My 1973 TVR 2500M : Renew and Restomod

In reply to Stampie :

You know he likes the E36 M3 you buy.

So what's the secret to getting axle nuts off?

Tried the long wrench and the hammer. Tried the rattle gun. Neither did much to either side.

In reply to TVR Scott :

I have no idea whether there's a TVR feature that makes this different, but I once had to go rent a 3/4"-drive impact to get the nuts off my BMW 2002. IIRC it was working all the way off, too, not just breaking loose.

In reply to TVR Scott :

You need a stout 3' long piece of flat stock drilled to take 2 lugs, and bolted firmly to the hub, along with a similar length breaker bar and socket. Then you get to find the taper in the hub is so tight the hub won't come off nutless. Remove the drum and heat the hub cherry red with a strong hub puller tensioned to its limit and perhaps you will get it off. Several times I have had to split these off with whizz wheels hoping to save the stub axle. The bearing race part of the axle was bad every time. This was long before an upgrade was available, but new axles were at the dealer (remember them?) just 2 miles away.

A good plan. Though I already have new axles and new hubs. I'm more than willing to work down the old parts with a pair of pliers and a blow torch.

Actually it would be a plasma cutter.

Are those the Triumph hubs?  If so, don't bother separating the hub.  Just throw the entire hub assembly in the trash.  Pull the drum off and there should be 6 5/16" nuts holding the hub to the carrier.  Make sure you take the countersunk drum retaining screws out first.

I once made a jig with 1/2" steel plate to hold/reinforce the hub and tried to press the axle out with an industrial hydraulic press.  This mushroomed the stub axle (with the nut on it backwards), stripped the studs, and bent the flange.  There's about a 50/50 chance of destroying the thing getting it apart, and an even greater chance by now that the stub axle has stress fracturing.

In reply to JoeTR6 :

You convinced me.  I'm going to remove the axles in a destructive manner.

I've been talking with Richard Good at Good Parts about brake mounting.

I'll just say real quick what a nice and genuine guy Richard is.  Truly a pleasure to talk with him.

The brake configuration is a bit different on the TVR than it is on the TR6.  So a little fiddling will be needed.  Richard happened to have a customer's 2500M rear suspension at his shop for brake fit tests.  So he did a little testing and sent me some pics.

Here's what he had to say:

"Photo 1800 shows the right hand bracket on the left side with the left side parking brake caliper.  Everything should fit on with no modification this way.  The only thing is you will probably have to remove the hydraulic caliper and hold it upright for bleeding.  Assembly would be as it is in the TR6.  Slide the bracket onto the studs and bolt up the hub, slip on the brake rotor then bolt up both calipers. "

And the second option:

"Photo 1802 shows the left hand bracket on the left side with the right hand parking brake caliper.  This mounts both calipers in the positions they would be on the TR6.  You would have to drill new mounting bolt holes in the bracket since the TVR has the bolt pattern rotated 30 degrees from that of the TR6.  I did not drill a bracket to actually mount it up but it looks like the heads of the shoulder bolts that mount the parking brake caliper will just contact the casting where it slopes up from the mounting flange.  This means that the parking brake caliper will have to be split for assembly because once the bracket is bolted on you will not be able to install the shoulder bolts.  So to assemble you would bolt the inner half of the parking brake caliper to the bracket with the shoulder bolts.  It is a floating caliper so it slides on the shoulder bolts. Then bolt up the bracket and hub followed by the brake rotor.  Then you can bolt on the outer half of the parking brake caliper and the hydraulic caliper.  "

I may be able to clock the assembly above 30 deg CCW to how Richard is holding it.  I'll have to play with the parts once they come in.

As suggested, I skipped the axle nuts entirely and went straight for the hub mounts.  Came apart ridiculously fast:

And here's the basic assembly rear suspension:

I think I'm going to hold off on disassembly until my brake parts come in.  Then I can do some fitting and checking of mounting clearances.

That rear disk conversion is sexy.  Forget what I said about using aluminum drums.

Don't be surprised if you need to remove a slight amount of material from the inside of the hub carrier to clear the new hubs.  They are slightly larger than the stock hubs.

I've always found Richard Good is willing and able to help.

In reply to JoeTR6 :

Might be a TR6 thing.  I just did a test fit on one of the new hubs and it fit perfectly:

Just took a peek at the new brakes and front hubs.  So pretty!

You think all this old junk is worth anything to anyone?

Can't imagine it would be.  The shocks are blown, so they'll go in the scrap heap.  All the brake components are available new as TR-6 parts.  The axles might be TVR custom, but the boots were totally ruined on them.  Not sure they'd give anyone usable life.

Thoughts?

All the junk went to the junkyard except the axles.  And the coilover that I somehow missed in the truck bed.  That one's a keeper.

I had some foggy notion that someone might want the axles.  This will probably prove false.  Though I did see that people are selling differentials from the TR-6 for not small money.  So if a TVR guy needs a diff, he might need axles.

Or I'll scrap them in a year's time.  Stay tuned...

On to more productive tasks.  Got the RR suspension taken off the car this afternoon.  Here it is as disassembled as I could get it:

The big long studs going thru the casting are not interested in moving right now.  I hit them with the first method - PBlaster and some good smacks with a hammer.  Will investigate heat, and then my cousin's hydraulic press as needed.  If I need to destroy them on removal, it looks like new replacements are readily available.  I will probably replace them anyway, since they're old and of unknown quality.

I did get the upper control arm totally disassembled.  Here's the exploded view:

It looks like alignment should be simple and very flexible.  There's lots of adjustments and they all look to lock down well.

I finished out the afternoon sandblasting.  I'm finding that a very pleasant, meditative activity.  The Eastwood blaster seems to be working even better now - very happy with that purchase.

Took the Left-Front suspension apart yesterday afternoon.  The RF came apart with no issue, so I guess I can't be surprised that one of the fought like hell.

The lower a-arm pivots were the offenders.  On the rear one that bolt had seized to the compression sleeve.  Turning the bolt completely shredded the rubber bushing.  And thru all this I got my ratchet wrench stuck on the nut, and had to cut the bolt just to get the ratchet off.

Cut bolt, that is still stuck in the compression sleeve:

Had to hack saw thru both sides of the middle of the bolt to get the arm off.  A good reminder to keep my hack saw blades nice and sharp.

Sweet seized / cut bolt and sleeve:

The bolt on the front one came off just fine, but the arm was still stuck inside the mounting ears.  More hack sawing of the sleeve.

Looks like the PO made some "improvements" here:

The holes in the mounting ears are pretty elongated.  Replacement looks difficult.  I'm thinking right now I'll plasma cut some doubler-plates and braze them to the factory mounts.  Lots of surface area.

Can't tell for sure, but it looks like the little triangular gussets on the A-Arm mounts may have been added later.

Spent the afternoon working on removing rusted tubes.  Surprisingly hard work, but to do it well I'm really taking my time.

A bit of hack saw work gave me this:

That whole front square tube needs to come out.  This tube was the front mount for the PO roll-bar.  He just drilled holes and added some backer plates.  No crush tubes or anything, so totally not sufficient for roll-bar mounting.  It rusted out pretty bad, especially on the D/S where there are holes all the way thru the tube.

The lateral round tubes on both sides will also need replacement.  The nearside has pinholes but the far side is just deeply pitted.

Here's the square tube mostly removed:

Still have to get the bit on the far side ground off, but overall a good afternoon's progress.

Engine is out, frame is almost bare:

surprisingly light.

In reply to TVR Scott :

Perfect time to rebuild it in carbon fiber. 

Stampie said:

In reply to TVR Scott :

Perfect time to rebuild it in carbon fiber. 

I can't even quite get my head around how much work that would be.  And I'm a fan of bonded CF tube structures.

Rebuilding the body in CF, now that's a different story.  Also a mountain of work, but a big payoff in weight savings.  Also probably not something I'm going to tackle.

Stampie has been using his ninja driveshaft investigating skills for me, and has determined that my transmission / differential combo would bolt right up to a stock RX-8 driveshaft. How cool is that!?

Is it even the right length?

In reply to TVR Scott :

That's fantastical!

Stampie, is there some sort of life-altering reference material from which you're summoning these informations?

That is crazy luck, shows this project is blessed!

Dusterbd13-michael said:

Is it even the right length?

Oh no.  Not even remotely close.

I'll need to put hands on one and see about cutting it down and bonding it at the right length. 

And then hope it doesn't shatter and embed carbon fiber splinters in my scrotum.

You're going to need a sticker on the car now in very small print hidden somewhere very unobtrusive that says carbon fiber scrotum. Or encourage somebody to start a punk band with that name.

. And as far as an RX-8 driveshaft goes I had one in my hands and couldn't figure out how to cut it apart and work with it. Hopefully you are able to. You seem to be a hell of a lot smarter than me.