Thinking of Buying a Chimaera (or Griffith)?
Discussion
Every week or so someone new arrives on the forum and asks what it’s like to own a Chimaera, and should they buy one, so I thought that, having been in that position 6 months ago, I’d summarise the first half year of my life with a silver 1995 Chimaera 400HC in case it’s of interest… 
In October 2008 I sold my last litre Superbike (Honda VTR 1000 SP2) having spend the last 12 years working my way through 3 Ducati’s, 2 Aprilias, a Suzuki and a Kawasaki before that. It was time for a change and I fancied getting my hands a bit dirty while having a ‘toy’ for high days and holidays, such as the annual lads week abroad that I’ve been organising for the last 10 years.
I saw a silver 400HC advertised that I quite liked the look of. It had had a full engine rebuild following a failed oil pump and was at the right sort of money – about £1,500 less than my maximum budget to allow for any bits and pieces that needed attention or that I elected to upgrade in the first few months of ownership.
Rather than go and fall in love with the first car I’d seen, I shopped around a bit, drove a few 400’s, a 450 and a 500, sussed out the colours, both inside and out, that I did or didn’t like, read the ‘Bible’ from cover to cover and back again and read the advert for every Chim that came up on Pistonheads, TVRCC, Autotrader etc over the next couple of months.
In January the original car I’d seen was still for sale, so I decided to have a look, but I was prepared to be disappointed as most of the others I’d seen at ‘independent specialists’ in the sub-£8k bracket had been mouldy on the inside, rusty on the underside and oily in the engine bay.
I turned up at Philip Phedonos’ place in Edmonton and feared the worst, but was greeted by an enthusiastic and unpretentious guy who wanted me to see the car as it really was, understand what had and hadn’t been done – he’d had it serviced and put a recon PAS rack on it but there were a few chips and scratches on the body and a crack in the walnut veneer etc.
Having crawled around the car, had a test drive, spend half and hour just letting it run up to full temperature, then stopping and restarting it etc we got to talking about cost, and agreed on a price – then Philip agreed to put a new headlamp bulb in and a wheel bearing on within that price as I spotted those after the negotiation – this was his problem to take up with the guys who serviced and MOT’d it he said, not mine to worry about with my new toy…
One week later it was the middle of January and minus three in the sunshine with a permanent frost on everything, even at midday – what a perfect day to pick up a new car!
Perfect until it wouldn’t start… Duly ‘jumped’ off the Porsche 911 Turbo parked next to it I headed off into the cold, reassured by the receipt in the folder of bills for a new battery only 3 months earlier. Then it failed to start at the petrol station, and again when I stalled it in traffic – just as well a previous owner had fitted jump leads via an Anderson connector and that my father was following me home!!!
To be fair to Philip he promised to pay for a new battery and to square the bill with my local indie if it turned out to be charging problems rather than just the battery, and phoned me 2 days later to check how I was getting on! It turned out to just be the extremely cold weather that was sapping the battery’s ability to turn over the big engine as it now starts first time every time and has done so ever since the thermometer swung back over to the plus side of chuffing cold!
A few weeks of cleaning, polishing and general fettling followed with the odd trek out on dry, sunny days (that often turned very quickly into wet, grey ones once I was 20+ miles from home).
The oil patch on the garage floor was a little worrying, but a bit of crawling underneath seemed to indicate a leaking sump rather than crankshaft oil seal or gearbox, so I dropped the sump, pulled the gasket sealant out of the oil pickup(!) and resealed it with a cork gasket and the very thinnest ever smear of Loctite gasket compound. Hey presto, no more oil drips!!! I’m feeling like an F1 mechanic as the car is clearly a sweet piece of engineering and fixed by a master!
I took this opportunity to switch from Mobil 1 0W40 to 15W50 Motorsport. I don’t intend to use the car when it’s too cold outside as that would mean using the roof, and that would never do, and the change immediately raised the hot pressure at tick-over from 10-15 up to 20 psi. Another result.
As soon as the weather warmed up a little and the roads got a bit stickier two things were highlighted to me: -
1) The old Bridgestone tyres we both worn and rock hard
2) The front shocks seemed OK-ish at standstill, but turned into pogo sticks the moment you pushed on a bit over and uneven road.
A quick surf around and 4 Falkens were fitted (FK452’s at the back and ZE912’s at the front because they don’t do 452’s in 15 inch sizes) and so far so good – a bit squealy on the tighter fast corners but that could just be that I’m running with the pressure s little low (22/24) so I’ll play with that in due course. The only reason I didn’t go for Toyo’s was because most other people do, and I thought I’d try something different to see if they were right or not!
To make the budget stretch a little further and because I’ve not decided to use the car on track at all (I’ll stick to bikes for that I think) the standard front springs and shocks made way for Gaz Nickels, efficiently supplied at the right price and with suitable fitting and set-up advice from Dampertech. Now that makes a HUGE difference to front end stability, as does the chin spoiler/splitter that I carefully crafted out of grey guttering (to ‘match’ the silver paint) mounted right under the front valance, just behind the bottom of the radiator.
All’s well now so it’s time to get to know the car properly by using it for some commuting – 38 miles each way on country lanes, A-roads, dual carriageways and all the roundabouts of sunny Milton Keynes. Three days in and I started getting a funny burning smell as I pulled up outside the garage at home… And what’s that HUGE puddle on the drive that looks like strawberry sauce?
The low pressure PAS return hose has been kissing the big main cat pipe when on full lock, and has developed a pin hole that’s sharing my lovely pink Dextron III fluid with the tarmac.
I patched the hole with a split piece of hose as a bandage, bonded with rubber adhesive to the cleaned up PAS pipe and then ‘wrapped’ in a selection of shiny new jubilee clips to keep it all in place. This will keep me on the road until the new pipe arrives and I get around to changing it. It actually kept everything in for another 1,000 miles including the run down to Beaulieu at the end of May, finally getting replaced 2 days before I headed off to France for a week…but it does pay to fix these things sooner rather than later normally!
Now the miles were starting to pile on easily and smoothly, until things start to get a bit warm on the aforementioned run to the New Forest on that scorchingly hot Sunday at the end of May…
I pick up my long suffering father for the run – he’s better than the AA when things go wrong after 50 years of fixing everything from Triumph Mayflowers to Westfields in his spare time, in fact the 4th emergency service is officially the D-A-D – but once we’re caught in traffic and the outside temperature is 35 degrees, the car is getting a little hot under the collar. Running at 100 degrees bothers me quite a lot, but I console myself that there’s no water or steam appearing, the temperature gauge is a guide rather than gospel and the heat build up when stationary will cause the reading to be artificially high anyway… It won’t drop back below 90 when we’re moving though, so a radiator flush and 72 degree thermostat are the next jobs on my list once I’m home.
A flush turned into a re-core when half the fins in the core brush off with the lightest touch when I try to remove the flies that are stuck in the radiator behind the grill. Bedford Radiators (recommended by Offord Motor Company as they didn’t have a radiator in stock, “…and it’ll save you our mark-up too, but don’t tell anyone!) do the job for £158 all in on a same day basis and all is well once this, the new thermostat and the lovely ACT silicon hoses are fitted. The car now runs at 70 degrees until stuck in traffic, the fans come on at 80 and the gauge holds steady at 88-90 even in 38 degree heat in the blazing sunshine at a toll booth in France with a broken down VW in front and a HUGE truck behind.
Another interesting by-product of the cooling system overhaul is a further improvement in oil pressure. When hot it now idles with 25-30 psi and runs at 40-45 under load, come hell or high water.
Now to prepare for the trip to France – 5 days away, 1,700 miles and a day canoeing down the Ardeche Gorge. I checked the diff oil level and topped it up with 250ml of 80/140 gear oil – sounds easy but it took 90 minutes and 3 bleeding knuckles to get the filler plug out of the back of my GKN diff. It went back in in 5 minutes though, so that saved a mental breakdown! The long-patched PAS hose was also replaced on Monday night/Tuesday morning (before leaving at 4am Wednesday), so plenty of time for a shakedown and leak test by taking it to work on Tuesday then…!
The car ran through France faultlessly. It has not used a single drop of oil in the 3,000 miles since I sealed the sump and long may this last!
Carrying me, my 20 stone mate, 3 holdalls, 5 litres of V-Power, numerous tools, oil, water, PAS fluid etc etc did show up that the back springs and shocks could do with a refresh too, so Dampertech will get a call shortly when I have a spare moment, but that aside it cannot be faulted!
The exhaust noise through the sweet little French villages is unbelievable, like sweet music to the petrol- or should that be Piston-head. Even little old ladies were waving and clapping as we passed… Vive la France!!!
So, after all that waffle, what you really want to know is – should you buy a Chimaera?
That’s up to you really…
You should shop around to make sure you get the right car, and you should be realistic about the need for a little mechanical knowledge and capability, or be happy to trust someone else to do all these little jobs for you while you write the cheques.
If you wouldn’t buy a classic car, by which I ‘m talking about MGB, E-Type, big Healey etc, because it would be too much hassle and things will always need doing, think twice before jumping into a 1990’s TVR. This is not a mass-production Eurobox with 70 trillion development miles behind it, it’s a hand-built British sports car that is now nearly old enough to legally indulge in carnal pastimes, and can certainly get away with being served in THAT local pub with the loud music, 24 hour football on huge plasma screens, 6 pool tables and bars at the windows to stop people unexpectedly coming out through them!
…I’m certainly glad that I bought one though. It takes me back to the days of running a 24 year-old MGB GT as my only car for 35,000 miles a year! I’ve never had this much fun tinkering with bikes or driving my ultra-clinical Mercedes, and sometimes you need a car that is just as alive and quirky as you are to share your passion for motoring with – it just remains to be seen whether the pair of you will live happily ever after or go your separate ways when the going gets tough…
Here’s to long-term automotive monogamy!
Giles
PS. Thanks to Philip Phedonos for putting my faith back in car traders, you lot out there in Pistonheads land for the advice, support and amusement since I registered here (but not for the b!tching, back-stabbing and p!ss-taking of those not allowed or equipped to defend themselves – but I guess some people find that a web forum gives them a sense of power and achievement that they lack elsewhere in their lives…
) and especially to the late, great Peter Wheeler for filling a big sports car sized hole in our lives with something available, affordable and so, so enjoyable! 
In October 2008 I sold my last litre Superbike (Honda VTR 1000 SP2) having spend the last 12 years working my way through 3 Ducati’s, 2 Aprilias, a Suzuki and a Kawasaki before that. It was time for a change and I fancied getting my hands a bit dirty while having a ‘toy’ for high days and holidays, such as the annual lads week abroad that I’ve been organising for the last 10 years.
I saw a silver 400HC advertised that I quite liked the look of. It had had a full engine rebuild following a failed oil pump and was at the right sort of money – about £1,500 less than my maximum budget to allow for any bits and pieces that needed attention or that I elected to upgrade in the first few months of ownership.
Rather than go and fall in love with the first car I’d seen, I shopped around a bit, drove a few 400’s, a 450 and a 500, sussed out the colours, both inside and out, that I did or didn’t like, read the ‘Bible’ from cover to cover and back again and read the advert for every Chim that came up on Pistonheads, TVRCC, Autotrader etc over the next couple of months.
In January the original car I’d seen was still for sale, so I decided to have a look, but I was prepared to be disappointed as most of the others I’d seen at ‘independent specialists’ in the sub-£8k bracket had been mouldy on the inside, rusty on the underside and oily in the engine bay.
I turned up at Philip Phedonos’ place in Edmonton and feared the worst, but was greeted by an enthusiastic and unpretentious guy who wanted me to see the car as it really was, understand what had and hadn’t been done – he’d had it serviced and put a recon PAS rack on it but there were a few chips and scratches on the body and a crack in the walnut veneer etc.
Having crawled around the car, had a test drive, spend half and hour just letting it run up to full temperature, then stopping and restarting it etc we got to talking about cost, and agreed on a price – then Philip agreed to put a new headlamp bulb in and a wheel bearing on within that price as I spotted those after the negotiation – this was his problem to take up with the guys who serviced and MOT’d it he said, not mine to worry about with my new toy…
One week later it was the middle of January and minus three in the sunshine with a permanent frost on everything, even at midday – what a perfect day to pick up a new car!
Perfect until it wouldn’t start… Duly ‘jumped’ off the Porsche 911 Turbo parked next to it I headed off into the cold, reassured by the receipt in the folder of bills for a new battery only 3 months earlier. Then it failed to start at the petrol station, and again when I stalled it in traffic – just as well a previous owner had fitted jump leads via an Anderson connector and that my father was following me home!!!
To be fair to Philip he promised to pay for a new battery and to square the bill with my local indie if it turned out to be charging problems rather than just the battery, and phoned me 2 days later to check how I was getting on! It turned out to just be the extremely cold weather that was sapping the battery’s ability to turn over the big engine as it now starts first time every time and has done so ever since the thermometer swung back over to the plus side of chuffing cold!
A few weeks of cleaning, polishing and general fettling followed with the odd trek out on dry, sunny days (that often turned very quickly into wet, grey ones once I was 20+ miles from home).
The oil patch on the garage floor was a little worrying, but a bit of crawling underneath seemed to indicate a leaking sump rather than crankshaft oil seal or gearbox, so I dropped the sump, pulled the gasket sealant out of the oil pickup(!) and resealed it with a cork gasket and the very thinnest ever smear of Loctite gasket compound. Hey presto, no more oil drips!!! I’m feeling like an F1 mechanic as the car is clearly a sweet piece of engineering and fixed by a master!
I took this opportunity to switch from Mobil 1 0W40 to 15W50 Motorsport. I don’t intend to use the car when it’s too cold outside as that would mean using the roof, and that would never do, and the change immediately raised the hot pressure at tick-over from 10-15 up to 20 psi. Another result.
As soon as the weather warmed up a little and the roads got a bit stickier two things were highlighted to me: -
1) The old Bridgestone tyres we both worn and rock hard
2) The front shocks seemed OK-ish at standstill, but turned into pogo sticks the moment you pushed on a bit over and uneven road.
A quick surf around and 4 Falkens were fitted (FK452’s at the back and ZE912’s at the front because they don’t do 452’s in 15 inch sizes) and so far so good – a bit squealy on the tighter fast corners but that could just be that I’m running with the pressure s little low (22/24) so I’ll play with that in due course. The only reason I didn’t go for Toyo’s was because most other people do, and I thought I’d try something different to see if they were right or not!
To make the budget stretch a little further and because I’ve not decided to use the car on track at all (I’ll stick to bikes for that I think) the standard front springs and shocks made way for Gaz Nickels, efficiently supplied at the right price and with suitable fitting and set-up advice from Dampertech. Now that makes a HUGE difference to front end stability, as does the chin spoiler/splitter that I carefully crafted out of grey guttering (to ‘match’ the silver paint) mounted right under the front valance, just behind the bottom of the radiator.
All’s well now so it’s time to get to know the car properly by using it for some commuting – 38 miles each way on country lanes, A-roads, dual carriageways and all the roundabouts of sunny Milton Keynes. Three days in and I started getting a funny burning smell as I pulled up outside the garage at home… And what’s that HUGE puddle on the drive that looks like strawberry sauce?
The low pressure PAS return hose has been kissing the big main cat pipe when on full lock, and has developed a pin hole that’s sharing my lovely pink Dextron III fluid with the tarmac.
I patched the hole with a split piece of hose as a bandage, bonded with rubber adhesive to the cleaned up PAS pipe and then ‘wrapped’ in a selection of shiny new jubilee clips to keep it all in place. This will keep me on the road until the new pipe arrives and I get around to changing it. It actually kept everything in for another 1,000 miles including the run down to Beaulieu at the end of May, finally getting replaced 2 days before I headed off to France for a week…but it does pay to fix these things sooner rather than later normally!
Now the miles were starting to pile on easily and smoothly, until things start to get a bit warm on the aforementioned run to the New Forest on that scorchingly hot Sunday at the end of May…
I pick up my long suffering father for the run – he’s better than the AA when things go wrong after 50 years of fixing everything from Triumph Mayflowers to Westfields in his spare time, in fact the 4th emergency service is officially the D-A-D – but once we’re caught in traffic and the outside temperature is 35 degrees, the car is getting a little hot under the collar. Running at 100 degrees bothers me quite a lot, but I console myself that there’s no water or steam appearing, the temperature gauge is a guide rather than gospel and the heat build up when stationary will cause the reading to be artificially high anyway… It won’t drop back below 90 when we’re moving though, so a radiator flush and 72 degree thermostat are the next jobs on my list once I’m home.
A flush turned into a re-core when half the fins in the core brush off with the lightest touch when I try to remove the flies that are stuck in the radiator behind the grill. Bedford Radiators (recommended by Offord Motor Company as they didn’t have a radiator in stock, “…and it’ll save you our mark-up too, but don’t tell anyone!) do the job for £158 all in on a same day basis and all is well once this, the new thermostat and the lovely ACT silicon hoses are fitted. The car now runs at 70 degrees until stuck in traffic, the fans come on at 80 and the gauge holds steady at 88-90 even in 38 degree heat in the blazing sunshine at a toll booth in France with a broken down VW in front and a HUGE truck behind.
Another interesting by-product of the cooling system overhaul is a further improvement in oil pressure. When hot it now idles with 25-30 psi and runs at 40-45 under load, come hell or high water.
Now to prepare for the trip to France – 5 days away, 1,700 miles and a day canoeing down the Ardeche Gorge. I checked the diff oil level and topped it up with 250ml of 80/140 gear oil – sounds easy but it took 90 minutes and 3 bleeding knuckles to get the filler plug out of the back of my GKN diff. It went back in in 5 minutes though, so that saved a mental breakdown! The long-patched PAS hose was also replaced on Monday night/Tuesday morning (before leaving at 4am Wednesday), so plenty of time for a shakedown and leak test by taking it to work on Tuesday then…!
The car ran through France faultlessly. It has not used a single drop of oil in the 3,000 miles since I sealed the sump and long may this last!
Carrying me, my 20 stone mate, 3 holdalls, 5 litres of V-Power, numerous tools, oil, water, PAS fluid etc etc did show up that the back springs and shocks could do with a refresh too, so Dampertech will get a call shortly when I have a spare moment, but that aside it cannot be faulted!
The exhaust noise through the sweet little French villages is unbelievable, like sweet music to the petrol- or should that be Piston-head. Even little old ladies were waving and clapping as we passed… Vive la France!!!
So, after all that waffle, what you really want to know is – should you buy a Chimaera?
That’s up to you really…
You should shop around to make sure you get the right car, and you should be realistic about the need for a little mechanical knowledge and capability, or be happy to trust someone else to do all these little jobs for you while you write the cheques.
If you wouldn’t buy a classic car, by which I ‘m talking about MGB, E-Type, big Healey etc, because it would be too much hassle and things will always need doing, think twice before jumping into a 1990’s TVR. This is not a mass-production Eurobox with 70 trillion development miles behind it, it’s a hand-built British sports car that is now nearly old enough to legally indulge in carnal pastimes, and can certainly get away with being served in THAT local pub with the loud music, 24 hour football on huge plasma screens, 6 pool tables and bars at the windows to stop people unexpectedly coming out through them!
…I’m certainly glad that I bought one though. It takes me back to the days of running a 24 year-old MGB GT as my only car for 35,000 miles a year! I’ve never had this much fun tinkering with bikes or driving my ultra-clinical Mercedes, and sometimes you need a car that is just as alive and quirky as you are to share your passion for motoring with – it just remains to be seen whether the pair of you will live happily ever after or go your separate ways when the going gets tough…
Here’s to long-term automotive monogamy!
Giles
PS. Thanks to Philip Phedonos for putting my faith back in car traders, you lot out there in Pistonheads land for the advice, support and amusement since I registered here (but not for the b!tching, back-stabbing and p!ss-taking of those not allowed or equipped to defend themselves – but I guess some people find that a web forum gives them a sense of power and achievement that they lack elsewhere in their lives…
) and especially to the late, great Peter Wheeler for filling a big sports car sized hole in our lives with something available, affordable and so, so enjoyable! 
- just starting the journey myself..
anyone who has been bitten by the TVR bug can relate to everything you have said. Yes i can relate to this as well I bought mine in February 2008 used it for the summer till September then took it off the road for the winter months spent nearly 350 hours working on it and $xxxx on it also.
I did work on suspension ,chassis, bushes, bolts , brakes all oils hoses ECT ECT ECT the list is long.
I am driving through Europe around 3000 miles next month and can’t wait for it, I am like you with your MGB i bought my chim at 23 and it has been very well behaved it has only misbehaved on me twice both times due to my self after its rebuild not checking things after I had them apart
I did work on suspension ,chassis, bushes, bolts , brakes all oils hoses ECT ECT ECT the list is long.
I am driving through Europe around 3000 miles next month and can’t wait for it, I am like you with your MGB i bought my chim at 23 and it has been very well behaved it has only misbehaved on me twice both times due to my self after its rebuild not checking things after I had them apart
Thanks for making the time and effort to put your thoughts down Clippy! To be honest, if you hadn't mentioned the fact that your car is silver, I would have thought that this was a post that I'd written, albeit I have had less issues with my 450 than you seem to have had. The problems were all minor and cheap to repair (I'm a mechanical numptie and my old Dad, bless him, didn't pass on his considerable skills. Well he might have if I had shown the least bit of interest!) and with the exception of the failed ignition relay, none of the problems have stopped me driving.
I have been recently looking at the possibility of the Tiv being replaced by an XKR Jagwaaar but each time I look at the Tiv when I get home after work it beckons me to come out to play. And the playing is always bloody fantastic! Your description of the old ladies waving to you in France is exactly what happened to us last year at Le Mans. We have a day out hooning and the french villagers just love it, not like our villages where people think we are hooligans because our cars don't confirm to the Toyboater Prius mentality!
I am guessing that the upgrade after the rear shocks is likely to be a cherry bomb (or similar) conversion?!! You know you wanna! Personally, I would love one but I live in a cul-de-sac and the neighbours might take offence!
Last thing, I park mine outside on the drive as my garage is too small to take anything other than a ford popular. I put a new battery in immediately after I purchased it (over 26 months ago) and it still starts first time, whatever the weather. Also, I use it all year round. That's the point of having it isn't it? It's for driving, not for looking at!
Happy Tivving matey!
I have been recently looking at the possibility of the Tiv being replaced by an XKR Jagwaaar but each time I look at the Tiv when I get home after work it beckons me to come out to play. And the playing is always bloody fantastic! Your description of the old ladies waving to you in France is exactly what happened to us last year at Le Mans. We have a day out hooning and the french villagers just love it, not like our villages where people think we are hooligans because our cars don't confirm to the Toyboater Prius mentality!
I am guessing that the upgrade after the rear shocks is likely to be a cherry bomb (or similar) conversion?!! You know you wanna! Personally, I would love one but I live in a cul-de-sac and the neighbours might take offence!
Last thing, I park mine outside on the drive as my garage is too small to take anything other than a ford popular. I put a new battery in immediately after I purchased it (over 26 months ago) and it still starts first time, whatever the weather. Also, I use it all year round. That's the point of having it isn't it? It's for driving, not for looking at!
Happy Tivving matey!
The costs for the various bits add up as follows: -
PAS Hose - £13.50
Sump Gasket/Oil Filter/Oil - £70 ish
Shocks and shengltd bolts - £250
4 Tyres - £268 plus local fitting cost
72 Degree Thermostat and Gasket - £20
Radiator recore - £158
Silicon Hoses - £160
That's £511.50 on 'mechanical' bits and fixes, then £428 on tyres and silicon hoses, and the hoses were a luxury upgrade as I could have used rubber ones at a fraction of the cost, and tyres are a 'service' item that we all have to buy at some point.
I don't reckon that's too bad for a 14 year-old car that now drives to the South of France and back without a grumble!
Incidently, the reason for not using it in the cold/wet weather is partly that it's less fun unless it's a sunny day and roof's off, and partly because this is the time to strip bits down and play in the garage without feeling that I'm missing out on too much good driving time...!
G
PAS Hose - £13.50
Sump Gasket/Oil Filter/Oil - £70 ish
Shocks and shengltd bolts - £250
4 Tyres - £268 plus local fitting cost
72 Degree Thermostat and Gasket - £20
Radiator recore - £158
Silicon Hoses - £160
That's £511.50 on 'mechanical' bits and fixes, then £428 on tyres and silicon hoses, and the hoses were a luxury upgrade as I could have used rubber ones at a fraction of the cost, and tyres are a 'service' item that we all have to buy at some point.
I don't reckon that's too bad for a 14 year-old car that now drives to the South of France and back without a grumble!
Incidently, the reason for not using it in the cold/wet weather is partly that it's less fun unless it's a sunny day and roof's off, and partly because this is the time to strip bits down and play in the garage without feeling that I'm missing out on too much good driving time...!
G
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