The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

I'm feeling quite good this week as I've made a bit of progress with both cars. Its satisfying to be able to get stuck into a job without having to rush for a deadline.
Well, apart from the fact I need to have the body ready by September.
I have decided to try and renovate one area at a time. So this week has so far been spent on the passenget door. Some more surprises were thrown up whilst doing this. I had already started stripping the outside, so I thought let's do tis properly and remove the door to do the inside as well.
I will put some more pics up soon. But the door is nearly paint free and I shall be sanding it and wire brushing all the nooks and crannies this week before priming it. In between this I shall remove all the layers of overspray from the rubbers and mechanisms I've removed.
I am seeing that this car has had some extensive work in the past. James (miniman) did say that it had a lot of money spent on it. I think possibly due to accident damage on the near side. Its had replacement doors and sill and wheel arch , and today I see the B pillar has been replaced at some point. This is along with the front end that has had bonnet, front panels and wings.
Either that or it was rotten as hell? Still its got a solid base, though the quality of the welding is questionable. But hopefully I'll be able to smooth things off and tidy this.
When removing the door , I undid the bolts inside under the dash to do so, this is where I found my second surprise. The passenger floor has been replaced and had obviously caught alight whilst welding to the insulation. As I had a good look I have found the dash loom has burnt and will require replacing. So if anyone has one going spare can they put it aside for me as I will need this further down the line.
That's it for today, time I did some housework before the Mrs gets in from work and thinks I've been working on the car all afternoon

Interesting, never had any problems with instruments and so forth.

ToledoZombie, what product did you use to strip the paint off there please? It seems to have been very effective.

James
Its not badly burnt so I guess all would work still. But it has bared some of the cores on the wires. I guess I could splice in a new section , I will see when its all removed.

John
Its just nitro mors in the green tin. Some people don't like to use it in case it causes future paint problems but I used in before without problems.
I make sure I clean the panel afterwards and it has a few days drying out time before ant paint is put on.

Is that the Automotive Nitromors (that Halfords no longer sell for "Health & Safety" reasons, even though they can still supply the regular Nitromors which, in the small print on the can, says "not suitable for car paint" or something to that effect)?

Its just the regular stuff. Seems to do the job though

As usual, progress is slow and steady.
Good news is I managed to secure some storage for all the parts to be removed from the car. one of the new factory buildings we have leased has lots of hidden cellar rooms, so i have managed to secure one.
So before taking anything out i thought i'd do a compression test on the engine.
Results :

1 - 10.5 bar
2 - 10 bar
3 - 10.5 bar
4 - 12 bar
.
so engine rebuild is on the cards

next out came the engine


By toledozombie at 2011-06-19

Then loaded up with some other bits and off to its new home for the next few months


By toledozombie at 2011-06-19

now to get stuck in


By toledozombie at 2011-06-19

One problem i have, that i may have mentioned before is that i'd like to remove all the front end panels and start from scratch on doing a neat job. Now these panels have all been replaced before and have been mig plugged . so removal with the usual spot weld drill bit is not going to work on these. I don't want to angle grind them out as they are all good panels and it would no doubt shred them all. So does anyone know of a way i can do this?
I'm completley at a loss

Hmm, there's no simple way now that the welds won't have a dimple for the drill's guide to sit in, but by grinding each plug flat, even with a suitable burr in a Dremel, and taking a centre punch to it, the spot weld drill should still work.
Did for me the last time I removed wings from a car to which they'd been plug welded during an earlier restoration. That was a Maxi, but the principle's entirely the same.
Perseverance will be required with any car that's already had some repair work done and yes, it could be more complex to get it right than would be the case with an original car but you can do this.

John. The encouragement is appreciated. Working by one's self is not easy and its good to have the advice and backing of members at times when the mind goes blank.
I will give this a go and see how I get on. I can see me upsetting the neighbours once the grinders come out. But all in a good cause.

ToledoZombie wrote:John. The encouragement is appreciated. Working by one's self is not easy and its good to have the advice and backing of members at times when the mind goes blank.
I will give this a go and see how I get on. I can see me upsetting the neighbours once the grinders come out. But all in a good cause.

Wear a face mask when grinding otherwise you will have black snot/boggies for at least a week - not very attractive feature to other people you are talking too (as I have found out)

Been a while - anything to report?

Hello James,
Well not too much to report or should I say no major work recently. Due to having spending time on the Toledo and not to mention spending most of the run up to December constantly fixing my sons dt125 and since then I've been laid up with pleurisy.
What I can say is that Im still slowly stripping back the shell. I have put together a plan of work for the car to start in spring. I have also renewed an old aquaintance who is very keen to help with the project. Sometimes it takes another pair of hands to boost the motivation. I'm also looking at purchasing a rollover spit next month to make work on the underside that bit easier.
Roll on the longer daylight hours, I can't wait to get the next chapter into play.

I've seen factory original cars with rear shuts as bad as that!

If the filler/rot is only in the lower skin the repair panels are very effective and save the botheration of getting a well fitting other door...