a backing gas.

The quick and dirty version is that the stainless steel will oxydize and look really nasty on the inside of the tube unless you have the inside purged with an inert gas.

There are putties you can apply, but I've not tried them.

You can use argon, either with a splitter and a second regulator or with a second tank.  But Argon is expensive.

I used nitrogen because I inherited the bottle from my pipe-fitter grandfather.  I suspect he used it for exactly the same thing, though it took me about 15 years to figure that out.

If you're doing stainless steel welding and want the best quality you can get, you should try to encorporate some sort of purge gas.  If you're just doing mild steel, then don't worry about it.

AngryCorvair said:

In reply to TVR Scott :

Cutting through a neighborhood on the way to lunch today, in a driveway on the other side of a soccer field, I see an unmistakeable front end. I tell my boss “we gotta take *that* street back to work, I’m pretty sure that’s a TVR!” So we did. And it was. A 1973 TVR 2500M, to be exact. Owner was pulling into the driveway as we drove up, so I got to chat with him for a minute. Also seen in his driveway were a Lotus Elite and a Volvo PV544. No, I didn’t get any pix, but I know where he lives.

That's cool!  Post pics when you can!

In reply to TVR Scott :

Cool. So, specifically stainless, and to make the inside of the tube as good as the oitside.

As soon as i get used to the plasma cutter, im signing up for a tig class. But rereading your thread should be a good intro  right? I dont think the Ferrari thread is it....

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

Yup just stainless.

Totally happy to answer all the questions you have. And troubleshoot once you start messing with it too.  It's lots of fun!

Today I learned how much cheater bar is too much cheater bar:

Its only too much if something breaks.  Looks to me like you were just exploring the yield strength of that handle for future reference.

Seriously though, using that much leverage can end badly when the "something breaks"....is you.  Be careful out there.

Dusterbd13-michael said:

In reply to TVR Scott :

Cool. So, specifically stainless, and to make the inside of the tube as good as the oitside.

As soon as i get used to the plasma cutter, im signing up for a tig class. But rereading your thread should be a good intro  right? I dont think the Ferrari thread is it....

For exhaust and intake work, you don’t really have to purge weld. It certainly will give better results, but it’s not a requirement. In my line of work, it’s a have to, not a would be nice to... food grade stainless piping has to be sanitary welded. You purge it, and the inside of the weld will look exactly like the outside. It takes years of practice to get good at it, because you are essentially floating the weld puddle with the purge pressure. Not enough, and the weld will drop through; too much, and the puddle will blow out. Stainless is a finicky bitch. Aluminum is easier to deal with, imho...

My daughter and I did some disassembly work on the front suspension over the weekend.

Everything came apart without any trouble.  We got it stripped down to the basic suspension.  It all seems reasonably in order and undamaged.  The only exception is the sway-bar mounts that are smashed up on both sides.  I'll straighten them and add some stiffening plates.

Clearly this shock has seen it's full service life:

The other side looks to be blown, since it's totally caked with oil.

I want to get all these parts sand-blasted and then dye-checked for cracks.  Then probably I'll take them for nickel plating.

I'm debating how crazy I want to go with the suspension rebuild.  Clearly new shocks are in order.  New hardware and bushings for sure.  I can get upgraded spindles and hubs from Good Parts.  This would match the uprated hubs I got for the back, and is probably worth it.

They also have Wilwood brake upgrades for front and back both.  Vented discs for the fronts, and disc update from the drums in the back.  I haven't actually run the numbers on what it would be.  Nor have I estimated what replacing / refurbishing the existing hardware would cost.

See if you can get some type of sonic wall thickness check done on all 4 control arms. I have seen a TVR fail a control arm from internal rusting. It looked perfect from the outside, but after the failure a visual exam of the inside showed major corrosion damage. This was a 1969 Vixen 2500 in about 1981, so lots more time for yours to weaken.

In reply to TurnerX19 :

I'd like to do something like that.  I'll need to see what's available locally.

BTW, my mom grew up in Millburn, NJ just down the road from where you were as a kid.  Small world.

Here's some more details of frame repairs to be made.

Front p/s outrigger is rotted out.  I'll need to replace at least part of it.

And a bad out-of-focus view from below:

I think this section should be pretty simple to replace.

Moving to the back end, the PO had installed a roll-bar at some point.  The bar itself was actually executed pretty nicely, but the mounts were not so much.  Also at some point the car got quite a lot of water inside.  Mostly this rotted out the seat sliders, but it looks like the water rolled down the roll-bar and soaked a couple frame tubes as well.  Wide angle view here:

You can see the round longitudinal tube and the square lateral to the front are heavily pitted.  The holes and doubler plate on the square tube are where the roll bar bolted in.

A close in on the round tube:

You can see there's actually a pin-hole thru the tube there.  If need be, I can plasma cut some new mounting plates for the shock-mount.  I think the removal/replacement process there won't be too onerous.  The tubes below look prettty clean, at least on the outside.

Here's the back end of that round tube.  Not nearly as much surface rust.

That mounting bracket is for two thru-bolts into the body that also mount the seat-belt anchors.

The other side is similar, and there are some pin-holes here on the square tube.  The shock brackets are indeed a little twisted, but the picture makes them look worse.

I'm assuming this frame is just regular mild steel and nothing exotic and requiring fancy heat treatments.  Will do a little more reading on that front.

Bought a new blasting gun from Eastwood.  It was only about $40 but from the look of the pictures it had some nicer features.  The pickup tube is a twin-tube design.  The nozzle is held on by a big hand-removable ring.  So I got one on order.

It works!

Overall I'm pretty happy with it.  It does sometimes get clogged in the nozzle, but it's easy to disassemble and clean.  Don't even need to open the cabinet.  I want to set up an air dryer, but haven't made it to the store yet.

Here are parts from the front right corner.  Everything is cleaning up pretty well.  No major issues found yet.

TVR Scott said:

 

Don't know why but those pieces just look beautiful to me. 

In reply to Stampie :

I hear ya.  Pretty elegant-looking for what they are.  They actually remind me a bit of some of your old Model A and T parts.

Hey, those parts look familiar.  All of my spare TR6 suspension pieces (about 3 sets) ended up in Florida.  It doesn't look like you'll need to replace any of that, though.

Depending on how hard you plan to drive this car, I'd consider replacing those stub axles.  We had some horrible pad knock-back from the stock ones bending.  The "Uncle Jack" upgrade kit (now sold by Tony Drew and others) works quite well.

In reply to JoeTR6 :

I was looking at the similar kit from Good Parts.  I'm planning on some of those with their alloy hubs.

What's your take on the brakes?  Part of me wants to throw the whole wallet at it and order the Wilwood discs for front and rear.  But it's not a very heavy car.

In reply to TVR Scott :

We've been autocrossing with stock front disks for a while, and they work fine.  For many years that car used the Toyota truck calipers that are a bolt in replacement, but pads are limited and they are heavy.  I like Goodparts Wilwood kit with stock disks.

As for rear brakes, I've used the Alfin drums with bigger bore wheel cylinders to tune the rear brake bias.  Disks would be easier to maintain, but the aluminum drums are fairly light.

In reply to JoeTR6 :

The Alfin drums are about half the cost of the Wilwood disc upgrade.

I think I'm going to go ahead and dump another bucket of money on it.

Credit card has been savagely abused...

They will look sweet, you can't take it with you (money or the TVR). 

In reply to dherr :

I'm at the point of reminding Lil Stampie that I'm spending his inheritance. Hope he likes the E36 M3 I buy.