The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Evening all, as a photo seemed to go down well on the Facebook group I thought I'd start a project thread on here too.
I am the new owner of PUS, the fantastic Sapphire Blue Sprint that was completely reshelled/restored by Mad Mart a few years ago. It has had a couple of owners since, and therefore this is not a restoration as such, more an ongoing project to keep it as nice as possible and make sure it gets the use it deserves.

I'm still getting to know the car and as my first classic car there is a few things to get used to (Choke, carbs, rattles, brakes...) but I am very happy with it. Drove 200 miles back home at the weekend and it was faultless. I've compiled a growing to do list already though! First thing to do is sort out some rust on the rear arches and front panel above the headlights, this should happen over the next few months. I've got a set of Goodridge Classic brake hoses to fit and a few bits to do in the engine bay (found a the top rad hose is rubbing through, same with the brake servo vacuum pipe). I also have a knocking noise under the car somewhere when going over bumps or changing direction quickly, could be the exhaust knocking or something else loose under there (maybe gearbox or prop mounting?). The front quarterlights will also be replaced ASAP as currently they don't open and the seals are shot.
After that I may look at lowering it a bit further as the front is a little high for my liking, but the adjustable shocks are nearly at the bottom of adjustment so may need to purchase Rimmers shorter springs. After that I will be using it as much as possible. Aiming to travel to a fair few shows and events next year, and use it as one of my wedding cars in August!

If anyone has any photos/history pre-restoration then I'd love to see/hear, would be great to add to the already impressive history I got with the vehicle.

A few photos will follow, will try to get more at the weekend once it's had a good polish

Congrats on your first classic. I'm in the middle of doing my first also, but sounds like your is in much better condition. Think that I saw it on Facebook if it's the same sapphire blue one. Looks grand.

Look forward to seeing all of the pictures and progress you make. Keep us up to date.

Slightly uninspiring photos, more to come once the bodywork gets sorted...

Simply an absolutely stunning Sprint, looks so right in Sapphire All the very best with it, and most of all: enjoy it

Kind Regards

Russell

Slightly uninspiring ?, Looks fantastic, you can't beat a classic.

Hope to see more.

Went over to a friends to have a look at the rust in a bit more detail at the weekend, we've decided that we're going to tackle it ourselves and then get a professional to do the paintwork. He is trained in this area of expertise, I will be mainly fetching drinks and food and trying not to make anything worse!
Currently looking for an OSR outer wheel arch as this looks too bad to be repaired, we'll find out for sure when we start grinding it back but I'd like to have one just in case if any one has one.





Are the inner arches meant to be sealed to the outer arches? They're not on mine which seems like a damn good way to create the perfect place for rust to occur, they will be getting sealed when we redo them anyway!

The top front panel (above the headlights and grill) looks like it will be holed too but we're planning on creating that out of sheet metal, I assume I'm right in saying these are only available in GRP now?


Also fitted my Ipod stereo inside the glovebox, and wired up the speakers. Fitted a new modern fusebox in place of the old horrible one for further reliability and to allow the stereo to be wired up correctly. Also leaves me a couple of spare fuses if anything else is needed in future.

Found the source of my knocking noise under the car, the centre prop mount is completely shot. Are these easily replaced or is it more of a prop shaft specialist job?

And last question, this may be a stupid one as although I've driven 100 + cars I've never owned one without power steering, the steering seems to be really hard to turn sometimes at speed, more so on right hand turns. Is this normal for non-assisted stereing and just down the camber of road/other steeringy factors or should be fairly light when moving?

Any for anyone who's bothered reading all of that here's a nice photo I took at the weekend

Quite honestly I would just get that back to bare metal with an abrasive of choice and treat the rust and touch it up with
an aerosol. If you start cutting out wheel arch panels it will do damage and you'll have a join line on the shell that will
be an enduring rust trap.
Scab like that you get used to treating on a bi-anual basis. You can try and get some oily jollop like dinitrol down the wing
to wheel arch seams inside the boot to help it in future.

That is mostly just stone damage on the arch lips..you may need a liittle bit of patch welding but do the minimum.

Jonners

b3nson wrote:And last question, this may be a stupid one as although I've driven 100 + cars I've never owned one without power steering, the steering seems to be really hard to turn sometimes at speed, more so on right hand turns. Is this normal for non-assisted stereing and just down the camber of road/other steeringy factors or should be fairly light when moving?

I do like a yellow Sprint, but I must say that a blue one is right up there, and I do like the way it's sitting on your very nice looking Sprint.

I'm no expert, but my steering is pretty much the same, quite light at beyond parking speed speed but rapidly firms up the tighter the turn. My only other non PAS car was also a Triumph, a '73 2000, and let's just say that I used to go up and down multi story carparks instead of going to the gym on arms day. Had to use my Fourtrak today for the first time in 2 months, nearly drove into the wall outside my house as I hoofed on the steering wheel Dolly style and was suddenly at full lock!

It's a lovely looking car and I'm sure you'll see it right, but I'm amazed to see how much the bodywork has let go to such an extent, so soon after restoration.

Dolomite1296 wrote:It's a lovely looking car and I'm sure you'll see it right, but I'm amazed to see how much the bodywork has let go to such an extent, so soon after restoration.

It has been 4 years since it's reshell, and as my Dad used to say when hunting for a used car back in the day, don't touch anything with more than 60k on the clock or older than 5 years! I think we have all got quite used to a 10 year old car still looking and driving like it left the factory with 150k plus miles under it's belt, but back in the 70s British cars were made out of special non water resistant steel which meant if it hit a puddle it would melt, and the engineering tolerances were more than a bit 'that'll do' to say the least.

In all fairness though, the coating technologies back then were nowhere near as advanced as they are today, no effort was made to remove rust traps from designs (though VW managed to engineer some into the MK3 Golf with those plastic arches in the 90s), and I dare say that factory staff payed little attention to flash rusting before paint spraying. Owners of the Lancia Beta A version got a little miffed when their engines were deposited on the floor due to rust, so to try and recover from that Lancia galvanised the Beta B, which was great but they didn't seem to think about the paint sticking to galvanised metal, I once accidentally jet washed a bit of paint off the door of mine, still, the patch didn't rust!

I've waffled on for far too long...

I can understand and empathise to some extent with what you say (though all of my Dolomites are 100% rust free, albeit very low mileage), I'm just surprised that this car has let go so quickly. I know Mart doesn't do the bodywork himself, but surely serious questions need to be asked to the chap who does it on his behalf? With good preparation and the protection offered by modern paints, it just doesn't appear that a thorough job was done in this case. I'm sure it can be rectified satisfactorily though.

Dolomite1296 wrote:I know Mart doesn't do the bodywork himself, but surely serious questions need to be asked to the chap who does it on his behalf?

My initial response is no, the first post mentioned that the car has had a couple of owners since Mart restored it, we don't how the car was driven or how it was stored, were the owners as classic savvy as us on the forum? I know a lot of people who'd love to own a Sprint but don't have a garage and would quite happily drive it on salty roads and not wash it for 6 months. What I am saying is that unless we know that the car has only been driven on dry days, been garaged and has never seen a salty road then I don't think that Marts painter has any questions to answer.

That said, it's good to see that it's come back into the hands of someone who is obviously going to look after it and this is definitely the best place to post updates on it's progress.

How did you fit the stereo inside the glovebox, can you post a pic?

I was a little surprised by how quickly it had rusted, i think the arch rot is mainly due to the inner arches not being sealed to the outer ones, this has created a perfect moisture trap!
The front panel is a bit odd, but may not be as bad as it looks, will have to see when it's ground back.

The stereo I had to cut out the rear of the cardboard inner, then attached the cage to the inside. I'll take some photos when I'm next in it.

Dolomite1296 wrote:... but surely serious questions need to be asked to the chap who does it on his behalf?

With statements like that I have to ask, how much experience do you have as a panel beater/ sprayer?

I was a little surprised to see PUS had deteriorated as much as it has.

If you look at Marts resto thread, the shell looks solid on the front panel. We also don't know how the car has been used and stored since it was finished, at least I don't

Then I started to look at dates and to be fair, even when new 'in the day' a Sprint could look very scabby at three years old and really rough at five years old. I remember looking at a 1979 model in 1982 and walked away, it was only 2.5 years old and was covered in rust blemishes.

PUS has certainly been through the 'looks like new' to 'needs some work' cycle a few times in it's life. A great colour and and interesting life it has had.

I am sure it will soon be looking spot on again