The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Cheers Ian! It looks as if its not just rust that can thrive in the sills of these little saloons, evidently spiders do pretty well too!. makes you wonder what theyre actually hoping to prey upon in there though...

Heres a few photos of the lastest bout of progress, basically just rebuilding either end of the sill and eventually getting the outer skin lined up reasonably flush with the doors...




























It is actually all welded on now but i havent gotten round to getting a photo of that! Id advise anyone doing a full outer sill to always have the doors on when offering it up for shape, that way you can get it tacked on with a few welds knowing its in a good position and then remove the doors to complete all of the welding

the box sections needed welding up underneath the car which meant to get in properley with the welding mask i needed to take the exhaust off. unfortunately whilst doing this i snapped a stud off the manifold to downpipe joint. so..



i had to get a bit sidetracked and and take it off



so apart from finishing welding the sill next job is to get the snapped stud out, its been soaking overnight in plusgas so itll need a lot of heat for the next step. if worst comes to worse though it can always be drilled out and either re tapped or have a bolt and spring washer utilised instead

Fab, quality work!..looks very nice and neat indeed..

Some brilliant Work again Andrew!!!

I've noticed that your Carburettor is a "Waxstat" Type, Must have been fitted sometime in the cars life

Thank you!.. is it not the standard part for the car? im a bit iffy when it comes to carb types im afraid

If i remember correctly, Mine and your Toledo's where built around about the same time, Late 1971. The original carburettor for the ealry cars is the Fixed Jet HS4 type, But yours is the HS4 waxstat type (probably from a post 76 Dolomite).

I know this as, I took my Original carb of a few days ago and replaced it with a Waxstat type like you've got, because it was heavily worn and leaking. The waxstat is supposed to aid Economy and lowers emissions, as the little wax capsule lowers and raises the Jet, kinda working as a sort of Semi auto choke, weakening and richening the mixture as engine bay temperatures change.

I think its fair to say that 90% of people hate them , But i love em in good working condition!! Since fitting one to my Eeyore, its increased my MPG from low 20's to low 30's. I hardly need any choke for cold starts and its fab.

By the way, precisely when was your car built? As I discovered a few weeks ago (from the MOT) that my car was built November 1971, making it a really early 4 door.

TopJob

Jordan

Excellent advice.

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ah i see! i honestly had no idea about that, cheers for the information. iv been rooting around the documents i have for it and the best i can come up with is that it was first registered on the 3rd of november 1971 so there cant be much difference in time between our two cars being made!

There looks to be light at the end of the tunnel for this car now! the vast majority of the weldings been done (apart form one of the doors which needs a new bottom, chassis leg patch and whatevers lurking around the n/s headlight)

sill and bottom wing are now done











the inner wing panel had a messy repair on it covered in bitumen which was cut off and a new piece made and welded on





here' the offending door (doesnt look too bad here but its been mostly packed out with filler behing and theres not much left so since this photo was taken thew bottoms been cut off and a new piece is being fashioned)





thats all for now.. more soon!

I'm having a feeling of deja-vu here!

Truely amazed at the standard of work being put into this, and also amazed that the car was in such a terrible state

to think of all the times i drove down the motorway in it at full pelt and it was held together with bean cans

thanks very much! i suppose really no one would know about the dodgey repairs etc unless they started to take the thing apart. out of curiosity.. did the car ever have a yellow stripe down the side? or is that a different car in your profile photo?

It turns out the bottom half of the door was a scrap piece of metal tacked in place and smothered with filler so this is what was left when all the waste was cut off..





and heres the nice shiny new front tacked on,



the back frame is to make now and weld into place.


aside from that there were also some very iffy (and very much not square!) repairs on the n/s chassis leg.



turns out it has just been a large parch welded over the original rotten leg so i cut it out and repaired it in small sections to help keep its strength and shape during being rebuild..



Granted it still doesnt look perfect but its now properley solid and without rust and is definitely an improvement on what it was!

That yellow stripe was simply me playing with a picture of 'Tina' in MS paint ;D