The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

its not "brilliant" close up to be honest, but better than expected. A mop over would possibly bring it up like glass but im not doing that, you never know how 'patchy' it is or how thick its gone on. maybe a very gentle light t-cut? not a priority for now though. bearing in mind what i paid for the job, im really pleased with it, even with a few little bits to fettle up.

im a bit out of date with pics on this, so will see what i can do. there'll certainly be plenty at le weekend!!

Good work mate. Thats exactly how I would have painted the rear end!

Cant make the weekend to Jods, so look forward to the pictures!

al - jod may have sent you pics and a soundclip, but a quick update for everyone else:

bit of a later start than hoped due to jods work commitments which kind of spannered the intention of trying to do the swap yesterday. so proceeded to fix a little rear wheel/hub/stud issue on gloria while jod tinkered with the 1500 still in EDY. jod drained a bit of juice from gloria and piped up the little bottle to the 1500 and after bit of coughing and spluttering, the first big bang rearranged a few of my internal organs, which was nice. id kind of forgotten the zorst came out the side. most of the little bottle of juice went on the floor due to a dodgy pipe connection, thought it didnt last very long! bit of tweaking, timing adjustment, duno what else he did but after lots more turning over and a few more bangs the mighty 1500 kicked in. very nice indeed. its gona be v interesting to see what this thing does once installed, but she sounds very sweet. ran for about maybe 5 mins before juice expired. we had some cake to celebrate.

shox refitted all round to EDY, wheels on, back on his feet again, so bit of clearing of 'stuff', manouvering etc, edy turned round the other way by towing/pushing and engine box removal commenced. jod got a couple of pics of engine coming out, i got dirty hands, they werent as dirty as jods by any means. bit of swearing, jod had a couple of 'mr angry' moments, mostly down to a headache and tiredness i think (jod can elaborate if he wants to). I honestly think the bloke works to hard and tries to do too much to a point beyond being healthy, but he's a big boy, one for general chat id say.

mr clark originally thought the 'zorst blowing' was coming from the joint between manifold and downpipe but he found downpipe had a big hole near the joint. Of course the downpipe had to be separated from the manifold using leverage and the power of jods bad mood.

anyway, that was an 8 hour project, on top of jods mad early trip to surrey. tidied up, went home.

a fairly good step nearer to wherever it is this is going. no idea when the next step will be, we now enter into the difficulties arising from my mrs mad early starts and weekend work, jods work, my work, babysitting issues etc and all associated clashes, c'est la vie.

in the meantime i now have alg1ks old wheels to polish and paint, plenty more stuff to do including 2 door handles, rubbers, door/lock/catch alignment, also found that a rimmers order i placed at xmas seems to have left me short-changed to the sum of a weather strip, a set of the brush things for inside door windows and the rubbers that replace the old furry things that go round the door apertures. incredibly annoying, phone calls and order checking to follow. dvla still not sent my docs or tax back.

fed-up-ness setting in, jods bad mood now rubbing off on me, i can see why people give up with this crap.

quite tempted to flog off my sprint stuff and get back into bikes at this point, i probably wont see that thing again anyway.

oh well

bye for now

Not seen or heard anything of Gloria yet Kev, but just got in from resting in the garden.

Jod works too hard that much is a given, I find shouting back but louder helps!

Don't forget you are removing the heart of EDY... An awful lot of time and money has been spent on that car and it is bound to be effecting Jod seeing his once pride and joy coming apart, so don't think too bad of him.

Unfortunately events at home conspired against me, I've been ill all week, and have let other folk down also, otherwise I would have been there to give a helping hand. We need to arrange a time where we can all get together and finish the task in hand.

Don't start getting all down at heel, thats my job!

It will all come good in the end, and then you can get on with the 1300 donor car, ahem, Sprint!

dont get me wrong, i dont thnk bad of him at all, quite the opposite, the poor guy needs a holiday and still persists in bending over backwards to help with my project. i know the energy n passion thats gone into that motor, thats why im having it!

...and also understand that pulling apart something that was built hands on to see someone else benefit from it isnt gona be good for anyones head.

im not gona try to shout louder, to be honest i dont think my voice goes that loud!

im just p1ssed off with ALL cars. today i had a plan - spend half a day cleaning the reno and the mrs rover, use the secret magic wheel stuff to get all the brown n black crusty burnt on brake dust (so far so good), replace rear indicator bulb in rover (5mins) and headlight bulb in reno (a day?) the mrs presented me with a little box containing a bulb, so i pulled the trim off and the light cluster out, removed bulb, opened box, white bulb, wrong type. took orange bulb to mrs and said 'go to motorworld, get one of those, thats what you need'.

response: [tut] [sigh] [obscenity] ok
my thought: [clean your own car in future and change your own bulb you miserable cow]
my response: "just get the bulb, and i'll do it tomorrow after work"
further thought: [after the gym in the dark... did someone break my torch while tidying?? nice.]

then to the reno. remove plastic battery cover. remove sh1tty little light access cover using double jointed wrist. might as well blindfold myself at this stage. remove crap spring clip thing - cool, that came out completely, this should be fun. remove bulb, chuck in bin. get new bulb, put in hole, p!ss about for 10 mins trying to refit spring clip, give up, kick car, hurt foot, remove new bulb. ponder. hmmm. remove front bodywork to allow access? remove headlight? or maybe remove battery and then find the locks, alarm, keyless entry and probably everything else in the car doesnt work coz it needs 're-coding'. screw that. new bulb back in box, battery cover back on (loosely coz im not wasting a new zip tie on it - are they meant to be held on with zip ties? me thinks not), chuck spring clip, bulb, access covery thing in passenger footwell. lay bonnet stay in the gutter because the crap plastic thing that holds it in doesnt actually hold it in, and hope the fairies do it overnight. I guess I'll have another go tomorrow in work time and better daylight (thunderstorm in derby today), and upon failure i'll take it to dealer because I really cant be bothered.

cars suck. all of them.

best car i ever owned was my home-made MG metro. could drive that thing evrywhere at 100 with boot and back seat and passenger seat full of vinyl and the thing just wouldnt die no matter how hard i tried to blow it up. can change engines in those EASILY with 2 people and no crane.

company cars are the way forward. dealer monkeys to fix all little faults FREE coz its part of the contract, tyres FREE, tax FREE, fuel FREE (if you can find any). well, not quite free, probably costs me 1.5k of real money a year due my K tax code but lets just think - say £80 a week fuel, so 20 weeks, £1600. hmmm. cant really afford to do my job without expensed car actually.

so my conclusion - life sucks. quality daughter/family time the way to go i think, stuff cars.

ok, life doesnt suck so much today.

few days off car activity i think, good for the mind.

stuff the reno, im not wasting my time on it, i had a chuckle with one of our guys at work who also has a reno like mine, he said he didnt even bother trying to change the bulb and took it straight to the dealer.

i mean FFS, take a car to a dealer to change a headlight bulb????? who designs cars these days? probably the same guy who is going to invent a new kind of tyre valve so only dealers can pump the tyres up.

bulb done in mrs rover, doesnt look too bad for a neglected 'drive into the ground' R plate. i think im gona tidy it up when gloria is done.

oh yeah, gloria... back on topic. frustration takes over sometimes, just when the light at the end of the tunnel gets nearer it sort of gets a bit further away, but we'll catch the bugger soon...

Thats the spirit Kev!

Can't wait to get the Marina on the road, the same reason as the Metro of yours!

Oh, and to rub salt in the wounds.... We didn't use a crane last time remember, although the gearbox was left in the car.

Some photos from Saturday...........

you cant fail to be impressed with jods 'mr tickle' arm - the one that was holding the strap up while taking the pic of edy front on. i.e. the bottom pic.

we have sound clips of the edy-motor running. oh yes.

gloria pic - thats her bad side, minus door handles coz im short of a couple of nuts, and theres no rubbers on that side. also note the mysterious overspray on the passenger door window that bit of rear trim at the back wont seem to go back on for love, money or a hammer. it goes on nice at the top but just wont take down the side.

sealant used on rear trims (you can see it if you look carefully, not cleaned off yet) if anyone is interested is simply butylene rubber exterior roof sealant, a la b&q.

for anyone wanting to see glorias frontage - ok, here goes:

the front and rear are from my ma n pa's garage, where she lives currently



the front indicators have been tinted since this was taken, thought i had a pic but obviously not, so this'll do


the hand of jod caressing a carb linkage. quite erotic.



oh, n just coz im sad, this is what happens to your left thumb if you try too hard pushing a plastic plug into a valance, proof that getting angry isnt really good. still not recovered 3 wks later:

Hello

Mrs Jod here (not officially like, but I provide all the services

I've been having a read of this thread, seeing as I hear alot about the project, and whereas i often say to my other half I want to answer that and dont, today I am!

I maybe wrong but it comes across that some of Kev's being disheartened may have come from progress on Saturday. I hope that you will not take Jod 's (weird writing that, as Al W will know he is Joe to me!) having worked before embarking on the project on saturday or his having an angry moment (or 6) negatively. This man works far too hard, doing extraordinarily ridiculous hours during a normal working week, then undertaking helping out others on regular occasions at the weekends, impacting on his free time, necessary rest time and our time too. but the man just cant help himself when there is someone he wants to help!

These jobs also seem to stretch for hours and hours, leaving him little time to himself. some of these are necessity to earn abit of cash) some to help out, because the one thing he cannot help himself doing is to help someone he considers a mate, and even those he doesnt know so well. Going to work on a Saturday at silly o'clock whilst the rest of us are in bed is also necessity, so please do not be offended that it has to come first.

Proof of Joe's willingness to help, is giving up his time, our time. As for the shouting..... (Al have you really tried shouting back? ) this comes from pure frustration at not being able to achieve what he knows he can do and a desire to perform as perfect a job as he can in none too condusive surroundings. Yes cars are not top of his list at the moment, but take my word for it, they will be again ........ one day, he cannot help himself (can you darling?

EDY is hard to let go of but he will be happy to see him live on, although sad at the same time. It may not be completed overnight, but with extra hands, lots of coffee on tap, and his tabs at the ready (buy extra supplies if worried about the shouting !!) and Joe will continue to do you proud..

He is a top class chap is my bloke I look forward to seeing the results of these labours one day myself.


Ms Jod

Oh my word....

It must be serious, you have his log in details!

See you at the weekend Kat. We will have a rest from cars!

Damn you, treacherous cookies!

Rather hope Kat doesnt find the "other" sites he visits....

The last time I saw 'Jods' Carmine wheels in action was TDCIR a 'few' years ago. IIRC, on the 'Cotton Run' we had a 'race from the lights' , Jods Carmine v Alun N's Carmine Sprint - how times change

dont worry ms jod, those near him are wise enough to appreciate these things, as i mentioned above. my down-ness kicks in as a result of a number of frustrations compiled together, and not as a result of saturday.

to work in conditions of limited space on top of tiredness of that scale isnt really sensible to be honest, so we wont be going there again, id rather put it off, in fact would have put off this weekend if i'd have had more warning. far better to approach things in a state of chilled-ness and have a larf than in a state of knackeredness and stress.

to be honest, to manage what we (well, to be fair mostly he) did was a big step all things considered. It has set a tone for the next session anyway, in terms of what needs to happen, how its gona happen, how long it'll take etc, so without wanting to sound like a manager, a bit of planning and organisation it'll be nailed comfortably in a day with time to spare.

it also gives us a chance to do a few extra sensible routine things like new clutch etc, it'd be daft not to while its all there set to go.

anyone got a headache tablet?

ps - extra pics added above