The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Cylinder head update!!

The guides are out and it has been in the cold carbon for a few days then through the hot wash. We don't know why someone decided to put some chemical metal on one of the guides, they were all tight so it wasn't there to hold it in or anything sinister like that, it also looks nice and thick so may not have been skimmed before. Anyway it just needs a pressure test to ensure that all is well and we can crack on with refurbishing it. Mick and Leon are doing a fantastic job at Roe Engineering in Fleet.







This is the port in question, with the little 'x' next to it.



Whilst there's nothing to do on the head, I have been cracking on with cleaning all of the internal engine components, not with the sand blaster but in vinegar and the hot ultrasonic cleaner.



Everything's coming out lovely and shiny!











If you do use this method of cleaning remember to thoroughly wash everything in hot water to remove all of the vinegar otherwise you'll end up with flash rust!

More cleaning...

I am of the opinion that when reassembling an engine everything should be spotlessly clean.

Jackshaft, rocker shaft, rocker arms and the remainder of the cylinder head components. The rocker arms are shiny because I have dropped them in some honing oil to prevent any flash rust forming.





I wasn't happy with the finish on the sump. The quality of the powder coat just wasn't as good as the sub-frame so I decided to strip it and re-paint it in engine enamel which should be a lot more heat resistant.

This is the inside of the sump, again it's not painted just shiny due to being coated in honing oil to prevent any rust.





Stripped off all of the powder coat. You can see there is some rust damage, I'll deal with that later on in the process.







Then applied about 5 coats of Halfords engine paint, the stuff in a spray can. It goes on remarkably well and needs no primer if you prep the surface properly.





I quite like the gloss on the sump, it will offset against the satin of the subframe really well.

This may change though!!

Solvent pop.

I know it has been hot but this has nothing to do with surface prep, temperature or humidity it is to do with the mix in the can being wrong. This is something that I have been coming across in rattle cans more and more recently and I find it really annoying.

This is the result of painting the oil filter bowl at the weekend, looks ok from a distance...



But upon closer inspection...



The bowl was stripped, media blasted, coated with red oxide, flatted, coated with some matt black to tone down the blue, flatted then top coated with a 'Leyland' blue from CarPlan.

Like I said nothing to do with prep or process, just a bad can of paint, you can tell it's a bad can just when the paint come out, it was all wrong and ran easily as well.

Now the problem is I feel that I should get my money back, but you try explaining that to a monkey behind the counter at a motor factor who just thinks that you don't know what you're doing.

Apologies for the lack of updates, I have been away in Europe all summer so there hasn't really been much to update on!

Since getting back I have been getting on with organising the remaining work to be done before I start on the body. I spoke to Roe Engineering about the head and the new guides have been fitted and reamed and the new valve seats have been fitted. All that remains is to cut the seats and lap the valves and check that the bearings are all ok with the new camshaft. I havent started re-assembling the engine yet so I'm not in a mad rush for it to be finished.

I had the rest of my parts plated whilst I was away, they look as good as the first set and complete a loot of things that were outstanding from the previous batch. I'm sure there will be another plating batch things are refurbished, I've already found the missing exhaust hanger and another bracket!!



The oil filter assembly was stripped and repainted with a can of Henleys Blue, the closest shade I could find the the original. This time has come out exactly as I wanted it and it's ready to be fitted when the engine goes back together.



I'll do the steering in a separate post but I went on Toledo Man and Johns recommendation and went for the polybush washers for the steering joint knuckle. That's now been re-assembled and looks great.



I also managed to clean out the expansion tank and have the small metal ring at the top plated so this now looks brand new. So with the exception of the radiator which I'll get re-cored, this finished off the cooling system.



I did a bit more glass beading, first on the front carb whos finish wasn't quite up to the standard of the rear carb. I'm pleased with the finish now and am happy that they both match so I can get on with reassembling them.



I also finished the water pump cover, timing cover, thermostat housing, and oil transfer cover with some glass bead, I'm very happy with the way that they have come out.











I decided to try and save some time and ordered a refurbished rocker cover from Rimmers. This is nothing against Rimmers but the finish wasn't up to my standard, for a start it was matt black whereas mine is satin and there was some damage on the cover itself and the lettering which I wasn't happy with. So that's gone back!







You can't see it very well but there is some damage in the cover itself.





They have also powder coated the inside which I'm not happy with.



So the next job is to finish off refurbishing the steering so I can move the car in and out of the garage again!

Post to follow shortly, or er... after I've put the kids to bed!!

Good to see some more updates on this top quality restoration. I've just got mine back on the road and now the entire front end bar the front ARB and steering joint are in Super Flex. They're worth every penny and I went to the TDCIR and back without any issues. Don't forget that Chris Witor gives TDC members a discount on these bushes.

Thank you, and I have to say thanks for including me in the Epic Sprint Restoration Threads. I'm pretty speechless to be honest about that! To be regarded as being up there with the likes of MikeyB, Mark and Mad Mart I'm very happy!

Everyone in that thread and the forum in general have given me a lot of information and inspiration throughout this resto so thanks to everyone.

Now, on to steering!

The old intermediate shaft, the bit with the UJ and shaft on it, was quite notchy when articulated it through it's range of movement so I have replaced it with a new one.

As mentioned in a previous post I did buy a new lower knuckle but was less than happy with the quality so I decided to refurbish the original one. The old one was stripped down, blasted and the bolts cleaned up.



The castings were plated, not the bolts. Although they are plated properly, it's not worth the risk of hydrogen embrittlement especially on something like steering. The bushes were replaced with new Superflex Poly bushes.



Then it was a simple case of putting everything back together.



For extra security I applied some Loctite 276 to the threads of the bolts. This has a breakaway torque of 60nm so that accompanied with crushing the exposed threads with a drift (which looks like was done originally) should ensure that the bolts never come undone.



I'm very happy with the way this has come out, far better than the replacement!

I always found the steering in my car to be rather heavy and slow. I checked out the steering column and found no play, both the uni joint and the knuckle were well worn so I can imagine that would contribute to the vague and slow steering response so those have been replaced and refurbished. Looking back through the receipts I can see that the steering rack was renewed about 6 months before the car was taken off the road and put into storage, something in me thought that I should open up the rack and have a look at it.

Well, I'm glad I did! It looks like the only part of this rack to be refurbished was the paint.

First, a thanks to AndyThomas for posting this article from Dolly Mixture viewtopic.php?f=4&t=14447

Oh, and I should point out that I don't know the source of this rack.

So the first thing to do was to give it a thorough clean before stripdown.

Then I removed the plug securing the damper assembly to the rack housing. You'll need a huge adjustable spanner for this, it's tight!

Remove the springs, shim, and the damper. Apologies, I don't have a photo of that! But, I have found that the plastic trays that these come in are really good as parts trays.

http://www.waitrose.com/shop/ProductVie ... e+tomatoes

I then removed the plug that holds the pinion into the rack housing and found this



Rust and water in a bearing never fills me with confidence!

I pulled the pinion out by following what the manual says and inverting the plug and inserting two bolts in to clamp the shaft then gently levering it out with a couple of screwdrivers.

Once out you could see how bad the pinion bearing was.



and its plug...



The pinion gear itself showed no real signs of wear on its teeth or bush



Before I removed the tie rods I checked the end bush for play, lets just say it was like chucking a hot dog down a hallway! The bush needed replacing.

So, to get the tie rods off the rack shaft, now these are seriously tight. Working from the passenger side I clamped the big nut, lock tab and thinner nut in my vice and hit the other thin nut with a 34mm spanner to release it. The I could release the tie rod assembly from the shaft, pull the shaft out and do the same on the other end. Don't loose the spring in the end of the rack shaft.

I then bent back the lock tabs, clamped the big nut in the vice again and knocked off the thinner nut. This releases the plastic socket and the shims, keep them all together.







I then knocked out the old bush with a 16mm socket on a very long extension shaft, it wasn't difficult and came out relatively easily.

Next job is to clean the grease and gunk out of everything. Mine didn't have anything near enough grease in it, so this was easy!







Once cleaned I blasted the rack housing to remove paint and corrosion.



EDIT: After blasting I cleaned the blasted parts to remove any media and dust!

Interestingly, the knuckle looks like it's cast onto a steel tube so I decided to glass bead this and paint the steel rack tube in satin black to make it a bit more 'visually appealing'!



I then knocked in a new bush with a block of wood.



Everything cleaned. The rack is straight (I checked!), it's just the barrel distortion from the lens I'm using on the camera. The bush is soaking in oil at the top of the photo.



I noticed that one of the sockets was plastic, and not in a good way, the other was steel. I didn't think much of it until I started to reassemble the tie rods.



I couldn't remove the play, despite using combinations of shims. I would have thought that if I just put the original shims back in it would be fine but it locked up the tie rod to the point where it would not move which is probably the reason for the tight steering. So I noticed that Chris Witor sold some Superflex ball cups so I have ordered a pair of those as well as the upper bulkhead bush to replace my standard one. I know I'm trying to build a standard car, but these I think are a 'no-brainer' update here.

This is where I have hit a wall really. As long as I can remove the play from the tie rod assembly, what is the procedure for re-attaching it to the rack with the spring? Do you tighten until there's a certain amount of force required to make the tie rod drop, then lock it off? It's not clear in the manual in my mind.

Also, Jigsaw are selling a quick pinion so I'm wondering if I should drop one of these in to speed up the steering a bit.

Like I said nothing to do with prep or process, just a bad can of paint

I don't think that it is a bad can James.

I have just been using CarPlan rattle cans and they came out with the same finish. They were also blue so I don't know if that has anything to do with it.

Oh well - I'll start rubbing

I put a new inner TRE on a rack once. Like you I found the large nuts a bit of a mare and also had a plastic
ball seat. I shimmed it up so it was about as tight feeling as the usual new ball joint in an outer TRE. Good blob
of grease before fitting too.

As long as you have no in and out play on the ball a bit of tightness is good but I agree you dont want it rigid.

Jonners

I have just been using CarPlan rattle cans and they came out with the same finish. They were also blue so I don't know if that has anything to do with it.

Probably just CarPlan then! I ended up using Halfords rattle cans, the finish is really good, I cant fault it for a can.

Thanks Jonners, I'll wait for the new ball seats to arrive and set them up again.

Just a quick update.

I have ordered a quick pinion from Jigsaw as well as some solid rack mounts for the future. I haven't decided whether or not to put the pinion in now, I know I'm trying to keep the car original but for the sake of having to strip the rack again I may do that. Like the solid carb mounts, the rack mounts wont be going on until the cars finished 'being shown!' I'll post some pictures of them just so people can see what they look like.

Anyway everything should arrive tomorrow so I should be able to get everything back in the car for a dry fit by the weekend.

Thanks Jonners, these arrived a few days ago.



So I can get the tie rods and rack shaft fitted back into the rack.

As I said I ordered a quick pinion from Jigsaw which arrived just over a week ago, excited I set about doing a dry fit on the rack then realised there was a big problem, can you spot it.







Yep, that’s right, the pinions facing the wrong way!



I have spoken to Mark at Jigsaw and sent him some photos, it's just a mistake so he’s trying to get a replacement out to me ASAP. Other than that it looks good, the angle looks correct and as far as I can see it will fit nicely. In comparison to my original which has 6 teeth, this has 7. We will see what a difference that makes when I get a replacement and everything fitted on the car.

I don’t think the increase in ‘rack speed’ is enough for something like a race or rally car but I do think it will allow me to be able to catch the rear end quicker on say something like a wet roundabout!!

I also got some solid rack mounts. If you’re wondering what they look like then…



The rack will be temporarily mounted in the car so I’ll use these and photo them for reference.

A big recommendation to Jigsaw, they’ve been a pleasure to deal with.

So, not being able to complete the steering rack I cracked on with the column and fittings. All of the fittings were cleaned and re-painted in either gloss or satin black depending on what they were originally.



In the parts manual the adjusting boss for the column has a spring in it. I don’t seem to have one of these. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t lost as I’m pretty meticulous when bagging up parts. Has anyone seen one of these before?



The bearings on the column looked ok with no play so I just re-greased them with some lithium bike hub grease using my cunning Waitrose syringe and gave the column a coat of satin black. Looking at the design it looks like if you could get the top bearing out it could be stripped and the bearings themselves replaced, however, Jonners has mentioned in another thread getting the top bearing out is a pain in the backside so as there is no play I’m not going to try and make more work for myself.



Disaster struck as I was test fitting the column switches. The wiper stalk must have been over tightened in the past and the mounts cracked, as I tightened up the clamp the plastic boss just fell apart rendering the part completely useless. After a hunt around I found one on eBay for £23.40, significantly less than the cost of a replacement from Rimmers.



The last thing is that I’m looking for a better light switch selector. Mine is very faded and has a small amount of damage on it. Does anyone have one that I can buy from them?

James, your attention to detail continues to impress me. I might have a headlight switch in the loft but I doubt it would be up to your high standards. You should have a straight run when you come to reassemble the car. My own "resto" thread is back in the members only section and I'm hoping to improve my 1850 now it is back on the road and driving straight.