Time for another irregular (and long!) update on PFJ. Fortunately the old girl has not provided any more large surprises, and the refurb has just been a progression of small steps forwards.
Spent two full days detailing the paint, which had been ignored for years. Started with Meguiar's Ultimate Compound to do an initial, gentle cut on the paint surface, to get rid of minor scratches and marring in the paint. This turned out to be an impressive product, making an enormous improvement with fairly easy effort. Final step was to go over all the paint with NuFinish Car Polish. JPG ended up wearing a gleaming new coat:
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Among the other steps forward were: fabricated new coolant reservoir overflow line (old one rotted away), installed new solid state voltage stabilizer (old one was intermittent in operation), new shiny polished windscreen wipers installed, replaced spark plugs with new OEM Unipart GSP plugs (gapped 0.030” for the Lumenition system), replaced burned out interior ceiling bulb (nice to have a light turn on now when a door is opened), replaced both front door interior lock pull-ups (old plastic had cracked in sections of their stems), installed new “Triumph” badge on rear boot lid (the old one had done a Cheshire cat, the original font had totally disappeared), replaced missing center trim joining pieces on front and rear, and replaced the broken end clamp on the LH steering rack gaiter. Whew...
There was one trick that PFJ pulled that resulted in significant effort to remedy. On one of my short “confidence building” runs around the neighborhood, all of a sudden the turn signal lever got verrry wobbly on the steering column. Took apart the nacelle ahead of the steering wheel and found that a plastic section (on the turn signal multi-function unit) that holds onto one of its mounting screws had sheared off from the body of the unit:
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Fortunately the Bros Rimmer could provide that multi-function unit pronto. I was a bit concerned how all this stuff fits together (the factory manual provided almost no useful information), but it turned out to be one of those parts for which “how to put it together” became very clear only when one “took it apart”. So now, due to a simple plastic piece fracture, the Sprint has brand new turn signal controls, a new horn control, a new high beam control - all in one.
This turn signal stalk replacement task was sufficiently confusing for me that I thought it might be useful to document how I got through it for any other Dolomite neophytes that may come this way. First is disassembly of the nacelle just ahead of the steering wheel. This is a plastic “clam shell” secured by three screws accessed at the bottom of the nacelle. Undoing the two longer forward-most screws allows the top half of the nacelle to be set aside. Undoing the one shorter rear-most screw allows the bottom half of the nacelle to be totally removed, fully exposing the guts of the two multi-function units (wiper module on the left and and turn signal module on the right).
Next, note and record the spacing at the uppermost gap between the two modules (this is Dimension A in 85.65.55 in the Repair Operation Manual – mine was 5/8”) since this will be a reference datum in reassembling the two modules on the steering column. Undo the only two screws initially visible. These secure the wiper module to the mounting bracket on the steering column and set the module aside. At this point, the two other screws formerly hidden, are now accessible, undoing those screws releases the turn signal module from the column bracket. Note that there is a local blue connecting wire that goes to the headlight control. Undo that blue wire and the entire defective turn signal module is ready (almost) for removal.
Unfortunately, the turn signal module's wiring harness runs down the interior of the column, and ends at a harness plug under the dash. So one can not pull the wiring harness up and out of the column without separating the harness plug from the bottom of the wiring harness under the dash. The bodger's choice might be to just cut the wires at the harness plug and be done with it. However, I wanted to preserve the integrity of the original wiring harness, so the individual wires needed to be separated safely from the harness plug.
How to do that? Tony Burd to the rescue with his suggestion of Terminal Removal Tool Kits available on amazoom. These kits contain slender cylindrical “keys” that can be pushed down the connecting pin to disengage the pin locks within the harness plug, while the wire is pulled out on the other side of the harness plug. That leaves the wires free of the harness plug with the connecting pins still intact on the wire:
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With the old defective turn signal stalk module out of the way, we are ready to install the new module. It is an impressive piece of kit (and I am amazed that one can just order a new one):
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The new harness looks a bit different than the old, with a black harness plug, but all its dimensions are identical to the original, as is the wire color coding:
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Installation of the new turn signal stalk module requires some care. There is a locating slot in the steering column:
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The original column bracket has a pin (see single blue arrow) that must be positioned at the narrowed bottom of the above locating slot:
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Note that the new turn signal stalk is provided with a new column bracket that is totally useless and only causes confusion. Throw that bracket away. The original column bracket must be reused.
With the column bracket correctly placed in the locating slot, the new turn signal stalk unit can be offered up to the bracket (use the screw holes adjacent to the rectangular slots cut in the bracket – see the double blue arrows in the above photograph). Make sure that the protruding turn cancellation knob on the side of the column is correction positioned between the turn signal control arms. Tighten the two screws (I used new stainless 10-32x3/4 screws) through the column bracket into the turn signal body. Between the pin in the slot and the tightened screws, the turn signal module and the bracket should be firmly located on the steering column. Be sure not to over-tighten these two screws into the plastic or the original problem will be recreated! Do not forget to reattach that local blue wire to the headlight control switch:
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Finally the wiper switch stalk module (that did not require replacement) is ready to be offered up to the column bracket. The screws for this go through the remaining holes in the column bracket into the plastic body of that module. Be sure to use the shorter original screws and not over-tighten. Tighten the screws equally at the top and bottom of the bracket to recreate the Dimension A from the start of this task.
In reassembling the nacelle, the bottom half of the nacelle with its single screw should be installed first to give a firm base for the rest of it. Then the top half should be offered up to the bottom half, with the left-most long screw of the pair of forward screws secured first. Doing this screw first allows you to see the innards as the screw is positioned to approach the top half. This is a very fiddly step, with the nacelle struggling to fall apart as one tries to position and tighten the screw. With this left screw tightened, it is much easier to position the remaining right-most long screw since by this point one is working blind and feeling around for the screw to engage the top half. It took me several tries, dropping the screws on the carpet many times, working with all three hands to get the nacelle re-installed.
One exceeding important step has been ignored up to now. The new turn signal stalk's harness is supplied with an integral harness plug connected to all the harness wiring. So how does one connect the brand new harness to the main harness under the dash? The new harness can not be passed down the inner steering column like the old one was without removing the integral harness plug. I did not want to disturb the wiring. What to do? Here Carledo came to the rescue: just run the new harness down the OUTSIDE of the steering column and neatly plug it into the main harness below:
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This worked out great! The nacelle has a big enough gap at the rear to allow the harness to pass through the nacelle without disturbing anything. There is then enough of a gap in the under-dash structure to easily pass the harness plug to where it needs to be plugged in. The entire re-routed harness is unobtrusive and firmly located enough in its path that I did not even need to use zip ties to hold it in place. It is as if PFJ was designed for this re-routing.
So that is where PFJ stands. I still have a host of other minor items to check out, known light bulbs to replace, and so it goes...
And a final finally, just in case someone has not seen this, there is a wonderful period Triumph advert that illustrates the place of the Sprint in the world of the time:
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-Mike