How do we spot an "Early One"?

[slant4]

My car, VA684, was registered in Leeds on 20th June, 1973. it's a non overdrive car, but has had overdrive fitted. It retains most of its original features, except a few, which I am in the process of correcting. I would querry the red pipe for the clutch though, as mine has a high pressure rubber hose on it, and it looks very original. I've only ever seen the red line one on a 1300 fwd

[JPB]

I do enjoy this sort of detail, Mike. Surely you meant the 1st and not the 8th of August for the new suffix though?

I wonder why the 8 valve car had a panel lamp rheostat until well through 1973 yet even these earliest Sprints lacked that feature? OK, so their dash is dark enough without but it was handy for those situations when the front seat passenger was twitching about the speed. Turn the lamps right down to the hot end, no more moans!

According to one of the drivers at work, who served his time in Lion Garages during the first few years of the 1970s; the thicker ARB was thought to be responsible for a noticeably more sudden transition into oversteer, which makes sense. What he couldn't tell me was how many came in for the thinner bar as a free swap out of kindness but he remembers doing one.
I fitted a thicker ARB to the back of ACU back in the '80s - having found it in amongst the non-Subaru parts stock at my then current placement - but had no knowledge then of where it had come from.

[Sundowner]

Thanks for an EXCELLENT post.
BTW, that's a great photographic model you have there. Wish mine was just half as good.
Cheers,
Rob

[VYO 372M]

Very interesing reading. Thank you for taking the trouble piecing together all those photos and text.

Your sprint is a beauty.

Steve

[Toledo Man]

You forgot to mention the radio aerial. The early cars had it on the offside rear wing. Later cars had it on the offside front wing. Also, the automatic cars had the A suffix - i.e. "VAxxxxxDLA". My Sprint left Canley with an auto box and by the time it came to me it had been converted to manual overdrive.

Other than that, an excellent in-depth article

[sprint95m]

Interesting article Mike. Especially so since I owned an early Sprint.

A couple of points,
A black rubber clutch hose was used on the earliest of the early Sprints.
It was me who flagged up the difference in headlinings. Early Sprints (and 1850s) shared the same material as the T2000 range.
Later cars had a different (whiter) material. I noticed this comparing headlings between an early Sprint and W reg Dolomite 1300.
Bolts (rather than studs) were used to attach the starter motor on the earliest Sprints.
Very early Sprints used the higher ratio steering rack (from an early 1850).

[tinweevil]

Excellent thread Mike

Exit stage left to check the HRW switch on Mrs Weevils 1500TC, will that be illuminated? I though they were all just black.

[grifterkid]

Now that is one superbly informative and wonderfully put together post. As they say, 'it's all in the details'...!

[Mad Mart]

Excellent thread Mike

Exit stage left to check the HRW switch on Mrs Weevils 1500TC, will that be illuminated? I though they were all just black.

They're usually dark red and have a bulb in.

Excellent Mike, that must have taken ages...

No overriders on a Dolly though.

[tinweevil]

Well I'll be. Spring & bulb were missing but these have now been robbed from a spare hazard switch

[JPB]

Well I'll be. Spring & bulb were missing but these have now been robbed from a spare hazard switch

I did that to mine shortly after putting the car up to frontline winter service and using the HRW a lot. I'm not saying that the same is true of all Dolomite HRW switches that are found lacking their lamps, but on PKE refitting a lamp to the switch caused loom smoke to escape. Only by adding a suitable relay to the circuit was I able to recapture all of the smoke so restoring the delicate balance of Joe Lucas' creation.

[Dolly-Nut]

Thanks for the reminder about the thicker roll bars, I just found one and fitted it.

[Mad Mart]

You are of course right about the "A" for automatic in the chassis number. Engines mated to Auto boxes also had "HEA" on the end of their numbers rather than just "HE"

We may as well mention the 'S' on the end if it has a limited slip diff. then.

[sprint95m]

Ian & Slant 4( Sorry forgot your name but I know you're OUM998L) on the clutch hose, all of the parts books show a rubber clutch hose as you both say. I went with the red plastic one because my first early sprint had a red plastic one, 969 had a red plastic one which I refitted, VA1223 had a black plastic one. Also found during my rebuild that the parts book is not always right.
Any input from owners of early cars re this would be good, Danny/ Bernadette VUC?

The original rubber hoses were short lived in service being a major source of clutch drag problems.
The Sprint is the only BL car I have seen this rubber type clutch hose fitted to although I have seen something similar
on another make, but was never looking that closely to be honest.
The red plastic one you have would be from a T2000 I expect (these are one metre long).

A stainless steel replacement from Sprintspares was one of the first things I bought for my Sprint (which had covered about 33K miles
in 16 years but needed a real lot of work).

[Carledo]

I was just finishing my apprenticeship in a Triumph dealership in june 73, IIRC the cars came ex works without a radio or an arial hole, this was done at PDI. We mostly fitted the arial to the rear deck panel, usually on the nearside to get it as far as possible from the dizzy and avoid interference as much as possible. Really rich customers got those fancy roof arials!
With regard to headlining material, I also worked (in the late 70s) for Car Hood Company in Harrow fitting Weathershields sunroofs to both new and older cars. I am absolutely certain that there was only one kind of headlining material used on Triumphs whatever the vintage or model. Not sure whether it was CHC or Weathershields who were responsible for it but all the different materials were numbered and the Triumph fabric was No 1 and it was VERY white indeed! A right PITA for grubby handed fitters like me!

Steve