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 Post subject: Re: '77 Dolly 1300
PostPosted: Tue Apr 29, 2014 1:19 am 
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Quote:
Not surprised it wont start - to turn it would be loosing so much electrical power in the burnt commutator there would be nothing left to fire the ignition...:-)
Spark has always been pretty damn feeble...
Quote:
Duff engine earth strap?
Got a new one, just need to fit it!
Quote:
You say you tightened the nut on the end and then it started smoking - could you have moved the lead round as you did this so it is now touching an earth point?
If the solenoid is clicking and smoking it suggests a dead short, not a starter fault.
Potentially, we took it off as we figured it had shorted out internally somewhere...

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1976 Triumph Dolomite 1850HL "Trevor, the Tenaciously Terrible Triumph" - Rotten as a pear and dissolving into a field in rural Aberdeenshire.
1977 Triumph Dolomite 1300 "Daisy, the Dilapidated Dolomite of Disaster" - Major resto, planned for completion 2021.
1983 Triumph Acclaim L "Angus, the Arguably Adequate Acclaim - On the road as a daily driver.


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 Post subject: Re: '77 Dolly 1300
PostPosted: Fri May 11, 2018 7:25 pm 
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So, er. 2014... That was a while ago...

Essentially the car continued to be an utter pain in the arse although with fitting electronic ignition it became more open to actually starting. I found if used regularly it generally behaved a lot better so I tried to use it as often as possible. I also reversed it into a parked Ford Fiesta in the works car park and bent the rear outer valance, the inner valance, the boot lid, the bumper, the N/S bumper corner and the corner of the N/S/R wing. It cost £800 to have the Ford repaired and the bodyshop said they were too scared to work on the Dolomite in case it fell to bits.

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In Feb 2015 I moved out of my parent's house and into my own place while using my 1850HL as daily transport.

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The 1850HL immediately failed it's MOT despite having nearly no advisories the previous year, the 1300 was drafted into daily use while I got the 1850 fixed. However the cost of keeping the 1300 running in both money and time meant that the 1850 never got fixed, over the 8 months I used the 1300 as daily transport it clocked up 12,000 miles and was very nearly reliable. Except for all the problems.

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The alternator died (twice), the exhaust snapped in half, the manifold/downpipe studs sheared, the car burned though 5 litres of 20w50 a week, the handbrake never worked for more than a month at a time, the rear wheel arches started peeling off, the front wings developed holes, the electrics would randomly die and the clutch reservoir needed topped up weekly.

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Eventually, two days before it's MOT in October, I left work to fine that,

A - The tired starter motor was now dead.
B - The clutch master had popped.

The car was push started and I drove it back to my parent's place with no clutch with the intention of fixing it in their garage over the weekend. On Saturday Dad informed me they'd bought my a car, a 2005 Civic, and urged me to get rid of the Dolomites. Naturally I refused, in retaliation the car then completely refused to start for the next several months. My parents then announced they were moving house in December of 2016.

I started renting a garage near my house for £70 a month which I really didn't have and had the car moved there. The garage was damp and had no lighting or electricity and technically was for storage use only, no tinkering allowed. I decided to ignore that last bit but ran into several problems. The car still wouldn't start, then it wouldn't draw fuel, then the battery kept dying, I also couldn't get the clutch bled.

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Then in February of 2017 I had a mental breakdown and lost my job. I decided to make a clean break and move to Glasgow with what funds I had left. While doing this I continued storing the 1300 at the garage in rural Aberdeenshire, 200 miles away from my new home, because I'm nothing if not stupi.. Erm, stubborn.

Towards the end of 2017 I realised I couldn't afford to store a car that I had no ability to actually go and work on so I hatched a plan. I would travel to Aberdeenshire on a Friday, work on the car for the whole of Saturday and then drive it 200 miles to Glasgow on the Sunday, namely to a pre-booked MOT at my local garage on the Monday. Clearly this plan couldn't possibly go wrong so I roped a friend into helping me by driving me up to the car and providing local transport and then tailing me back.

In November I travelled up, staying at my parent's new place at Strathdon. Two days of frantic work on the car then took place despite miserable freezing weather.

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The fuel pump was replaced, then found to be DOA, the old one was refitted and fuel manually pumped up to it. Once it didn't have to deal with massive air pockets it worked! The throttle and clutch cables were replaced as the old ones had seized solid, the clutch master cylinder I'd re-sealed was fitted,electrical contacts were cleaned and re-wired, the ignition wires were faffed with and the ignition timing tweaked while turning the engine over until finally, after years of sitting the car fired into life.
The most difficult job was bleeding the clutch, we didn't managed to get it working until 8pm on the Saturday. Working in a howling gale by torch light outside the garage we would periodically start the car to warm our hands on the engine... I drove the car back into the garage under it's own power and we retired for the night.

The following day we returned to the car. Further tweaking was done with the ignition timing, lights were checked, I took the car for a spin around the yard and did a few emergency stops, the tyres were inflated, fluids topped up and I declared us good to go in the mid afternoon. Then plan was to drive from my garage in Cullen, over to Huntly to brim the petrol tank, then down the country via the Cairngorms, through Perth and then onto the dual carriageway/motorway for the final stretch to Glasgow. The theory being I didn't want to drive any faster than 50-55mph at most and if the car proved to be a nightmare early on in the trip I could feasibly abandon it at my parent's place in Strathdon.

It turned out my worries were needless, aside from a couple of stops to tweak the ignition timing and top up the oil the Dolly made the trip with relative ease, although some of the uphill stretches had to be taken at 35mph in 3rd! As I'd planned/hoped we managed to clear the mountains by sunset and I arrived back in Glasgow 5 hours after leaving Moray utterly exhausted.

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The following morning the Triumph had it's MOT and failed on some fairly minor things.

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I had the welding done and new rear shocks fitted by the garage, the rest of the issues have been sorted by myself. There was a point around Christmas time that I got tired of working on the car at the side of the road in the rain/snow/cold:

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So I sent it to the garage for them to look at. They never got around to it in the 2 months they had the car so I took it back t'other week (and left a Triumph Acclaim to have some shocks fitted) and sorted the brakes out myself (new drums + shoes at the rear, freeing up calipers at the front).

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I was going to get it MOT'd again but as the car is going to be exempt in 10 days and everything in it's November fail has been rectified I'm just waiting it out and saving myself £40...

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Ironically my modern Honda Civic is currently out of action due to the rear calipers being fooked, the '83 Triumph Acclaim I bought recently to replace it failed it's MOT and needs taking away for welding so the Dolomite may actually be the first car that is back in action! (I'm currently having to borrow a Rover 220...)

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_________________
1976 Triumph Dolomite 1850HL "Trevor, the Tenaciously Terrible Triumph" - Rotten as a pear and dissolving into a field in rural Aberdeenshire.
1977 Triumph Dolomite 1300 "Daisy, the Dilapidated Dolomite of Disaster" - Major resto, planned for completion 2021.
1983 Triumph Acclaim L "Angus, the Arguably Adequate Acclaim - On the road as a daily driver.


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 Post subject: Re: '77 Dolly 1300
PostPosted: Fri May 11, 2018 9:05 pm 
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I like a good read 8)

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 Post subject: Re: '77 Dolly 1300
PostPosted: Fri May 11, 2018 10:39 pm 
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Location: Shetland / here & there
And it was a very good read, thank you for sharing!

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Current fleet: '75 Sprint, '73 1850, Daihatsu Fourtrak, Honda CG125, Yamaha Fazer 600, Shetland 570 (yes it's a boat!)

Past fleet: Triumph 2000, Lancia Beta Coupe, BL Mini Clubman, Austin Metro, Vauxhall Cavalier MK1 & MK2, Renault 18 D, Rover 216 GSI, Honda Accord (most expensive car purchase, hated, made out of magnetic metal as only car I've ever been crashed into...4 times), BMW 318, Golf GTi MK3 16v x 3


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 Post subject: Re: '77 Dolly 1300
PostPosted: Fri May 11, 2018 10:45 pm 
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Wow! What a journey, in several meanings of the word.
Thanks for the updates.


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 Post subject: Re: '77 Dolly 1300
PostPosted: Sat May 12, 2018 9:28 am 
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:-D

Great work! And glad to hear you are "on the up".
Cheers, Sam

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 Post subject: Re: '77 Dolly 1300
PostPosted: Tue May 15, 2018 1:58 am 
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It's certainly been an adventure, although not all good!

It'll be good to get some work done to it this summer, although I think it still looks fairly smart...

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_________________
1976 Triumph Dolomite 1850HL "Trevor, the Tenaciously Terrible Triumph" - Rotten as a pear and dissolving into a field in rural Aberdeenshire.
1977 Triumph Dolomite 1300 "Daisy, the Dilapidated Dolomite of Disaster" - Major resto, planned for completion 2021.
1983 Triumph Acclaim L "Angus, the Arguably Adequate Acclaim - On the road as a daily driver.


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 Post subject: Re: '77 Dolly 1300
PostPosted: Sat May 26, 2018 10:59 am 
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Well the Dolly is now back on the road properly after a few years, MOT/tax exemption rolled around for her at last! I found that removing the dent in the rear panel would be impossible without removing the fuel tank and possibly stripping the entire rear end. I couldn't be arsed with that so I spaced out the rear bumper with washers on the mounting bolts so the corner piece would fit! It now looks far better at least...
I also gave it a oil/filter change and made a start on polishing the paintwork up a bit.

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A few 5 mile runs around Glasgow have revealed the following issues that need rectifying:

Alternator isn't sitting straight on the belt, rattles like mad. I've tightened it for now but I reckon the lower mounting point is knackered.
Oil pressure light flickers at idle when the engine is hot. I've ordered a new oil sender switch as they are a bit cheaper than a full engine overhaul!
The idle itself is erratic, the adjust screw seems very loose but the clamp which holds the dizzy is bent and won't tighten so drifting timing could well be the cause!
I can't find a good way to route my choke cable which allows it to actually work. The closest I can get is by routing it from the bulkhead straight down to the linkage, less than perfect but the "correct" way simply won't work.
Front brake calipers seem to be a bit seized up, squeak at low speeds.
Clutch biting point is so low I've had to remove the carpet.

Still a bit to do but progress is being made...

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1976 Triumph Dolomite 1850HL "Trevor, the Tenaciously Terrible Triumph" - Rotten as a pear and dissolving into a field in rural Aberdeenshire.
1977 Triumph Dolomite 1300 "Daisy, the Dilapidated Dolomite of Disaster" - Major resto, planned for completion 2021.
1983 Triumph Acclaim L "Angus, the Arguably Adequate Acclaim - On the road as a daily driver.


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 Post subject: Yes.....
PostPosted: Sat May 26, 2018 11:24 am 
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Good to see that you are making progress Anthony.


With it's excellent photos, this story will make a great article for inclusion in Dolly Mixture.
Please consider submitting such.



thanks,

Ian.

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 Post subject: Re: '77 Dolly 1300
PostPosted: Sat May 26, 2018 7:00 pm 
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Well done Anthony, and it looks like I'm not the only person who parks next to random classics and takes pictures! :lol:
Re the oil pressure light when hot - are you using a good oil?


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 Post subject: Re: '77 Dolly 1300
PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2018 11:06 am 
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Comma Classic 20w50 at the moment, I just did an oil filter change t'other day to see if that helped but no luck. I also took the old oil sender out and blasted it clean with WD-40 with similar effects.

To be honest given the fact that when I last had the head off 10,000 miles ago there was lateral movement in one of the pistons and the engine has generally being a rattly, knocking beast ever since I bought the car 5 years ago and the top end fell to bits due to wear within 300 miles of purchase I imagine it's just very tired!

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1976 Triumph Dolomite 1850HL "Trevor, the Tenaciously Terrible Triumph" - Rotten as a pear and dissolving into a field in rural Aberdeenshire.
1977 Triumph Dolomite 1300 "Daisy, the Dilapidated Dolomite of Disaster" - Major resto, planned for completion 2021.
1983 Triumph Acclaim L "Angus, the Arguably Adequate Acclaim - On the road as a daily driver.


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 Post subject: Re: '77 Dolly 1300
PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2018 12:40 pm 
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On the plus side, with all those wand in a bucket bearings your oil pump is going to last longer due to having to not pump as hard! :lol:

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Current fleet: '75 Sprint, '73 1850, Daihatsu Fourtrak, Honda CG125, Yamaha Fazer 600, Shetland 570 (yes it's a boat!)

Past fleet: Triumph 2000, Lancia Beta Coupe, BL Mini Clubman, Austin Metro, Vauxhall Cavalier MK1 & MK2, Renault 18 D, Rover 216 GSI, Honda Accord (most expensive car purchase, hated, made out of magnetic metal as only car I've ever been crashed into...4 times), BMW 318, Golf GTi MK3 16v x 3


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 Post subject: Re: '77 Dolly 1300
PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2018 4:28 pm 
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Consider a bearing change, they are cheap enough from Moss to be a 10,000 mile service item. Can be done with the engine is situ if you can borrow an engine lifter:

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By no means a proper fix but it might close up the gaps a bit!

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1978 Pageant Sprint - the rustomite, 1972 Spitfire IV - sprintfire project, 1968 Valencia GT6 II - little Blue, 1980 Vermillion 1500HL - resting. 1974 Sienna 1500TC, Mrs Weevils big brown.


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 Post subject: Re: '77 Dolly 1300
PostPosted: Thu Jul 05, 2018 4:11 pm 
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Changed the oil sender with a new one and it stopped flickering when the car is hot, comes on with ignition and goes off after loads of cranking/when it fires.

The choke cable is currently doing it's job despite it's dodgy routing and I adjusted the linkages so the fast idle/adjust mixture movements are smoother.

The distributor clamp I managed to hammer flat and bend back into shape so the timing no longer drifts.

This isn't to say the car is without problems...

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When she gets hot it stalls out and generally won't restart until it's cooled down, a fantastic problem in this weather. I can combat this by pulling the choke out to the fast idle setting when pulling up to junctions etc but that's not fool proof and I am a fool. You can also sometimes get the engine to splutter back into life if you crank it over loads with the accelerator pinned to the carpet, once on the open road she's fine. When broken down you can see bubbles in the fuel filter so I reckon it's petrol evaporation...

Never had this issue before but then I've never had to deal with stop/start traffic and 20+ degree heat after 5 years of living in Aberdeenshire!

The front panel also finally gave in and gained a hole. I've taped over it and have decided that it's fixed.

I did record a few videos as well!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mypyh7LHSP4&t
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ1Mpg4cbNM

_________________
1976 Triumph Dolomite 1850HL "Trevor, the Tenaciously Terrible Triumph" - Rotten as a pear and dissolving into a field in rural Aberdeenshire.
1977 Triumph Dolomite 1300 "Daisy, the Dilapidated Dolomite of Disaster" - Major resto, planned for completion 2021.
1983 Triumph Acclaim L "Angus, the Arguably Adequate Acclaim - On the road as a daily driver.


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 Post subject: Re: '77 Dolly 1300
PostPosted: Fri Feb 22, 2019 12:07 am 
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Update!

Firstly I went about trying to sort the hot running problem as the unreliability and random cutting out and refusing to restart was getting serious irksome...

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Ended up switching back to the original points system and pulling off the carb, giving it a good clean, replacing the waxstat with pennies and re-setting the mixture as per the factory manual. Also re-did the ignition timing as I'd misread the timing marks and set it wrongly... From that point on the car would start pretty much on the button aside from only firing as you stopped turning the key, presumably as using the starter was causing a weak spark, likely from a poor earth somewhere. The car also drove far better and was happier in hot weather.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE633Yr9-qg

Oil usage was still fairly high and the engine still sounding plenty "bottom endy" but I used the car for a trip to Aberdeenshire and planned to replace the engine come summer 2019.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVia6ItCw8g

Then one midweek night on my way back to Glasgow after attending an Aussie Pink Floyd gig in Carlisle the car dropped a big end bearing on the M74 at 65mph near Lockerbie...

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Due to being cheap and poor I didn't have breakdown recovery, couldn't get a taxi or a hotel locally and it was -5C so I made the decision to limp the car down the back roads toward's my mate's parent's house at Longtown (they'd all been drinking post gig so couldn't pick me up!). A mile outside of Gretna the knocking engine completely dismantled itself and that was the end of that. Thankfully Greta has hotels with night porters and I secured a room for the night at about 3am...

Some weeks later I managed to get the car recovered back home.

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I then draped it in tinsel and ignored it over the Christmas period.

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Currently in the process of stripping the old engine out, just need to remove the cooling system and the gearbox related stuff. I've acquired a Herald 12/50 engine locally for free. No idea if it'll fit my car or can be adapted to by pillaging the old engine for parts, but it was free, which is about all my budget will stretch to so I'm collecting it on Sunday. Have dibs on another free engine, a Mk4 Spitfire 1300 lump, but that's in Bedford and the logistics of getting it here are an issue.

Also doing all of this at the side of a public street as I lack any off street parking and can't afford a garage... Also keeping my daily driver Acclaim on the road at the same time. All good fun.

_________________
1976 Triumph Dolomite 1850HL "Trevor, the Tenaciously Terrible Triumph" - Rotten as a pear and dissolving into a field in rural Aberdeenshire.
1977 Triumph Dolomite 1300 "Daisy, the Dilapidated Dolomite of Disaster" - Major resto, planned for completion 2021.
1983 Triumph Acclaim L "Angus, the Arguably Adequate Acclaim - On the road as a daily driver.


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