24 years restoring a Sprint in New Zealand

[Robert 352]

Progress for the week in the assembly of the Sprint was a little less than hoped for.

I have now fitted the restored front shock absorber assemblies in preparation for installing the subframe/engine assembly. I borrowed a set of spring compressors several weeks ago and in my haste to fit the springs forgot to orientate the bottom shock absorber bush with the top mounting plate before returning the spring compressors. So I had to borrow the spring compressors again and refit the springs. “Stu’s Law” was evident for it took another 5 hours to do so – by the time I borrowed the compressors, did the job, and returned them.

The gearbox adaptor plate has been refitted to the engine after having a couple of thread inserts fitted and the gearbox too has been attached.

On Friday I travelled down to Dunedin – a six hour journey from here, to look at a cache of four dying Dolomites. Dying being the operative word for two have clearly passed the point of being able to restore them and the other two are also close to death. The photo shows one of those two which the present owner tells me is restorable in his view.

20121117-3649Pw Dolomite HR3957.jpg (180.04 KiB) Viewed 4201 times

This yellow (?) car has been sat in this semi open shed which is fairly close to the sea. He was attempting to start it when I arrived in the hope that I would drive it away. I told him to cease all work on my behalf.

The last car was sitting looking as if it is likely to disappear into the undergrowth on his front lawn. It was the best of the four but not for sale!

20121117-3645Pw Dolomite GP7593.jpg (137.35 KiB) Viewed 4202 times

So I spent several reasonably productive hours stripping bits off one of the other two cars not shown here. Three of the four are automatics including a brown car from which I stripped of some of its trim for it had the same interior, C74 trim a light tan, as my Brooklands Green Sprint. The seats will need to be recovered and the only option available to me here will be to have the bri-nylon surfaces replaced with leather. All the bigger 2500PI range came with leather seats in this country so this would seem to be a suitable alternative.

I now have a pair of horns to fit to my car, however one does not work. I will drill the rivets off and have a look inside and see if the contacts need cleaning.

I checked the radiator in the brown car for I gave the previous owner my spare 1850 radiator many years ago. It is well past its best and would appear to have fewer rows in its core than the one which I retained and which I am sure now was fitted to my car from new. Ian had mentioned in his post on this thread on the 6th of November that my radiator looked like an early 1850 radiator for it had an angled RH top spout. It certainly has an angled top spout.

I remain confused!

[sprint95m]

I am under the impression that Dolomites were assembled from kits at a factory in Nelson (NZ Motor Corporation?) alongside
Toledos and the 2000/2500. These cars did have some local content (but not as much as in either South Africa or Australia).
The leather interiors are an example of this.
Maybe the radiators were manufactured locally?


By the way, I think the yellow car is Honeysuckle, but of course it could be a colour unique to New Zealand.
We would probably consider it restorable here, seeing as repair panels are available.


Ian.

[Robert 352]

Ian has commented about the assembly of Triumphs here in New Zealand. The New Zealand Motor Corporation certainly assembled cars in a plant in Nelson and that included the 2000/2500 range. The bigger Triumphs were very popular, I had two PI's, supplied as company vehicles - nice cars too although they were not particularly fuel efficient. I was unaware that both Toledos and the Dolomites were assembled here but one of the other New Zealand Forum members pointed that out to me yesterday and stated that most of the New Zealand assembled Dolomites were automatics. It would also explain why many of the Dolomites you see here have New Zealand made glass fitted.

All the New Zealand car assembly plants were encouraged to fit as much local content as possible. All imports no matter what they were, were controlled by a system of import licences but the car assemblers were given additional incentives to increase the amount of New Zealand material fitted and those incentives I believe, allowed the likes of the New Zealand Motor Corporation to import a few fully built up cars. That would be why a small quantity of UK assembled Sprints were sold here.

I was interested to note that you might consider the Honeysuckle car restorable!! Possibly yes, it would be a brave man here who would undertake such a mission for the interior trim probably looks about the same as the exterior of the car and it is the trim, the seat coverings and so on which cannot be copied here.

But please, I do not need any encouragement to take on another project like that, I have a Sprint to finish which has taken 24 years so far. I have a decal here, a BL decal which says "A Sprint to Victory". It will be a victory when I finish mine and perhaps it will be a sprint to the finish. But it has been a long project.

Robert

[soe8m]

What is your age Robert?

Jeroen

[Robert 352]

Oh heck?

You want my date of birth, bath night, marital status and so on?

Um, I am retired, well sort of (I am hoping to help with the earthquake recovery programme here), and I am old enough to carry what is often called a Gold Card in this country (free bus rides in the middle of the day). And I have held a driver's licence since 1960.

Enough clues?

Robert

[Jon Tilson]

Jeroen is from Holland where they are not so coy about suych things...so forgive him....

The driving test date is a bit of a giveaway...I'm 57 and passed mine in 73...

Jonners

[soe8m]

Oh heck?

You want my date of birth, bath night, marital status and so on?

Um, I am retired, well sort of (I am hoping to help with the earthquake recovery programme here), and I am old enough to carry what is often called a Gold Card in this country (free bus rides in the middle of the day). And I have held a driver's licence since 1960.

Enough clues?

Robert

Then there's time enough to buy that other one.

Jeroen

[Robert 352]

Jeroen commented that he thought there might be time enough for me to buy one of the dying Dolomites from Dunedin and restore another one. He is possibly right but I do not have the drive nor the supportive partner that Mad Mart has that might encourage me to do so. This will be my third restoration, I could have almost called it a fourth for the one and only new car which I have ever owned arrived as a kit which I assembled before delivering it back to the agents for its pre-delivery check. Three and a half cars restored? I still own all three and the Sprint will be like the other two, be used regularly.

Like many projects there is not a great deal of evidence to show for the progress for the week, but progress has been made.

The car will have to go through a Warrant of Fitness test, the equivalent of the MOT test before it can be reregistered and driven on the road. Fittings such as working horns are a requirement so this week I set to and took restored the horns.

20121126-3664Pw Dolomite horns.jpg (98.72 KiB) Viewed 3914 times

I have access to a small sand blasting cabinet so both were cleaned and one, which was not working, was dismantled and the nearly 40 years of rust, dead spiders and the like cleared from its internals. The contact points were cleaned, new gaskets made (there is an excellent description on how to do this on the TR6 website), and the device reassembled, undercoated and painted. Both look and sound like new. It took me all of the 5 hours which Stu refers to as the standard time in his restoration thread.

20121126-3666Pw Dolomite horns.jpg (93.18 KiB) Viewed 3914 times

This week I have gathered together all the petrol, vacuum and water hoses and figured out what clamps and hose I will need to purchase. I want to install the heater hoses which sit under the inlet manifold and which connect up to the “H” piece before I move the engine back into the car.

I have one other little job to do and that is to buy a ¼ UNC bottoming tap today and clean the threads into which the rocker cover cap screws go. The bottom three holes seem to be full of what feels like gasket sealer and which prevent the screws from holding the cover down tightly.

The engine and gearbox assembly is all but complete with the now ceramic coated exhaust downpipe fitted up and attached to the manifold itself. The parts book suggests that the downpipe is held on with three UNF bolts. The downpipe has been reattached using the three studs and brass nuts which were on the car when I stripped it.

20121122-3653Pw Sprint engine assembly.jpg (113.1 KiB) Viewed 3914 times

I attached the back mount to the gearbox this week too and the parts book also suggested that it was attached to two studs on the back of the overdrive. I removed a couple of studs from another 2500 gearbox/overdrive which I had here but found that it was impossible to fit the mounting bracket so they were removed, the depth of the holes in the overdrive casing measured and two suitable set screws located and used instead.

These minor discrepancies in the factory parts book, which suggest the use of the wrong fitting, – perhaps corrected in later editions, or noted in the revisions to the workshop manuals, can cause a lot of time to be lost but invariably in the search for the bolts and studs which I thought were missing, other lost items are found.

The last job this week has been to mount a polishing mop on my bench grinder and polish the under door and the roof gutter stainless trims. Both under door trims have been clipped back into place and one of the two roof gutter trims has been sort of installed.

There must have been a technique developed by those fitting those roof gutter trims in the factory – a technique which has been long forgotten and certainly never recorded but I imagine it involved strong fingers which rolled the top edge of the trim over the upper lip and perhaps the use of something like a small soft rubber mallet to drive the bottom edge over the edge of the welded seam.

I thought of Stu’s standard 5 hour time to carry out this task as I battled to get one trim on without marking it or removing too much paint. And I mused on the fact that more modern cars do not now have exposed seams, which in the case of many cars formed drip rails or drainage channels but which have now been hidden internally. It might have made it easy for assembling the panels together when the body was being built but invariably involved the use of additional parts and labour when the car was assembled later – and added to the overall cost.

More shortly, perhaps after the engine is finally reunited with the car.

[straylight]

well done Rob, each step is a step closer, no matter how small. Even working horns are valuable and they've got to be done.

excellent work as well.

reminds me I must put a few updates up.

stu

[Jon Tilson]

I too have had grief and doubts with overdrive mountings and have asked the question is it studs or setscews?

I think on a Sprint its studs....but I could be wrong. On 1850's its a different mount that sits a bit higher and also bolts on in 2 holes underneath. Its a right game of soldiers
getting that back in lying on your back underneath....

You are not alone....

Jonners

[Carledo]

I have a tecnique for the gutter trims - but you wont like it! I bash them on with the heel of my palm! It can be quite painful if your hands are not used to such treatment, one a day is probably enough!

Steve

PS I am in need of a pair for my Sprint if anyone has a pair in decent nick and fairly near me! Mine have been squashed under a gutter mounted roofrack at some point!

[soe8m]

That's my technique too. But start above the a pillar where the curve is. Otherwise you can end up wrong and start over again.

Jeroen

[Carledo]

That's my technique too. But start above the a pillar where the curve is. Otherwise you can end up wrong and start over again.

Jeroen

Thanks Jeroen! I should have mentioned that!

Steve

[Robert 352]

I start with picking up on some comments made following some of my earlier posts.

Ian commented that my car had what looked like an earlier 1850 radiator with an angled RH top spout. That caused a bit of a panic for I had earlier given away my spare radiator and the thought crossed my mind that I had given away my Sprint radiator. But as I commented in my “Fitting the front springs” posting it was not the case.

What I have discovered is that two other Sprints in this country also have the same angled RH top spout on their radiator, so I am assuming that the radiator in my car is the correct one. If they are different from what is fitted in the UK then perhaps they were changed for those being exported here. I hope that is the case.

I was most interested to read how others had fitted their stainless gutter trims. Jereon suggested starting from the bend, (since also confirmed by Steve). I tried that but then battled to get the two free ends to stay while I worked the corner into its place. So I started at the windscreen bottom end and worked up and around the corner. The belt with the palm of the hand trick which Steve suggested certainly works but my Production Engineering background suggests that there was some sort of quick technique used by the factory assemblers which did not involve a great deal of effort and nor would it have marked the paint either. They of course would have been using new trims whereas all the trims we use have been salvaged off various cars and are not necessarily the correct shape.

I used a very small G clamp and a couple of blocks of wood to press the top edge into and over the channel lip and then used a Thor hammer with a leather head to ease with a very gentle tap the bottom edge into position – doing effectively what Steve said when he belted the trim into place with the palm of his hand. I shall take a couple of photos when I fit the one remaining I have to do.

The palm of the hand technique is certainly the correct technique for fitting the under door trim. Just lay it over the top of the holding clip and then following a sharp pat downwards with the palm of the hand and it just pops into place.

Before I was ready to put the engine in the car there were several little tasks which I had to complete. I installed the water hoses under the inlet manifold and then set about to bolt the rocker cover down.

I have used cap screws as others have done to hold the rocker cover on but found on my trial fitting I noted that they were difficult to screw in and would not seat either. So, as mentioned in my last post, I purchased a ¼ UNC bottoming tap to clear the threads of what felt like and what turned out to be gasket sealant. Several of the holes were perhaps half full of sealant and it took at least four screw ins and outs of the tap to clear the threads so that the cap screw would screw all the way in.

I guess some folk work on the principle that vast quantities of sealant applied liberally will help with the sealing process whereas the technique which I was taught was, if sealant is required, to just smear a very fine film of sealant for the sealant itself will be squeezed out when clamping the faces which are to be sealed and will finish up either in the engine or gearbox or appear on the outside as great gobs of useless goo.

I know some folk believe that by doubling the amount of soap used in the dishwasher or the washing machine think that things might work better – but they don’t. As I understand it liberal use of sealant is a definite “no no” also for it can finish up floating around the inside of the engine or gearbox, blocking oilways and filters.

As I was completing the task of screwing down the rocker cover I noted that one of the new rubber boots fitted to one of the bottom suspension ball joints was showing signs of cracking. So there was a slight pause in proceedings while that ball joint was removed and the boot replaced with a spare.

The engine installation will follow in due course!

[soe8m]

All my sprints are pre 1975 and these have an angled top connection and have a sprint maze. I have also some spares and these are also angled. No worries.

Jeroen