TVR Tasmin, Loud Noises

So I guess this is where we start then.

The first port of call today after having the car delivered was to work out why we had no power. I popped the bonnet, and yes there was a battery. Ok, let’s remove the battery and see if I can throw some charge into it.

Ctek says NO. With the charger connected to the battery, nothing. No lights on the charger, and if anything, the charger started acting weird. Guess that’s no bueno then. Hope my charger is OK.

A quick trip to Supercheap sorted out a battery for me. There is very little space for a battery, so a bit of digging in the Century Batteries catalogue yielded the biggest battery that would fit the same footprint, an NS60LSMF

Connecting this up showed that we finally had power. The dash warning lights come on with the key, the driver’s electric window is working, albeit slowly, and the central locking works. Strangely the headlights did not respond to the switch, but some wiggling of the wires behind the switch sorted that out (yeah, I’ll need to look into that).

The next obvious step was to see what was up with the fuel tanks. Now that I had power I could see the fuel gauge was reading empty. I decided to take a risk and try dumping some of BPs finest 98 and injector cleaner into the tanks and see what happens. I split the fuel and cleaner between the two tanks as evenly as I could.

Since I had been told it was possible the accumulator had failed, there is a trick to work around this and still have the car start and run normally. The accumulator works to hold fuel pressure in the lines when the engine is off, but when it fails the lines no longer have pressure, and the fuel pump only runs when the engine is turning, so it takes ages to build that pressure back up.

The trick to work around this is to have the pump run when the key is turned to ON so it primes the lines. The simplest way on early cars like mine is to disconnect one connector from the side of the fuel distribution unit. This causes the pump to run when the key is on. Easy. Its the blue connector in the top photo, and the green plug goes onto it (strangely… why arent they matched colours?)

I connected the battery and turned the key. Sure enough, I heard the familiar whine of a pump turning, and then the woosh of fuel heading down the lines into the fuel distributor.

Now it was the moment of truth. I turned the key, and the engine turned smoothly over. It spluttered a couple of times, but wouldn’t start. What a tease.

Eventually, this happened.

It was rough, but running, and even idling. I ran it for a while, and everything looked good. No obvious signs of leaks, but blimey does it make a noise!

The longer I ran it, the smoother it was getting

I checked and it seems to have gears, and a clutch, so that’s a big win.

It still hesitates a bit, but that’s to be expected for an engine that has been sitting around. I’ll take the plugs out and give them a clean (or replace), and check the cap and rotor condition. If everything looks OK, it may even be time for a quick run around the block.

One must wonder though; if I can get it running with little effort, why couldn’t the “specialist” have it running for the truck? Oh well, best not to dwell on it I guess.