My 1992 Griffith 400 (250)
Discussion
Now the thing is on the road, I thought I would document the last 17 months of grief with my Griffith purchase!
Lets spread a bit of pre-cat love shall we...!
Mine is a Moonraker Black 400 with the optional 250 package. It has the optional O.Z. split rims and a carbon fibre targa panel. I believe this was optional for 1992. It was purchased by TVR Dealer Christopher Neil on 7th December 1992 as their demonstrator and had the plate "H1 TVR" at the start of their ownership. That plate has long gone but HPI says its on a Chimaera somewhere......
I'm a sucker for split-rims so it had to be a pre-cat. It was purchased by me in February 2014. I was taken with the history folder literally full of "TVR specialist" invoices. After the drive home, the rose tinted specs came off and all those invoices meant nothing.....
Fuel hoses chafing rocker covers :
Fuel hose condition :
Fuel hose condition :
Fuel rail back from powder coating :
Injectors off for ASNU testing :
Assembling fuel rail :
Water pump leaking :
Valley gasket, new engine wiring harness, exhaust heat wrap :
23 year old bottom hose recently refitted by a TVR specialist... :
New SAMCO hoses with additional bleed points :
Engine harness coming along :
Throttle position sensor wiring. Vehicle recently given once over by a TVR specialist :
Swirl pot polished :
Rocker covers polished :
Assembling powder coat items :
Tank fuel lines found to be damp :
Customary boot signature! :
Draining the tank :
Tank outlet removed :
Blocked outlet gauze :
Neighbor relations being pushed.... :
New wheel bearings, brakes, pads etc. This is a Sierra hub prior to bearing fitment :
All mechanical items done, driving once again, off to the paintshop. Please excuse the Ford Scorpio donor wheels!! :
Pre-primer :
Primer :
Primer :
Bit of re-trimming now that the car is away. Another signature! :
Re-building the mirrors :
Polishing things is good. Cant scrape knuckles polishing things :
Headlamp pods dismantled, painted, rebuilt :
Silicone new indicators :
Fitting headlamps. Note my new heater motor ducting which has infinitely increased passenger compartment airflow :
Ready for silicone; a horrible horrible task :
Making new grills :
Making new headlamp access panels :
Making translucent number plate mounts :
Wheels not making the grade :
More wheel issues :
Tidying the wheelhouses:
Wheels back from refurbishers and fitted. Car looking good, wallet looking empty :
First photo shoot last week, vehicle running. Me happy.
Spent about 5x as much as what I had hoped. Need to keep for five years minimum to cover that damage. I'm still sorting little bits so I will just post updates here as I go along. This winter I plan to have the dash out but lets enjoy this summer.....
October 2015 Additional Photos :
Lets spread a bit of pre-cat love shall we...!
Mine is a Moonraker Black 400 with the optional 250 package. It has the optional O.Z. split rims and a carbon fibre targa panel. I believe this was optional for 1992. It was purchased by TVR Dealer Christopher Neil on 7th December 1992 as their demonstrator and had the plate "H1 TVR" at the start of their ownership. That plate has long gone but HPI says its on a Chimaera somewhere......
I'm a sucker for split-rims so it had to be a pre-cat. It was purchased by me in February 2014. I was taken with the history folder literally full of "TVR specialist" invoices. After the drive home, the rose tinted specs came off and all those invoices meant nothing.....
Fuel hoses chafing rocker covers :
Fuel hose condition :
Fuel hose condition :
Fuel rail back from powder coating :
Injectors off for ASNU testing :
Assembling fuel rail :
Water pump leaking :
Valley gasket, new engine wiring harness, exhaust heat wrap :
23 year old bottom hose recently refitted by a TVR specialist... :
New SAMCO hoses with additional bleed points :
Engine harness coming along :
Throttle position sensor wiring. Vehicle recently given once over by a TVR specialist :
Swirl pot polished :
Rocker covers polished :
Assembling powder coat items :
Tank fuel lines found to be damp :
Customary boot signature! :
Draining the tank :
Tank outlet removed :
Blocked outlet gauze :
Neighbor relations being pushed.... :
New wheel bearings, brakes, pads etc. This is a Sierra hub prior to bearing fitment :
All mechanical items done, driving once again, off to the paintshop. Please excuse the Ford Scorpio donor wheels!! :
Pre-primer :
Primer :
Primer :
Bit of re-trimming now that the car is away. Another signature! :
Re-building the mirrors :
Polishing things is good. Cant scrape knuckles polishing things :
Headlamp pods dismantled, painted, rebuilt :
Silicone new indicators :
Fitting headlamps. Note my new heater motor ducting which has infinitely increased passenger compartment airflow :
Ready for silicone; a horrible horrible task :
Making new grills :
Making new headlamp access panels :
Making translucent number plate mounts :
Wheels not making the grade :
More wheel issues :
Tidying the wheelhouses:
Wheels back from refurbishers and fitted. Car looking good, wallet looking empty :
First photo shoot last week, vehicle running. Me happy.
Spent about 5x as much as what I had hoped. Need to keep for five years minimum to cover that damage. I'm still sorting little bits so I will just post updates here as I go along. This winter I plan to have the dash out but lets enjoy this summer.....
October 2015 Additional Photos :
Edited by jay-kay-em on Friday 9th October 18:21
Edited by jay-kay-em on Tuesday 30th July 21:22
Cheers chaps 
a) 23 years of countless alarm installers have not been kind
b) some air vents are connected, some not
c) instrument illumination is comical. The clock is brighter than my actual headlamps, the other instruments are dim and the rev counter doesn't illuminate at all. A loose bulb does however illuminate my feet quite nicely!
d) I'm allergic to blue crimp connectors. Hate 'em. Solder is king.
Doesn't affect me burbling around right now, just one for the winter.
TV8 said:
What are you planning for the dash?
Well, the dash has multiple issues. I went to fit my preferred radio and what I found inside was nothing short of a birds nest of horror. I am still having sleepless nights.a) 23 years of countless alarm installers have not been kind
b) some air vents are connected, some not
c) instrument illumination is comical. The clock is brighter than my actual headlamps, the other instruments are dim and the rev counter doesn't illuminate at all. A loose bulb does however illuminate my feet quite nicely!
d) I'm allergic to blue crimp connectors. Hate 'em. Solder is king.
Doesn't affect me burbling around right now, just one for the winter.
jay-kay-em said:
Well, the dash has multiple issues. I went to fit my preferred radio and what I found inside was nothing short of a birds nest of horror. I am still having sleepless nights.
a) 23 years of countless alarm installers have not been kind
b) some air vents are connected, some not
c) instrument illumination is comical. The clock is brighter than my actual headlamps, the other instruments are dim and the rev counter doesn't illuminate at all. A loose bulb does however illuminate my feet quite nicely!
d) I'm allergic to blue crimp connectors. Hate 'em. Solder is king.
Doesn't affect me burbling around right now, just one for the winter.
Sounds like a pretty standard TVR dash then a) 23 years of countless alarm installers have not been kind
b) some air vents are connected, some not
c) instrument illumination is comical. The clock is brighter than my actual headlamps, the other instruments are dim and the rev counter doesn't illuminate at all. A loose bulb does however illuminate my feet quite nicely!
d) I'm allergic to blue crimp connectors. Hate 'em. Solder is king.
Doesn't affect me burbling around right now, just one for the winter.
Nice work BTW.
jay-kay-em said:
Wheels back from refurbishers and fitted. Car looking good, wallet looking empty
I have the same wheels as you and have been looking for a good shop to refurbish them. Would you recommend the guys who did yours? I notice your wallet felt empty after this item - were they very expensive to refurb?Cheers,
Simon
cavebloke said:
jay-kay-em said:
Wheels back from refurbishers and fitted. Car looking good, wallet looking empty
I have the same wheels as you and have been looking for a good shop to refurbish them. Would you recommend the guys who did yours? I notice your wallet felt empty after this item - were they very expensive to refurb?Cheers,
Simon
Refurbing them are as expensive as you want to make it. You can choose to dissasemble or not to dissasemble. The non-dissasemble route is just spraying them all silver as one.
Dissasembly is the more thorough way and you can then properly polish the outer rims.
A lot of wheel refurbishers wont even touch split rims.
I took them round the houses locally to get a quote and everyone warned me about snapping the bolts upon dissasembly. Now the original bolts are very special to me as they have O.Z. cast into the bolt heads. I wanted to keep those markings for originality purposes. Needless to say, these bolts are no longer available from O.Z.. Yes, you can buy split rim bolts off ebay, but their source is unknown and they have anonymous heads. On the fear of breaking one of these bolts upon removal, I rang most refurbishers up and down the country to see if they carry these bolts in stock. Only one company did - albeit old bolts re-plated. Therefore I could only use him, and he knew that and charged accordingly.
I also wanted the big false central nut (that encompasses the TVR logo) to have a different finish - i.e. polished instead of silver. This too was labour intensive but it was the closest to OE I could get it.
Not trusting couriers, I drove them to London and drove back. Two weeks later I drove back to London, picked them up and drove home. The caps were painted and polished too, correctly, and supplied separately in a cardboard box. I was slightly unhappy because they had used silicone to seal bolted surfaces (between inner core and outer rim) and of course it had oozed out everywhere upon torquing up. I spent a good hour on each wheel with a toothbrush cleaning that expelled silicone.
The wheels sat about a bit and six months later I went to fit them to the car. Went to put the centre caps on and the bl**dy centre caps wouldn't fit!! The new paint was so thick the centre caps had become too large for the recess they fit in. I wasnt prepared to post them back and I wasnt prepared to drive to London again - end result - yet more hours spent sanding their circumference with 1200 wet/dry.
I chose a non-lacquered finish for the polished rims. This requires more maintenance (cleaning) but if you put the effort in, they last longer. Moisture has a habit of getting under any lacquer. Also, any lacquer on polished rims would have nothing to key to.
Admittedly, after some remedial work, they look stunning - but I was pretty pee'd off at the time. Lesson learnt - try your centre caps before you leave!!!!
The O.Z. racing stickers, one per rim, had to be re-made just like OE. For just stickers, these were expensive. I got a local graphics shop to make some up and had to pay for their time.
The old OE Stickers :
The old OE Bolts with O.Z. markings :
As I have moaned about certain things, I don't know if forum guidelines allow me to name the company!!
Edited by jay-kay-em on Monday 15th June 18:22
Edited by jay-kay-em on Monday 15th June 18:23
AlanW said:
Hi
Got myself a Griffith 400 / 250 with split rims recently.
Cracking engine, as good as the 5 litres I've had.
Can you let me know where you got your Oz Racing stickers from? I need one after getting a wheel resealed
Cheers
These look close:Got myself a Griffith 400 / 250 with split rims recently.
Cracking engine, as good as the 5 litres I've had.
Can you let me know where you got your Oz Racing stickers from? I need one after getting a wheel resealed
Cheers
http://www.highgatehouse.co.uk/OZ%20Rims.htm
About 1/3 the way down.
The original decal has the OZ Racing underneath so you can't damage the lettering but the replacements I've seen have the OZ Racing in black on the top so be careful when cleaning as its easy to rub them off.
FFG
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