My 1973 TVR 2500M : Renew and Restomod

Stampie said:

Man I want to attend the TVR Scott Welding School.  Great job.

I'll let you know when classes for next semester open for registration.

TVR Scott said:

She's gotten accepted at several engineering schools and has her eye on doing mechanical engineering like me.  Formula SAE is one of her planned activities and she wants to be ready to contribute.  Proud poppa moment!

a freshman who can weld will be chief engineer by year 4.

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

TVR Scott said:

She's gotten accepted at several engineering schools and has her eye on doing mechanical engineering like me.  Formula SAE is one of her planned activities and she wants to be ready to contribute.  Proud poppa moment!

a freshman who can weld will be chief engineer by year 4.

Totally.  Did I mention she wants to drive too?

TVR Scott said:

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

TVR Scott said:

She's gotten accepted at several engineering schools and has her eye on doing mechanical engineering like me.  Formula SAE is one of her planned activities and she wants to be ready to contribute.  Proud poppa moment!

a freshman who can weld will be chief engineer by year 4.

Totally.  Did I mention she wants to drive too?

outstanding!  does she kart?  because i think some experience in a fast kart is probably the closest thing to FSAE training.

also, when I look at resumes, i look for two things:  First, did this person participate in FSAE?  If yes, then the next question doesn't matter as much; Second, did this person attend Kettering University (formerly General Motors Institute of Technology aka GMI)?

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

Yeah we've done some karting at the local indoor place.  I'm pretty quick, but she's been steadily gaining on me.  Last time she was only about 1/2 sec off my time in a 25 sec lap.  I think I still have the advantage on tactics and passing.

Some of my buddies and I have been looking into the LO206 racing.  Looks like a great way to have stupid fun for cheap.  If I do that, she'll want to as well.

I remember looking at GMI back in the day.  Was supposed to be a great school.  Lucy has been accepted at Colorado School of Mines for ME, and it's got a really strong reputation.  Their FSAE team is pretty good, and we actually are family friends with both the chassis lead and the electrical lead.  She hasn't committed to any school yet, though.

Car progress:

I've been wanting to get the seats mounted so that I can verify pedal and steering wheel placement.  So I pulled the seats down from the rafters and got to it.

I was originally going to keep it all very basic and simple.  Just hand tools and a bit of welding.

Didn't happen.

Fun to have the mill up and running.  It's been a little while since I've used it.

Initial rail set-up here:

Here's the whole assembly set up for tack welding.  The HF welding blanket has proved handy over the years.  These seat rails are a universal kit from Summit.

After welding, sand-blasting, and painting, the finished assembly turned out like this:

I reversed the rail mechanism with the little steel bar in the middle.  It works fine.  I just didn't have the room to have the lever pull the other direction.  I'll redo the bar at some point with something prettier.

Passenger's side in:

And driver's side, with steering wheel set in place:

I had to drill new holes for the rails, since the old ones were crooked and weirdly place.  Basically just mounted the seats so they're all the way back at full extension.  Overall placement is pretty good.  Steering wheel distance is just right for me with the seat at middle travel.  Gotta check the brake/clutch pedal distance, and mount the accelerator.

A satisfying bit of work to start the new year.

Nice progress! HNY.

The steel pivot pins on the door hinges were well and truly stuck inside the aluminum hinges.  Today I fired up the milling machine and managed to get the pins out.

I found that I could center a 1/4" end mill by eye and machine out half of the pin.  Then I could use a punch to drive out the remainder.  Like this:

There was collateral damage:

Just needs touching up on a grinder:

The job is done though.  I'm thinking about adding some bushings on each side to prevent wear in the future.  Or maybe I'll be lazy and blow it off.  We'll find out!

Nifty little bronze bushings, some with flanges, are inexpensive at our favorite mill supply.

TurnerX19 said:

Nifty little bronze bushings, some with flanges, are inexpensive at our favorite mill supply.

Yes indeed, they do.  I wasn't going to bother, but I found the body-side brackets are really slopped out.  I'll put the bushings on that side.  Gray's Motoring sells a bushing and pin kit, and they just use a long clevis pin for a pivot.  Thinking I'll do the same.  Maybe just long bolts with lock nuts.  I'm up for suggestions.

In other news I bought a new clutch master cylinder and a bunch of brake/clutch line goodies.  Was going to get a "real" Girling one from Pegasus, but they didn't have a .625" in stock.  Ended up with a Wilwood instead, and it seems very nice.  US-made too!

Problem though: the new cylinder had a basic threaded push-rod where the old one has a short clevis made to match up with the pedal box.  Swapable yes, but the new boot did not want to get mashed over the big clevis.  Gaping, insertion, and stretching jokes may begin now.

I designed and printed this little tool to go into the clevis and give me a lead-in:

First bit looked good:

More:

And onto the clevis itself:

And thru:

And here's the old push-rod in the new cylinder.  Fit perfectly:

I've also been cleaning up the doors and prepping them for test reassembly.  The hinge surfaces where I reinforced them needed smoothing and the holes added thru the layers of carbon.  Like this:

Pulled out the steering shaft for R&R.  Mostly it went fine, but I'm not sure about the steering wheel hub. 

Experts: will the hub just come off with a puller?

It looks to be aluminum and I don't want to accidentally wreck it if it doesn't come off like that.

Yup, it should just slide off.  That looks like a Triumph parts bin steering column, so wil have a 9/16-36 spline on it.  

Wow, nice work going on in here! I need to catch up.

I'll confirm RoddyMac on the column. Straight spline. Triumph, Lotus, and Rootes Imp all used that one.

Thank you, gents.

I found a janky old puller my dad gave me and the hub popped off with about a half a turn.  Easy!

In reply to TVR Scott :

that vise has seen the cheater pipe a time or two, eh?

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to TVR Scott :

that vise has seen the cheater pipe a time or two, eh?

HA!

Oh my, yes it has!

Stampie has pointed out to me that it's been a minute since I've done an update.  Here goes:

I did some more body repairs - the heater box area had been cut out for a relocated battery.  So I filled it back in, and I'll need to figure out replacement components.

What I started with:

And here it is with a filler panel:

Last weekend my two good buddies helped me move the body outside.  I want to clean off the underside, walnut-blast all tight corners, and then paint the underside and inside with something roller-grade.

It stands up on it's side pretty well, though I set up some support lines to keep it from tipping over:

I've since cleaned most of the paint off the flat areas.  It came off with a DA super easily.  It would even blow off with just an air-nozzle!

Then, of course, it had to snow about 5 inches:

This time I DID NOT ruin another pop-up tent! (See spring 2020 when I tried to blast the frame by myself and the tent collapsed under snow load)

I bought a nice gauge pin set.

Then I dropped it:

1-Star.  Not recommended.

Swung by the local Wine Country Motorsports for my birthday.  Got myself some gloves, and my daughter a helmet.  They happened to have this super cool one in her size and my price-point:

We'll call that an update!

Let me know if you need help moving the shell around.  I'm not too far away and need an excuse to drive the Miata.

What kind of heater box did those use?  If it's from a TR6, do me a favor and take my spare.  That way, I won't need to move it.

Are those the stock seats? Dropping the gauge pins is something I would do too ...

In reply to JoeTR6 :

Joe, you're always welcome to come hang out and lend a hand.  I'll have a look at your heater box for sure.  I've got a feeling I'm going to be rolling my own version on this one.  I wouldn't mind at least a starting point.

In reply to TurboFource :

Yeah, they're the stock seats.  Honestly, they're not very comfortable.  And the attachment to the rail is a bit wimpy.  I'll use them for now, but I'm not married to them.

Alright, LBC gurus, how's the steering rack come apart?

I've gotten it almost totally apart, but can't get the steering shaft out.

There's a bushing behind that rubber isolator thingy and I can't figure out how it's supposed to come out.

On the inside:

And same thing at the top:

What am I missing?

You'll have to remove the rubber/plastic bushings to get the shaft out.  You most likely have a column that has the column lock sleeve/piece/thing on it which is larger than the ID of the bushings.  

From what I recall, you have to destroy the bushings to get them out, ie grind down the rubber nub, then extract them,

Don't take them out unless you have new ones in hand. Or are prepared to convert it to sperical bearings.

Thank you, gurus.

I will leave it all together and just mask it and paint it.