The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Right i've been checking my loom and switches and have reached a conclusion

The headlight feed comes direct from the master light switch to the dipswitch not from the multiplug (the blue wire is actually PART of the dipswitch)

The sidelight wiring is not included in any part of the dipswitch loom, it's in the ignition switch plug.

So to get sidelights when connecting blue to brown at the master light switch, 2 things need to be wrong.

1) you've been supplied the wrong dipswitch and left the master light switch connected to the original dipswitch. (blue wire)

2) there has been a serious melting session inside the column casing which has given you a short between the old dipswitch loom and the ignition loom.

This means, unfortunately, that you (unlucky soul) are going to have to remove and strip out the column to fix it!

IF it helps, I can supply you with a good used 1850 dipswitch and ignition switch with the relevant looms and plugs attached, from a 77 car (white plugs)

Steve

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'73 2 door Toledo with Vauxhall Carlton 2.0 8v engine (The Carledo)
'78 Sprint Auto with Vauxhall Omega 2.2 16v engine (The Dolomega)
'72 Triumph 1500FWD in Slate Grey, Now with RWD and Carledo powertrain!

Maverick Triumph, Servicing, Repairs, Electrical, Recomissioning, MOT prep, Trackerjack brake fitting service.
Apprentice served Triumph Specialist for 50 years. PM for more info or quotes.

Update - update.

Thank you again all you top blokes offering help - which is still needed. Been away from the car for a month or so, busy with other, much less frustrating things!

Now, for my sins, about to re-engage with the car and it's 'flippin' headlamp snag!! Quick re-cap.

Everything works on the car apart from the headlamps. When selecting headlamps using the switch, the sidelights only come on. When selecting sidelights on the switch, the sidelights don't work, but the 'beam' warning light in the cluster flashes when the switch is moved from headlamps to sidelights...????

So far a s/H headlamp switch has been fitted and the wiring order checked and re-checked to ensure they're in the right place. Also the indicator stalk has been replaced with a new Lucas item - which achieved precisely nothing. Snag is as before.

I've noticed that using the flash function on the indicator stalk makes the headlamps flash in the normal way... not sure it was doing that the last time I worked on the car? Carledo's kind suggestion of supplying some spare loom around the steering column might well be what I do next as frankly, I don't know what else to try - unless any of you fellas can suggest anything...?!

My thanks in anticipation

With best regards

Andy H
'

I still stick with my prediction, the looms have melted together in the column, it's the only thing that fits the symptoms. The headlight flash works because it has a separate feed (permanent live?) not connected to the feed from the master light switch.

Steve

_________________
'73 2 door Toledo with Vauxhall Carlton 2.0 8v engine (The Carledo)
'78 Sprint Auto with Vauxhall Omega 2.2 16v engine (The Dolomega)
'72 Triumph 1500FWD in Slate Grey, Now with RWD and Carledo powertrain!

Maverick Triumph, Servicing, Repairs, Electrical, Recomissioning, MOT prep, Trackerjack brake fitting service.
Apprentice served Triumph Specialist for 50 years. PM for more info or quotes.

Duff headlights - update - progress and success at last! Thank you to all of you fellas who helped, advised/made suggestions - which was very helpful. Delighted to report that the lights now work - having stripped out the steering column wiring as suggested by Carledo - which was the logical next step - found, quite by accident, that the snag was the headlamp switch after all!

The original switch had a broken terminal, so I found a S/H one, assuming that it was serviceable. Lights wouldn't work - exactly the same symptoms and characterises as with the original switch - hence thinking the snag must be elsewhere. Randomly moving the switch around it's positions - the lights came on briefly - then went out. Rocking the switch caused the lights to come on and go off - eureka! At last - getting somewhere!

The car also needed a new cam cover gasket to replace the leaking one. Had obtained two of these from Rimmers in the last couple of years, finding them both to be a very poor fit - too long by about half an inch. Inevitably cutting the gasket to shorten it and make it fit - made it susceptible to leaks - Rimmers weren't much bothered when I pointed this out - saying simply that they'd had few complaints.

Rang TD Fitchett as they have original gaskets - which fit a treat - what a difference! They also supplied a S/H headlamp switch - charged an outrageous £30 for it - wasn't at all impressed with that. When the switch arrived it was dirty with corroded terminals - which increased my ire. At least after a full clean up, it got the car's headlamps working again - very welcome.

Last thing to do was change the carburettor rubber blocks which were perished, sagging and letting in air. £72 and 2 days later they were on the car which resulted in a major improvement. Next step is MOT test later this week. Be good to get the old beast back on the road!

With best regards

Andy H

Well done Andy, you got there in the end.
A couple of words of caution though - the reason the headlamp switches fail is because of poor design, they are not capable of sustained use, hence why you had two duff ones. Fit relays now, or the car will come back to you for the same fault.
The carb mountings are not the stuff they used to be, I expect they will fail in a year or two, that's a lot of money and a lot of effort. The club can supply solid alloy mounts to members, I think they're around £85, fit and forget.

Well done sir! Still can't understand why you didn't get function by by-passing the switch if that was the fault, put it down to Joe Lucas, the prince of darkness! If you'd asked I could have supplied you with another switch for a lot less than £30, tested and working! Oh well!

Even with ordinary sealed beam headlights, the loads are high for the marginal switches and wiring, so relays ARE a good idea to prevent a recurrence you could do without. And ANYTHING made these days which relies on rubber bonded to metal is deeply suspect, so the solid carb mounts are a good idea too. Your friend may not see it that way, but it's the experience of all of us here that it's true!

Steve

_________________
'73 2 door Toledo with Vauxhall Carlton 2.0 8v engine (The Carledo)
'78 Sprint Auto with Vauxhall Omega 2.2 16v engine (The Dolomega)
'72 Triumph 1500FWD in Slate Grey, Now with RWD and Carledo powertrain!

Maverick Triumph, Servicing, Repairs, Electrical, Recomissioning, MOT prep, Trackerjack brake fitting service.
Apprentice served Triumph Specialist for 50 years. PM for more info or quotes.

Thanks fellas. I've done some welding on the car too - not much, bottom section of OSF wing had corroded - and turned out to be largely filler! I made up a repair section from a sill repair panel designed for a Talbot Express van...!!

Then realised that the club offer a proper repair section....!! Murphy's law! It's actually a pretty reasonable fit - when it goes into paint they'll need to do some filling to get the contours right - but at least there's solid metal there now.

Will take your advice on the fitting of relays for the lights - if you have any intel/advice on that, I'd be most appreciative. Thank you.

The carb blocks...now thereby hangs a tale! This is the third set of rubber blocks its had in 10 years - about 3 years ago, knowing of the alloy blocks as a fit and forget option, I suggested to the dear old chap who owns the car to order some. Should've been as simple as that - but it wasn't unfortunately! For a completely unfathomable reason, the engine idled at about 1,800 rpm - even turning the idle screws fully out, so they were doing nothing...it refused to run any slower...?!

Next I took the carbs off (converted them from wax stat to solid adjustable jets years ago) and stripped both. Couldn't find a thing wrong - put them back - still the same...?! Frustrated and confused, out of desperation I put the rubber blocks back...and hey presto it idled at 700 rpm as good as gold and ran well throughout the rev range! Bewildered by the inexplicable, almost nonsensical oddity of this, the owner reported the problem back to the club. Not surprisingly - they were also bewildered - and couldn't pinpoint what could possibly be causing it...?!

With the motor then running well, the alloy blocks got returned for a refund - and it's been running on the short lived rubber ones since. They were really bad when I took them off this time - but with the new ones now in place - the 1850 overture is again sweet and crisp to the ear!

Any ideas guys...?

I REMEMBER THAT ONE! It was posted on here, no-one could figure out why this happened and a set of rubber mounts 'cured' the problem.
My guess still is scratched mating surfaces meaning the gaskets couldn't fill the scratches, but I'm sure you thought of that too.

When you fitted the alloy blocks did you slacken the linkage between each carb then tighten when the mounts were in position? If the linkage was twisted and the rubber mounts allowed for it the solid mounts wont move to compensate so maybe holding one of the throttles open? Aside from that air leaks of course can cause the high idle.

Tony

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Membership 2014047

Two items here I hope I can help with.
The 1850 Dolomite rubber carb; isolators are pretty substantial bits of rubber /metal. If you take one off and look at it the rubber is 8.5 mm thick. So the apparant cracking / crazing of the surface of the rubber is neither here nor there. It has to be really serious rubber decay before they need replacing.
But if they really do need replacing after mega-miles try and get a pair with the original manufacturer "Olestra" imprinted in. They are still around on E-Bay ( other equally excellent sites are around).
The Club aluminium ones should perform just the same.
Headlight relays: Here are a couple of .ppt sketches I did to try to illustrate the point.
HTH,
Tony.