The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Mike,
once you have fitted all they new panels you will end up with a second restored Sprint that will be far too good for
everyday use .

Excellent project Mike, I am certain she will be a cracker when finished!

The quality of the past repair work is shocking!!

MikeyB wrote:The car is also getting NOS inner & outersills & new reinforcement panels. The sills were also attended to "badly" 10 years ago so we are going to put it all right. I particularly love the lump of steel that's been welded full length over the re inforcement section here, not sure exactly what it's doing -

This illustrates why cutting out rusty sections is crucial. Using flat sheet of a suitable thickness (1.6mm) would have then been fine to replace the diaphragm
(at the expense of extra weight).
The rust along the bottom edge of the repair patch perfectly illustrates the weakness of Dolomite sill design, namely the moisture trap that ensures internal
corrosion along the full length. The outside can appear sound. As I have said often on this very forum, if you have rotten ends in the sills
then the whole sill will be rotting away internally.

Back in the days of the DSR, restorer Howard Bowles described how he cut the outer sills open on his apparently sound Sprint
to see what was inside. It was indeed perfect inside, so he then cut up OE outer sills to make repair sections to fit to his car.
That was a time when people complained about the cost of OE panels rather than their unavailability .


As always, following your progress with much interest,

Ian, the inherent strength of the reinforcers comes from the peening to the edge of the circular holes; this is the raison d'etre of the holes rather than an early attempt at lightening the structure. As such, the flat plate which has been tacked over is a compromise rather than equal substitute.

I understand the pattern reinforcer (note singular, as I understand they now supply just the one which is supposed to 'do' for both sides) supplied by 'another' doesn't have the peening to the circumferences and is just a plate with holes punched through it! An expensive plate with holes punched through it at that!! Nor is it zintec or of substantial gauge, yet I still felt guilty and still apologise at every enquiry that I had to put the price up to £50 each!

MikeyB wrote:I know, I know Ian but I'm not going to polish the underside of this one. The car may well be for sale after that, we shall see.

You cannot not do the underside. I'm speaking out of experience. When a car is growing under your hands and the shell is ready you cannot not do. The first few nights you do not sleep well and then it's upside down you removing the underseal and painting it yellow.

Thrust me, i know what you're doing.

Jeroen

I think the underside was a bit hit or miss depending on who was painting at the time. I'd be tempted to go full colour underneath just to make it look finished even if it's not original.

I think a modern epoxy based finish should be fine, having it in the original colour will be a bonus.

The more pictures of this part of the resto the better - I may have to do similar to my car very shortly, so the more detail the better.

xvivalve wrote:Ian, the inherent strength of the reinforcers comes from the peening to the edge of the circular holes; this is the raison d'etre of the holes rather than an early attempt at lightening the structure. As such, the flat plate which has been tacked over is a compromise rather than equal substitute.

Thank you Alun, I understand that.

Without a suitable press tool I think the peening is hard to achieve. Simply hammering the edge may achieve something similar
but will stretch the steel making it thinner over the edge?


Talking of compromises, interviews with former employees show that Triumph were heavily influences by cost, sometimes
ignoring the best design to fit a cheaper alternative, eg T1300 input shaft or the T2000 mark 2 having the wrong cylinder head
and a stupid inlet manifold as well .

I recall the bitumen on the shell before it went away, it did seem rather thrown in, whether it would have worked I am unsure. My man has been given strict instructions to seal it all up. It'll be better sealed than when new with any luck. Sadly nothing to report on my own project at the moment but we have at least agreed a price and what needs doing!

Looking good though Mike, I imagine it's much harder for the restorer in this situation where there's still a lot of dirty/rusty metal when it comes to welding etc.

Ah, but Ian, 'our' man has a suitable press tool

The greatest accolade our reinforcers have received so far is Mr Barker himself is considering using them, they being in his opinion that close to authentic OE (apart from being thicker and made of zintec)

Excellent work as ever.

Ref the underside, you could do what ive seen the yanks do. Get paint mixed to match red oxide in colour, add some matting paste to kill the gloss. Then paint the outside, wheel tubs etc for that authentic factory overspray on the underneath. Ive not seen any pics of the paint booth on the production line, but if you can find them, it might give a clue how much overspray there was underneath.

Ive done painted undersides twice now. And like you, am then scared to drive it!

Uhm, WOW !

the lengths you go to know no bounds. Great job Mike, I was wondering what happened to this resto.

well done

stu

My goodness me, that is a stunning level of work and attention to detail...!!!

I cannot wait to see the end result...

It's good to see some updates on this project. Personally though I would go body coloured underneath but do it in epoxy type paint so it's tough and flexible. I wonder if it would look a bit odd in red epoxy. I assume they were red as the majority would then be dealer undersealed so the colour didn't matter.