1974 Dolomite Sprint

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Re: 1974 Dolomite Sprint

Post by Eddie Honda »

Father Honda had a 1980 BL Jaaag as 2nd owner. First owner had ordered it in black, but delivered in red. Sent back for full respray in black.
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Re: 1974 Dolomite Sprint

Post by The Reverend Bluejeans »

SiC wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2019 10:14 am Could you ever have custom paint colours out the factory by BL?
Not a chance! Even Ford couldn't do that. The two black RS Turbo Series 1's that Ford built (Lady Diana had one) were built white, then stripped to a shell and colour changed.

BL had enough trouble building cars in standard colours.
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Re: 1974 Dolomite Sprint

Post by The Reverend Bluejeans »

fried onions wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2019 11:49 am There is the Applejack Green VP 1500. It left the factory in that colour. So someone ordered it, and they painted it.
That was VdP in Kingsbury though, not Longbridge.
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Re: 1974 Dolomite Sprint

Post by SiC »

Was intending to have a whole day today of fettling this.

Put the wheel back on, dropped it to the floor and started up to move it back so I could strip the interior out. Started fine and the banging/knocking that was there before seems to have gone. If it has, then it looks like the gearbox mount has fixed it.

That was the good news.

The bad was when I was trying to move it. No matter the gear or revs there was almost zero movement forward or aft. Clutch pedal I think is moving the mechanism though as it has a fair amount of resistance to it. Certainly full travel foot down makes some interesting and disturbing noises.

I'm kinda hoping that it's a hydraulic problem. Anything else I guess it's going to be an engine/gearbox out job. Something I really did not want to happen before I move. In-fact it won't happen as I will need to start packing my tools up potentially at the end of September and the car has to be movable in one piece. If that piece is on the back of a truck or drivable, it needs to move as one nonetheless.

Interior strip out hopefully this week and I guess the transmission cover is going to have to come off again too. It's been pointing nose up on stands for the last few weeks, so I'm hoping that the rear main seal hasn't been depositing oil into the bell housing and soaking the clutch.

Damn.

Spent the rest of the day driving my MGB GT instead. Which also decided to have issues, this time with its points.
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Re: 1974 Dolomite Sprint

Post by Warren t claim »

The Reverend Bluejeans wrote: Sat Aug 17, 2019 12:42 pm
SiC wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2019 10:14 am Could you ever have custom paint colours out the factory by BL?
Not a chance! Even Ford couldn't do that. The two black RS Turbo Series 1's that Ford built (Lady Diana had one) were built white, then stripped to a shell and colour changed.

BL had enough trouble building cars in standard colours.
Are you sure?
tfp1.PNG
tfp1.PNG (242.58 KiB) Viewed 4837 times
Ford never made another Mk4 XR3i in that colour.
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Re: 1974 Dolomite Sprint

Post by DodgeRover »

SiC wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2019 10:14 am Could you ever have custom paint colours out the factory by BL?
You could have pretty much anything you wanted if you knew the right people or spent enough money with them, my dad needed a shell for a princess when they first came out this one was written off at 3 weeks old! The official answer was that shells weren't available yet as they were all being used and it would be 6 months wait. A phone call saw one being pulled off the line and delivered the next week....
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Re: 1974 Dolomite Sprint

Post by The Reverend Bluejeans »

Warren t claim wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2019 11:18 pm
The Reverend Bluejeans wrote: Sat Aug 17, 2019 12:42 pm
SiC wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2019 10:14 am Could you ever have custom paint colours out the factory by BL?
Not a chance! Even Ford couldn't do that. The two black RS Turbo Series 1's that Ford built (Lady Diana had one) were built white, then stripped to a shell and colour changed.

BL had enough trouble building cars in standard colours.
Are you sure?

tfp1.PNG

Ford never made another Mk4 XR3i in that colour.
That's a Mark 4 though and it's a Ford press car. Series 2 RS Turbos used various colours.

Ford Press did various things such as the blue RS Turbo Series 1 for Jill Gascoine in Cats Eyes. You couldn't buy one though.
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Re: 1974 Dolomite Sprint

Post by The Reverend Bluejeans »

DodgeRover wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2019 11:20 pm
SiC wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2019 10:14 am Could you ever have custom paint colours out the factory by BL?
You could have pretty much anything you wanted if you knew the right people or spent enough money with them, my dad needed a shell for a princess when they first came out this one was written off at 3 weeks old! The official answer was that shells weren't available yet as they were all being used and it would be 6 months wait. A phone call saw one being pulled off the line and delivered the next week....
That's as maybe, but they had to be current colours. Canley's paint shop - like all the others - painted cars in batches. 100 yellow cars, then 100 red ones. No way were they going to clean the entire paint mixing scheme and guns out in a major - and very militant factory - to paint one Dolomite. It didn't happen.
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Re: 1974 Dolomite Sprint

Post by SiC »

After our buyer dropping out and having our house chain collapse for the second time this year, it's allowed me some time to get on this. Progress on this hasn't been helped either by after coming off my push bike and gaining some gashes into my elbow and knees.

Main job today was simply stripping the interior out. Pretty straightforward to do. Filthy under the carpet and it's going to need a good hoover.
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Front seat wobbling became obvious why
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Seat diaphragms are in pretty good condition. Interesting that this has the later seats with the person presence for the seatbelt warning light. This is too old to have this system, so these seats can't be original. Seat foam is shot though.
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Carpet is threadbare and likely going to go in the bin.
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Next up was to check what's wrong with the clutch and why I was barely getting any drive last time. I checked yesterday with the starter and it wanted to move. With the engine running it decided to start working ok but the bite point at the very top.

Removing the clevis pin led to the arm snapping into the pushrod
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Double checked the length to make sure it was correct. Found a post on the TDC forum that it's supposed to be 9cm, so this looks good.
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With no clear reason why it wasn't working, I put it all back together again. While doing this I bled the system by pushing the pushrod back in. In doing this it appears to have fixed it.

If you watch the previous video you'll see that the pushrod fully extended is much less far back as last time.
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I think what happened is that I must have push down while having the bleed nipple open on the last bleed action I did. This led to a large charge of brake fluid left in the slave and moving the piston much further down.

It now engages the clutch bite around the top third of the travel. Still quite high possibly but should be useable. Clutch master doesn't look in super great shape at the pushrod end, so that may need attention in the future. However it works and I don't need to pull the engine just yet. A big bonus for me.

RMS definitely leaks though as the underside is filthy with oil.

As the weather was good I had the roof open. Unfortunately trying to close it led it to come off the plastic runners.
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Not the greatest design on this. A bit of plastic that supposed to slide along. I gave the runner area a good clean down and spray with white grease. Works a bit better now. Probably could do with a bit of decent modern plastic which has less friction, like Delrin or similar.

Now the interior is out, I need to get on with some welding of that wing! With the house sale looking like it's going to be extended, it's awfully tempting to pull the dash too and get that behind dash area welded up. But one job at a time though, don't want to get carried away and not get this back ready for next spring/summer.
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Re: 1974 Dolomite Sprint

Post by PhilA »

House opposite my parents will be up for sale soon.

It's got a garage


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