When I set out to restore my Sprint, described elsewhere on this forum, the sole purpose was to recreate a car which I could then drive and enjoy. I am happy to report that the car is being driven on an almost daily basis, summer and winter. It attracts quite a lot of comment. In part because it is an older car and is in excellent condition but I think too that it is partly the colour. It stand out midst the modern fleet which seem to be quite drab in colour, mainly silvers, greys, or whites or some other quite muted colour. People will stop me and reminisce about cars which they have owned and now long gone. This thread then will I hope, be about the joys and the trials and tribulations of running a Dolomite, where generally the source of all but the basic consumable items required to keep it running have to be sourced from the other side of the world. I don’t expect it to be too much of a problem and I do intend to keep driving the car for as long as I hold a current driver’s licence.
I start with a photo of the car as it stands at present.
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That is the view we have today with the winter snows now visible on the mountains some 40 miles away.
The car has now done well in excess of 15,000 miles since the restoration was completed. That is represented by two oil and filter changes and numerous full tanks of petrol. I tend to fill to the brim each time I fuel the car so that I can monitor the fuel consumption and it has been pretty consistent around the 30 miles per gallon mark.
What has surprised me is the ease with which the car starts. The ignition system is absolutely standard, with no special spark plugs fitted, (I like to remove and change mine on a regular basis). The engine fires almost instantaneously although with the advent of winter here it occasionally takes several turns of the starter motor and full choke to start when it is cold. Time I suspect to change the plugs. When I ran a couple of 2.5PI Triumphs years ago I used to monitor the fuel consumption in those cars and acting on the advice of a couple of Lucas trained fuel injection specialists, change the plugs and points as soon as the petrol consumption went up. Those cars were very reliable and the first did well in excess of 150,000 miles before in the case of that car, somebody came along and made me an offer to buy it, at a price I just could not refuse.
Those cars were built here in New Zealand in the local assembly plant alongside Toledo’s and 1850 Dolomites. Sprints like my car were imported fully built from the UK.
Nothing major has happened in the first 15,000 miles which has caused me great concern. It refused to start early one evening – the starter motor refused to turn over, but I was able to bump start it and drive home. The problem was the wiring harness to the gearbox which had worked loose at the connector which sits above the clutch housing and in doing so had disconnected the feed to the starter solenoid. In the automatics there is an inhibitor switch which will not allow the engine to start unless it is in neutral or park. That same circuit is permanently looped out in the manual gearbox wiring harness which shares that same plug in the main wiring harness. A squirt or two of switch cleaner and the connecting, disconnecting and reconnecting of the connector a couple of times fixed that problem.
I mentioned in my restoration thread the early problems I had with the carburettors flooding. That problem seems to have been cured with the fitting of an inline fuel filter. I have changed that filter once and it is probably due for another change. I suspect I have cleared most of the fine rust that was sitting in the fuel tank and in the fuel lines.
Recently though I noticed that there was a slight weep of water/antifreeze from the waterpump when I put the car up on the ramps which I use when I change the oil and check underneath the car. I have been topping the overflow tank up on a fairly regular basis. The good lads at Rimmers who provide us with excellent service out here were very quick to post out the various seals and bearing which I require. I was able to purchase the several different sized o-rings required locally. The water pump will be overhauled sometime soon. I have in the meantime acquired a Porsche 924 radiator and will overhaul the water pump when I change to this slightly larger radiator and fit an electric fan. The radiator comes complete with fan switch but it will mean that I will have to fabricate some mounts for the radiator itself. Geoff – gmsclassics, has fitted similar radiators into his cars and has sent me some excellent photos showing what he has done.
There is a very slight miss when accelerating at about the 1800 rpm mark. I have changed the plug leads but that has not cured it.
I have still to replace a noisy wheel bearing in the rear axle. That has been put on hold as I am still short of four 7/16 wheel studs required to replace the 3/8 studs for the back axle but once I manage to find four I will complete that task.
A few weeks ago I picked up a very large stone which has starred the windscreen. It came from under the rear wheel of a large truck which was travelling in the opposite direction on the open road. It has taken the local windscreen suppliers several weeks to find a replacement. They have located one in Australia. It’s the sort of thing we expect just as the paintwork is showing the odd mark from stones and gravel being flicked up into the path of the car.
I have just recently replaced the left hand steering boot and will have the wheel alignment checked shortly. Just prior to changing the boot I cured a somewhat sloppy feeling in the steering by fitting one of my spare (second hand) intermediate steering column shafts. The top universal, the knuckle, had become quite sloppy; the victim I suspect of probably coping with spilt brake fluid when the previous owner filled the brake reservoir above it.
Those of us living in this part of the world are extremely envious of you folk living in the UK for parts like this column and universal joint assembly, are available off the shelf from places like Rimmers and can be delivered to you almost overnight whereas we have to wait for at least a week and often more, if parts are required urgently. Often therefore we finish up making do with what we have on hand.
I have moved the rear Rimmers Stainless Sports muffler forward about half an inch. When I installed it I fabricated my own muffler mount which bolts up through the floor of the boot up under the petrol tank and attaches to the back of the muffler. The muffler had worked its way back a little and was leaking through the slots where it joins the intermediate pipe which comes up over the back axle. I am impressed with this exhaust system, I was a little concerned that it might be a little noisy in the cabin but it is not at all intrusive.
I have one other task to do and that is to replace one of my new – only done 15,000 miles, adjustable rear shock absorbers. They had been fitted on the car in the early stages of the restoration and I suspect that the spear rusted over 20 or more years while the car sat because it had not been working at all and it is now allowing the oil to escape. It is unlikely that I will be able to find replacement shock absorbers in this country and my only option at present is to bring a set in from the UK. The cost of the freight however is more than the value of the shock absorbers themselves so I might have to wait until I find someone shipping a car out here.
The car has displaced my Sunbeam Lotus as my daily driver which has now been relegated to the back of the garage. While the Sunbeam has significantly more horsepower it is not nearly as sophisticated, nor as pleasant to drive as the Sprint. I have restored this Sunbeam and it sits alongside another car, a Lotus Elan, which I built from a kit years ago when I was living in the UK. I have restored that car too.
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So unlike Mad Mart who seems intent on rebuilding just about every Sprint in the UK, I have restored several different cars although I confess that if another, restorable, Sprint came my way I would probably be prepared to do one more restoration before I hang my tools up.
I have acquired another 1850 Dolomite but it has a lot more rust in critical areas than what I feel confident to remove. I am tempted to do a panel beating and car restoration course at my local Polytechnic and use this car as my project. David - Davy67 went to a huge amount of trouble to find me a manual overdrive gearbox for this car and I owe it to him to see that it is installed and driven in something suitable.
One of my UK colleagues, Jeff, with whom I worked with in the UK in the late 1960’s shipped his Jaguar out here at the height of our summer just now past. He was part of a group of seven or eight other Jaguar owners who also shipped their cars out here. They enjoyed a month’s driving in this part of the world and then shipped their cars back to the UK again, laden I suspect, with cases of good New Zealand wine. While Jeff was here he and his partner Linda drove to this house and I could not resist a photo of the two rather classy cars sitting side by side outside my house.
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20150201-5268Pw Sprint and Jaguar.jpg [ 211.08 KiB | Viewed 3100 times ]
I shall continue this running report as and when I think I have something worthwhile to say, something which I would hope, encourage and help others as they set out to enjoy driving cars from this Triumph family that out here too are now taxed and treated as something rather vintage.
Robert
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What a fantastic read.
