I have recently purchased a french blue dolomite sprint, Reg WDM 242N.
Its rough, and needs a lot of work, but will hopefully allow me to experience some sprint fun over the summer!
Im looking to trace as much history of the car and previous owners as possible.
Its not so much to build up a history file, for it, (Its certainly never going to be a museum quality car, with 20 previous owners!!!!) But just to see any interesting pictures from its past, and hopefully hear some interesting stories!
Hello, and thanks for the welcome.
Having read through some of the excellent restoration posts on here, I dont think ill have much exciting to add!!
The end goal is to try and get it reliable enough to take to all the BTCC events next year, which from the North of Scotland might take a bit of doing, so ill be concentrating on the mechanical side initially.
I knew the car in the mid to late nineties. I viewed it (in Ferndown?) on behalf of a buyer in the Wimborne area (Tony Lovern, I think) and took it for a spirited test drive down the local bypass.
At the time it'd recently had a fairly good respray but the engine was down on power. Tony spent a lot of time and money in getting it right and the car turned out well in the end.
I drive by where it used to live most mornings and have often wondered what had become of it. Glad it's still around.
The viscous unit bearing is actually good, although I have a new one to fit as a matter of course, its the bearing between the housing that mounts to the timing cover, and the pulley itself that is worn and causing my trouble.
I have a reasonable used item that I've just removed a damaged viscous unit from; I'll PM you.
It would be beneficial for you to source a new tolerance ring which is the corrugated cylinder which wraps the spindle of the pulley over which the viscous unit is friction fitted.
I'm also still interested in trying to source a new bearing, if anybody can shed more light on that?
And back to my cars history, does anybody know of any records from old triumph dealers in the chester, flintshire area? Im assuming as the reg number is wdm, the car would have been bought there also. ( even just the names of any old dealerships from the area might be useful!)
So far I have clues of previous owners from longniddry, wallyford, holbeach, and westcliff on sea.
The pulley/bearing/mounting block is a single part UKC2496 and isn't serviceable. I've tried in the past to take them apart and ended up throwing them away.
Your car isn't on the list of early cars that Mike Barker has compiled over the last few decades, but previous Club members Nigel Samson and Tony Loven have owned it in the past. Tony was in the south west area but no information held for Nigel's location
I have hopefully attached a picture of the bracket, bearing and pulley apart. Also in the picture is the bearing I ordered for the tr7. It is a genuine leyland part, and has the same diameters, but as you can see, the bearing section is too long, and shaft too short.
I was hoping somebody may know if another triumph had a similar bearing that may work? Im looking into the triumph spitfire bearing, which has a shaft right through both ends, one holds the pulley, the other would be the waterpump impeller. If it has the correct diameters, I may be able to lop off one end, and use it. It would be good to find a solution, as there wont always be a supply of good seconds.
I looked at all the cars that used TKC101, Triumph, Jaguar and Rover, but all had a longer ‘throw’ as they have more space in the engine bay and the rad sits further forward relative to the front cover in each case.
It is a problem which would be good to solve, as when the bearing within TKC101 wears it has a distinct noise to alert you, not so the spindle bearing and both can cause TKC101 to ‘wobble off’ and destroy the radiator
A couple of questions I'm hoping folks here might have an answer to.
Are the sprint and stag steering wheels identical? The car currently has a motalita fitted, and I'd prefer an original sprint one.
Secondly, Is it possible to get a standard heater matrix? Mines currently useless, and would like to find a new, decent quality replacement!
