Napoleon Dolomite - Orange 1300

[JPB]

As Dave said, it could be the screen seal, but before assuming that it is, check the drain slots in the plenum chamber, between the two layers of the bulkhead.
Mine went through a phase of leaking into the driver's side front floor and I traced that leak to a bit of leaf-related sludge that was blocking the slot under the brake servo, so trapping water in there and allowing its level to rise until [the water] entered the car via the tube that feeds the eyeball vent.

There's a forum thread that mentions the location of all of these drainage slots but as it appears that the forum search facility isn't working I can't find a link to the pictures that explain this phenomenon. I think that there are four slots in total, it's easy enough to feel for them with the end of a length of stiff wire, a cable tie or something similarly thin.

[Oli_88]

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13406
Hooray for a favourites folder only for Dolomite related stuff.

[JPB]

Star turn!

[Toledo Man]

Oh yeah, I forgot about the bulkhead drain holes. I even checked the ones on Brown after reading that thread.

Always try the simple stuff first...

[xsquared_uk]

Hi all, it's been a while since I updated this thread but that's because nothing has been happening. I took the car off the road when the MOT and tax ran out (early Dec) and it's been there ever since. I've managed to save a few pennies up and so it's finally gone into the garage for an MOT this morning, fingers crossed all will be reasonably well. It started up fine considering it had spent 2 months idle on the driveway, and seemed very revvy and eager compared to the auto Saab I've been borrowing off the missus recently. There was a mini lake in the drivers footwell though, definitely need to revisit the advice earlier in this thread about drain holes and screen seals. I'll let you know how the car gets on!

[xsquared_uk]

...passed!

Couple of advisories - NSF lower ball joint slight play, steering slight play detected at wheel, rough repair carried out on OSR sill. Not too shabby!

Will have to check with the tester to find out the full details (he wasn't there when I picked the car up) but sure those won't be too much to sort out.

Got the missus to treat me to the tax so the car is road legal again - I've really missed having it, especially in the appalling weather!

[DoloWIGHTY2]

Great news! Back where they belong - on the road .

[drpaul0209]

Excellent, well done!

[xsquared_uk]

Well, the joy was short lived - the car is having very bad running issues all of a sudden - current hope is that the coil/condensor/points might be at fault so I've bought an electronic ignition set from Simon BBC on eBay, this comes with a 12v coil and the parts to go into the dizzy. I have to go out this evening but hopefully tomorrow night I can take a look and get this fitted.

To see the diagnosis, check this post:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=20445

[xsquared_uk]

Back on the road! The misfire seems to have been related to the coil and/or the consenser/points, once I converted it to 12v coil with a permanent feed from the fusebox, as advised by people on here far cleverer than me, and fitted the kit from SimonBBC on eBay (using the combined rotor arm and sensor, the separate one wouldn't work) everything is go again.

[tinweevil]

Back on the road! The misfire seems to have been related to the coil and/or the consenser/points, once I converted it to 12v coil with a permanent feed from the fusebox, as advised by people on here far cleverer than me, and fitted the kit from SimonBBC on eBay (using the combined rotor arm and sensor, the separate one wouldn't work) everything is go again.

Jolly good. You'll need the separate magnet ring with a normal rotor when the combined one wears out. It probably wasn't working because you pushed the ring home on the cam then fitted the arm afterwards? That puts it too low for the sensor in the blue lump to detect, been there, made that mistake too. Instead just start the ring onto the cam and then fit the arm pushing it on firmly so that the magnet ring moves down a little. The magnet ring will be about a mm higher on the cam which is all it takes to make the difference.

[xsquared_uk]

Cheers, I'll try that theory out before it becomes an issue - obviously I'd rather have an easily changable rotor arm than a very specific one that I might not be able to get hold of in a pinch.

[xsquared_uk]

Got some parts to clear up the advisories from the MOT - new steering knuckle, track rod ends, and I bit the bullet and got all the rear bushes as well so I might finally have a car that doesn't try to turn corners when you touch the throttle! It's also started squeaking quite badly from the rear suspension so I'm hoping that's bush related too. I am probably going to let the MOT garage do the steering, but not sure about the bushes - probably a good idea because I don't have a press, but I quite fancied cleaning and painting the trailing arms with Hammerite or something while they were off.

Bit of 'simple' spanner work today to try and get the car right before the snow. Oil and filter change went without a hitch, using the correct oil filter with a non-return valve. Also I had a tail light out (thanks for the spot Dave) which turned out to just be the connector had 'opened up' a bit, crimped it back together with some pliers and it has a much better grip now. Also adjusted the idle speed slightly, the car has been great since I put the electronic ignition on but it was idling a little too high when warmed up so I knocked it down a tad. My temperature gauge has also stopped working and the needle just seems to vibrate at the bottom end of the gauge... thought I might be able to cure this by cleaning the contact on the connector next to the thermostat but it made no difference. Not sure where the gauge is earthed but it might be something odd like that instead.

After the horror stories on another thread here, decided to flush the coolant and refill. Pulled the bottom hose, let all the old crud out, then pulled the top hose and flushed the radiator with clean water. Put the hoses back on, removed the filler plug on the top of the radiator, added about 2.5l of antifreeze (full strength not dilute!) and topped up with water.

That's when it started to go wrong! I put the radiator filler plug back in, tightened it up, and just as it started to bite it snapped off leaving the thread part inside the radiator. Arse. I now had a car with a hole in the top of the radiator and it was snowing pretty heavily outside... needed to get home! So I bunged a load of blue hylomar onto a big bolt and screwed it into the hole, it seems to leak a little but not too badly and it got me home.

Problem is now I will have to either find a way to extract that thread, bung up the hole permanently, or else I guess I'll need a new radiator. It does seem like everytime I do something to improve this car, something else goes wrong but I guess eventually I will have fixed or replaced pretty much every single part on the car so it has to stop sometime!

[Toledo Man]

Jimmy, that reminded me of my VW Derby when I refitted the overflow hose and snapped the stud on the radiator. Fortunately, I was able to get another radiator from a scrap yard. You can get a replacement filler plug from the usual suspects Rimmer's do them in plastic for £5.41 plus postage (the brass ones which cost a bit more are currently out of stock). If you want to try any of the other suppliers quote the part number which is ARA2634. It shouldn't be too difficult to extract the remains of the filler plug which I assume is a plastic one. It sounds like you might've cross threaded it which is easily done with a plastic filler plug. I removed mine a few times on my Dolly 1300 without any issues. There should also be a sealing ring for the filler plug (URP1208/607025) which Rimmer's do for £1.43 plus postage.

[xsquared_uk]

I think what happened is that because it was so cold when I was filling the radiator, I was wearing gloves and fooled myself into thinking the filler stud was metal rather than plastic, hence I snapped it off with my enthusiasm. I got a new one from Rimmer Bros, sadly brass out of stock still but plastic will do. To get the old thread out, I rammed a chisel into the top of it and then I could turn it like a big screwdriver - this is where I was fortunate that it WAS plastic!

While I was putting an order in, I also got a new thermostat as it was only a couple of quid - this has now fixed the issue I was having with the temp gauge not working and the heater being poor. It now goes above quarter on the gauge and even the missus is happy with the warmth in the car and she is notorious for baking herself while driving! I have more padding to keep me warm...!

So my current focus is on the appalling fuel consumption that I got on my last tank - 24.8mpg - the car was running nicely but obviously not very frugally! This will be down to the new electronic ignition module and my 'suck it and see' timing setting of just turning the dizzy until it seemed to idle OK. I've been reading up on it and trying to suss it out - I know that getting a timing light is fairly useless as I need to set the timing to be right for this car and the level of wear on the engine, etc. I also know that I need to advance it until it pinks and then back it off a little. Now I just need to work out which way is advancing - the internet lies to me as I've seen some say clockwise and some anti-clockwise. I turned mine back anti-clockwise which is nearer where it was before, it's running OK but now there is a tiny bit of run-on when I switch off so not quite right somewhere. I probably need to faff about a bit more, adjust the fuel as well. Overall it is running nicely but I need more than 25 to the gallon!