Onto the suspension!
Standard TVR rear suspension set-up. Unlike the front end this is totally bespoke. It's a semi-trailing arm arrangement, except it has a lateral tie bar at the rear of the hub to keep the geometry of the wheel much more neutral. A nice set-up!
Whilst rummaging around underneath the car, I spotted something very worrying
What appears to be a totally clean 'fracture' of one of the chassis rails!
Was utterly dumbfounded when I found this and a bit upset tbh.
Been underneath this car dozens of time since I got it last year, and never ONCE spotted this.
I can only assume that putting the whole car on axle stands allowed the gap to open up.
What's puzzling is how the fracture happened?
It looks WAY too clean to be a fracture, and yet it doesn't look like there's ever been any weld on there either.
My current theory is that actually it's been like this since new! This joint SHOULD be welded, however, with the car on all four wheels, you'd never see it opened up like this.
I have a theory that it was a missed weld in production, and it's never been picked up on in 27 years!
Either way, one of my best friends is coming over with a welder at some point to sort it
Much MUCH struggling with long extensions, hammers, and box section to lock the hubs, and the driver's side suspension is off!
Not sure I can quite put across how challenging it proved learning how to get this off.
Needless to say the other side took half the time - although that must have still been an hour or more!
Here's the rear end with the suspension out. You can see the diff here with all the inboard brakes removed.
It's a Jaguar type, 3.54:1 4HU Salisbury, built like the proverbial and a SERIOUS piece of kit.
Unfortunately my car somehow never got specced with an LSD version, however I have aquired a 3.54 LSD to go in there.
This one will be for sale once it's out - drop me a line if you need one!
This means the diff has to come out, there's upsides and downsides to that:
Downside is it is physically impossible to remove the diff with the body in place. It was assembled onto the chassis before the body was dropped on, leaving no room for the mounting bolts to be removed (if you can get at them!).
I'm not taking the body off! Hence the accepted practice is to cut access holes in the boot floor.
Upside of taking the diff out is that I can rebuild all the rear brakes with fantastic access, off the car, on the bench.
I can't wait to get started on that, as it's one of THE big jobs this car needed, and will signal it getting close to being on the road.
Standard TVR rear suspension set-up. Unlike the front end this is totally bespoke. It's a semi-trailing arm arrangement, except it has a lateral tie bar at the rear of the hub to keep the geometry of the wheel much more neutral. A nice set-up!
Whilst rummaging around underneath the car, I spotted something very worrying
What appears to be a totally clean 'fracture' of one of the chassis rails!
Was utterly dumbfounded when I found this and a bit upset tbh.
Been underneath this car dozens of time since I got it last year, and never ONCE spotted this.
I can only assume that putting the whole car on axle stands allowed the gap to open up.
What's puzzling is how the fracture happened?
It looks WAY too clean to be a fracture, and yet it doesn't look like there's ever been any weld on there either.
My current theory is that actually it's been like this since new! This joint SHOULD be welded, however, with the car on all four wheels, you'd never see it opened up like this.
I have a theory that it was a missed weld in production, and it's never been picked up on in 27 years!
Either way, one of my best friends is coming over with a welder at some point to sort it
Much MUCH struggling with long extensions, hammers, and box section to lock the hubs, and the driver's side suspension is off!
Not sure I can quite put across how challenging it proved learning how to get this off.
Needless to say the other side took half the time - although that must have still been an hour or more!
Here's the rear end with the suspension out. You can see the diff here with all the inboard brakes removed.
It's a Jaguar type, 3.54:1 4HU Salisbury, built like the proverbial and a SERIOUS piece of kit.
Unfortunately my car somehow never got specced with an LSD version, however I have aquired a 3.54 LSD to go in there.
This one will be for sale once it's out - drop me a line if you need one!
This means the diff has to come out, there's upsides and downsides to that:
Downside is it is physically impossible to remove the diff with the body in place. It was assembled onto the chassis before the body was dropped on, leaving no room for the mounting bolts to be removed (if you can get at them!).
I'm not taking the body off! Hence the accepted practice is to cut access holes in the boot floor.
Upside of taking the diff out is that I can rebuild all the rear brakes with fantastic access, off the car, on the bench.
I can't wait to get started on that, as it's one of THE big jobs this car needed, and will signal it getting close to being on the road.
