The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Cheers for all the responses!

I will say this to all those thinking I should be keeping the car standard because she too good to play with. Fair point and a valid opinion, thank you for the input but.... these pictures make her out to be in a far better shape than what she is.... This car is perfect for me! Me and the old man have our almost standard sprint that we won't ever do anything like this too but this one is my toy. Underneath she is solid but on top she is far from good.... 3/4 doors are bad, new front has been put on badly, bubbling alot in places and im incredibly scared to start digging at the rest particulary behind headlights!!

The intention with this one is to hopefully to get her a feature in retro cars or something simular but to that standard that I dont mind taking to the track every now and again!! Have no fear that when im done with her she will be something to be proud of!! (Well ill be proud ) Also I need to swade the missis round and get her into CLASSICS more!! I'm 20 and my missis is 18. I've visited her at uni this weekend and she (and her mates) are slowly coming round to it.

ANYWAYYYYY......... I have been looking at the different wheels and arches but am gonna hold fire until shes off the road in january and i have a bit of money behind me to do the work! Don't worry I'm sure I'll be consulting you all in the future about them !!

Chav it? If you think that's chaving it, I can't wait to see what you say about my car.

Ha I can't wait to see your car Oli

Cheers, Shep

Carledo wrote:

triplesfanatic wrote:I'm with Hobo this is a nice car. What's wrong with Sprint alloys they have class! Don't Chav this car.

Dave

Another Triumph of style over substance!
This is what I meant in my earlier post about peoples unwillingness to give up the Sprint alloys!
To my mind decent brakes win every time over keeping it looking stock! Sure if you have a concours example in standard trim that you don't drive hard, by all means keep the Sprint alloys, they do look nice and their characteristics perfectly suit a standard car. But if you want it to be safe at any speed then you have to be prepared to experiment (and compromise) a bit!

Steve

Good point, it's a shame that Sprint Alloy's have not been re-done in different dimensions, maybe this would be the answer if the process could be adopted/ funded/ viable.?

Well it would of been nice too. If only stag wheels would just bolt on eh!

Right I am in serious need of an update as I'm starting to lose track of what I have and haven't told you all!

So NEX has been off the road since 1st of January now and I managed to find the time to start on her a couple weeks back! So the mammoth task has begun! The general plan is:
-First remove the engine and box (box needs work as was struggling to get into gears!)
-Then repaint, clean and put new gaskets in faster engine
-Repair bodywork in and around engine bay
-Clean up and polybush spare axle and polybush/ clean subframe.
-Sort any other rust issues (mainly doors and bit in and around boot)
-Install arches and get ready to prime
-Then paint, put engine/box in, put back together JOB DONE!
If only that simple eh!

Sorry for the pictures. I took loads off my digi camera but seems I lost the lead






This is probably the worst bit of rust! Bit more stripping and cutting and i can really see what I'm up against! But still I've had worse!!


Sorry theres not more photos, when I find the lead I'll upload some more! I only get to work on it evenings at the moment and most of my evenings are being taken up so it's going to be slow until my weekends free up! Engine and box will be out by end of next week though hopefully!

Cheers, Shep

**Just like to say a big thanks to Jason on here who gave me his engine stand! Very much appreciated! Cheers

looking great

can i ask why you are changing the colour?

i think im painting mine green but out of the list you have posted i would choose modern blue, although it depends which blue you mean?

Well this colour has certainly grown on me but its not the original colour and the paint job isn't great I already have a Yellow sprint and Red 2.5PI so I was thinking either orange or blue. I seriously considered brooklands green but I've had a fair few green cars! Yeah I was thinking if not a triumph colour then a cheap common modern colour that on a classic car makes it look just a bit more unique! But yes there are ALOT of choices out there if going down that route!!

Decisions decisions! I quite like Ford ST blue

Triumph Topaz orange..

Hello Shep,
good to see the engine stand built and poised ready for action. With regard to the colour I think you should listen to the misses and paint it the same colour as mine, pageant blue, weird really because I'd really like a yellow one. All the best with the re-build
Jason.

Well I'll be ordering the paint in a couple of months hopefully so plenty of time to decide..... at the moment I am leaning towards more of an orange but I like to change my mind alot so it could anything by then!! Cheers for the comments

Okay a very depressing update to be had..... Project NEX is now more like project barn find! We've had builders in the house for the past few months, so the car is looking more like a shelf!



It's a sorry sight! But no worries it'll be restarted again soon!! Just a little heads up for anyone who was wondering!
Cheers, Shep

YAYYY!! After all this time I can safely say I can have an update on project NEX!! Unfortunately I have neglected the sprint and been very inactive on the forum. I have had another project of a VW T5 camper van that has consumed a lot of my time but now I have the bug again!!

Unfortunately you will have to use your imagination as I unfortunately lost a lot of photos

Okay so the last update I had saw her sat looking sorry for herself so there is a bit to catch up on....

So first things first, engines out, gearbox is out, seats, interior, etc are all out. Only things left in the car is the wiring, the dash (just) and the headlining.





We then moved her into a better position to work on the front end and better place to spray.


Then the epic task of stripping paint! I'm using starchem, which seems a very good product and easily tops nitromors! All dents or imperfections were outlined and photographed to repair later.



Getting there! (Sorry for the bad quality pics!)



Finding more rust!



This is actually a pic from when we hadn't started to dig on the eyebrows yet.
In the end they were completely cut out and I had somehow managed to fabricate something similar to original....ish...

Paint stripped headlights repaired now it was onto the fun stuff.....



I later cut these out using a number of holesaws. The plan is to move the number plate in order for these to add a lot more airflow into the radiator. Also toying with the idea of locating an oil cooler there but I'll worry about that more when the rest of the car is painted!

I also started smoothing the engine bay. I love the look of a clean engine bay and my sprint had a lot of unnecessary holes....



I have also moved the fusebox into the car now as it was messy where it was before.


Then I decided to treat myself......







Even got the miss to help!



Arch on


Getting better with the paint stripper!!



Started digging on one the rear doors to add the other piece of arch and didn't really much steel to work with....


Okay so here is how she stands now!




So hopefully I'll get more involved and have a few smaller updates soon but for now I need to catch up on here with the other projects I've been following!

Hope you guys enjoyed the update, again sorry for the lack of photos! Still got another arch to do so hopefully take a lot more photos to put up!

Cheers,
Shep

Wow some seriously quality work there,

You'll be in god company with Ben's blue one soon...

You need to form a team called....

The Archers.

Jonners

Jon Tilson wrote:Wow some seriously quality work there,

You'll be in god company with Ben's blue one soon...

Jonners

god company indeed.

Nice to see some other Sprints with arches, Ken's rally one with Alun's fibreglass wings looks great. I was lucky getting Rob's help to tub POE's arches

They look fantastic when complete and with some good rubber make a Sprint stick like you would not believe, probably the best mod you can do to a Sprint.

Yes I actually used a page on POE I found on the sprintspeed site as a how to. I wanted it to look like that but I am nowhere near as professional as yours! It's ok I just need to invest in some more filler

Cheers,
Shep