The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

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PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2016 9:33 pm 
Quote:
Hi Dan

This looks a great little car. :D

Please could you let me know the part number and where you sourced the light LUK clutch cover?

Cheers

Tom.
LUK 122003510

http://m.onlinecarparts.co.uk/luk-966071.html

:D

---

I had it running today for a few minutes, updates to follow!


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PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2016 10:57 pm 
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Perfect.

Thanks. :D

_________________
1979 Carmine Dolomite Sprint
1974 Saphire Dolomite Sprint (Soon to be tastefully modified)
2005 Mystic blue BMW M3
2004 Mystic Blue 330d
2001 Peugeot 206 Hdi180


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PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 8:39 pm 
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Hi - Looks like you are doing a good job to the car. I suspect the engine had been swapped since I had the car (that was 10 years or so ago). It did several rallies before I had it too. It was already Damson & Cream and the 'funny' colours were in fact BMC colours from late sixties/very early 1970's as a few works cars had these colours at that time. The shell was great back then, so looks as thought still fairly good. It was running correctly ported 2 inch SU's. It was fairly rapid - I think 180 bhp or so from memory. Anyway, good luck with it.


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PostPosted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 9:32 pm 
Quote:
Hi - Looks like you are doing a good job to the car. I suspect the engine had been swapped since I had the car (that was 10 years or so ago). It did several rallies before I had it too. It was already Damson & Cream and the 'funny' colours were in fact BMC colours from late sixties/very early 1970's as a few works cars had these colours at that time. The shell was great back then, so looks as thought still fairly good. It was running correctly ported 2 inch SU's. It was fairly rapid - I think 180 bhp or so from memory. Anyway, good luck with it.
It still had the 2 inch SUs when i had it on a ported manifold. Shell is still very good and im hoping to keep it that way! Hopefully with this new engine it will be back around 180hp.


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PostPosted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 10:01 pm 
Apologies for not updating this yet, I've been busy fettling it. Having got to this stage i failed to take any more pictures because of greasy hands.

Image Image
Image Image Image

I will get some more pictures of the electric pump setup etc tomorrow.

Ive had a couple problems since the engine went in;
1. When trying to start it the engine wouldn't consistently fire. It would crank to above 300rpm/nearly idle but wouldn't actually run. A bit of head scratching and playing showed this to be a missing bush/spring in the dizzy cap!
Unfortunately due to the arcing this cracked the cap.

2. While running in the cam the engine died and wouldn't restart. Incredibly this was found to be a sheered distributor drive roll pin! So the gear was spinning but the lobe wasn't. A replacement from the other Sprint sorted that.

3. After a day of running it started refusing to run on all cylinders. A new set of plugs cured this and im hoping it stays that way.

4. Now this one is annoying! Im not sure why but since this engine has been in the clutch release mechanism has a tremendous rattle between 3 and 4k. It can be shutup by easing pressure on the pedal. Worn pins on the bearing thrower? For now I've drilled the bellhousing and put a strong spring between it and the clutch arm to hold a constant preload on the release bearing to take up any slack. Considering some cars utilise a constant preload this should be fine but why it's only started rattling now i dont know. Annoying considering i could've sorted it when the engine was out if i knew about it!

I've also swapped the idle jets for 55s rather than 60s due to the wideband showing an overly rich mixture at low rpm running. I thought now was a good time to remedy that as running in an engine and a rich mixture isn't advised.


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PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2016 12:58 am 
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I'm surprised that it isn't leaking oil as the semicircular rubber seal doesn't look to be a very good fit in the back of the head (pic 1).


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PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2016 1:28 am 
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Won't that mean the release bearing is always in contact? I thought there was supposed to be a gap and the bearing
only turns with the clutch pressed. If you have it always in contact the bearing will have a very short life.

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.


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PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2016 7:45 am 
Quote:
I'm surprised that it isn't leaking oil as the semicircular rubber seal doesn't look to be a very good fit in the back of the head (pic 1).
Ah yes, they were changed before it ran. They were significantly smaller, perhaps 1850 ones?


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PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2016 7:48 am 
Quote:
Won't that mean the release bearing is always in contact? I thought there was supposed to be a gap and the bearing
only turns with the clutch pressed. If you have it always in contact the bearing will have a very short life.

Jonners
Yes, but the noise is so bad i cannot put up with it! Some cars (all modern Fords) use a constant 5lb~ preload anyway so if they can last for 10 years why can't this one? Even if it does fail it only means the box has to come out which means i can sort it properly.


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PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2016 7:17 pm 
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Location: Netherlands
Liked the write-up and picture of your Sprintified Toledo in the Dolly-Mixtrure magazine Dan! :thumbsup:

Is it painted Triumph magenta red, or is the colour form another marque?

Any (technical) updates or do we have to wait for the next magazine? :wink:

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Ronald
Club Triumph Holland - Dolomite Registrar




www.triumphowners.com/tahitisprint


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 29, 2016 6:02 pm 
Quote:
Liked the write-up and picture of your Sprintified Toledo in the Dolly-Mixtrure magazine Dan! :thumbsup:

Is it painted Triumph magenta red, or is the colour form another marque?

Any (technical) updates or do we have to wait for the next magazine? :wink:
Thanks. I work for Ford and we have an in house bodyshop so it was painted there. I went for the nearest match of Magenta from our colour chart but it came out a bit lighter. It's amazing how much the colour changes in different lights though.
A lot has happened with this car recently I must find time to write it up. It bent all 8 inlet valves last month 2 weeks before a track day! :shock: That was a bit of a nightmare.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 2:16 pm 
WOW

That was my car, I built it from a road car in the late 1990s... I've come over all funny now!

Think I got it in about 1996, bought from a bloke in Lightwater or Bagshot in Surrey, did the Club Triumph RBRR that year (lots of minor problems all the way round), then around 1997-8 started playing with it, bought a rotted-out Sprint as a donor car and converted it to Sprint power.

It started life as burgundy with the tan interior, and was the absolute spitting image of what had been my first proper car, way back in the mid 1980s. When I bought it, it was solid and just needed new tyres and brake hoses to get it MoT'd and I ran it as my daily car for a while (though horrified at how 'odd' it felt when compared with contemporary cars!)

It might be that the block/short motor is the original one, it was always a bit smokey at idle but ran clean when you opened the throttle. I put a Detroit Locker into it, it sounds as if the diff in there now is not that one! The DL simply locks up under power, unlocks completely when you lift off. So you simply get tones of oversteer everywhere! I put in a mild cam and the HS8s, plus the later 12-vane pump. On the rollers it was showing something like 115bhp at the wheels. Never had any cooling problems, it always ran at a steady temperature.

It never ever had nitrous injection though!

I found that (from memory) Subary Justy front discs fitted the hub nicely, same diameter and PCD, though the spigot needed opening out by about 1mm (small job for the machine shop at work) to fit. The Princess calipers went on easily too, and I was always happy with the brakes.

Can't remember a lot about the suspension, I think I put poly bushes in for everything that I could which was the radius arm, top wishbone and ARB, and all the rears, but I couldn't get the TCA inner bush in poly. I'd tried a Triumphtune solid rack mount on a previous Dolly Sprint rally car and it used to bend racks for a hobby, so I stuck with rubber mounts on this one. The springs were custom-made (about 300lb in the front, 220 or so at the back from memory), think I had Koni dampers all round.

I put the cage in, seam-welded the engine bay and (I think) the main seams inside/underneath, plus a fire-wall where the back seat was and a Spitfire tank above the axle - it raised the COG slightly but better than having the tank right where you'd smack it if you went off. I put in Perspex for the rear screen, rear side and door windows, and a Triplex Ten-Twenty laminated screen in the front. The front wings were rotten so GRP wings went on and the front looked reasonably tidy then!

It was a handful, but boy was it fun to drive. I may have a few more photos of it early on, if you're interested :-)

Ian.


Attachments:
IP Toledo 1A.jpg
IP Toledo 1A.jpg [ 194.05 KiB | Viewed 2094 times ]
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 4:22 pm 
PS: back when I was doing the conversion, I was interested in keeping it within the HRCR Historic rally car regs; I don't know how proscriptive they are nowadays but in those days you could basically do anything to a new-build historic-class car, that had been done to them when they were 'modern'. So if you could find evidence of a previous car having been built in a particular way, you could do it.

In about 1973, one Ian "Del" Lines built and campaigned a 2-door Toledo Sprint rally car. Back in the late 1990s I went to see him at Weston-Super-Mare and he was a mine of information about the car he had and gave me (a.) lots of encouragement and (b.) a letter confirming some of the key mods that he had carried out on his car, which then gave me the historic provenance to build mine to the same spec. I'm guessing that letter is now lost along with - from the sound of it - much of the spares package I'd built up :-(

As at 2005, Del Lines was still active in the Rover SD1 Club as the club's Technical Advisor, but carrying out his duties remotely from his home in Marbella - hopefully he is still going strong (he will be 75 this year).


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 5:06 pm 
Some very interesting information there! It had the same brakes and suspension when I got it. I had to replace the discs last year after they warped, took me a while to find out what they were! I swapped them with Corolla AE86 discs which also needed the centre bore opening about 2mm, so they must be the same as the justy!
Although the Konis were good it now has GAZ coilovers and 500/175lb springs for track. It also had glass all round when I got it.
The diff it originally had was absolutely S****e! I didn't know what it was but my god was it tight, it did good donuts!! Unfortunately it caused too much end float on the Shafts so it had to go. I sold it to someone with a 2000 saloon in Bristol which was being built for rallying.
The shell is still pretty solid, it will need a couple patches of welding next year but overall it's very good. I have changed pretty much everything in it. The engine it came with had a standard cam (could be a light regrind?) and HS8s. It smoked like hell but made 165hp at the fly once I had it on 45s. Unfortunately as you can see earlier in the thread it melted a piston but after stripping it down it was knackered anyway. Bores were scored and the jackshaft bearing was worn to the point it had play. The engine in it now is an animal on the road with the 4.1 diff. There are videos on YouTube of it if youre interested.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 5:10 pm 
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IqvP6173KiE
There are more on my channel.
Like I said in the other thread if you'd like to see it again or have a go give me a message :)


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