Early 1850 advice

[veloce_rosso]

The cooling system isn't a great design and sadly it seems to be an area that trips up British car makers over and over again. My father has an MGF, another car whose cooling system you have to watch like a hawk. Along other cars with the larger K-series lumps. The Stag and the Imp are two others that come to mind.

Having fought to keep the system on my Sprint engine sealed, I don't have much confidence in the slant cooling system design. You have the transfer pipe, which leaks if not seated correctly or the O-rings are tired. The inlet manifold coolant inlet to the head seems like a bad design, especially when you look at the bolt pattern around it. No-way to apply clamping forces to the bottom if it isn't seated properly. I could only fix that by having it skimmed.

The slightest air leak seems to lead to coolant in the expansion bottle and the thermostat housing running dry. If you're really unlucky the sender runs dry and you don't know you have a problem.

I think I am going to go the route of fitting a header tank. I just don't have very much faith in the design.

Indeed the slant 4 engine was full of niggles, due to the fact, in the main, that BL staff preferred to strike than develop their engines. It's a shame as they were only a few tweaks (IMHO) from making a great engine.

That said, with my Dollies I had no coolant issues. I can only put that down to regular checks and serving, allied to coolant made up of good quality antifreeze and distilled water -- or perhaps I was just lucky. But given I had several I'd like to think it was the former, but I can't prove that...

For all their faults they are still worth the effort, especially if you only use it with limited mileage.

I will be looking at throwing a ton of money to try and improve the engine of my next Dolly: Having hardened valves to take unleaded; have the head ported to improve the flow of water and air; upgrade the radiator; add a header tank....

However, this won't happen overnight, for obvious reasons.

[Bumpa]

A slant engine doesn't need the head modifying for unleaded. Because it is aluminium alloy it had hard valve inserts from new.

[sprint95m]

Damn. I used to buy it regularly, not been into WH Smith for about 4 months now so i didnt know it had gone.... real shame.

You and a lot of others mate! Probably part of the reason for it's demise! I had a subscription because the nearest source otherwise was a 30 mile round trip. But gave even that up about a year ago, purely on cost grounds. (I also gave up my TSSC membership as it offered the least of my 3 club memberships)

But I have virtually a complete set including issue one!

Steve

I have a subscription to both Triumph World and Retro Cars.

Last year Retro Cars was changed out of all recognition, so much so that my disinterest in the new content
means I have unopened issues!


TR Triumph Wold, the only communication I have received from the publishers was an email giving me free access to the online edition,
which I couldn't find. Now I know why.



Ian.

[veloce_rosso]

A slant engine doesn't need the head modifying for unleaded. Because it is aluminium alloy it had hard valve inserts from new.

Crikey! Didn't know that. Thanks.

[yorkshire_spam]

Indeed the slant 4 engine was full of niggles, due to the fact, in the main, that BL staff preferred to strike than develop their engines. It's a shame as they were only a few tweaks (IMHO) from making a great engine.

So true! Just look at what SAAB did with the later generations of the slant engine.

[veloce_rosso]

Indeed the slant 4 engine was full of niggles, due to the fact, in the main, that BL staff preferred to strike than develop their engines. It's a shame as they were only a few tweaks (IMHO) from making a great engine.

So true! Just look at what SAAB did with the later generations of the slant engine.

What did Saab do to improve the engine?

[yorkshire_spam]

Indeed the slant 4 engine was full of niggles, due to the fact, in the main, that BL staff preferred to strike than develop their engines. It's a shame as they were only a few tweaks (IMHO) from making a great engine.

So true! Just look at what SAAB did with the later generations of the slant engine.

What did Saab do to improve the engine?

Redesigned water pump, 2l capacity, bigger valves and ports on a redesigned head:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_B_engine
Then they turbo'd it!
And in the end it was quite high tech
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_H_engine

[veloce_rosso]

So true! Just look at what SAAB did with the later generations of the slant engine.

What did Saab do to improve the engine?

Redesigned water pump, 2l capacity, bigger valves and ports on a redesigned head:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_B_engine
Then they turbo'd it!
And in the end it was quite high tech
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_H_engine

That's interesting Saab redesigned the water pump as that was IMHO the Dolomite's biggest issue. It is the heart of the coolant system... I know you can buy large fin radiators but can't see how they improve the coolant when the pump was substandard.

[Bumpa]

I agree, the water pump is such a ridiculous design. What was wrong with a bolt on module on the front of the engine as most cars had in those days. This is what the pump on my 1850 looked like when I stripped it down. And talking about the strip down, what was the idea behind the angled head studs? It took me hours to get the head off when number 4 stud just would not budge.

[tonybsa]

My Sprint was restored by me 10 years ago.I use it mainly for long journeys,and weekends away.It has also stepped into the role of daily driver more than once,for a couple of months at a time,when my modern junk let me down.
It has a Payen head gasket. EN34 head bolts,and an alloy radiator off ebay,with an electric fan.
It has a 6 vane water pump,and the coolant is changed every 2 years.
I use Bluecol anti freeze,with de ionized water,at 25 percent antifreeze.
I use Shell super unleaded as much as I can(good octane rating).
I drive it hard,it sits in traffic with the heater on cold,on hot days,and it has never,in the 25 years I have owned it overheated.

[Bumpa]

I drive it hard,it sits in traffic with the heater on cold,on hot days,and it has never,in the 25 years I have owned it overheated.

Yes, despite my moaning, having reconditioned the engine, last year I took my 1850HL down to Silverstone Classic on the hottest day of the year, a 380 mile trip. The shade temp was 37 C and I got stuck once or twice in the usual M6 miseries. My car has no fancy cooling system upgrades, just a standard radiator and the engine driven fan. Not once in that long journey did it ever get close to overheating. I didn't even consider putting the heater on to ease the load - I needed all the coolish air it could blow at me! As you say, in good condition the cooling system works, but I still think the water pump is a crazy design.

[yorkshire_spam]

The pump (and jack-shaft in general) seem bat-5h1t crazy to me... but if carefully rebuilt with QUALITY parts and LOOKED AFTER I don't see the cooling system on an 1850 as a problem.
But a pump thrown at the engine from 20 feet away by British Leyland millitants over 40 years ago with a hit-n-miss maintenance history... that's going to be a different story!

[veloce_rosso]

I agree, the water pump is such a ridiculous design. What was wrong with a bolt on module on the front of the engine as most cars had in those days. This is what the pump on my 1850 looked like when I stripped it down. And talking about the strip down, what was the idea behind the angled head studs? It took me hours to get the head off when number 4 stud just would not budge.

Presumably no-one has thought about making an upgraded pump for the slant 4, or could you use one from a Saab on a Dolly?

Fuuny about Saab. They always advertised their cars with a slogan we built aircraft blah blah, yet very few of their front-line jet fighter use Saab engines -- mostly made by Volvo. And for a period they used and improved a Triumph power plant on their cars.

[veloce_rosso]

The pump (and jack-shaft in general) seem bat-5h1t crazy to me... but if carefully rebuilt with QUALITY parts and LOOKED AFTER I don't see the cooling system on an 1850 as a problem.
But a pump thrown at the engine from 20 feet away by British Leyland millitants over 40 years ago with a hit-n-miss maintenance history... that's going to be a different story!

Got a little story about a Jack-Shaft. I purchased my 1850 off a good school friend. He purchased the car while working at a BL dealership as a trade-in. The engine was knocking, so he rebuilt it from the ground up (crank shaft, big end, small end, pistons, head re-skimmed, valves). It was beautiful. He ran it in for a 1000 miles and a few months later he was driving it and the oil light came on and there was grinding sound from the engine.

He found the Jack-Shaft had seized up, so he had to carry out another full stripe down again.

When I purchased it off him the engine ran like a dream but the rest of the car hadn't had any TLC over the years. I just threw money at it because essentially it was a good car crying out for some attention.

(How many other cars had Jack-Shafts? I don't know any)

[Bumpa]

How many other cars had jackshafts? Well, I know of at least one, 'cos I owned one and rebuilt the motor. What was it? The famous Lotus-Ford Twin-Cam of course. That was an old design of cylinder block from the Kent pushrod engine with a smart new Lotus twin-cam head plonked on top. It made sense to retain the original camshaft to drive the oil pump, distributor and fuel pump, just like on the Triumph slant engine. It never gave me any bother.