Project Dolomega, the next level

[Carledo]

I'm Jumping around a bit, the exhaust is waiting for a couple of "cottonreels" for the rear mount. I've ordered MGB ones as they are a bit bigger, should be here tomorrow.

In the meantime i've been doing a bit on the Carledo, in order to do a bit on the Sprint. For some time the Carledo's passenger seatbelt has been misbehaving, it's a rare Kangol reflex design I had trouble getting but fellow forum member Dale Cosens sorted me out a set. Because i've got no back seat and non tipping MGF seats in the Carledo, I had to remove the seat to fit the belt. But i've also been meaning for a while to swap the Carledo's seats back to the race seat (which i've had recovered at vast expense) and Escort passenger seat. So I did that as well.

This has freed up the converted MGF seats I got from James467, which had been in the Carledo for a couple of years and being beige, had got irretrievably mucky. These have his own design alloy brackets, modded by me, which was basically what I wanted, as I have a pair of near identical runner design MGZR seats in very dark grey half leather, which I have long planned to use in the Sprint



True to my expectations, after a little hacking off of unwanted MG mounts, James' brackets fitted perfectly and this seat is now bolted down in the passenger side of the car (well, it's somewhere to keep it!) I've put the filthy F seat in on the drivers side pro tem, it'll be enough for a test drive, don't want to dirty up the new one! They'll have to come out again to fit the carpet anyway.



Talk about 2 steps forward and one back! A few idle minutes last night saw me fitting headlamp looms in their bowls, which prompted me in turn today to order some halogen bulbs. I got the headlamps from Alun last year, a very nice almost flat set of Lucas bulb types that take the old round back 410 bulb. So I ordered some halogen conversion bulbs. These are 60/55w part number 012 if anyone needs to know. I'm well relayed up so no worries there!

The problem came to light this evening, when I dug out the metal and glass units from their hiding place to have a play and noticed something strange, 2 of them were fitted with yellow French style bulbs. Closer inspection shows that what I have, are 4 LHD outer lamps! God only knows how Alun (or Ted or JT) came by them, LHD stuff for RHD cars in RHD Britain are not common! Now I always knew they were all outer lamps, the plan all along was to use outers as inners, along with the twin filament bulbs, but only connect up the main beam filaments (4 dipped heads is against C+U regs) So I can use 2 for inners and put the other pair of new halogen bulbs in the Carledo, which currently has stock 45/40w 410s fitted, a pair of candles would be brighter! But it rarely goes out at night!

But I still find myself in need of 2 outer RHD metal and glass units, flattish if possible and decent quality! Can be for H4 (472) bulbs or P45t H4 (012 or 410). Any offers?

Steve

[Carledo]

An hour's scouring ebay has found me a pair of new, flat front, Hella/Cibie 5.75" outers. Listed for TVR of all things, but who cares? £42 for 2 gave me a bit of a lump in the throat, but only useless Autopal and dubious Wipac ones were seriously cheaper (and curved front, unlike most Sprint owners, I think flat fronts look better on them) So i've bit the bullet!

Steve

[Tony Burd]

I like the flat lenses, MSO had them originally in the 80's, think they were BMW but I couldn't find any when I rebuilt it.

Looking forward to seeing yours finished.

[Carledo]

Looking forward to seeing yours finished.

Not half as much as I am mate!

A little update for those who follow the RBRR, I got an email from the organisers yesterday and the RBRR is tentatively still on for October, subject to change later of course! And I still want to to have the Dolomega on the road for TDCIR, it'll be a nice run for it and give me a bit of time to shake it down and debug before RBRR.

Steve

[sprint95m]

I am another fan of flat lens headlamps.

From experience, I know that the quality of 5 3/4"light units varies widely, as do their prices.
I have been in a couple of BMWs and thought their lighting was poor which has put me of using BMW lighting.
After a recommendation from TDC member David Walker I used Jaguar XJ40 lights. I bought some used ones
and, even though the reflectors had dulled, the lighting was excellent.


For my Sprint I wanted outers with sidelights (so I can use said sidelights as daylight running lights)
which ruled out XJ40 so I went for Hella units as recommended by Jeroen (these are about £90/pair).
(Original new XK40 outer units are around £150/pair)

Curiously the XJ40 units I bought consisted of two pairs of outers.
Given that I happen to have a pair sitting here anyway, I am minded to try them as inners and see how they do.
(The XJ40 OE inners are no longer available new.)


Given you intend doing a RBRR Steve, I think good lighting is a must!!



Ian

PS I have a used Mazda high level brake light here, it being a conventional bulb type.
Another option you could look at is Nissan Note mark one?

[Carledo]

I am another fan of flat lens headlamps.

From experience, I know that the quality of 5 3/4"light units varies widely, as do their prices.
I have been in a couple of BMWs and thought their lighting was poor which has put me of using BMW lighting.
After a recommendation from TDC member David Walker I used Jaguar XJ40 lights. I bought some used ones
and, even though the reflectors had dulled, the lighting was excellent.


For my Sprint I wanted outers with sidelights (so I can use said sidelights as daylight running lights)
which ruled out XJ40 so I went for Hella units as recommended by Jeroen (these are about £90/pair).
(Original new XK40 outer units are around £150/pair)

Curiously the XJ40 units I bought consisted of two pairs of outers.
Given that I happen to have a pair sitting here anyway, I am minded to try them as inners and see how they do.
(The XJ40 OE inners are no longer available new.)


Given you intend doing a RBRR Steve, I think good lighting is a must!!



Ian

PS I have a used Mazda high level brake light here, it being a conventional bulb type.
Another option you could look at is Nissan Note mark one?

Ian, i'll put some pics up when they come, but what i've bought is flat front Hella outers WITH side lights which I neither need nor particularly want. Also the guy who sold me these has a matching pair of inners for the TVR for £75 the pair, item number 362367503325. Check quickly though, he only has 1 pair left! You can legally use an inner as an outer though just don't connect the dip filament, as I noted above! It will give exactly the same beam pattern and range as the outer main beam obviously!

On high level brakelights, I have quite a collection of factory OE ones from a variety of makes and models but nothing fits well enough for my taste, it has to look as if it's meant for the job! Or I'll just live with what i've got until I do, once the wiring is there (that's the hard part) I can swap a lamp easily.

For RBRR, i'll have the 4 halogen headlights, plus a pair of Halogen genuine Lucas NOS "Square 8" LR driving lamps under the bumper, and a pair of smaller rectangular Ring foglights mounted in the grilles, I CAN get all on at once too! (lots of relays and HD wiring incorporated) I reckon that should be enough!

Steve

[Carledo]

A point worthy of note here, is that, both legally and for MOT purposes,the inner headlights on a Dolomite are not actually classed as headlights, even though not separately switched, they are properly long range lights, rather like the 5.75 inners on a Golf GTi (MkI or II) which has 7" outers. (lower spec Golfs only had the 7" outers)

So to a certain extent you can play a little fast and loose with beam alignment, I wouldn't recommend setting them higher than the outers, but a tad lower would illuminate more road at once and eliminate at least some of the black spot between the main beam light pools and the car.

Steve

[Carledo]

OK so now i'm waiting for the lights (due tomorrow) but the MGB "cottonreels" for the exhaust have arrived, so i'm back to the exhaust and the first job was to drain and remove the petrol tank, which was simple enough, it's all been out before. I poured the petrol out over the nettle bed at the end of my garden though as it was yellow and smelt funny. I guess 6 months is enough to turn E5 petrol, but it still makes ace weedkiller, i've just got to be careful where I throw my dogends for a bit!

So first I made this,



Inside the boot goes a strip of 2mm steel with 2 nuts welded to it for captives plus a thick washer welded under one end to account for the step in the boot floor. It sits slightly offset because of that big grommet Steve mentioned and is screwed to the floor with a single tapper, just to keep it in place. I decided against weld as it would remove years of paint and Ziebart.




Then the cottonreels are screwed into the captives from below, with unequal amounts of penny washers, again to allow for the step in the floor. This was also precalculated so that none of the stud on the cottonreel protrudes though the captive nut to chafe the tank. Finally the lower bar is bolted loosely to the silencer and the bottom of the 'reels and more penny washers added (the studs are nice and long at this end) to control the clearance between silencer and boot floor. A quick check that everything is right and tighten finally.



The "Project Binky" mentality has triumphed again here, I could have bolted in a single Rimmers cottonreel (I have one here) and left it at that. This took me a good 2 hours to fab and fit but is SO much better. And when a 'reel DOES break as is inevitable, it will be only a few minutes work to replace it. Note to self, buy a spare one to keep in the car!

Dave (new to this) expressed concern that HIS similar twin pipe back box was too long for the car, so I was slightly worried too. But it looks like it will be just about perfick once the bumper is on!



All that remains now is to get some fresh petrol when the local garage opens in the morning and fire it up for a test. I'm determined to video it for posterity this time, having missed the opportunity at the first start. Watch this space!

Steve

PS, I missed out the bit where I got the brakes bled finally last week, the pedal is a tad soggy, but everything is new. Hopefully it will sharpen up when it's got some miles under it's belt and everything has bedded in!

[new to this]

Steve

Looks a nice repair job on the exhaust, i went with 1 cotton reel, where are you going to mount the next exhaust bracket, at the other end of the exhaust box or on the over axle pipe,your also need another mounting bracket sum where near the gearbox, ive only done the 1 mounting bracket so far

Dave

p.s on my car the back box i think is a bit long comes to near the rear wheel for my liking

[Carledo]

Steve

Looks a nice repair job on the exhaust, i went with 1 cotton reel, where are you going to mount the next exhaust bracket, at the other end of the exhaust box or on the over axle pipe,your also need another mounting bracket sum where near the gearbox, ive only done the 1 mounting bracket so far

Dave

p.s on my car the back box i think is a bit long comes too near the rear wheel for my liking

The next (and only other) rubber mount is in the stock place off the handbrake cable bracket adjacent to the join between the over axle pipe and the next bit forward. I just welded on a handy bit I had to the overaxle pipe. I was going to use a flexi section near the front to insulate the exhaust from the body more and that would have definitely needed it's own support. But there's really no room for it till aft of the front silencer, so ive gone as is! The Carledo has run fine on only 2 similar mounts since 2012.

My rear box is clearly visible through the arch, but doesn't intrude into it even as far as the original Sprint hanger (which i've now removed) I cant see the tyre ever touching it which is good enough for me!

The garage was still shut today, so no petrol to test till tomorrow.

Steve

[Carledo]

Here is the link for the startup video!

https://youtu.be/DMNL5cTmTGg

Still can't get over how easily it starts, switch on, wait for the fuel pump to prime, press the button and off it goes like clockwork!

Enjoy, Steve

[Carledo]

Generally i'm delighted, the top end noise went off after a bit, once the cams got some oil round them. I get the same on my 16v Cav when it's not run for a while. Oil light extinguishes immediately, so I don't think it will be a problem long term. I will change the oil and filter again before it hits the road properly, just as a precaution.

And the exhaust note is great, a soft woofle at idle and a harder edge above 3000rpm!

The more discerning amongst you will have also noticed the management light still alight on the dash! I plugged in the diagnostic (which actually worked, GO ME!) I got 2 manufacturer specific codes I couldn't translate and a P0100 code which is mass airlow sensor. The MAF IS connected now so may be a historic code. I've cleared all the codes and the EML goes out now and seems to be set to stay that way, another good result!

The fuel guage turned out to be just the guage and light wires the wrong way round on the tank sender, so that's all good too!

All things considered, a red letter day!

Steve

[dollyman]

That sounded really nice Steve, not to loud at all I would think you are still grinning from ear to ear? Well done that man

Tony.

[Tony Burd]

Sweeeeeeeeeeet

[sprint95m]

Here is the link for the startup video!
https://youtu.be/DMNL5cTmTGg

Sounding good Steve.



Something did strike me, you don't have any sound deadening on the bulkhead.
I know that it was only used on slant four engined cars so I am guessing you decided
to do without because the Carledo is satisfactory without any fitted?

For my Sprint I have lightweight Dynamat and Car Builder Solutions carpet,
which I reckon will offer no weight penalty over OE standard carpet?
At this stage, I am inclined to think I will fit bulkhead sound deadening too
even though it is more weight.






(The late instrument panel is for comparison)
I have had a go at doing up the woodwork. For the dash I have used the wood from a '75 Sprint, which wasn't
in great condition at all, but whilst miles from being perfect has turned out okay.
As you can see I have went for a darker colour (personal preference) and adopted an early Dolomite look
with a rocker hazard light switch, black bezels and warning light cluster. The big gauges are late Sprint
and I put the speedo on the right.
(I do have an early 1850 rev counter but I don't think it works with an Omex ECU, hence my choice.)
I have added illuminated switches for fog lights (back and front) and also a brake warning light
(being a '79 car, there is wiring on the PDWA but I haven't found a warning light?)




Ian.