POE the 27k mile Sprint

[bodgerben]

I bought POE back in April viewtopic.php?f=8&t=17710
I should have walked away from the car when I went to collect as it was not as described - but being a plonker I drove off in her.
The previous owner Paul Jopling had spent a small fortune on getting bits done, unfortunately the quality of the work he paid for was terrible.
Anyway - buyer beware - like I said I should have walked away when we went to collect the car but I didn't; so what did Paul do - he paid for the vast majority of the repairs - see, there are a few good guys about. He could have said tough, but this is a chap who honestly thought he had paid good money for good work, he was gutted when I started pointing out all the wrong bits.

POE is now back on the road - I took her for a blast last Sunday - she sits at 4-5K in OD top quite happily. The cooling is very good, she now has a booster pump in the heating circuit and new fangled EWP controller that controls the main pump and fans. She also has a header tank with low coolant warning.
I've got to get some painting done under her this weekend so will try and get a few more pics - but some of the progress can be found on http://www.bodgerben.com/Sprint.htm

POE's paintwork is very, very good but she is an older restoration - just to add to POE's woe's a tin of Russet brown exploded in my garage (I guess during one of the storms we had) and splattered the front with a lovely poo brown

I paid a lot of money for POE - and got a fair chunk back for putting her right - but it would have been great to have just used the car, anyway she's mobile again now so I'm hoping to use her to the revival

[Reg]

Wow! Lovely car Ben.. Shame Bill the butcher got to the chassis rail before you though.

Never had to have that done with the standard exhaust..

Very pretty car..thanks for the pics.

[bodgerben]

Hi Mike - I changed the servo as it kept locking on, the master cylinder was also leaking as you can see. First time I've had a servo that locks solid. It did it twice when the missus was driving and she had to keep driving for a bit to park in a sensible place - by which time the caliper seals had melted hence replacing the lot with ST vented brakes.
She is a lovely car - the front pipe would have been fine if someone had used some common sense and put the correct clamp on - the single bolt one that also fixes to the gearbox bracket. Anyway that's done and replaced.
Just been flatting the brown paint off the front of the car - she's all blue again!

[sprint95m]

A well documented story .
It is nice to hear of a genuine seller, for a change.

If I may, I have a couple of questions.
Which coolant system header tank have you used?
Is it plumbed into the bottom hose?

In the ebay listing photos, are those kevlar reinforced hoses?
Have you kept them?
(I have no faith in kevlar reinforced, given the distortion of the heater bypass hose on my 1850
after less than 2000 miles. Being in the habit of inspecting things served me well, spotting this failing hose in time.)



It has been a while since you have had an article in Dolly Mixture (last time was on sill replacement?),
hint, hint....................

[Toledo Man]

What a criminal waste of Russett!

Seriously, it was good of Paul to rectify the problems. He would've been better off doing the work himself.

Are we going to see POE at the TDCIR?

[killysprint]

Great story, great car and in the best colour trim combo

enjoy it!!!

[Mike]

Great looking car ,I'm off to the garage to have look at TOF my 27000 mile 1850HL I am still here just
Mike

[sprint1976]

great news ben ,i know you have struggled with POE and im really glad you have finally got all the work done brilliant write up on your web page now all i need is for you to send me one danny

[bodgerben]

Thanks for the kind comments.
Ian - I have kept the hoses but the bottom hose does need replacing - it's started to crack.
I got the header tank off a chap who does them for Stags - I've added a couple of pictures to http://www.bodgerben.com/Sprint.htm

It's plumbed into the right top hose - the header tank is no higher than the thermostat cover, so I still have to fill that, run the pumps for a while to remove any air and top up - then top the header tank up.

Looks like I've got to strip all the old underseal off as its hiding a load of rust
I'm not going to use it till I've repaired any grot - an hour with the scraper and wire brush has found one hole in the drivers footwell and a load of grot under the arch/behind the headlight. Still it's not too bad and I'm better off stripping all the old underseal off and seeing what it's hiding. I've put a few pics on the above link.

[sprint95m]

Thanks for the info.

I have used a Rover header tank on my car.
It is positioned on the LH turret and is plumbed into the bottom hose.
The position is fine (the coolant level corresponds with the top of the thermostat cover)
however I see the Roy (Triple Tango) has managed to use a VW tank positioned so that its minimum level
is above the thermostat cover, this extra height being worthwhile. (A VW tank also has a level sensor.)

I may experiment repositioning the Rover tank a la Roy's solution. To be honest, the position I used was in
no small part influenced by the length of the 16mm outlet hose (one metre) .
It is easy enough to remove the tank and swing it out of the way to allow access to the engine, without having to
drain the coolant.


The bodywork issues on your Sprint look fairly minor.
I have never been a fan of that black underseal, having many times had a sinking feeling when spotting some that
has sagged. On my car I have used clear Waxoyl for the exposed (visible) bodywork.
For the internal sections I used the Bilt Hamber stuff.

[bodgerben]

Cheers Ian,

Rust - yes, just a bit scabby - as you say this car has the rock hard original stuff that's been topped up over the years. The floors have been jacked in places so this will give me chance to strip them and straighten them out whilst I'm under the old banger. I'll weld in any areas - but that little hole will probably end up a rather larger hole when I've cut the scabby stuff out.

My header tank - it seems to work a treat, but if anything the two leccy pumps overcool the engine. With just one she'd get up to 85deg pretty quickly and stay there - I can now do a 25mile run ragging the old thing to the red line and not get to 85deg (the controller shows the current temp, below 75, 75, 80, 85, 90 etc.) So I'll probably rig the booster pump to only come on when the heater fan is running. Paul had a huge rad installed and the front panel modified to get more air in (like the Oz boys do) - so I spose that also helps! I guess the booster pump continually running and the controller running the main pump on/off for a varying amount is enough to cool it without having the main pump running all the time. If you let it idle for 30mins she'll get up to 85 - then at 88deg she'll turn on the fans and drop back to below 85. I added the booster pump so the heater would work well - but if it's running all the time it looks like it won't let the engine get warm in really cold weather, so wiring it into the heater fan (via separate feed) should be better. Seems a bit odd overcooling a Sprint.

I tried to get the header tank and it's hose level or just above the top hose - my thinking being that it'll drain down to the rad - there's a fair amount of water in that tank.

[bodgerben]

Well POE lives again.

Sorted out the front end problems and gave her a minor thrashing around Goodwood. Rob's put some pics up on Sprint Speed
http://www.sprintspeed.co.uk/pages/at-l ... e-sprints/

She had the usual rear axle oil leak and a slight misfire - all in, a good session for a pretty standard car.

[bodgerben]

Goodbye POE the road car, say hello to POE the track and road car.

Well, perhaps not quite, she's now got some arches fitted, I'm waiting for the rear 9x13's to arrive, once they're here I can finish off the rear arches and inner arch closing panels, do the paint work and refit the trim and bumpers.

She's booked onto a few track days this year and my plan is simply to fit a baffled sump for those. She's running a standard engine with EWP, 123 Tune dizzy and Sports exhaust. She's run out of MOT waiting for minilite to make the rear wheels (9x13's are pretty standard for Escorts but not for Triumph's) when she's back MOT'd I'm going to take her to Rawles Motorsport for some power runs, we can change the needles and swing the timing but that's it. That'll give me the base figures before I start changing bits.

Anyways - pic how she is now.


And more details here :http://www.sprintspeed.co.uk/pages/poe-track-day-car/

[Dolomite1296]

That looks truly superb! I hope you have lots of fun with with it.

I recently posted about similar arches to yours so will check out the link about fitment etc.

[bodgerben]

Made up the inner arches, the 9x13's are fitted and flatted the arches and hand painted some POR as a sealer. This stuff is rock hard and as I'm going to satin black them I wanted a good seal on the fibreglass. Much too shiny but looks quite nice. It's had two coats of POR and flatting between them is bloody hard work. I was going to brush paint 2k filler primer, but the arches had a couple of small cracks and POR seals them up nicely. I cut down the trim and used sikaflex as the end caps, they look pretty good and I've started to muck about with the front and rear spoilers.



A few more pics.

http://s1196.photobucket.com/user/bodge ... %20painted