Apexcarver said:That's how you eat that elephant!
I'm gonna need more salsa....
Apexcarver said:That's how you eat that elephant!
I'm gonna need more salsa....
You gotta get out your funk! Sorry, I'm following your build carefully as I'm also working on a TVR 2500M project. I've had mine over a year, and waited until I got a garage built, with a lift, to start it. Anyway, I've already found your experiences very valuable in my project. I'm not doing any radical mods like you, but am gearing towards an autocross-prepped street car rather than a restoration. Your explanation of how to remove the body really helped! Now my frame is nearly stripped enough to call the dustless blaster. Today I pulled the diff, removed the hand brake assembly and pulled the brake lines. Now I'm trying to decide if I should pull the suspension before blasting... better cleaning, but lose my ability to roll it around on its wheels. I'm already planning on being a big-time customer of Richard Good, as I'm going with the GP R200 conversion and alloy hubs/cv jointed shafts. Thinking of a Sam Halkias built TR6 motor rather than building my own. My frame seems to be a bit less rusted than yours, which surprised me as mine sat out in the North Carolina weather for 15 years... So far it's come apart without too much difficulty. The interior was gutted when I got it, and exposed to the weather a bit, so I'm counting on you to stay a step ahead of me on your build so I can learn by your experience (and/or mistakes). What shocks/springs are you looking at? Roll bar or cage? Wheel/tire combo planned? Autocross classing? So many questions! Keep up the great work you've done so far... your build posts and pictures are a tremendous help, and your style and approach to the build are a pleasure to read. Thank you!
In reply to Stu Lasswell :
Hey! Welcome! I saw your post on the ccr page and gave you a suggestion for blaster here near Charlotte.
Please start a thread on your car!
In reply to Dusterbd13-michael (Forum Supporter) :
Ah, right. Thanks for the blaster suggestion...I'll be calling him soon. As to a thread of my own, well, I think the bar is set high enough here that I would feel intimidated! My photography ans well as mechanical skills are not up to par. Maybe on the tvrcca or Triumph club forums.
In reply to Stu Lasswell :
Thanks for reading along, and I'm glad to hear there's another M owner on the forum. You definitely need to do a build thread here, because I'll undoubtedly learn something from you too! Seriously, do.
Shocks and springs will likely be my next purchase, and I'm thinking hard about them. I was going to get some GAZ units from Bill Rachal at Dominion Spares, but he appears to have fallen off the earth.
From there, Konis would be a classic choice, though figuring out what version is my big problem. There are AFCO and AP - sold by the "big guys", but I don't really understand the process of specifying a shock. So I'm a little in the winderness on that one. If anyone wants throw in some advice, I'm all ears!
There was a roll bar in the car when I bought it. The hoop was nice. The mounts were terrible. It had a removable forward tube that tied in with the frame in the passenger's footwell. That was just dangerous. Who knows what material the whole thing was, or how thick. I'm not planning on putting a new one in. My goals are actually similar to yours - good useable road car that will be a satisfying autocrosser.
Autocross class I'm looking at might be the new XS-B class, if I can keep the weight under 2150. I suppose SSM might be an option, but I've not taken a deep dive down either rule book yet.
Wheels will probably be 16 x 7 Panasports with a sticky DOT tire for autocross. I have some factory 14" rims that might get a good street tire for longer drives. That is well in the future.
In reply to Stu Lasswell :
Don't feel inadequate. We embrace all people, cars, and levels of builds around here. And we all love watching what other guys are doing in the shop.
Also, these guys have taught me a LOT of what i know and allowed me to progress in my builds from their suggestions and feedback.
Dusterbd13-michael (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to Stu Lasswell :
Don't feel inadequate. We embrace all people, cars, and levels of builds around here. And we all love watching what other guys are doing in the shop.
Also, these guys have taught me a LOT of what i know and allowed me to progress in my builds from their suggestions and feedback.
Totally true.
I might know lots about fabrication and welding. And I have the most stupid collection of tools that has ever been packed into a two-car garage.
But then Michael has these ninja assembly / testing / cleaning / perfecting skills that I learn from every day.
Clearly if you're stripping the car to the frame and getting it blasted there's a story to be told there. One that I want to read.
My thanks to both you guys. And lo and behold, it looks like Michael is even local to me! I have been taking lots of pictures (cellphone), mostly just so I'll have some idea of where everything came from whenever I get to re-assembling it!
Now, to your comments. I've also looked at GAZ, and their website (UK) shows TVR M applications, but we will probably want to go stiffer springs than stock. I've also considered 16" wheels, but there's such a dearth of tire options in that size. Seems the world has skipped right over to 17", but then they're too wide for vintage cars. 15" still has plenty of options (thank you, Miata!) so I was planning to go with 15x7. I'm running 15x5.5 rims with Dunlop Zllls (195/55) on my TR3 for autocross, and I can always swap them onto the TVR. They's be wider than the stock 14" tires, but there's room for more. I think my local group (CCR-SCCA) will allow my TVR in Heritage Classic Street, just because there's only 2 or 3 of us running there now, and we'd like to see HCR grow. If it turns out to be the 200 lb. gorilla in that class, the MGB guys may change their mind!
I'll see if I can figure out how to add pictures here, or, heck, maybe start a build thread too. Thanks for your encouragement!
Stu Lasswell said:In reply to Dusterbd13-michael (Forum Supporter) :
Ah, right. Thanks for the blaster suggestion...I'll be calling him soon. As to a thread of my own, well, I think the bar is set high enough here that I would feel intimidated! My photography ans well as mechanical skills are not up to par. Maybe on the tvrcca or Triumph club forums.
Lack of experience in any of this E36 M3 is WHY you need to post here, not a reason to NOT post.
Best part of this site is that it is largely brand agnostic, ( except maybe for the BLESSED Miata) help and advice is available for all sorts of cars and project scopes. No judgement like there is on the Marque specific forums. If you need non-car advice, our politics free off topic forum can answer your questions from what is the best Rum to how to survive your wifes shoe fetish.
These guys let me drone on for over 100 pages as I muddled my way through my project. Two minutes in you realize that prose and photography are not my strong points, but so what? We had fun and I find build thread to be motivational to getting the thing done.
Pete
One of the driving causes of my said-funk was that I knew I was getting low on argon, and it was almost the weekend and I wouldn't be able to refill my big bottle. I hung onto that one for a good two weeks. Ugh.
So today, I said "screw it" and went out and did some Tig welding. For five minutes until the argon ran out. So *shocker* I drove to the welding store and got another bottle. Tough stuff, right? Silly that it took me that long to face such a minor issue.
Reloaded, I came home and did a bunch of frame welding this afternoon. The focus was getting the replacement tubes in back buzzed in.
The overview:
Lots of details:
And the other side:
One of the end caps. I did pre-weld the new round tube to the new square tube, then I tapped in the assembly for final welding.
I did have a pretty big gap between the old round tubes and the new ones. A little too much to tig, so I had to bust out the wire-feed. Just to show I can make a nasty weld too!
I've since ground those down, and will be adding a doubler plate to that seam. Watch this space...
And one more long view from the other side:
Be gone, funk! Drag your ass outta here! I've got work to do!
Why not run your TIG back over the MIG to reflow it?
Glad to see you are back at it BTW.
Crackers said:Why not run your TIG back over the MIG to reflow it?
Glad to see you are back at it BTW.
I'm thinking I might do that. Good suggestion.
For shocks you might want to check out Aldan. They are made here in the US (California). I used then=m on my Turner race car and was very happy with the quality and the service/knowledge in talking with them to figure out what I needed.
I've heard of Aldan, but don't know anything about them. I've also heard people recommending QA 1 shocks on a TVR forum, but they seem pricey too.
Actually, Aldan and QA-1 coil-overs are priced similarly... $550 to $700 PER PAIR! GAZ lists their TVR 2500m kits (all four corners) for 526 pounds. That's $640 at the current exchange rate. That's off their website, so U.K. price. They list 3 USA distributors; Dominion Spares (VA), Brunton (Florida), and XKs Unlimited (CA). Much cheaper, although not USA made. Still, they know what a TVR is, so there's that.
In reply to Stu Lasswell :
Yeah, the GAZ shocks are definitely cheap. Though those may be the single-adjustable version, not the double.
I do like that the Aldan seem to be more autocross-oriented. The QA-1's may work, but they seem to be designed more for drag race and circle track.
But that's just where I don't know where the differences lie and what makes for a good autocross shock vs a drag race shock.
funk-be-gone is the new Frank's Red Hot. Put that E36 M3 on everything!
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:funk-be-gone is the new Frank's Red Hot. Put that E36 M3 on everything!
Damn straight!
In that vein, I spent some time getting the doubler-plates in. First side is finished. Here it is clamped in place. The pipe clamp was perfect for this job:
And as if by magic, all burned in!
Man, this thing had me flopping around everywhere! I was in more positions than the Kama Sutra.
The far view:
Time to go hit the other side!
A bit more today. I never did get the other side finished the other day - my dad called with some problems, so that took precedence.
So I did it today. This side was a little easier, after having gone thru it all once already. Didn't clean it up with the wire brush yet, so you get to see it "as completed"
TVR Lucy helped out today for a while. She wanted to do "real work" not just little things, so I set her to cutting out a bad frame tube.
She did really well with the dremel tool, and got most of this smashed tube cut out. I need to figure out better PPE for her, since she doesn't like earplugs, and the muffs smash her glasses. Suggestions?
What about the shooting ear plugs. Kind of foam plugs on a headband.
My daughter will wear them, and noise cancelling headphones she has the same problems wiyh foam and earmuffs
I know it may be a question of scale with the wearer for reference, but those earmuffs look huge. I don't have much trouble with glasses collisions with either some smaller cheapies I've had (oval), or the 3M Worktunes (which probably aren't a good item for a guess to see what she'll use, but if she doesn't like them, I can recommend them for you if prefer music to muted grinder sounds; I've found they make tedious grinding sessions 400% more bearable).
They dont use the expansion force of the foam to keep them in, but the spring of the plastic loop.
Plus they are really easy to take off and put back on with gloves. And they hang from your neck when not in use.
I'd get her a full face shield. That and the earplugs Ross posted should be enough.
After getting a steel splinter in my eye two years ago, I never want to do that again. Led to a rust ring that had to be ground out. I had normal safety glasses on, but the splinter reflected off of something and got in there anyway.
Grinder sparks will melt their way into the lens (glass or plastic, doesn't matter), and she'll never be able to remove them. PITA to have to see past spark debris forever. I wear eye protection over my glasses always - $3 goggles is cheaper than $400 old man progressive lenses.
Prescription sports glasses with the elastic band.
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