1974 Dolomite Sprint

[paulplom]

No panic.

[Scruffy Bodger]

At least you are having a good go and getting to grips with it. I'd say you have easily enough heat there looking at the photo and the colour of the welds. Maybe try telling the machine the material is thinner than it is and giving that a go with less wire?

[SiC]

Finished welding and linishing them.



Then painted. Rather hard in this cold weather, especially when your heater is broken. Ended up using my heatgun to try getting the metal up to temperature. Worked alright until it sucked up a load of grinding dust... Produces quite a spectacular shower of sparks!





Glad to get that bit done. Next up is the A-Pillar. Two areas, first around the door near windscreen area and then at the bottom of the A-Pillar. This is a much smaller area but going to be fiddly.

In other news, I saw a offside rear arch panel and decided that would make my life massively easier fixing that arch. Unfortunately someone else must have thought the same thing on theirs, so ended up spending quite a lot and far more than I wanted to. BUT it should massively speed up and improve the outcome. If I don't cock up attaching it.

Wish these were readily available and in current production.

[fried onions]

Blimey that's dear. Regarding heating just get an electric heater in there and keep it on night and day. One of those 2-bar type radiators is what I have and as long as the garage is reasonably well built I can work in there without a coat and it has completely eliminated the condensation problem.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Indeed. Cold is a real barrier against progress. What are you doing about the wings and doors?

[SiC]

The problem I've got in the garage is the lack of ceiling to divide off the loft space. So most the heat ends up the loft space and also out of the air vents in the soffits. Also the two up and over doors have no insulation and leak badly around their edges too.




The 5kw diesel heater chucks out about 4kw of heat once efficiencies are taken into account. This gives a couple degree Celsius increase over the space of a hour or so. Then tails off presumably as the heat escapes out. I imagine a bar heater wouldn't make any difference to the temperature as all the heat will be escaping.

The garage is about 33 sq.m / 355 sq.ft, but because of the lack of ceiling, effectively having to heat two floors worth of space.



I plan to get a load of OSB or something sheet like and screw it onto the joists longer term. Also replace the two up and over doors with a insulated roller. But that all costs money which I don't have at the moment. Short term I've procured a free roll of black sheet which at some point I'll staple gun to the joists as a short term measure.

The diesel heater is cheap to run and is enough at the moment to take the chill off. Longer term I intend to bolt it onto the wall as a more permanent fixture. Not only does it run off cheap red diesel, handily it seems quite happy burning old engine oil too. Once insulated, it should heat the space up pretty quickly.

If you're bored, a full thread on different options and how I ended up with the diesel heater here: https://autoshite.com/topic/42725-heati ... ld-garage/

I've got another on order to replace it and I'll fix the old one eventually or use it for spares. Next one I will probably fit it onto the wall properly and take air for the burner chamber from outside instead.

[SiC]

Indeed. Cold is a real barrier against progress. What are you doing about the wings and doors?

Bottom of the offside front wing I have a repair panel already. Other front wing still seems alright.

Rear wings I can get repair pieces from the club too. I'm hoping it's just the bottom sections that need doing. So best case the arch panels I've got will cover what I need. Worse case I'll either fabricate a new piece or get a club repair panel.

Club do a repair panel for the bottom of the door, which I'll have to get and repair that door. Could be a bit of an arse to do as it's blown from the inside too. Alternatively keep a look out for a good used door. Unfortunately the offside doors seem to be the ones that go first and harder to find good ones of.

[SiC]

Dolomite Facebook page is an interesting place. You post up photos of what you're repairing and the response is usually a picture of someone else's car in way worse condition needing work.

The comment on this recent purchase on there made me chuckle too.





Don't think I'll be having another 70s design BL car for a while. Not least another Dolomite, unless I know 100% it's solid.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Seen this?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333759566288

[nebuchenezer]

Spend £500 and a weekend insulating the garage and, perhaps, less whinging and moar fixing, which we enjoy.

Otherwise carry on