The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Simple question please.....how worried should I be about the amount of metal clinging to the magnetic gearbox drain plug on my Dolomite 1850? To be fair the car had done 85,000 mikes before sitting in a barn and I’m not sure whether the box had ever been drained.

That is fine Gary; standard.

Change the oil, drive it and see.

I'll give you £1.50 for it...

Many (belated) thanks for the feedback chaps. Apologies for not replying sooner but for some reason I’m not getting email notification of responses anymore so hadn’t realised anyone had replied. I will pay more attention in future!

I changed my 1850 gearbox oil last week just before the holiday and my drain plug looked exactly the same as yours. Look on the bright side; those bits of metal are no longer swimming around in the oil and wearing things out. The other thing to look for is a golden colour to the oil which is bad news as it means phosphor bronze bits are wearing.

Last Thursday I purchased a 1500hl to replace the one that was declared a right off recently due to a visitor running into it on our drive and then continuing on into the garage door which folded in and damaged one of the dolomites that was inside. The one that was in the garage has been repaired but I have been very lucky and found a nice replacement.


Today I checked the gearbox oil level only to find it was a lovely brass colour so I have drained it and replaced the oil but it may spur me onto up grade the car to have Overdrive. The drain plug was just as the plug shown at the start of this topic so it id disppointing that the wrong oil was used.