Project Blue VA2741DLA

[SprintMWU773V]

French Blue is such an under rated colour and really suits the car

[Toledo Man]

A rolling resto? Aside from reinstating the auto and getting an MoT it looks pretty much ready to go out of the box.

good on you for putting the autobox back in. There's not many left.

[Mad Mart]

Nice one Mike, are you going to put the correct style of number plate on?

[Reg]

Great stuff..glad your putting the auto back in..as TM says, not many left.

[Toledo Man]

Any progress with this?

[Toledo Man]

When will you get the shell back?

Fitting an auto isn't much different to a manaul. The main differences are:

The flexplate is a bit different to the flywheel. The spacer goes onto the crankshaft first. Get it lined up with 4 of the eight bolts. There's a couple of plates that go either side of the flex plate. The smaller one goes between the spacer and flex plate. I used copper grease so that in the event that the flexplate broke again I could separate all the bits. The flexplate will only go on one way so check it against the starter motor to make sure. (yes I made that mistake!) I couldn't find any tightening torques for the flex plate bolts so I had to go by the figure for the flywheel bolts which was 35-55 lb/ft. I went for the middle and torqued them to 45 lb/ft. I tightened them evenly and I rechecked them to make sure I hadn't missed any of them.
There's no alignment to worry about when you fit the autobox. It goes straight on. Just make sure the torque converter is pushed all the way into the input shaft. I recommend using a 3/8" rachet on the torque convertor bolts as space is a bit tight down there.
There's the wiring for the inhibitor switch. The inhibitor wires are red and white and the reversing light wires are green. The terminals for the reversing light wires in the inhibitor wires are marked "R". There's a small 8mm bolt that keeps the inhibitor switch in place.
The selector rod can be a pain to fit and line up. There should be a couple of clips at either end of the rod which keeps the rod from coming off. What I did was to fit the rod to the selector lever, remove the plate on the selector at the gearbox end, fit the rod to it and then I adjusted the rod until I could get the plate back on and bolted up.
The crossmember is similar to the manual OD.
The kickdown cable goes in the space on the bracket on the outside of the car. Make sure you have the bracket for this as without it you can't fit the kickdown cable.

If need be I can take some photos so you can see how it all goes together. I hope this helps.

[Toledo Man]

Mike, I thought I'd let you know of the potential pitfalls associated with fitting autos from my recent hard won experience. The 1850 and Sprint autos are basically the same so my experiences should apply to your's.

Those photos you posted certainly covered a multitude of sins! Could your's be the oldest surviving Sprint auto?

[sprint95m]

Well done Mike, for taking this car on.

The car was incredibly deceitful and needs some fairly major work to fix, as follows -

4 x replacement doors
Bonnet frame rotted out & is scrap
nearside rear wing (previous lousy fit of arch repair killed it).
repairs to offside side rear wing
Both sills (nearside contained expanding foam and glued in cover concealed with underseal!)
Bulkhead held together each corner where it joins the flitch by upholstery foam, bathroom silcone & underseal.
Bulkhead toast below servo.
Lower front panel made out of three badly welded sections and filler
Drivers side floor needs repair
Headlamp rear panel gone each end (could be repaired with club panels if I can find any)
Offside front subframe mount gone (going to try out the little used club repair panel).


Further to the above, looking at this picture....

I think the front wings will need to be removed too, the patch on the inner wing above the turret suggests
a rotten inner wing reinforcer to me........

[SprintMWU773V]

Mike I suggest that you get in touch with Eric Noble in the North West as he's made up a lot of moulds and things to create his own repair sections for things like headlamp rear panel ends and also he's done some very good work on sills and very much recreated the look you're after. Eric's own Dolomite has done nearly 300k miles and although a bit tatty the metalwork is very good.

[Mad Mart]

Crikey!..... 'tis just a scratch.

I'm sure someone can repair that Mike but that's gonna cost a lot of wonga unless you diy. If you are planning to sell it on afterwards you won't get your money back.

[mahony]

Find a different shell maybe

[Toledo Man]

According to the "How Many Left" website there's only 50 Sprint autos left. I know this isn't 100% accurate but it gives you some idea. VA2471DLA is a 1974 car and on the same site there's a breakdown of the cars by year. There's only one 1973 car (on SORN) so your's is the 2nd oldest surviving Sprint auto being registered on January 1st 1974. If you restored VA2471DLA it would the oldest surviving roadworthy Sprint auto. This should be a long-term project which will spread the cost so you won't feel it and you don't have to rush to source any parts you need. If you decided to keep it then you'd have the choice of a manual or auto depending on the mood. Can't you get any welding done at "mates rates" or get a discount if there's quite a bit of work needed.

[Howard81]

I'm sure there was an inner wing on eBay recently?

Must be worth keeping a lookout for a dead car with a better front end and get busy with the spot weld drill..

[Howard81]

http://search.ebay.co.uk/190582903033

[Macleesh]

I'm sure there was an inner wing on eBay recently?

Must be worth keeping a lookout for a dead car with a better front end and get busy with the spot weld drill..

Rimmers still have both sides, I picked up a N/S one just in case in one of their sales, O/S one is already welded in.