Page to track the long road ahead repairing a 1986 TVR 280i
I was gifted the 280i from my father who has a pension to purchase old British sports cars, drive them for a few years and then move on to the next thing. Also important to this story, he doesn't work on his own cars which runs directly in the face of owning cars notorious for their reliability. Despite the local mechanics best effort to keep this car on the road, I think both had run to their wits end. The TVR became too much of a money pit along with constant issues meant it was hard to enjoy knowing you could break down at any moment.
I've never had a project car and mused how it may be fun to work on this car and to my surprise it was delivered to my door. I've taken a look over the car and compiled (an ever growing) list of todo items which I plan to document here along with tips and links I discover along the way. I've so far found the TVR community to be small but very caring and quick to offer a tip or suggestion on the message boards. I hope to rebuild this car and get it running reliably. Assuming my wife doesn't run out of patience with the spare car occupying all my time I hope to pull the motor this winter and straighten up all the years of leaks and wiring issues.
I think I found the intermittent problem, I found the connector for the Hall sensor on the distributor was bad. Currently unable to find a replacement cable without buying a whole new distributor. If you know of where I can get this cable let me know. You can read more on the issue section
I started to replace the valve cover gaskets and repaint the covers. See the details here
Brake master cylinder arrived from Germany and will have to go in after the valve covers. I had hoped to wait until I did the rear end so i only have to bleed them once. Maybe I can drag it out for a while longer.
My TVR Photos
List of ongoing repair items and status with parts lists where able