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Rusty Triumphs in Scotland - Dolomite in "most reliable" shocker - 08/02/24


captain_70s

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26 minutes ago, GingerNuttz said:

He's come on leaps and bounds in the last 6 weeks.

I just leave him to it now and he's done by home time, doesn't need to ask many questions and his welding doesn't look like pigeon shit anymore 😂

I think that's probably what they call "practice makes perfect"

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14 hours ago, big_al_granvia said:

getting good with the mig mate, what have you set on fire so far... keep a 1kg powder and bucket of water handy

 

Mostly underseal and bitumen sound deadening pads, occasionally myself.

13 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

I don't think Sweden cultivates such a corrosive atmosphere....

I suspect due to being so cold things simply freeze and the air is dryer. In the UK on top of the road being salted for no real reason for most of the winter our milder winters tend to be more wet than freezing. Then the rest of the year is also fairly humid and not massively warm. Nothing really dries out, everything rusts, we're an island, lots of sea air. Garbarge.

13 hours ago, vulgalour said:

Absolute dedication to The Cause there, folks.

All hail The Cause.

7 hours ago, sloth said:

fuck id have bridged the acclaim when i saw that.  have you coated it in approx 12 litres of underseal?

that raptor liner stuff is the new hot ticket. can literally hammer it and it stays put. 

Underseal can get fucked. It's shit, lasts a couple of years if you're lucky before it starts cracking/coming away from surfaces. It also needs to be applied to a completely clean, dry and rust free car in the first place which is essentially impossible unless you can sit it in a heated garage for a week or so... Raptor liner and the like seem a better solution, but again you have to apply it in bone dry conditions to a really nice car to really get the benefits.

The Dolly is getting fully stripped, stonechipped and then painted underneath. The Acclaim IS getting underseal, but just because we don't have time to paint it and let it dry properly at this time of year. I'll have to go under both cars every year and scrape around and remove any loose coatings, prep and re-apply.

 

If we hadn't just done the entire front end of the car it'd probably get getting sold on as a breaker, but we'd already put in four days of work, so may as well continue. The alternative is buy another 15 year old £500 car, which probably isn't going to be any better, it'll just be hiding it under seam sealer and underseal...

The Acclaim will probably be retired from front line use in the next year or two, it's getting to the point where parts are hard to source and there is only so much hard use a 0.8mm pressed monocoque can take. It'd probably actually be easier to run something like a Morris 1000 where everything is available off the shelf and the body is made of fairly thick steel... The Acclaim may get sold at that point, although as me and @blackboilersuit were saying t'other day could there be a better backup car to have on fleet? As of 2023 it'll be tax and MOT exempt and is incredibly reliable, as an "oh shit the daily is dead and I need to get to work" type affair it's a hell of a car to have on fleet...

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17 hours ago, captain_70s said:

Rust cut out:

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That photo genuinely made me inhale and say  "Ooh!"  you really didn't think it was that rusty did you?

Superb work getting it repaired.  That's a lot of grot to have removed and repaired over a weekend.  Many lesser mortals would have bridged that.

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Nah, I knew the rear seatbelt mounts and floors were shagged. Granted I didn't think I'd be able to tear them out by hand... It looks insane but its really just two big plates and a few little ones to plug the gaps. Due to the curves in the large pieces they're stiff enough to avoid drumming without running them through the bead roller.

The chassis legs were the real concern and were a surprise, and are a more complex bit of car. That's why I didn't do that bit. 😂

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7 hours ago, captain_70s said:

Underseal can get fucked. It's shit, lasts a couple of years if you're lucky before it starts cracking/coming away from surfaces. It also needs to be applied to a completely clean, dry and rust free car in the first place which is essentially impossible unless you can sit it in a heated garage for a week or so... Raptor liner and the like seem a better solution, but again you have to apply it in bone dry conditions to a really nice car to really get the benefits.

The Dolly is getting fully stripped, stonechipped and then painted underneath. The Acclaim IS getting underseal, but just because we don't have time to paint it and let it dry properly at this time of year. I'll have to go under both cars every year and scrape around and remove any loose coatings, prep and re-apply.

I'm still going to try that place in Johnstone for the 205. Their website states they needle scale all the shit off the bottom, steam clean, do any repairs, spray on a rust converter, leave it overnight in the workshop THEN underseal it with free annual exams. Fuck knows how much they charge as the Dinitrol underseal is a 4 - 5 day job, Raptor is a 2 week job. Lots I assume.

https://preserveprotect.co.uk/
 

 

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Use bar and chain oil, Dynax, Fluid Film, literally anything sticky and oily (Dinitrol too probably) that doesn't set up into a rigid coating. Like the above you'll need to give it an annual inspection and re-apply where necessary, but it's far better than anything that's rubberised and non-porous.

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1 hour ago, davidfowler2000 said:

I'm still going to try that place in Johnstone for the 205. Their website states they needle scale all the shit off the bottom, steam clean, do any repairs, spray on a rust converter, leave it overnight in the workshop THEN underseal it with free annual exams. Fuck knows how much they charge as the Dinitrol underseal is a 4 - 5 day job, Raptor is a 2 week job. Lots I assume.

https://preserveprotect.co.uk/
 

 

how the heck is raptor a 2 week job? ive painted 2 landcruisers and a pajero in it - prep took a day, paint took a day. bare surface has to be touch dry. it prefers warmer temps when spraying but can be done down to 3deg c. and its incredibly forgiving. did a whole pajero top and bottom for $700 AUD Inc gun. etc, i know of 3 resto firms locally here in oz that have switche to it as their underseal of choice.

Capn 70's, surely some thing from the forsale section would be a worthy replacement? 205's seem the go to atm? a dizzler one would be ok. 

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Having had a chance to see the car up close and personal at the weekend I can vouch that @captain_70swelding is absolutely top notch now. As well as heaps of practice he's had the chance to learn from a master in the craft and has had any urge to cut corners firmly beaten out of him with a big stick :-). 

As mentioned above this just might be the perfect second car. It starts, runs and drives flawlessly thanks to it's Japanese origin and is only a couple of years off being tax/MOT exempt at which point it's only annual running cost will be a £100 classic insurance policy. It's also surprisingly nippy and holds it's own really well in modern traffic which lots of cars of a similar age struggle to do.

A bit like @320touringthe pictures in this thread give me PTSD falshbacks to my ownership of a "flintstone spec" MK1 Discovery almost a decade ago. A weldathon I still have the physical as well as mental scars from!

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God why...

Rear sill, cut along top, fell off and took the inner with it.

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Rear floor, with added T piece to brace the jacking point...

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No T piece on the other side, might be alright? It wasn't. While we were under the car we realised the jacking point had sunk into the cabin a good inch or so as the whole floor buckled. The bitumen sound deadening pad is structural.

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No matter, sills and floors can be made...

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Valances are also a thing that tend to be shit on Acclaims...

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Thankfully @GingerNuttzis An Wizard or some shit and did this:

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He also made a passenger side front chassis leg and welded in new floors as we had to do on the other side...

Then things escalated in a hunt to find good metal to repair the inner arches...

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Oh dear. That's quite poor...

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Hng.

Maybe the other side is better?

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Aye, no. It isn't. Mostly.

If we hadn't have already done the other 70% of the car this would be getting turned into bean tins, but we've already invested too much time/effort/resources so it has to be finished...

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So aye, the daily driver needing a couple of patches for the MOT? Actually quite a lot more rotten than the project car... Also my welder has started becoming unreliable in it's deliver of amps, which is causing issues. To put in perspective how rapidly this has escalated, last week we were discussing what colour we should paint the wheels...

The cause of the major issues in this thing are twofold. Firstly the construction, being Japanese in origin and at least partially assembled by robots this is leaps and bounds ahead of the Dolly in terms of being efficient to build but has lead to many issues regards longevity. Mostly in the fact there are loads of overlapping seams on this thing to keep it fairly strong despite being pressed from 0.8mm steel, these are water traps. The rear strut towers are also completely open to shit being flung up from the rear wheels but is an awkward place to access for cleaning.

The second issue is that the car has had liberal coats of underseal over the top of rust. Had a slightly more involved rust treatment been used 20 odd years ago we might have had slightly more to work with. I'm also guilty of this, all the welding I did 3 years ago has rotted back through due to lack of decent coatings.

There is also no evidence of any cavity waxing or Ziebart treatment on this car like the Dolly has, the only concession to rust proofing appears to be bitumen/tar like stuff that's been poured into the doors, probably why they aren't actually too bad.

Once this car is finished it'll be retired from daily use once a suitable replacement can be found, probably something early 90s. Something that, if come MOT time it transpires to be fucked, I don't feel overly compelled to keep..

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  • captain_70s changed the title to Rusty Triumphs in Scotland - Totally fucking fucked mate, big time - 23/11/20

Bloody nora. The Acclaim was doing a pretty good job of hiding that grot. 

This photo is the exact scene right down to the same colour Acclaim which I witnessed in around 1993. I think I said the story before that our welder, Pete left the arse end of the Acclaim on axle stands at 5pm after starting to chop the grot out of it. It would only have been around 11 years old at the time. 

When we entered the workshop the next morning, the car was innocently sat back on all four wheels. The axle stands had popped straight up through the structure overnight where the metalwork had collapsed. Like yours, it was still duly welded up and lived another day. 

Keep up the amazing work and keep goldennutz on side - what a decent bloke to know!

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10 minutes ago, Dick Longbridge said:

I think I said the story before that our welder, Pete left the arse end of the Acclaim on axle stands at 5pm after starting to chop the grot out of it. It would only have been around 11 years old at the time. 

This sounds about right. The metal used is properly flimsy.

1 minute ago, SiC said:

I thought the bodies if these were pressed in the UK not Japan?

They were, but the presses, machinery and specs of the build are identical. As much as Triumph would have people believe they'd modified the designs for the better...

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28 minutes ago, captain_70s said:

They were, but the presses, machinery and specs of the build are identical. As much as Triumph would have people believe they'd modified the designs for the better...

As I'm welding up my Dolomite my mind thinks they might have got it designed for the better. 😆

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On 9/1/2020 at 9:28 PM, SiC said:

Notice the uptick on the share price around the end of July and early August? Checking the dates on the thread, coincidence I think not.
d52d574477b4f8b4e7b625687b10a807.jpg

 

25% increase in less than 3 months. Bugger me, I knew I should have bought some shares. Certainly a correlation between this thread activity and this price.

Screenshot_20201123-221204.thumb.png.7eafc08227fdd0039b29f0b2f2e5642c.png

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2 hours ago, captain_70s said:

Once this car is finished it'll be retired from daily use once a suitable replacement can be found,

Why not just keep using it?  Now that 99% of all the galloping rot has been cut out and replaced, an annual couple-of-hours with cavity wax and keeping it good and clean is the best thing to do with it.  Driving the car keeps it blown through with warm air on a regular basis, keeps the interior from going mouldy, and stops the engine from siezing from lack of use.

Unless you plan to put it into temperature/humidity controlled storage, just keep using it as your daily, surely?

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The Dolly was in far better condition than the Acclaim, trying to find good metal to weld to is proving quite difficult.

This car is the definition of a rot box, the passenger sill fell off when I cut one line through the filler under  the rear passenger door 😂 

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6 hours ago, Talbot said:

Why not just keep using it?  Now that 99% of all the galloping rot has been cut out and replaced, an annual couple-of-hours with cavity wax and keeping it good and clean is the best thing to do with it.  Driving the car keeps it blown through with warm air on a regular basis, keeps the interior from going mouldy, and stops the engine from siezing from lack of use.

Unless you plan to put it into temperature/humidity controlled storage, just keep using it as your daily, surely?

It'll still do a few thousand miles a year, but ragging it along the motorway in the depths of winter while other road users try to kill you isn't a fun experience and is just a waste of a car. To be honest I've had several near-misses recently courtesy of other road users, there is a reason car insurance is £800 a year for almost anything that isn't classic here, and having done all this work I'm not keen on some fucktard in a Kia Sportage wiping the car out...

5 hours ago, Mr Laurence said:

Wow... Lots of respect for persevering with this. I think I would have given up long ago.

It can’t have been that much less rusty than the Dolomite when you started on it, surely?

It's worse. Much worse... Large chunks were pulled off by hand, some bits of car just fell off while we were cutting/grinding nearby because of the vibrations...

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