If you attempt any of the following procedures, you assume all risk. Moreover, this manual should make it very evident that working on a car like the Cerbera requires considerable knowledge and mechanical skill. Play it safe if you have the slightest doubt in your abilities, and have someone qualified do the work.

Hopefully, this manual will enable you to ask the right questions so you can avoid dodgy dealers/mechanics. And you will have a better understanding of the work involved (and perhaps the bill).

Recommendation. www.joospeed.net

The vast majority of the knowledge contained herein is from Julian Lane’s (Joolz) postings on the internet.If you require servicing or have a problem, you can avoid immense aggravation by simply going to Joolz. The work will be done expertly, thoroughly, and cheaply. It really is that simple.

Notes

This manual is best viewed online (PDA or PC) because then you can search the entire document. After this section and the parts list, it is organized alphabetically by general topics. Each item in the table of contents at the beginning is also hyperlinked to the relevant section.

Needed

Fuse box diagram

Details on clutch

18” wheel details, recommended tyre pressures? Are sizes correct?

Power steering fluid

Indicator stalk instructions and tips

Undoing the instrument pod – detailed instructions

Other parts?

Pictures for throttle cable replacement

Formatting and links needed

Background graphic?

Link to website on how to replace/improve aerial

Strip out carriage returns

General spelling and editing needed

Revision notes

(please update this section if you modify this file)

Date	Item	Details, author, etc.
2002 06 24		Version1 created.
2002 07 01	Throttle position sensor	Added part no. Faisal
2002 07 02	Added a few sections Formatting	Faisal
2002 07 03	Added detail on undoing dash Added some credits Added graphics for throttle return spring	Faisal
2005 09 16	Brake pads – added part numbers	Faisal

Updates

Please do your bit to keep this document updated, and make sure you document your revisions. Also, if you make any changes to the document, please adhere to the heading styles used, and update the table of contents and indexes. If you are not sure how to do this, mail me the updates and I will be happy to make the changes for you. My email: faisalkhan@tvrfreak.com

Parts

Airconditioning belt	MicroV 58734
Brake fluid	Mobil SAE J 1703 (every 12k miles)
Clutch fluid	Clutch Mobil SAE J 1703
Coolant	Mobil Universal Antifreeze
CV Joint Lubricant	Mobil Grease NLGI 2
Differential oil	Mobil SHC80w/140ID (every 12k miles)
Engine oil	Mobil 1 5/50
Gearbox oil	Mobil SHC ATF 220 (every 12k miles)
Oil filter	Land rover ERR3340
Power steering fluid
Spark plugs	NG BKR5EKU
Throttle spring	Obtain the updated one from Joolz
Throttle position sensor	Definitely Ford but part # 1K15A? or E1586?

Fuses (Incomplete)

	engine fan 1	30A
	sidelamps, rear fog lamps	15A
	engine fan 2 alarm powered indicators	30A
	dip beam and dim dip headlamps	20A
	starter motor solenoid	30A
	rear window heater, hazard lamps	15A
	gauges, mirrors & radio, dim dip	10A
	horns, boot lamp, courtesy lamp, cigarette lighter	15A
	driver’s lock, passenger’s window	20A
	driver’s window, door lock ecu	20A
	passenger’s lock, boot lock	10A
	injectors, engine ecu, immonbiliser	15A
	not used
	engine ecu backup, steering ecu supress	10A
	wipers, steering ecu supply	20A
	ignition coils	20A
	heating & ventilation system	25A
	indicators, reverse lamps, brake lamps	15A
	fuel pump, lambda heaters, purge valve	20A
	master ignition	15A
	main beam	20A

Alarm Codes

Ultrasonics	1 Flash every 6 seconds
Doors	2 Flashes
Boot or Bonnet	4 Flashes
Panic Facility	16 Flashes

Tyre Sizes

4.5 to 2001
Front 235x40xZR17
Rear 255x40xZR17

Latest 18's are:-
4.5 from 2001
Front 8x18" alloy wheels fitted with
225/35 ZR low profile tyres.
Rear 8.5x18" alloy wheels fitted with
255/35 ZR low profile tyres.

Air Conditioning

The main reason for the air con not working is loss of refrigerant due to the early alloy compressor pipes fracturing...almost all cars have now been changed onto the later steel type which has cured this completely. The air temp we set is around 7 Deg C which seems to have given no reported problems of icing or condensation dripping down. You'll notice that cars without air con have just one cooling fan located centrally on the radiator, whilst air con cars have the bulky Cerbera type fan supplemented by a Chim (non-500) type fan. The airflow through the air con radiator IS by fan in traffic. Incidentally, both the fan control for the air con and the normal engine cooling are both controlled by the engine run ECU.

A/C thermostat is located on the RHS of the drivers footwell, buhind the carpet. You need to set the temp to 3deg (I think) otherwise any colder and the condenser freezes up.

Alarm key fobs

When you reconnect the battery, you have a few seconde to re-sync it with one of the remotes. Hold the button for 6 seconds immediately after you've reconnected the battery (you'll know when it's re-synced because the indicators will flash a couple of times).

Alignment

Steering Geometry

Front	Rear
Camber degrees 0.5 to 1.25 Neg.	0.5 to 1.25 Neg
Caster degrees 3.5 to 4.5 Pos	N/A
Toe minutes 10 to 20 in	10 to 20 in
Tyre pressures22 to 26	24 to 28
Higher pressures for sustained speeds above 100 mph

Alternator

A quick check for the alternator is to get a voltmeter and put it from the positive battery terminal and a good earth somewhere on the engine .. it should read around 12 volts. Now start the engine .. if the alternator is charging then the reading should go up to around 13.6-13.9 volts with nothing else switched on. If that is OK then you're half way home .. next with the engine still running turn on the headlights .. the reading will go down at tickover, but if you rev the engine to fast idle speeds the voltage should gradually creep back up to close to 13.5 volts. If those are the sorts of readings you're getting then all is well . A trickle charger is always a good investment .. batteries like nothing less than to be standing doing nothing .. they like to be cycling giving out charge and taking it back in.

We sold chargers at work called "airflow" and they sense the battery voltage and recharge when the level drops to a predetermined point, say 11.8 volts or something. You can get the asme type of thing through demon tweeks here, so there will be something similar in the USA, probably much better and half the price actually!! Let me know how you get on with that first. Getting to the alternator is a pain so we'll only go there if this bit has failed so far.

Backfiring

The back-fires take place entirely in the exhaust system, and are caused by the engine being highly tuned (I could go into anal detail if you want me to). What I can never understand is how they don't bugger up the cats. Not that that's a problem for me...

Here's my amateur explanation of why cars like the Cerbera (especially the big man's 4.5) pop and crackle on the over-run. Sorry about the length of this, but you did ask for anal detail!

As mentioned before, its because of valve overlap, but what is this, why is it A Good Thing, and why does it cause the impression of a Spanish festival when you let off the gas?

The easiest way to think about this is to imagine what would happen if you didn't have any overlap. Consider the 'obvious' engine design, where the exhaust valve is open for precisely the time that the piston is coming up during its exhaust stroke, closes when the piston is at the top (TDC), at which point the inlet valve opens ready for the mixture to get sucked in during the induction stroke. The problem with this is that when the piston is at the top, you've still got a combustion chamber's worth of spent exhaust in there. Remember that the quoted capacity of an engine is actually the 'swept volume' (the volume swept by the pistons). There is an extra bit at the top of the cylinder which the mixture is compressed into and where the combustion actually takes place. The compression ratio is the ratio between the capacity of the cylinder with the piston at the very bottom compared to the capacity of it with the piston at the very top. On a Cerbera 4.5, with a compression ratio of 10.75 this gives a combustion chamber size of about 57cc - per cylinder. So 57cc's worth of burnt crap would be mixed with the fuel-air mixture each cycle if there was no overlap.

Overlap means that the exhaust valve stays open for a while, after the inlet valve has opened. This is in order to lose as much of that burnt mixture as possible. When the piston reaches the top, the mixture has inertia (or momentum if you like, as the term inertia means something different outside of physics). If the exhaust valve is left open for a while, much of it will continue sailing out of the port even though the piston is now going downwards. Also, the mixture coming in through the inlet valve will actually force some of the exhaust gases out - not because its pressurised, as the inlet gas is being sucked in (in a naturally-aspirated engine), but by the inertia of the incoming gas which then pushes against the exhaust gas.

In fact this gets even more complicated with tuned-port induction and tuned exhaust systems. Both of these systems set up standing-waves in the pipes. In the case of induction, a positive pressure node is set up at the inlet port, so that the mixture is actually being forced into the cylinder, even in a naturally aspirated engine. In a tuned exhaust system, the pipes coming from each exhaust port must be of perfectly equal length (hence the spaghetti that you see on highly tuned engines). This length is calculated according to the speed of sound and the revs at which you want the peak effect to take place. The idea is that as an exhaust pulse passes through the collector (the bit where the pipes join), it sends a pressure wave down the other pipes. By getting the length right (the pressure wave always travels at the speed of sound, regardless of revs) you can ensure that the pressure wave that is formed in the pipes is such that there is an anti-node at the exhaust valves of the other cylinders just when they open, causing the exhaust to get actively sucked out of the cylinder, rather than relying on the piston's pushing action alone. Cylinders get paired up together in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways according to the firing order. On a four-cylinder engine (or half of a single-plane crank engine like the AJP8) the arrangement is either 4-into-1 or 4-into-2-into-1. The former gives the most power, the latter a better torque spread.

Anyway, this exhaust tuning is particularly effective when combined with valve overlap, after all, there is no point just leaving the valve open for longer if all that happens is that the burnt mixture gets a chance to wave at the outside World for a while. In an ideal World, the exhaust valve would close just as the new mixture approaches it, with all the burnt stuff having been expelled/sucked out. In a 'normal' engine, the system is set up such that there is no way any of the new (unburnt) mixture could ever escape into the exhaust system - but at the expense of not getting rid of every last bit of the burnt stuff. However in race engines and nasty un-environmentally phallic devices like TVR Cerberas, the balance is more fine, such that under certain circumstances some of this pristine and virginal mixture can go sailing out into the exhaust system to be ignited by the next emission of hot gases from another cylinder, causing an explosion in the exhaust system which makes an audible bang - and in really tuned systems, bloody great flames out of the exhaust!

Now comes an explanation of why this happens when you let your foot off. I must stress that what follows (and some of the above) is stuff that I've worked out for myself from first principles, so please don't take it as gospel.

The effect occurs when you've been on the power, and you suddenly close the throttle. When you're on the power, there's going to be a whole pile of fuel-air mixture in the inlet pipes, all with plenty of kinetic energy. However the inlet valve of any given cylinder is only actually open for about 25% of the time, so this gas is actually bouncing back up the inlet pipe for a while, before being sucked back down it once the inlet valve opens. The periodic nature of this is just perfect to set up standing waves in the gas, as previously mentioned regarding tuned induction above. When you close the throttle, all of a sudden this pipe is effectively capped, causing the pressure wave inside the gases to be strongly reflected back into the cylinder. This means that just momentarily, there is a lump of gas in the system that has much increased velocity which goes rushing into the cylinder when that valve opens. In a 'normal' engine this doesn't matter a bit, but in a highly tuned engine where that exhaust valve is living dangerously on the staying-open-til-the-last-moment stakes, the unusually over-excited mixture goes cascading out of the exhaust valve and into the dark and dangerous world of the exhaust system. Just imagine the look of surprise on its face.

Battery

1. Check alternator belt

2. Check alternator fuse

3. Check fuse link

4. Recharge battery and replace with brand spank one if required

5. Stump up 500+ quid for a new alternator

Battery Charging

If the battery is left connected to the vehicle electrics connect only a trickle charger giving out no more than 7 Amps.

Amp hours 70ah

Reserve capacity 110mins

Din Equiv. 57072

CCA sae 590 amps

Iec 390 amps

CCA Din 385 amps

Changing the Battery

What a nightmare!

Removing the airbox is easy enough, but hanging on to the nuts and bolts that come off and making sure they don't fall into some deep crevice in the engine is virtually impossible. Thankfully, I have one of those long magetic probes. Very handy. Another useful tip is to keep a shoebox in front of the engine compartment. You can put your

tools and nuts and bolts and bits that come off in here and they won't disappear into the engine (unless you overturn the box--don't ask!).

Once the battery is clearly visible, pay attention to how the cables are routed down the side of the battery. You might want to draw a rough diagram. This is really important!

Next comes the disconnecting-the-terminals-and-setting-the-alarm-off- repeatedly-and-trying-to-wrestle-the-battery-out bit. This step is virtually impossible. There's a huge bolt receptacle in the way. No matter how much you try to lever the battery up and over this, it doesn't seem to work. I finally managed to get a good hold on the bottom of the battery and with a back-wrenching heave, it gave.

My only criteria for the replacement battery was that it be the same or higher spec and a smaller size so I don't go through this again. I have padded it all around with thick neoprene strips so it doesn't bounce around, and then clamped it in place as best I could. When I hooked up the terminals, I managed to short the battery a few times. And I dropped the ratchet on the car and got two chips for my efforts. Anyways, I eventually managed to get the terminals hooked up and after the alarm had gone off for the 100th time, the car locked itself up. I got in using the secret method, opened the car up, decided to keep the keyfob outside the car, and went back to work.

Now then, where was I? Oh yes, time to put the airbox on and tighten up all the hose clamps. Easy enough. Final step was to put on the cover that goes under the bonnet. If you look, there's a flap on the battery side that slides in next to the battery. Well, it wouldn't slide in anymore because the damn battery cables were in the way!

Lots of fidgeting, loosening, tightening, rearranging later, after another 100 times of setting off the piercing alarm, I finally got this piece to go in properly. Finally it was time to close everything up, double check everything, and reset the ECU, and I was DONE. 2 hours flat including the trip to buy the battery ($62 for a nice, small Sears Die Hard one).

Having the following items helps *greatly*:

A long thin magnetic probe to fish out stuff that falls into engine;

Socket extensions to reach into the deep cavities;

Universal-joint adapters for ratchet;

Set of allen keys

Pair of pliers ;

Towels to cover wings of car with before starting any work;

A rag to cover the new battery terminals to avoid shorts.

Bonnet - Inner

I believe these covers have changed over the years - to remove the one in my 2000LW I have to remove the airboxes from their brackets to get to the allen screws. I'd imagine though that your 97 4.2 is more similar to my old 96.4.2. With that, if I remember correctly, it was rather straight forward:

1) Remove air pipes from airboxes

2). Remove air pipes from air filter box at the front.

3) Remove air filter box by removing split plins then clamps

4) Remove all allen key screws securing panel to body

5) After jiggling panel around for a while, lift and remove. With the 96 car the water bottle wasn't pocking through the panel - there was just a big hole in it allowing you to access the cap of the water bottle underneath.

An alternative is what I have recently done. The plastic pipe from the water bottle had become disconnected ( at the water bottle end), and at the same time the off-side indicator bulb needed replacing. I set out to change the bulb (jack up car, remove O/S wheel, unscrew self tapping screws holding small panel to inside of wheel arch, cut away the black bathroom sealer and remove panel - this give you access behind the lights in order to change the bulbs). And I'm certain that through there I could see the water bottle, and this allowed me to poke my hand through and re-attach the pipe. Maybe you could try the same thing, by disconnecting the old pipe and pulling it through from near the battery?? It will be a little more difficult to replace, but I'm sure it wouldn't take too long.

On most 4.5's and 4.2's

1) remove 2 air pipes, 4 jubilee clips - just need loosened slightly.

2) remove 6? allen screws from cover.

3) the tricky bit. Squeeze the radiator hose at the front left under/in front of the cover. You'll have to bend the cover up slightly and also press the hose flat but it will get past.

4) lift the cover up at the back [as if hinged at the radiator] and it will come out of the gap left by the air pipes. Should be no need to remove anything else, and should take 5 minutes...with practice.

Brake pads

You need Mintex M1144 pads and the part number for the rear caliper is MLB20. I believe this is the same for 4.2 and 4.5 (AP Caliper CP2399 with 306mm disc). Mintex don't seem to have the most expansive distribution channel in the world but my local Motor Factors reckon they'll have me some on Tuesday. £30.35 +VAT.

The caliper is an AP Racing 5000 series. Some pad manufacturers find this information helpful.

Cerbera 4.5

PFC Part #

Wilwood #

Mintex

Ferodo Part #

EBC

Front
132 X 54 X 17 mm

7767**17.4

8517

MTX-1292

FRP216

DP3002C

Rear
70 X 58 X 14 mm

DP3102C

Cerbera 4.5

Hawk Part #

Raybestos

Porterfields

Front
132 X 54 X 17 mm

HB
HP+

HPS 110.654

FRP216

Rear
70 X 58 X 14 mm