The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

I've been to assess the 1850 HL that is being offered to me for nothing. It is a 1977 car, has covered only about 60,000 miles from new, and has only had two owners, one of whom is my brother-in-law. The car has sat in his dry and dusty garage for 24 years. Once I had freed off the brakes and pushed it outside I could see that the only serious corrosion is in the front of the left sill. It looks as though it needs a lower wing panel and the sill wants patching. Having given it a good knocking the rest of the metal seems perfectly sound. It has never been welded before and there is no filler anywhere. I lifted the carpets and floor and inner sill still shows intact original paint. The underside of the car looks very sound everywhere. The exhaust is new.

The body generally shows the paint to be incredibly thin and there are small patches of surface rust in several places, so it needs rubbing down and repainting. Which is a pain because the cost of a respray is as much as the car is worth. The interior is perfect and just needs a clean. My brother-in-law tells me that the gearbox (non-overdrive) jumps out of third gear, and the clutch is seized. The brakes need a complete overhaul. The engine ran well the last time it was started and it isn't seized. The diff shows no backlash at all.

The welding and mechanical bits I can do, but I don't know what to do about painting the car. What suggestions do you forum folk think? What would you do? First thing is to move it 180 miles to my house!

Mike

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Apart from the end of the sill looks pretty solid, very nice.

Can't grumble if you are getting it for free.

Looks nice.

Why do you think the paint is "incredibly thin"? I would give it a good wash and then a quick wax to see how it looks then.

It could be either pageant or tahiti - hard to tell until its clean...

I suspect a complete overhaul of all hydraulics will be needed after standing so long. I'd just replace all cylinder rubbers and go dot5 myself.

On the clutch again I suspect you will need to change master and slave after that long and the fluid will probably be long gone. After getting the hydraulics sensible you may find the plates are stuck together, so warm up and try some kangaroo stuff and you may get a result.

Jonners

Why do you think the paint is "incredibly thin"?

It's just that all over the car there are tiny rusty speckles as though either the steel wasn't prepared properly before painting or the paint was somehow porous.

The paint code on the chassis plate is 146 which I believe is Tahiti.

Mike

Micro bubbles from new?

NAW! Its cos the idle buggers at Speke went on strike so often and left primed or bare shells lying around for weeks then just slapped some paint on when they went back to work for a day or two! So I guess you could call it bad (read NO) prep!
But the paint was never exactly thick at the best of times.

Sure, a top notch respray is £2-3k if all you do is take it in, get it back and pay - but where's the fun in that? Find a local, classic friendly painter and see if you can do a deal where you do as much stripping and prep as you can, then he does final prep and paint, that will work out a lot cheaper and be more satisfying too.

You have the makings of a nice, low mileage and largely original car. And though not up to Sprint levels, 1850 values are firmly on the rise.

Good luck with the project!

Steve

It may be the case that welding has been done close to the paintwork on another car. That can cause very small rust spatters on the paint . Are there are traces of welding spatter on the windows as well ?
Tony.

Get a thread started on the "resto" section. Not bad for a freebie.

The black paint on the sills and rear wing appears to be non-original, so does it hide more rusty areas or filler repairs?