The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Just thought I’d restart this thread as the last one was me talking nonsense for 9 straight pages

But first, a littl back ground on my car. It's a 1500TC and had it for just over two years, I bought it from someone in rugby for the small sum of £380. It had a blown head gasket and a horrible mat black and grey paint job, which was half primer grey and the other half paint brushes matte black. It was kind of a restoration project just getting it road worthy and looking ok. Me and my dad spent a few months getting the engine apart to replace all the bearings and seals which wasn't too hard compared to the next 4 months doing all the body work and interior.

The body work sanding was done by hand, by me, so it took about two months of work to sand off the black paint and to etch the primer that was exposed. My dad had some gear that he used to spray his cars when he restored his cars so he put both the primer coat and the colour layer. the colour I wanted the car was signal red as I thought it was a deep red and looked quite nice but the colour I ended up with was a very bright red, with a black roof as I didn't want to fit a vynle roof cover. It was a nice little motor, ran smooth when off choke and was roomy, but since owning it it's been through 3 head gaskets, 3!!

So after a year, I got into a small accident and crushed the nose so I took it off the road and wanted to do more than just fix the body work and I heard that an MX5 engine near enough drops in and was thinking it would be an easy way to make more power and increase reliability.

Then I found out about the Rocketer MX5 with a Jag V6 swapped into it. Thought this would be a great idea. I bought a 99’ Jaguar S Type 3.0 with a Manual for £550, ripped the engine and gearbox out and set about swapping it in. First issue is the intake manifold sits proud of the front of the engine by about 150mm, so I’ve taken to making an ITB manifold from old MG ZR throttle bodies as the Jenvey kits about £2k!!! Also using some cheap Boxster exhaust manifolds as the cast Jag ones were unsuitable


Due to various personal reasons, it’s taken me 4 years and the engine mounts have only just been started. I’ve pulled the dolomite engine and gearbox our and sold them, pulled the axle out and torn it down to rebuild, and bought a Ford Cortina axle to fab into the car.

With the lockdown, I’ve had chance to work on I’m the project a bit more but haven’t really progressed, mainly as the car is in a different garage to all the parts

Currently, I’m working on attaching mounts to the ‘Tina axle so I can fit it into the car to help move it around as well as lightly restoring the front suspension by knocking all the surface rust off and paint it a nice bright pink (wife’s choice)

As well as the swap, I’ve been eyeing up ideas on how to make the dolly chassis stiffer and handle better such as subframe connectors, roll centre adjusters, solid suspension bushes, and reinforced plastic parts, all to make what I would consider the ultimate handling Dolomite

Current prediction for a V1 build is around £5k with most of that being the ECU, Wheels, Tyres, and the 6 throttle bodies for the intake. Hopefully over the years after finishing, I’m planning to rebuild an engine for more power, such as cams, maybe some head work, and some forged rods, aiming for an output of between 300/350hp naturally aspirated.

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So many ideas... So little budget... So little time.

More pictures

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So many ideas... So little budget... So little time.

Be careful of these regs if you're swapping engine, box and axle - doesn't leave much wiggle room.
So you're ok if you dont modify the suspension or steering. The rest of the points are out of the window

Haha yeah, was careful to read the rules, as long as the suspension is the same type (double wishbone up front, trailing arm/satchel link at the rear), as well as using the stock steering rack (no power steering for me), I keep all those points.

And the chassis is going to be un-modified, the gearbox cover need “massaged” to cover the much larger Jag box but as it’s screwed on with a rubber gasket, I wouldn’t count it as part of the chassis, much like how bolt-on-wings aren’t part of the chassis on regular cars.

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So many ideas... So little budget... So little time.

That's the same logic I went with with my MX5 swapped one. Seemed to go through 2 MOTs ok so far. Gearbox tunnel on mine also had a brief meeting with a hammer/welder and nobody has said anything.

You are quite OK to do whatever you want with the tunnel housing, make your own entirely if you like!

By their own logic the bolt in tunnel is NOT part of the original monocque, so is outside the regs.

Even the Carledo's tunnel took a bit of bashing and welding to conform with the Omega gearbox (A Sprint one would have been much easier, but I didn't have one at the time) And I built the Dolomega tunnel from bits of 3 different ones!

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

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.

Engine Mount (Finally)

Finally got some garage time this weekend, so made the drivers side engine mount.

I’d bought some 5mm plate a few months ago (feels like a lifetime in lockdown) and made up engine plates to bolt to the block. I was going to use some 50x50x5mm right angle plate but, I looked through my ‘to scrap’ pile and found the trailing arms from the Ford Cortina I got the axle off, turns out, it’s a 5mm thick u channel, perfect

Cut it down to length and put a bit of an angle to bring the mount point down towards the subframe. I did this for both sides but even with the engine central, the drivers side of the engine it closer to the ‘frame than the passenger side

Drilled out a hole to save on grinding disc, grinder out a circle as best I could and welded the outer tube for the bushing. I’m using a superflex bush mean for TVR suspension arms as they’re about 1 inch in diameter.

Then I melted the welder I got a spare one but it kind of needs put together to work properly.

Next on the list is the passenger side mount, the plates already made up, just needs the arm shortened and the bush tube added.

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So many ideas... So little budget... So little time.

I do like a project build.

Any photos of the engine in the Dolomite engine bay.
What’s happening with the brake master cylinder/servo.
When I was doing the TVR AJPV8 swap used a Wilwood set of pedals masters,
That are mounted on the pedal box now inside the car.

Didn’t know that engine came from the Ford Mazda Stable.

The Jaguar AJ-V6 engine is a specialized version of Ford's Duratec V6 engine[1]. One notable addition is the use of variable valve timing, a feature also shared with Mazda's version of the engine. It is available in 2.1 L (2,099 cc), 2.5 L (2,495 cc) and 3.0 L (2,967 cc) displacements.
Jaguar's AJ-V6 engine has an aluminium engine block and aluminium DOHC cylinder heads. It uses sequential fuel injection, has 4 valves per cylinder with VVT, features fracture-split forged powder metal connecting rods and a one-piece cast camshaft and has direct-acting mechanical bucket (DAMB) tappets, these design aspects differentiating the AJ-V6 from the Ford and Mazda versions.

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2009 Mini Clubman Cooper S Daily Driver.
1980 Dolomite Sprint with a touch of BLTS
Balanced Lightened and Tweaked 13B Rotary and SuperCharged.
Rebuilding the Sprint time taken so far, 111Hrs@15/12/2020
212Hrs @31/12/2021
261@Hrs @ 13/06/2022
Member TDC no 0471

Project 13B Sprint now back on.

I don't want to be a party pooper but i think this engine mount doesn't hold 500km.

Jeroen

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

If the 5mm plate has a slightly warped imprint of the weld on the engine side then it will be fine, but even then it can always be weave welded over the top with 150amps worst case.

Just noticed your axle might be a koln axle which are regarded as rather weak, people all want the 'strong' baby atlas but even those aren't much better than a sprint axle.

Just seen this. I considered doing much the same, but in the end decided one re-engined car was enough, so bought a sprint engine for my Toledo.
However, I did pick up a Rocketeer ECU with AJ30 loom, which I no longer require....

Have you seen the threads on the Locostbuilders site about AJ30 engines? pretty informative stuff.

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Clive Senior
Brighton
Driving Toledo fitted with slant 4, sprint OD box and axle. Needs fettling!

I looked into getting some of the rocketeer kit but some of it was expensive, and well, if you deny need them...

Nah, I’m skint at the moment

I’ve seen a handful of threads, and yeah, pretty informative

I’ll have to check, only thing I can find online is that the Koln axle has slightly different bolt spacing from the Atlas but they did come in the Cortina, the guy I bought it from said it was an Atlas.

EDIT: f$$k, it’s a koln, well, got to get a new axle now. Should be stronger than the 1500 axle that was in it I guess. I remember I asked on here if the sprint axle was strong enough and someone said probably not, that’s why I went for an Atlas.

And yeah, they printed rewelded in all seriousness, I’m not the best, it seamed to get some good penetration but might grind it out and re do it all

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So many ideas... So little budget... So little time.

Getting rid of the servo eventually, probably going to use an OBP pedal box or maybe just replace it with a big single cylinder for now, the brake and clutch cylinders kind of get in the way.

EDIT: since commenting this, I’ve found a new solution for the brakes, utilising modern tech to make the brake servo work even when running ITBs. That is a electric vacuum pump. Can pick them up second had for about £60, or new Hella branded ones for £150/200. They come on new cars such as vws, Seats, Audi’s, and BMW’s

No photos of it in, the car is currently kept at another house while I work on parts in my garage at home, but hopefully not long, I started up the subframe mounts over the bank holiday, once they’re done, it’s ready to be put into the car, then got to try and get it rolling
your judgement is probably better than mine, only just started welding and thought I was getting good penetration, I’ll grind them out once I get all the other pieces in place and reweld them on a higher setting

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So many ideas... So little budget... So little time.

The tube on the engine mount wont need rewelded imo, just the flat plate, 150amps with a weave will melt the weld into itself nicely.
Where the sprint axle is concerned it's better than a koln (repackaged english axle some say) and not too far off an atlas, however your right to say it's an improvement over the banjo axle.
Just one note, when adding brackets to the axle weld penetration will be way more crucial so may pay to tack them on initially and get some fabrication outfit to seam weld them on as the axle tube could be 8mm thick which is into the 200amp region!

Yikes, that would be hard. I’ve had a quick look and the tubes aren’t thicker than 6mm as the “heavy duty” tubes are 1/4”. But I’ll still probably get someone else at the old path for the engine mounts is less through the welds where as the axle load path is pulling in the welds to it’ll pay to have them done properly.

I’ll just have to use the Koln for now, I’ve already cut it up so it’s useless to everyone but me, potentially I could swap an atlas axle center/pigs head in, the tubes are very similar diameter (59mm for the Koln, 60mm for the “heavy duty” atlas heads) or cut the bearing races off the Koln and fab it onto an atlas axle blank.

The Koln axles a bit strange, it’s described as a repackaged English axle, only difference is the offset bolt on the diff cover and the flange the diff cover bolts to is inside the head and on the atlas it’s on the outside. It uses Koln specific pinion, diff, and diff bearings, but atlas axle wheel/outer bearings and has some hybrid half shafts that are atlas on the outside but Koln/English inside, which is probably why everyone thinks it’s a weak axle, it’s the best and worst of both the English and atlas axle.

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So many ideas... So little budget... So little time.