The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Hello boys and girls
I thought that I’d introduce myself and my new acquisition. I’m Mark from the Forest of Dean, somewhere between Gloucester and Ross-on-Wye…excellent Sprinting country!

I’ve just bought RAR 791W, quite a late Sprint first registered on 1st September 1980. Some of you will recognise it from eBay a couple of weeks back, and it was in the Dolomite club at one time…I will be joining!

The reason I bought the car was the magic sticker on the rear windscreen ‘Ziebart Protected’. And it has been. Structurally, she is very sound, with no rot anywhere. There are some cosmetic issues where paint has been touched up here and there, and a new nearside front wing has been fitted at some time, not quite as well as it could have been! The car has never been restored, and the windscreen rubbers / weather strips on the door glass are falling apart! A rear bumper has been used to bump, and the carpet is a cheap and nasty tufted pile one.






The biggest issue, and one I’ve got to sort soon, is the engine…it does sound like a diesel! There is an invoice from 5 years ago for the replacement of ‘a rumbling jackshaft’ and it certainly could be that they didn’t do a good job or didn’t replace the bearings. Or it could be rattling cam buckets, or main bearings or a combination of all the above!

So question number one. Can somebody point me at a good Sprint engine builder?

The second question concerns the badging. I’ve seen all sorts on the front, with the Sprint badge, a Triumph and a Dolomite one, and the one fitted to mine, which is a different sort of Triumph one. Is this original to my car do you think?



The third and final question….where can I get an original specification carpet from? It’s more bristly than tufted.

This is the second Sprint I’ve had. The first was a totally mint and rust free 1975 car in Yellow, but that was in 1981, and in Australia. I did a lot of miles in that car and it went very well, upsetting some of the boys in their V8 Falcons and Holdens! The downside was having to have the heater on when the temperature outside got up to about 35 Centrigrade to keep the engine from cooking. I wonder if the old girl is still around?




I look forward to meeting some of you at local and national events.

Mark

Welcome to the forum Mark.

There are a few possible causes of your engine noise.
Quite a few experienced engine repairers are within the club, hopefully one or more are not too far from you.
In the meantime, maybe you could post a video of the running engine?

Hello Mark, and welcome..

With regards to your front badge, yours is the rarest and were only put on the very last Sprints. I reckon that badge is original..and very nice to see

Lovely looking car

Welcome to the club Mark.

We need more interest in late sprints!!

With regards to your front badge, yours is the rarest and were only put on the very last Sprints.

Ive got one of these as well, thanks Reg youve made my day!!

Mark, if you PM your chassis number I may be able to tell you when it was built, I got a list of the chassis numbers from Gaydon. My Sprint was built within the last two weeks of production and there is one more later example still around somewhere, not including the one at the museum!

James

EDIT: Mark, if you become a member of the club (which I highly recommend!) I posted some stuff in the members section on the late cars.

I guess that there's always a bit more interest in the first and last of anything! I'd certainly like to see any timeline information that exists for the Sprint James....I get a bit interested in that sort of stuff! I will PM the chassis number over....it's another question really, on how to de-code the chassis information. I do get a bit keen on getting good info together and sharing it with others, and last year started a website that contains a library of information for the Lotus Cortina. I've spent a long time with Lotus Cortinas over the years, and fed up with the lack of information on the cars, just had to get it done myself!! Great fun doing the research, and lots of folks like it....a couple don't as it's revealing all. But you can't please all the people!!

http://www.lotuscortinainfo.com/

I have left a message on the 08700 answerphone to join the club, and look forward to reading the bits in the member's section.

Still after some contacts for engine building, but I don't have a video recorder to but up a vid. To be honest, with the sort of noise coming out of the engine, I would want to completely strip the engine anyway, as I can imagine some muck from the worn parts has got into most areas.

I have Googled engine builders and found Brian Kitley Triumphs based in Somerset...anybody know this company?

And I do have another originality question.....my roof doesn't have any seams in it, and I remember my '75 car having two, each about a foot or eighteen inches from the gutter. Does that mean I have a repro roof covering, or is this another later feature?

Thanks guys....Mark

Seamless is a later feature, They changed sometime in 1978, but it's always been a bit grey as to exactly when. The graining of the vinyl changed at the same time too..

Would that be BTK By any chance? The reason he's not flavour of the month is because Andy P. had a bad experience with him. I don't want to go into any further detail as I'd only be opening up a can of worms. (if I already haven't done - sorry!)

A few people have rebuilt their Sprint engines. I suggest you trawl through the threads in this section and ask the OPs for some advice. Mad Mart, Triple Tango and MikeyB are 3 that spring to mind who have restored Sprints.

BKT it is....don't know why the name appeared as a load of asterix! A bit of smart software I guess.

Thanks for the names, I'll hunt on.

And thanks for confirming the roof Howard...this car is turning out to be very original. Must do something about that exhaust though. The invoice from Rimmers says it's a sports system for a Sprint, but it doesn't look like it belongs somehow....I need the twin pipes!

Mark

Mark, I'm glad you mentioned that you left a message, please could you send the info again by PM to me directly as the new handset has very low maximum earpiece volume and your details are among those I couldn't hear in full. I'm guessing that you're the chap with the surname beginning in 'K' who rang at 12:48pm? The club reception line is a PAYT mobile so every time I dial voicemail it eats away at the credit and after four attempts to decipher your message, I was still none the wiser.
I have tried accessing the mailbox from my own contract mobile which has a speaker or can be hooked up to the computer in the car and listened to via its speakers, but for some reason, it's not as simple to hack voicemail boxes as it used to be. Thank You, News of the World, thanks a bunch.

Hi John
I'll PM you with my details and the car details, and if you call me tomorrow I'll just have to give you the credit card details. I don't like sending those on an unsecured email....had account emptied last year doing exactly that!

Mark

PM received and replied to. I understand your concern about sending card info, but fear not, when I send those to the membership secretary, they're always encrypted and attached as files of a format that's as close to bulletproof as they come.

I’ve joined up, but I think it will take a few days before being updated as a member.

I’ve done a little bit more diagnosis on the diesel sounds coming from my engine, and I now think that it sounds like it’s coming from the top end / cam chain, using my trusty piece-of-wood-stethoscope. The noise seems to lessen as the engine warms up, is quite quiet when revved over 2500 rpm, but goes through a noisy patch at about 1500 to 1800 rpm.

So it may ‘just’ be a combination of noisy chain and wide tappets…is there a weakness in the cam chain or tensioner, or anything to look out for?

The noise isn’t helped by a bit of an exhaust blow from the front, and the rear silencer fitted hard onto the boot floor! It’s a sports system from Rimmer, and looks like it’s just been bolted in place without the normal bending, fettling and swearing required when fitting after market exhausts.

So some maintenance required on the exhaust, and a check up on the valve clearances and cam chain also needed to confirm (hopefully) the source of the noises. I’ve just bought a ‘spares’ engine to strip and see how it all works…a bit easier than grovelling in the depths under the bonnet. What a weight! Two of us just managed to lift it into the Jeep, but it came out at this end on an engine crane.

The spares engine was sold as having only done 46k miles, and it doesn’t look like it has ever been apart. All the nuts and bolts are like new, never having been chewed up. But all will be revealed tomorrow when the head comes off…… IF the head comes off!

Mark

And of course the head hasn't come off !!

The exhaust manifold took 3 hours to be persuaded to come away from the head, but the rest of the ancillaries came off quite easily. I'm not looking forward to taking anything off my 'real' engine in situ....it would be difficult enough if nothing is seized, I think!

So now the engine is dangling by it's head from the engine crane, more in a gesture of threat than anything useful I suspect. Out with the heavy duty stud remover and long bar / persuader tomorrow. Then it's an attack with some heat. And if that doesn't work, it gets personal!

I have had a good hunt through the archives now and see that this isn't such an unusual problem, and neither is the noisy engine. You guys must get fed up with newbie’s coming on here with their new pride and joy, and with the same old problems!

But I'm having a lot of fun, loosing blood and creating more scar tissue, learning about the Sprint.

Mark