The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Yesterdays progress included undercoating the boot floor, I bought Tetraseal spray stuff, which is horrible... well, it's good stuff, but the can blocks up every 15 seconds. I had two cans, so had one in some warm water and swapped over everytime it blocked. Did the trick! I think I'll have a go at a second coat when it's a bit warmer.



I also finished the welding in the rear wheelarch, but I seem to have lost the photos I took.

After the master cylinder failed a month ago, I have finally found the time to take it off the car and dismantle it for inspection. Sadly the bore is quite pitted about 1/3 of the way along, so looks like it is past the point of re-sealing, even if I run some wet and dry down it. The seals looked undamaged though.

Does anybody have a good secondhand tandem master cylinder going spare? It only matters as long as it has a good bore as I can put a seal kit in it.

Hi Howard,

I was talking to RooBoy at Stoneleigh and I think he has a good second hand one. You might want to drop him a PM and see if it is still available.

Cheers
Ang

Minor updates...

New re-sleeved Master Cylinder from Wins has arrived and looks lovely. Not a bad buy at £110. I would have bought a club one, but they are out of stock at the moment.



Hopefully once the car is braking properly I'll be able to look into getting the welding done

Speaking of which... this is why sound deadening tar-boards are pure evil... The rust is localised purely to the lower pressing sections of the reinforcement ribs.

Luckily I have one of Alun's fantastic club panels to go in

Glad to hear you'r happy with your auto i bought one myself (1977) about two week's ago
and am looking forward to driving her in the near future well may you wear
Regards Myles.

myles connolly wrote:well may you wear....

I think that's a wonderful expression.

Thought I'd resurrect this!

NGU hasn't been used much this year, due to the lack of MoT. All it really needs is the sill and floor welding, a new anti-roll bar clamp (it missing entirely, so must have fallen off!) and two indicators seem to be rather reluctant to work.

A friend of mine is a motor trader and know a chap that can do the welding for me! It's only a mile away, and my friend has offered to flatbed it there in exchange for beer

First problem - the car hasn't moved since I was last in Poole, in late July. Firstly, after charging up the battery, I couldn't get the car to start. It was firing, just reluctant to keep on going due to the freezing temperatures. Jod recommended to clean up the spark plugs and put them in the oven.. It worked!! It was really lumpy at first, but soon settled down to the usual quiet idle. It's still spluttery at higher revs though.

My next problem was the brakes, the rears are fine (I left the handbrake off), but the fronts are stuck solid. After many skinned knuckles I managed to get the pads out of the passenger side caliper. Luckily the pistons freed off okay, and I found a set of pads in the garage. Hope to get the other side removed and reassembled tomorrow.

Over the next couple of days I plan to strip out the interior and carpets in readiness for the welding. One front and one rear indicator don't work, and it's not the bulb. Bit of head scratching to be done!

Other than that, the cars great!

Sadly, it will be up for sale in the New Year. New MoT, 6 months tax.
Any takers?

Can this please be moved to the Restoration Forum?

I stripped out the interior today in readiness for the welding. I'm back up to London on Friday, so tomorrow is going to be my last day with this car until Christmas.

The interior is let down by the shabby door cappings. In the back, someone has stripped the varnish off them, then coated them with something. In the front, the passenger door has a perfect capping, and the drivers side one is awful!

I took the cappings off, as it turns out the rears are a matched pair, while the fronts don't match each other or the backs.

Unfortunately, the veneer on the rear cappings had been damaged as the original varnish had been scraped off with a Stanley knife blade. I was able to get most of these marks out by sanding them with a power sander, this worked brilliantly - it really made the graining stand out. I've painted them with a decent stain to bring out the colour, and have some satin varnish to spray on tomorrow. I'm aiming for as close to an original finish as I can!

Unfortunately, the driver front capping hadnt faired so well, the veneer had lifted. I couldn't save it, so I carefully sliced it off. The wood underneath doesn't look too bad, once stained and varnished it will look much more presentable than it did!

Interestingly, it seems only the face of the capping was veneered - the tops are just the underlying wood. I'm quite tempted to have a go at re-veneering the front capping! We'll see

Some pics..

A few more bits finished off over the last week.

Rear door wood finished with 5 coats of satin lacquer, lightly sanded down after each coat to give a nice smooth finish. Now back on the car and looking great!





The front drivers-side wood trim had peeling veneer, so I sliced it off and re-veneered it. The results are very good indeed! This has now been stained and is now being varnished. One more coat left to do







One problem I've had with the car was that the heater unit had partially seized. It would blow hot air, but not cold. Attempts to un-seize the valve to the right of the unit were unsuccessful, so I sourced a replacement heater. Unfortunately, the whole dashboard needs to be removed to fit it, so I've been a little reluctant to start this job!

Just before Christmas I removed the dashboard and the old heater unit. Today I flushed out the new heater, adjusted the controls so they work properly and fitted it. Now it's dark, so the dashboard will have to wait until tomorrow

Bit of a puzzle why the heater speeds were the wrong way round, but it turned out that they were connected up wrong on the heater under the bonnet!

Can you save me your old heater? I need the center lever as its broken on one of mine...

I'm sure we could make a good one out of the spare 1300 heater I have with its valve and matrix too...

Swap it for a free carb tube...

Jonners

I'm back down in Poole for the week, so now the weather is fairly stable I'm giving the 1500 some more attention

Sadly, my welder seems to have gone all quiet, I'll have to pop over soon to remind him

Jon Tilson wrote:Can you save me your old heater? I need the center lever as its broken on one of mine...

I'm sure we could make a good one out of the spare 1300 heater I have with its valve and matrix too...

Swap it for a free carb tube...

Jonners

Sure, I still have it, so I'll pop it in the boot for you. It's all working great, but the valve on the right-hand side is seized.. You'll be able to combine two to make one easy enough.

After charging the battery, NGU burst into life easily enough. It ran rather rough, but smoothed out with some fresh petrol and some oil in the dashpots. I only had SAE30 in stock for my Beetle, but that seems to be okay. Only been able to test up to 50mph around the village

The brakes next, as they pull to the left. Freeing off the calliper pistons helped a little, but they needed stripping and rebuilding. Driver's front was first and came off pretty easily. The old seals were shot. Very perished, and practically fell apart on removal. The pistons cleaned up nicely - one had a couple of specks in the chrome, but they were near the outer edge so shouldn't be too much of a problem. I stripped, cleaned and painted the calliper before putting it back on the car. New pads fitted. Will bleed it in the morning, then do the same to the other side! I'll remember to take some "before" photos next time







While under the car I noticed that the track rod end on the steering rack and a very split gaiter, so I've ordered a new one from James Paddock's - they're the same as Spitfire ones, and Paddocks were the cheapest. I'll fit that when it arrives.

Finally, while poking around under the wheelarch, I noticed a small rust hole at the end of the sill! Not good. I cut it out, treated it and zapped on a patch. Not the neatest of welding, but it's strong and does the job! I sanded off all the loose rust under the wheelarch and covered the weld with some seam sealer.

Finished the stonechipping today. All wheelarches and underfloor of the car have been wire-brushed and coated. Pleased to announce there's absolutely no rot under there apart from the two bits that need welding. Chassis rails are rock solid

Howard, you have a pm!

As do you