The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Hi All, I'm about to replace the runners on my front seats but am a bit confused on where the spacers etc are supposed to go, the parts manual is particularly unclear.
Does anyone have good pictures of what goes where, and how many?
Thanks in advance.

To confuse you further, are they thick spacers, or thin ones? You need two thin ones or just the one thick one!!

Sometimes the thin ones are taped together...

The spacers go between the runners and the floor, 1 thick one or 2 thin ones per corner of the seat.

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)
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Excellent, thanks. I take it both seats are the same? The seats I bought are a hodgepodge, but the driver seat has a much better bottom frame, even though I've had to dress the threads for the pivots.
Both seats have excellent diaphragms.

You need the spacers under the runners to clear the carpet. The OE carpets have spacer shaped holes in them.
Be sure to clean out the captive nuts in the floor with a tap or they can go stiff with corrosion and break off, which is a nightmare.

Jonners

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Note from Admin: sadly Jon passed away in February 2018 but his humour and wealth of knowledge will be fondly remembered by all. RIP Jonners.

Driver's side now done, what a job! Discovered the hard way I couldn't use a spring washer under the bolt or the runners catch the bolt. Also discovered the head of the bolts has to be aligned with the flats in line with the runners, or the runners catch the heads. They're the original style screws.
Thanks for the warning about the captive nuts, all done some years ago, one had to be welded on after the floor got torn. I remember this happening back in the late seventies too! Now they're liberally coated in coppa-slip each time. The new seat was a scrapper as the beading was bust and the handle for the back adjust was well out of line. I stripped the seat to see how it could be aligned - it can't, must've been some force put on it.

I did discover a captive nut inboard from the one used, and it is clear all the way through to the carpet!! I guess I'll put a 3/8 unf screw in there and seal it up. Maybe this is for the narrower seat models, but why would it not be plugged?

The driver seat is now much more solid with the newer style frame, it slides back and forth easier too.

On one of my seats I have 'repaired' the beeding by glueing in a short length of insulated copper wire of just about 1mm diameter, insert one end into the beading, allow to dry, then glue and insert the other end, hold together till dry.

On the adjustment arm mech, the rod is welded to a square bar on the other side of the seat, I managed to disassemeble mine and convert a left hand seat to a right hand seat by welding the mechanism the other way round.

Malcolm

I guess it was cheaper to build the shells all the same with seat positions for both widths.
Not sure if early ones also came like this. Must have a look sometime....

Jonners

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Note from Admin: sadly Jon passed away in February 2018 but his humour and wealth of knowledge will be fondly remembered by all. RIP Jonners.

My 1980s car seats have the black runners with the hard to get off nuts, however my 1976 doner car has the bare metal ones.

Seems to be a backward step.

At the moment I have one seat where you have to lift the lever to slide it and one where you have to move it sideways.

This is a bit off post but what is the best way to clean the seats? mine are really dirty and I mean REALLY dirty.

Many years ago I put my Dolomite into the local village's BL dealership for a service (that shows how long ago it was).
The driver's seat came back filthy - don't think they put a cover over it and someone with very greasy overalls must have driven it about. The car had the light tan upholstery. I was furious, the only thing I had available was a 'squirty foam' cleaner, possibly Simoniz branded. It worked a treat. Since then I've always used it on all my vehicles. Spray on, leave a bit, then wipe off with a clean cloth (tea towels work well for this )
Hope that helps.

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Mark

1980 Dolomite 1850HL Auto
1977 Dolomite 1500

Way back in the early-1980s, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my four-door 1974 Triumph Toledo 1300 (registered in mid-November 1974), had captive nuts under the floor, for both the original, narrow black leatherette covered front Toledo seats with no head restraints and the wide dark blue cloth-covered front Dolomite HL seats with head restraints, which I substituted, for reasons of comfort and safety.

I cannot remember how many spacers I used with the Dolomite HL seats, but I recall that the seat runners of the original Toledo seats had damaged the carpet.

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Regards.

Nigel A. Skeet

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Upgraded 1974 Triumph Toledo 1300 (Toledo / Dolomite HL / Sprint hybrid)

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