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TVR Tasmin, Finishing Hoses & Changing Fluids

Last weekend was a productive one on the TVR, starting with wrapping up the fuel hose replacement job I started earlier.

I was held up with the wrong filter, so I did some more research and ordered what I hoped was the correct filter (using the number off the existing filter)

Thankfully it was the right one. The early cars with the filter under the car use a Ryco Z399 filter.

A set of nice new copper crush washers and on went the fitting

I had to replace the hose from the pump to the filter, as I was doing away with the accumulator, and the existing hose was both incorrectly rated, and starting to perish

1/4″ hose is pretty small, and not that common here, but I found Repco stocks Gates Barricade hose, which is bloody expensive per meter, but some of the best hose available.

You’ll note in the photo above that the old hose is J30 R6 rated, which is safe to about 50PSI in an injection system (despite saying a higher rating on the hose). The Bosch MFI system runs at about 80PSI, so although that hose had been working OK, I wasn’t going to trust sticking with an R6 hose. The Gates Barricade hose is safe for 225PSI as it is a J30R14T2 rated hose.

Since I had been doing all this work on the bench first, it was time to move to under the car, where I got a timely reminder to always check your lifting points. The TVR had been in the air on the Quickjacks for a week now, and unknown to me it had settled on the front blocks, and they had started to tilt and slip. It’s possible it would’ve been OK, but it’s not worth the risk. I dropped the car back down and reseated all the blocks. ALWAYS check the car is secure before getting under it, even if that means giving it a good shake or shove. Better it falls off the stands onto the ground, than onto your head.

With the car safely in the air again, I refit the new filter to the mount and secured the bolts and ground straps. I wanted a nice straight hose from the pump to filter, but due to the proximity and angle, the only way I could do it was a loop back from the filter. At least this time I don’t need to wrap the hose in tape to stop it from being rubbed through where it was touching the body, as it had been…

And here is the new hose

Once everything was happily in place, I torqued both banjo fittings up with my torque wrench. They don’t take much, just 18-20NM, but it’s essential they are torqued correctly. I have heard much talk about not using the moulded hex on the ends of the filter or disaster can strike. I don’t know how true that is, but I didn’t need to secure the filter as the mounting clamp held it tight anyway.

After mixing some more injector cleaner into 10L of fresh petrol, I slowly poured it into both tanks, keeping a close eye on the new hose joins. When everything appeared to be dry and sealed, I reconnected the battery, and turned the key and listened as the system primed. I let it prime for a short time and checked all the high pressure lines, and once satisfied they were dry, I fired the beast up. Everything still looked good. Winning.

With the car still in the air, I planned some more maintenance. I wasn’t sure when the last time the driveline oils were done, so like usual, I spent hours pouring over fluid specs, and eventually settled on a Nulon fully synthetic 75W-85 GL4 for both the gearbox and diff. Nulon sells it in these nifty little baggies, which at first I thought were a gimmick, but I’ll tell you now, its way better than a bottle.

The gearbox is a bit of a pain to get at due to the exhaust, which chills out directly under the drain plug, and allows only a small space to access the fill plug. Always undo the fill plug first, just in case.

One thing that always bothers me is getting oil on the exhaust, as even if you hose it with degreaser or brake clean, it’ll still stink as it burns off. There was no way to avoid oil pouring on the exhaust with the TVR, so I settled for being smart and using some plastic sheet wrapped around the exhaust. Worked a treat.

The old fluid actually looked really good, so I suspect it hasn’t done a lot of miles in the car, but its probably still been in there a few years.

The diff was easier to access, with the drain plug smack bang on the bottom, and the fill plug on the back. Both were bloody tight but came off when I asked nicely.

Yeah, the diff will probably need some seals at some point, but that’s down the list a bit for now.

I used three and a half bags (1L each) between the gearbox and diff. Here we see the squeezy bois chilling at the watering hole

One thing I noticed with the bags is that it can be hard to get the last little bit out. What you can do is join the two bags together, and drain one into the other. I also reused hoses between bags, leaving me with one unused, clean, hose to stick back onto the half full bag to use later.

With the fluids changed (except engine oil, I still need to do that) I lowered the car back down and took it for a quick spin. Unfortunately the running issue seems to be getting worse. It used to just be under load at about 4000rpm the engine would fall flat and cut out. Now it happens randomly and is almost undrivable.

Watch the video with subtitles on as I note where it has issues. You can see it revs happily with no load at the end.

I had my suspicions of what it could be, but I needed to do more testing.

 

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