This
part of the web site to tell the small world we live in about my
favourite hobby, My 1974
Triumph Dolomite Sprint.
If you
want an overview of the history behind the manufacture of the Triumph Dolomite
cars, I recommend you have a butchers at the Triumph Dolomite Club website from
the links section.
I
unexpectedly got bitten by the Triumph Dolomite bug in 1992 when after an
altercation with my 1984 A reg Cavalier Sri on a wet October day and some steel
railings forced me to find a cheap ‘temporary’ replacement car.
The
Cavalier was well and truly dead thanks to a twisted chassis, and thanks to 3rd
party fire and theft insurance, I was forced to break the car for spares to try
and recoup my losses. In the
meantime I needed transport. I was
looking through the small ads at cheap cars and the only car that stood out as
being interesting, well built, with reasonable economy and performance at the
time was a maroon 1979 Triumph Dolomite 1500.
After finding it pleasantly nice to drive I bought it for about £220
with a long MOT and I had started the long and winding road of Dolomite-dom.
However
the performance was somewhat lacking compared to the Vauxhall, and it was
beginning to look a bit tired. After 6 months of cheap motoring with the 1500
the time had come to get a more powerful Dolomite in the form of a very nice
Russett (or some say poo, some say chocolate!) Brown Dolomite 1850HL reg OPB
768R. Apart from a corroded front
panel there was very little apparently wrong with this car ……. or so I
thought. Not long after I’d
bought the car I’d discovered my first problem with a blown head gasket
causing overheating in a big way, resulting in a head rebuild from Brian Kitley
Triumphs. Not long after getting
the car back a very pleasant nurse in an Austin Maestro decided to use it as a
battering ram, pushing the rear panel in and bending the bumper – annoying but
not too serious. After
a successful insurance claim this was rebuilt, and enough spare cash was in the
insurance claim to fund a new front panel. I then decided to modify the car by
fitting bigger SU HS6 carbs from a Triumph TR7, a Triumphtune tubular exhaust
manifold and a Dolomite Sprint stainless steel sports exhaust.
The suspension was lowered and uprated and the car was transformed from a
very civilized luxury classic to a mildly sporting saloon.
The extra power caused me to get through a gearbox and 2 rear axles (the
transmissions on 1850’s are just about OK for a standard car).
As much as I liked the 1850 it was the unluckiest Dolomite I’ve owned -
my ownership of this car ended when Mr white van driver tried to shorten it
further still and did some serious damage to the boot floor making the car an
insurance right-off. Again the
insurance came good and I bought the car back off the insurance company for £75. I reverted the car back to standard spec and sold it cheap
with a spare rear end from a scrap 1805HL and haven’t seen it since.
If you know the whereabouts of this car please let me know!
To
replace the 1850 I decided the time had come to go Dolomite Sprinting which led
me to buy the car I still own today.
Initial
impressions of the Sprint were good, it looked very smart with only a small
amount of corrosion on the front wings. However
there was evidence of a re-shell at some point in its life as some fittings and
trim were not correct for such an early model.
There is also some suspect body filler in a few locations.
This
didn’t stop the car being good fun to drive and indecently quick.
It wasn’t long before I’d started tinkering though – I’d kept all
the uprated springs and dampers and sports exhaust that I’d had on my 1850
which helped sort the handling and made it a very nice everyday car that could
embarrass modern hot hatches when I was in the mood for fun.
It stayed in use as reliable-ish everyday transport for a good 18 months
before the inevitable happened –as with the 1850 – and it happens to all
Dolomite Sprints at some time – AARRRGH!! Head Gasket failure!
Bloody Triumph slant 4’s!
The
Sprint was taken off the road whilst I carried out a cylinder head replacement
myself using a good secondhand head.
After much blood, sweat and tears in the pouring rain I had the Sprint
running again, but very briefly. I
hadn’t realized the sprocket threads in the camshaft had been cross-threaded,
causing the cam sprocket to fly off at about 4000rpm.
Mr Valve say hello to Mr Piston.
This
happened in 1996 and I was caused me to lose complete interest in it, and I went
back to modern reliable cars for everyday transport whilst the Sprint went into
a cheap rented lockup 10 miles from home. Some
2 years and a house move later, the Sprint had not moved since the sprocket
incident apart from towing it to the new house from the lock up I had rented to
store it in into the garage at my new house.
Sometime
in 1998 I had a rare free weekend and decided to start stripping the engine. Once
I got the head off the full extent of the damage could be seen and apart from
some marks in the top of the pistons and some bent valves it seemed to be less
serious than first thought. However
the engine had seen better days and cash wasn’t such a problem so I invested
in a fully reconditioned engine supplied By Rimmer Bros.
After
more blood sweat and swearing, this time in my nice well lit garage, I
successful fitted the recon engine, also replacing all hoses, steering
components, some of the suspension bushes and repainting the engine bay whilst
at it. Much to my surprise when all
was back it fired up almost instantly, the only fault being an upside down
engine mount! It MOT’d without a
glitch and I got the car back on the road for another 2 years insured under a
limited mileage classic policy. With
the new engine in it ran like a dream and we had some good summer weekends away
in it although the first 1000 miles keeping it below 3000rpm was hell!!!
Unfortunately
this was not to last. In late
Summer 2000 the jackshaft and waterpump ground themselves to pieces and I pushed
the car back in the garage for another year of disgrace!
My wife
Carol had been very patient through my years of Dolomiting but she finally gave
me an ultimatum – either fix the car properly or get rid.
I very
nearly sold it but just couldn’t bring myself to put it up for sale.
Far too much time and money had been spent for me to give up so I had to
either restore it to an immaculate state or have some fun with it.
Besides I knew if I sold it I’d want another within months.
These cars are addictive!
With the
help of my friend Martin, owner of a T reg immaculately restored Brooklands
Green Sprint, the Jackshaft and Waterpump were replaced winter 2001/2002.
Everything for the MOT was complete in March so I apprehensively booked
it in for a test and it failed on 2 points – 1. Offside rear drum brake needed
adjusting, 2. Sharp edges on corrosion on front wing.
That was all!!
Since then I've carried out various modifications to improve its performance and safety and I've been using the car exclusively for track use both on open track days and in competition, so far with limited success.
Below I've detailed some of the modifications I've carried out.
Front Suspension and Braking
AVO
fully rate/height adjustable coil over shocks with 400lb 9” long 2.25” dia
springs.
Ford
Sierra vented disc/caliper conversion fitted with Mintex M1144 pads.
Aeroquip braided hoses. New
balljoints and wheel bearings fitted.
'Superflex' Polyurethane bushes fitted to tie bars and suspension wishbones.
Rear Suspension and Braking
Polyurethane
Superflex bushes fitted to rear axle tie bars.
Trailing
arm bushes replaced with Superflex ‘race’ 90 shore poly bushes.
AVO
fully rate/height adjustable coil over shocks with 250lb 2.25” dia springs.
Aeroquip
flexi hose fitted.
Steering
Small
diameter leather rimmed 3-spoke steering wheel.
Polyurethane
Superflex mounts on Steering rack.
Steering upper column shortened and Grp 4 escort steering coupling fitted instead of standard 'rubber sandwich' coupling which is prone to wear and loss of steering 'feel'.
Engine and Transmission
Engine
1998cc 4 cylinder SOHC 16-valve
Bottom
end to standard specification on reconditioned engine.
Cylinder head rebuilt 2003 with reground valves, new oil seals, Inlet ports opened up to gasket size with inlet manifold ports matched. Exhaust ports opened up approx 2mm and polished. Leyland STR91 camshaft, uprated valve springs and Kent Adjustable camshaft pulley fitted.
13 row
thermostatic oil cooler and spin-on oil filter conversion fitted.
Uprated
oil pump relief spring fitted to improve oil pressure with oil cooler fitted.
12 vane
water pump fitted.
Mechanical
fuel pump blanked off.
Pulley
Driven cooling fan with Viscous coupling removed and short fanbelt fitted.
Transmission
4-speed gearbox with overdrive modified to operate on 2nd, 3rd
and 4th gears giving total seven forward gears and one reverse gear.
Standard
Dolomite Sprint Propshaft and Rear Axle.
Compomotive
5 spoke lightweight alloy race wheels (ex-single seater) 13” x 6J modified to
suit Sprint wheelnuts fitted 185/60 R13 Yokohama A032R supersoft compound tyres
for Sprinting/Hillclimbing.
Electrical
Newtronic
(Pirahna) contactless electronic ignition system fitted acting as trigger to
high energy programmable ignition system with adjustable electronic ignition
advance curves (programmable inside car) - ignition system supplied by SPRINTPARTS
Australia.
Electrical
oil pressure gauge fitted.
Kenlowe
electric cooling fan fitted.
Facet
red top interrupter electric fuel pump fitted.
Carburation and Exhaust
Dellorto DHLA
45 carburettors with open ram pipes on Leyland Special
tuning design inlet manifold with twin cable linkage.
Exhaust
system – Leyland Special Tuning design stainless steel sports straight through
system with mid silencer and rear silencer with twin exhaust outlets.
Standard cast iron exhaust manifold with enlarged stainless steel
downpipe.
(Standard
Spec Car Engine power 127BHP@5700rpm).
Exterior
Chrome
door and sill trim removed.
O/S fiberglass bolt on wing fitted (N/S fiberglass wing to be fitted).
De-bumpered.
Stainless
Steel Bonnet Pins.
Leyland
Special Tuning window banner.
Lots of
dents, scratches and surface corrosion
Interior
Small
diameter leather rimmed 3-spoke steering wheel
Carpets
removed.
Mongoose
racing bucket seats fitted at lower level than standard seats.
Rear
roll over bar fitted.
Not a lot else!