TVR 390SE Refurbishment
Discussion
For the last two weeks I've had my 390 up for sale with the intention of getting a newer TVR in a couple of years time. However I've come to realise that I cannot part with it - it's part of the family. I could not bare to be without a similar car for two whole years. I've owned the car for 10 years and although the car is mechanically sound (oil changed frequently - oil on dipstick is crystal clear etc etc) I have never spent any money on improving it. The owner before me never garaged it so the carpets are terrible, as is the interior in general (apart from the walnut dash - which is as new - I did get that redone at least) The hood is tatty, stone chips on wheel arches, outriggers need attention etc etc. So I have come to ask assistance from the regualr posters here as to where I should go or who should I contact and the likely costs involved with regards the following work, (I am based in Kent by the way)
1) Sorting out the Chassis
2) Sorting out the interior (carpets and upholstery)
3) Fitting a new hood (I've found places to get new hoods but not fitting)
4) Full respray of the car.
1) Sorting out the Chassis
2) Sorting out the interior (carpets and upholstery)
3) Fitting a new hood (I've found places to get new hoods but not fitting)
4) Full respray of the car.
1) Sorting out the Chassis
2) Sorting out the interior (carpets and upholstery)
3) Fitting a new hood (I've found places to get new hoods but not fitting)
4) Full respray of the car.
Guess :
1) Including new Shocks, Bushes, various refurbs £1700-3000
2) £600-800
3) £250 ?
4)£800-3000
1) Sorting out the Chassis
2) Sorting out the interior (carpets and upholstery)
3) Fitting a new hood (I've found places to get new hoods but not fitting)
4) Full respray of the car.
If the outriggers are not too rusty you can take the covers off and clean them up yourself.
Cost about £150 tops for a few sanding disks, rust converter, Hamerite and waxoil. Doing the whole lot is a time consuming job though, but at least you will know you have done a good job and saved a lot of cash.
I'm going to put new carpets in mine using the old ones as a template, theres only a few bits that need edging putting on them by someone, still shouldn't cost more than £100 max, I'll let you know when I'm doing it and how I get on.
The rest of the interior is possibly best left to the professionals, to recover the whole lot is going to cost loads (got to be £1000 plus???), most of mine is fine though so I've bought some newer seats from a Griff and I'm going to get a few bits recovered properly if I can match up the magnolia covering.
I've heard a new roof is about £700, do a search on this forum, as I remember there was loads of good info in the not too distant past.
I'm getting quotes for a full respray at the moment so I'll forward them on to you when I get them.
Gareth.
I have completely retrimmed both a 280 convertible and a 350+2 in Connolly leather/Wilton carpet. The price depends how much you do yourself, how much stripping you are prepared to do, what quality you want, what material you want etc. The convertible (now done 12 years ago) was all done professionally and I prepped nothing: cost around £2.5K in total including a retrimmed and fitted soft top (but I suspect with inflation you could probably add another £1K to that by now). The FHC I completely stripped, recarpetted and trimmed most of the simple panels myself leaving just the seats, dashboard, centre console and headlining to be done professionally. In total that's cost about £1200 (of which nearly half was the cost of the leather). However, if you are going down this route, be prepared to lose the car for months. The professional retrim was completed in about 3 weeks; the semi DIY retrim took the best part of 12 months.
Martrim in Cheshire are a good source of materials (hides at 1/2 the price a local supplier was going to sell them to me for) but I sourced the carpet from a local carpet warehouse roll ends (luckily plain dark green is quite common).
As far as the outriggers are concerned, when I took the offside sill from the 350 a 2ft length of outrigger tube fell out. At that point I decided it was beyond my skills with a MiG welder and took it to Tower View in N London (details in Sprint). Dave W charged me about £700 to replace both outriggers without removing the body. Watch Sprint in the next few months for the horror photos of what my outriggers were like!
I've a had a variety of quotes for the respray from £600 to £4K but am probbly going with a local guy who wants about £1200 inc VAT. I believe there's a good spray shop in Essex that's not too far from you - again they advertise in Sprint - or you might try Sterling Renovations in Maidstone. Don't know if they're still there but used to be owned by Jim Gamsby a few years ago and I know had an excellent reputation.
Hope this helps
Ralph
Martrim in Cheshire are a good source of materials (hides at 1/2 the price a local supplier was going to sell them to me for) but I sourced the carpet from a local carpet warehouse roll ends (luckily plain dark green is quite common).
As far as the outriggers are concerned, when I took the offside sill from the 350 a 2ft length of outrigger tube fell out. At that point I decided it was beyond my skills with a MiG welder and took it to Tower View in N London (details in Sprint). Dave W charged me about £700 to replace both outriggers without removing the body. Watch Sprint in the next few months for the horror photos of what my outriggers were like!
I've a had a variety of quotes for the respray from £600 to £4K but am probbly going with a local guy who wants about £1200 inc VAT. I believe there's a good spray shop in Essex that's not too far from you - again they advertise in Sprint - or you might try Sterling Renovations in Maidstone. Don't know if they're still there but used to be owned by Jim Gamsby a few years ago and I know had an excellent reputation.
Hope this helps
Ralph
I'm now about to completely retrim the interior of my 350i convertible. The carpets I will do myself by purchasing it by the meter off the roll from a company like Coverdale Carpets (search on the net for details). They do the same type of carpet in loads of colours. Remember that if your roof is less than water tight it may be best to get nylon carpets instead of wool so they don't rot if they get wet.
As for the seats and panels, I hope to do a lot of this myself too. I plan to remove all the panels and dashboard myself, strip the old vinyl coverings off and give these to the retrimers for patterns. Instead of getting them to do the whole job, I will ask them to just do the stitching work and let me have the job of re-attaching the vinyl to the panels.
Things like the door panels and centre console are really basic with only a minimal amount of stitching work, so it seems pointless paying the retrimmers to spend hours doing the easy task of wrapping the coverings around the panels and sticking the edges. I can do all this bit by bit in the evenings myself. Even the dashboard is quite simple to do once a trimmer has stitched a couple of rectangular holes in it!
The seats I will hand over as a whole job along with the armrest/door handle panels as they are more complicated. Lets face it, when the car was made a lot of it was done by a man with a pot of Evo stick. I'll let you know how much I get quoted next weekend.
As for the seats and panels, I hope to do a lot of this myself too. I plan to remove all the panels and dashboard myself, strip the old vinyl coverings off and give these to the retrimers for patterns. Instead of getting them to do the whole job, I will ask them to just do the stitching work and let me have the job of re-attaching the vinyl to the panels.
Things like the door panels and centre console are really basic with only a minimal amount of stitching work, so it seems pointless paying the retrimmers to spend hours doing the easy task of wrapping the coverings around the panels and sticking the edges. I can do all this bit by bit in the evenings myself. Even the dashboard is quite simple to do once a trimmer has stitched a couple of rectangular holes in it!
The seats I will hand over as a whole job along with the armrest/door handle panels as they are more complicated. Lets face it, when the car was made a lot of it was done by a man with a pot of Evo stick. I'll let you know how much I get quoted next weekend.
Great posts - thanks Ralph I my try Sterling, Jim Gamsby was the chap who re-veneered my walnut dash all those years ago before he went of to New Zealand.
Yes, the place recommended to me before is PR Wood near Southend - not sure what I can expect to pay. Do you think there would be a huge difference between getting it reprayed in the colour it is now and getting it sprayed in a totally different colour (some of the new TVR colours quite appeal !!!!)
Yes, the place recommended to me before is PR Wood near Southend - not sure what I can expect to pay. Do you think there would be a huge difference between getting it reprayed in the colour it is now and getting it sprayed in a totally different colour (some of the new TVR colours quite appeal !!!!)
I took my 350i down to my local retrimmer today to get a quote for replacing the interior. If you read one of my previous posts on this topic, you will see that I plan to do a lot of the re-sticking work myself and just let the retrimmer supply all the leather/vinyl and do all the necessary stiching work.
Anyway, to recover the seat faces in leather and make up all the other vinyl panels ready for me to reattach to the various fiberglass bits is gonna cost around £400 to £500. I must stress that the chap did say that it was hard to quote on the spot and that this price may vary a little. Also, he suggested that we salvage the backs of the seats as the vinyl was virtually pristine, however in hind sight I think I will also have this recovered using new materials and this will probably add to the price a little.
I have also got to remove all the dashboard, door panels, centre console, transmission tunnel, etc, etc myself and strip the coverings from them. I will also have to spend a few evenings with a pot of evo stick and some scissors to reattach all the new coverings to their panels once the trimmer has done his bit.
This quote does not include carpets which I will be obtaining off the role and cutting/fitting myself. I have worked out that I need about £100's worth of carpet to complete the job, and this is a decent grade carpet. When I do the "project", I will take as many pictures as I can and put an article together, or at least a sequence of pictures for anyone that is interested.
So, all in all I reckon that it will cost me about £600 for all the leather/vinyl work, and about £100 for the carpets.
Anyway, to recover the seat faces in leather and make up all the other vinyl panels ready for me to reattach to the various fiberglass bits is gonna cost around £400 to £500. I must stress that the chap did say that it was hard to quote on the spot and that this price may vary a little. Also, he suggested that we salvage the backs of the seats as the vinyl was virtually pristine, however in hind sight I think I will also have this recovered using new materials and this will probably add to the price a little.
I have also got to remove all the dashboard, door panels, centre console, transmission tunnel, etc, etc myself and strip the coverings from them. I will also have to spend a few evenings with a pot of evo stick and some scissors to reattach all the new coverings to their panels once the trimmer has done his bit.
This quote does not include carpets which I will be obtaining off the role and cutting/fitting myself. I have worked out that I need about £100's worth of carpet to complete the job, and this is a decent grade carpet. When I do the "project", I will take as many pictures as I can and put an article together, or at least a sequence of pictures for anyone that is interested.
So, all in all I reckon that it will cost me about £600 for all the leather/vinyl work, and about £100 for the carpets.
Sorry to tack onto your thread Dogster, but whilst on the subject of refurbs, not planning on doing any of the work myself so can anyone recommend trimmers/sprayers in the South East that they have actually used - have had several quotes from various companies but they vary in price immensely for the supposedly same standard of work? 
Cheers
Seamus
Cheers
Seamus
Dogster,
Seeing Seamus's note reminded me of a damaged repaired 400SE I saw in Banbury - the guy had re-done the seats in white leather and had a new carpet set - suposedly for £500. He's sold it now but I have his e mail address and the number of the new owner. So mail me and I'll pass the details on so you can get the relevant details.
GB
Seeing Seamus's note reminded me of a damaged repaired 400SE I saw in Banbury - the guy had re-done the seats in white leather and had a new carpet set - suposedly for £500. He's sold it now but I have his e mail address and the number of the new owner. So mail me and I'll pass the details on so you can get the relevant details.
GB
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