The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 5:23 pm 
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Future Club member hopefully!
Future Club member hopefully!

Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2014 12:44 am
Posts: 18
Location: Groningen Netherlands
Hey guys,

A long time has gone by since my last update. Since then a LOT has happend. I will summarize it in a short story with some addition pictures. Also after this post I will not update this Resto page anymore because I will start a NEW one!!! because i removed my engine en will start with a V6 X30E conversion!!! Or as Carledo has named it a Dolomega :P really like the name xD


So since the last post, you guys could see i painted the blower and other bits. After this job I focused my attention on the sunroof. This sunroof was (supposedly) fitted when it was delivered in the Netherlands. When I was removing the sunroof I found some numbers that looked like the date 07/76. These datestamps where on multiple parts from the sunroof. The sunroof itself was in reasonable working order however the housing of the integral sunroof was not.

So I started cutting out the rusted parts of the sunroof and I started to make some new parts from metal. Spotwelded those in place and tried to make it a bit smoother.

Then i brought the car to the painters for a nice paintjob. Britisch racing green with a glossy black on the roof. You can see the paint process in the link with all the pictures. After the paintjob i borrowed a trailer from the paintshop to return my car from the painters back to my place. I also borrowed my dads car for towing it all. But when I had to return the trailer, my dad also needed his car back. So behold the magnificent sight of a Suzuki Wagon R connected to a trailer of 6 meters long and 2,10 meter wide.

After the car returned from the painters i installed a new interior (made the whole carpets myself because I didnt want to spend loads on a new carpet). I also made a custom wooden frame for in the boot, that will keep the spare wheel out of sight but is still easily accessible by the trapdoor I made in the wooden floor.

Simultaneously I bought a secondhand set of nice speakers and amp because I wanted some nice audio in my car. Don't get me wrong, I don't want a big ass subwoofer in my car but i DO like bass!!! Therefore some consensus. Since my rear seatbelt tensioners were toast anyway, I hacked off the the 3 points system of the seatbelts of the rearseats. This allowed me to fit some bigger 6x9" speakers in the rear. I also started with fabricating a fancy wooden dash that is placed instead of the floppy cardboard dash. What i mean with the floppy cardboard dash, is the part of the dash that is placed underneath the dash that holds the gauges and heater etc. You can see the pics of the speakers that are build in quite nice!!!

I then faced another big problem. The roof and the sunroof where nicely fixed and painted, however i was unable to find a good rubberseal. This meant that the car was going to leak from the roof. Thus I looked again on the internet and I found a common mod. Replacing the roof with a foldable roof from a VW LUPO or a Renault Twingo. The downside of that was that I had to hack into my freshly painted roof and that I had to acquire such foldable roof.

Obviously I didn't want that... So i did a lot of thinking. Eventually I bought a brand new (sealed package) Webasto sunroof in Marktplaats (dutch ebay) for only 140 euros. This package and all of its contents were still sealed but the production date was somewhere in the early 2000's. Only problem, this new sunroof was smaller than the hole in my roof. 89x50 cm instead of 105x60cm :P. After a lot of thinking, calling people and nightmares I came up with the solution. I bought a big sheet of metal (2mm) and I started gluing (SikaFlex aircraft glue) small sheets of metal inside my roof to overcome the tapered edge of the current hole in my roof. I then used the original painted part of the sunroof inlay (the part that used to be the outside of the old sunroof) and I glued it to the car to make the hole closed. I then hacked a new smaller hole inside the freshly glued roof to accommodate the new sunroof. And tadaa I had a brand new electric sunroof in my car!!. Only problem was the horrible gap between my original roof and the glued metal parts. Luckily enough, I was able to bring the car back to the painters and they filled this gap with some fancy kind of liquid aluminium and then repainted my roof. So new roof is installed, awesome, but will it be watertight??? and the answer finally came when I was in England!! We had some horrible downpours during the second day of GoodWood and luckily the car remained dry inside :D GO creativity.


After the sunroof I focused on making a new wooden dash that can be fitted underneath the current existing one. The whole reason of this new dash build was because I wanted to fit some nice 10 cm speakers and because my floppy cardboard dashboard part thingy was totally rotten away. You can see I made multiple pictures of this build. The skeleton of this dash is made from multiplex and is then coated/fitted with some fancy hardwood that matches the hardwoord floor of my dads living room. I then sanded the hardwood until the edges of the different pieces where even and smooth. Finally I coated the new dash with the same lacquer i used for the armrests.

then for the 'piece the resistance' , As you may have seen, I installed 4 speakers and a amplifier in the car. This is all powered by a radio. However, I intend to use my car for long drives and sightseeing. So a navigation system is really usefull! But I really hate those navigation system things you have to mount to the windows with a suction cup. So i bought a 2 DIN radio with touchscreen running on Android with build in navigation system. To make it look integrated I made a metal bracket that houses this 2DIN radio. This metal bracket is then upholstered by the same wood and lacquer I used for the new dashboard. Making it together look like a nice and almost stock system.

As for the sound quality and max volume levels. ehm just say, I used JBL speakers at the rear and it is JUST BLOODY LOUD!!! :D

Headlights:
Somehow I only had 1 outer headlight and 1 high beam headlight, So I had to improvise. I also had a set of main beams from a BMW e30, These lights from the BMW have projecter lenses. So the light output is way better compared to the standard headlights. Another added bonus of these E30 lights is that they have the same outer diameter as the stock Dolomite headlights (5 3/4 inch). So after some trail fitting, slight trimming of the headlight adjustment system and a 3D printed adapter ring I managed to fit BMW E30 headlights into my Dolomite. The outcome is pretty good. I can see quite a lot in the dark and because it are projector headlights I can change the headlight setting from LHD to RHD. This way really useful when I entered the harbour of Dover on our journey to Goodwood, because I only had to loosen 2 screws and didnt have to buy those ugly headlight stickers.


So it is finally all together, I refitted the seats and rear seat. Then I noticed that my front seat safety belts where also stuck and broken, I decided to go for safety and bought 2 new 3 point safetybelts for the front and 2 new 2point seatbealts for the rearseats.


DUTCH MOT TIME. Time was running out because we had to go to goodwood within 2 weeks!! If I would any major problems would appear, no GoodWood with the Dolly :S)
Oke, at this point i thought I was ready for the dutch MOT. Sadly enough this wasn't the case according to the mechanic. The sills needed to be welded all along (instead of the factory welding..) this is were I made a stupid mistake and I believed this man. He then welded the sills. He also realigned my headlights to the proper setting and I was given a freshly MOT that was valid for 2 years (Normally in the Netherlands the MOT is only valid for 1 year, but cars that are 40 years or older are granted with a 2 year MOT).

Recap,

In 1,5 years I rebuild a complete Dolomite and even fitted a cool radio with extra speakers, nice new dash, new electric sunroof and nice bedded boot. 1 thing i did not test properly was the engine. The engine has been in the red Dolomite and worked after some TLC. I then serviced the engine with new liquids and plugs and went off for a nice drive. So 2 days after the freshly granted MOT I went to visit my grandparents (140 km away). This was the first long journey and it was great!! the wheater was great, the car behaved great and the power was quite good. On the way back home, in the city, the motor started to give some clutch issue. It was not properly releasing the clutch. This was a big problem! The problem only occured after a long drive (warm fluids) and after readjusting the slave cylinder with some added washers it was good to go!!!

1 week later
GOODWOOD TIME!!!

I will post another special reply on this page only for my goodwood journey combined with all the troubles we had. And believe me we had some :P but I can already say that we made it back and forth on its own power.


I hoped you liked the update, I will post the GOODWOOD update tomorrow and will start with the V6 page ASAP.

Cheers,

Laurens

PS this is the story so far, the link with all the pictures will be posted within 4 hours.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 7:05 pm 
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Future Club member hopefully!
Future Club member hopefully!
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Joined: Tue Oct 03, 2006 5:52 pm
Posts: 7566
Location: Halifax, West Yorkshire
I don't see the point of starting a new thread. If it is the same car then continue this thread.

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Toledo Man

West Yorkshire Area Organiser & forum moderator
Meetings take place on the first Wednesday of the month at 8.00pm at The Old Brickworks, Wakefield Road, Drighlington, Bradford, BD11 1EA

1972 Dolomite 1850 auto (NYE 751L - Now for sale)
2003 Volvo XC90 D5 SE (PX53 OVZ - The daily driver)
2009 Mercedes-Benz W204 C200 CDI Sport (BJ58 NCV - The 2nd car)
1991 Toyota Celica GT (J481 ONB - another project car)
Former stable of SAY 414M (1974 Toledo), GRH 244D (1966 1300fwd), CDB 324L (1973 1500fwd), GGN 573J (1971 1500fwd), DCP 625S (1977 Dolomite 1300) & LCG 367N (1975 Dolomite Sprint) plus 5 Acclaims and that's just the Triumphs!

Check my blog at http://triumphtoledo.blogspot.com
My YouTube Channel with a bit of Dolomite content.

"There is only one way to avoid criticsm: Do nothing, say nothing and BE nothing." Aristotle


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 Post subject: Or…...
PostPosted: Mon Jan 09, 2017 12:23 pm 
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Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2007 1:22 pm
Posts: 6475
Location: Caithness, Scotland
Alternatively, do start a new thread for the V6 installation and include a link to this thread within the first post.





Ian.

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