The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Well done mate, a lesser man would have quit with the problems you've had! Now all thats left is to drive and enjoy your creation, the best bit, in my humble opinion! BTW are you going to TDCIR next weekend?

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.

Thanks
Wish I could go. But sadly I am in Portugal that weekend...bad timing otherwise I would have gone
Ian

Development update...

Decided to change the engine mounting arrangement. Now subframe mounted using simple 2.5mm thick brackets welded to the subframe. Rubbers are 40mm multi-purpose ones for kit cars. Engine now sits just 2mm off the steering rack so it is as low as it can go. I have not run the car on the road yet but vibration from the drivers seat is much reduced even at idle.

AVO front shocks. Took these off to fit aluminium spring platforms underneath the top mounts. Previously I had pieces of tube welded to the bottom of the mount but these were noisy as they were a tight fit agianst the outside of the spring. When I removed the shocks I found the bottom poly bush on both shocks was destroyed with the inner sleeve actually rubbing against the shock eyelet. Not happy - these have only done 7k miles! Searching on the net reveals these bushes to be useless, so I will speak with Jigsaw next week to see whats best. I'm thinking of welding a 36mm sleeve of 1 inch OD and 7/8's ID to the shock eyelet and fitting a standard sprint bush instead.

Xmas present - Adjustable front tie bars from Sprintspeed - now fitted awaiting 4 wheel alignment.

Birthday present - Complete new carpet - Fitted

Another Birthday present - classic look radio - fitted, along with parcel shelf.

Max rpm - now raised to 6500 through the Megajolt ECU.

Other things to do.

Change out sump gasket- again!

Fit sprint slave cylinder to manta gearbox to replace old humber? slave cylinder that has a slight weep.

Fit Trans X LSD ££££££











Cheers for now
Ian

very nice. love that grey and black interior, those door cards are a rare colour scheme and you have some nice interior mods, looks like a great car

The bolt that goes trough the bearing/bush of the lower arm has a nice rounded special shape head for not to grind in the steeringrack gaitors.

Jeroen

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Classic Kabelboom Company. For all your wiring needs. http://www.classickabelboomcompany.com

I am secretly quite pleased that you have reverted to a subframe mounted arrangement Ian. I honestly don't know how you persevered with the previous set up as the vibration must have been quite fierce. My car also had the subframe set up with bespoke mounting brackets and, whatever else it was, it was smooth. After a while I had to fabricate an adjustable engine top mount to the n/s inner wing as the side to side rocking of the engine grew too great over time.

I have said it before, but the car is a credit to you and it is nice to see another Redtop on the road.

I miss mine but have other crazed ideas now, unfortunately not Dolomite shaped.

Keep up the good work!

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Martin.

2021 Land Rover Discovery Sport HSE PHEV
2021 Dacia Duster 1.3 TCe
1963 Austin A40 Rally Car
2021 Honda Cross Tourer Highlander

Looks Bostin Ian! Those engine mounts look oddly familiar! Hope they work well for you, the AVO type mounts are great for compo but not so good for daily work! I had heard the rep of the AVO shock bushes (and Spax) which is why I went for GAZ, Ive only got just over 2k on them but so far so good and Santa has bought me a spandy new pair of rear ones from Rimmers winter sale too! I should be getting the Carledo back from the bodyshop in the next week or so and will fit them then, along with the rear end polybush set I bought last year with my birthday money, then I can start to use the line-lock without the axle jumping out of the chassis!

All the best 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.

Ta

Thanks
Took one look at Carledo's simple subframe bracket and thought hmmm thats the way to go!
I'll check on the engine rocking but I am hopefull it will be very stable. Yours I recall had a long length bracket hooking up to the original sprint mount which is way forward the engine centre line? Perhaps it was this that promoted rocking?
Ian

Santa's a good lad isn't he...

HMM! I've not been troubled by engine rock at all, trust me I would know cos some of my clearances are EXTREMELY tight, sump to rack, exhaust to subframe, exhaust to body etc.
The only slight problem I encountered was with the engine mount rubbers which settled over time, allowing the sump to hit the rack but a couple of shims soon fixed that and the sinking has not recurred.
I suspect you may be OK even from this as I used Volvo 240 mounts (well I had some lying about, waste not want not!) and I think your generic kitcar ones will probably be a bit stiffer.
Can't wait to get back in mine now, its been in the shop having a thorough body and paint session since the beginning of October and I really miss the little b****r

Steve

Oh yes, I too love the grey/black doorcards, are they original or custom? I have bought some leather Rover 45 seats for my Sprint and was seriously tempted by a grey set but plumped for black in the end cos I didn't think I'd be able to get doorcards in anything but black or brown!

_________________
'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.

Yes original. Seats were also grey non headrest type. Now in the loft...

Ian

AVO shock bush mod



Having destroyed the original AVO polybush and sleeve after 7k miles I needed a more robust solution than just replacing crap with crap.




So I have sleeved the AVO shock eyelet with 1 inch OD 1.5mm wall thickness steel tube. Welded it in place and then used an original rear shock bush. The effective load area for the bush has now doubled from 16mm to 32mm and the bush width of 38mm is perfect for fitting to the car so no spacers, rattles or movement.



The new bush sleeve is 7/16 bolt size instead of the normal 3/8's so the wishbones and top mount bracket were drilled to 11.00mm to accommodate the new bolt size.

Had a quick run in the car yesterday and all seems well. I am not sure how long the bush will last with it being a smaller diameter than original but I am hopeful it will be OK. Replacements are only £1.67 each anyway!

Also I am very impressed with the adjustable tie bars. I fitted them with a 5mm shortening vs original to give a bit more castor. Not had the geometry set up yet but the car feels much better, lighter steering and turn in is much improved.

Having now sorted the sump leak out with a new sump gasket and some adjustment to the rear flange of the sump it looks like I have a rear crankshaft seal leak!

So I decided to complete some of the other development bits I had intended to do. Namely 4 wheel alignment on a hunter machine.

The pics below show the results. I have adjustable tie bars for castor and these were set to 5 deg instead of the normal 2 3/4 deg +-1%. I believe this to be inline with what others have done i.e. shorten the tie bar length by 5-10mm.

Camber is showing slightly negative but equal both sides. The car has height adjustable avo's and is lowered about 2 inch but not drastically lowered so I am thinking this accounts for the slight out of spec figures (spec is 3/4 deg positive +- 1 deg). Slight toe in as per original spec.

Rear photo is just a reference as it's no adjustable. Ignore the reference to an MX-5 that was just to get the machine going with a car that has adjustable castor.

Drives great. I might even plan a track day now it's nearly complete.

Ian

i have just spent the last couple of hours reading this thread,and i have to say, trully outstanding build, its nice to see proper intelligent engineering put into practice and this along with carledos build are going to greatly help as i am just this week about to start a similar build with my tolly although i havent decided on final engine yet i will be using the omega box, just undecided as wheather to use saab 93 turbo engine or omega 2.2 n/a, anyway may you enjoy many miles of smiles you have earned it