TVR - Manifold removal 3

Manifold removal 3

Written by Darren Jones

Jan 26, 2014 at 12:28 PM So I took a rest and came back at the car the following weekend, encouraged by comments on PistonHeads that this can be done, especially if you adopt a James Heriot approach to removing a couple of the bolts.  Well try as I might, I just could not get the spanner on the rear bolts even once, let alone the number of times it would take to fully undo them.  So option 2, remove the starter. Removing is easy enough, undo the electrical connectors (2 on the positive, one on negative).  Then undo the 2 bolts holding it on - these require a 8mm allen key drive to undo and are fairly tight.  The top bolt is located blind but not too bad to get to.  5 minutes later starter motor is removed and easy access to the remaining bolts.  In short order all the manifold bolts are removed and ready to remove the manifold. And that's where it stops.  On the drivers side there is not much room and the manifold can not be removed, it gets stuck on water pipes going forwards and hits the air conditioner unit above.  Not going to mess with the gasses in the air conditioner, so need to move the cooling pipes that were bolted to the rocker cover by 2 different bolt types. Front Rear Why 2 different types I do not know, but had to go shopping to get drives for both. Completely undone the manifold still can not quite fit past the pipes and in order to move them further, need to undo from the bottom where it goes to the radiator which means draining the cooling system.  Once done there is just enough movement in the cooling pipe to squeeze the manifold past  it.  Remove the expansion tank and the manifold can then come forward enough to lift out. All pieces now out, sensors removed and one already with precat removed.  Now to clean up while waiting for new parts from the UK and then refitting.