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


captain_70s

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Great to see, what's the plan for it?

Found somebody local who has a shed, a MIG welder and the belief he can add more patches to the patchwork underside in a manner that will achieve much MOT passness. He also drives a '96 Clio with an 8-track player so you know he's sound. The chap who owns the Cornhill Yard of Dreams has said he can shift it on his low loader to said shed.

 

The move is provisionally pencilled in for the weekend....

 

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In other news I rented a garage for that Princess I failed to buy so I've got to find something terrible and worthless but worthy of preservation to put in it so I'm not wasting my money 'cause it's a 6-month lease. Logic*.

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Found somebody local who has a shed, a MIG welder and the belief he can add more patches to the patchwork underside in a manner that will achieve much MOT passness. He also drives a '96 Clio with an 8-track player so you know he's sound. The chap who owns the Cornhill Yard of Dreams has said he can shift it on his low loader to said shed.

 

The move is provisionally pencilled in for the weekend....

 

DSC_1274%20Copy.jpg

 

In other news I rented a garage for that Princess I failed to buy so I've got to find something terrible and worthless but worthy of preservation to put in it so I'm not wasting my money 'cause it's a 6-month lease. Logic*.

Great new, it lives on. Good luck with it.

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I feel I've mentioned this car is cursed before? 

 

It's the first (and only) car I've properly crashed,.

The doors get stuck and lock me in.

It fills with wasps and spiders every summertime.

As soon as I got a new fuel supply sorted out the starter circuitry started playing up.

As soon as somebody said they could weld it they got an eye full of metal while grinding a Land Rover's sills off.

The day before it was due to moved the flatbed lorry lost a brake pad and destroyed it's calipers.

 

Naturally this is a car worth saving, and the plan was to move it on Sunday after I got home from work. Usually I get off work at about 1:30-2:00pm on a Sunday so I agreed for the lorry to arrive at 3:30. Work rapidly descended into a living hell and I finally left at 3:25pm, made a phone call of apology to the lorry driver to say I was actually on my way and sped home.

By the time I got back at around 4ish the lorry was already in position and the car was dragged on arse first with no problems. Just kidding, it took a bit of a faff getting it angled right and then while it was rolling back towards the ramps (downhill) the handbrake decided it was no longer going act as the sole functioning braking system the wheels missed the ramps and the thing attempted to climb up the lorry on it's rear valance.

 

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After that we did manage to get it lined up and on the lorry to facilitate it's exciting 7 mile trip. Ruined a Porsche driver's evening by doing 45mph and nearly killed him when he and an Insignia both tried to overtake the lorry at the same time.

 

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Arrived at the destination and some impressive manoeuvring saw the Triumph deposited on the grassy remains of a railway track. The house of the chap who's doing the welding is actually a former station master's house on the site of a railway station that was demolished in the 1960s after the line closed and you'd be hard pressed to know any of it was there in the first place!

 

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There were two guys swapping a driveshaft on a E36 BMW and a lass having a turbo hose replaced on a Focus when I arrived but once they'd left we shifted the Dolly to the middle of his front garden alongside his Clio. He actually bought a nearly identical '96 Clio to break for parts, naturally he's now in the process of getting it to an MOTable state. The shed is still full of crusty Disco and there is a hay bale blocking it in so we'll have to wait for the horses to get through that before the Triumph goes indoors but the chap reckons he can do a few bits and pieces outside if the weather holds up...

 

Problem now is that my driveway looks all bare and nasty...

 

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Clearly need something insultingly twee to sit in front of my obnoxiously cute house, dirt cheap and MOT exempt is preferable. Anybody selling an Austin A35?

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Can the green Trump not make it all the way there?

It is deaded. Oil leaked all over the starter motor killing it and the clutch master cylinder has died. Also the MOT expired nearly a year ago and it's languished in my parent's garage ever since. I do having a savings account entirely dedicated to it, kind of ironic that the 1850 project is moving faster for no cost...

 

Should be pretty easy to find your house next time I'm up Cullen way... :D

It's quite distinct, I chose the house purely based on its aesthetic value and location... Actually turned down a flat+garage a few streets away!

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Removed petrol tank in order to access the dent in the rear panel better, found that the boot floor had ceased to be.

 

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The grinder was applied until metal that looked vaguely weldable was found.

 

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The guy had also bare metaled one of the wheelarches, fiberglassed the holes and given it a quick going over with some aerosols just to see how it'd look. Not a bad result actually!

 

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The hole under the rear screen was also repaired in a way that didn't involve jamming some mesh in the hole and fiberglassing it because that'd be a bodge and I don't* do* bodges*

 

Then it was dark and cold because the fire started with the petrol drained from the fuel tank had died, so we jammed  a foxes' tail in the headlight hole and called it a night.

 

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That boot floor does look a tad errrr, threadbare. Ouch.

More metal was removed today, what's left is fairly flimsy but probably workable. A Skoda Fabia roof panel will probably become the boot floor at some point tomorrow.

 

We also applied well over a tin of Isopon P40 to the bootlid and it is now vaguely more bootlid shaped. I'll post before, during and after shots once it's painted. I feel the passenger side should be clear lacquered to show how artful and seamless the integration with what was left of the metalwork is.

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Sellotape and carrier bags are an unusual materials group for masking an area to be painted.

I find regular tape comes off easier if you're masking trim, actual masking tape seems to tear and leave bits everywhere.

 

The car is being fixed using whatever is lying around the yard, the is essentially no real budget for it. The only reason it's being getting bangered or broken for parts is because I've found somebody who is a good welder and is willing to help me out at no cost! Everybody else who's looked at it has advised binning it, and that's BEFORE it was known that the boot floor didn't exist!

 

If we can get it MOT'd and roadworthy that'll be enough for me.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Car has been moved from the garden to the shed, now work can properly begin! Driving it in there, through a narrow entrance and then turning it 90 degrees was an interesting journey as the car still has no brakes and even the handbrake essentially does sod all.

 

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A whole tub of fiberglass has been eaten by the bootlid as I discovered it essentially made of filler and not worth repairing, I'll buy a better one eventually. It looks better than cracking filler and rust bubbles anyway.

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  • 2 months later...

Sit rep. 

 

Doloshite still having it brakes done, progress hampered by the fact by the fact its cold and fuck working in the cold. A wood burning stove has been aqcuired to put in the shed for maximum heatage.

 

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I couldn't get the 1300 running, first it wouldn't get petrol so I replaced the pump, then it'd get petrol but after a while the starter started cutting out, so I replaced the solenoid, the problem persisted and it started leaking petrol from everywhere so I gave up and go it shifted out of my parent's garage on a low loader as they are moving house.

 

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It's now at my rented lockup, as is my spare 1850cc engine which I got moved in the same manner.

 

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Lastly the Civic decided it wouldn't start on particularly cold morning.

 

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so I waited for the weather to warm up and took it to the garage for a service. £410 later and it's back in action, I'll probably service it myself next summer but I can't be fucked lying about in the cold doing work on a car I've never work on before.

 

Also the garage cleaned it, not that you could tell by the following afternoon.

 

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Doloshite still having it brakes done, progress hampered by the fact by the fact its cold and fuck working in the cold. A wood burning stove has been aqcuired to put in the shed for maximum heatage.

 

Please, please, please, please get a carbon monoxide alarm, only about £15/20 and really important if using a burner indoors.

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Please, please, please, please get a carbon monoxide alarm, only about £15/20 and really important if using a burner indoors.

I'll take that into consideration, "indoors" is possibly doing the shed too much justice given it's lack of door and holes in the roof/walls!

 

And a fire extinguisher.

I've got one in the 1300 I'll have to relocate. The last time the 1850 caught fire I put it out with an old kitchen cleaner squirty bottle full of water...

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  • 3 months later...

Well my pending house move (furniture out this Saturday, keys handed back in on the 28th) dictates certain cars have to leave and so the 1850HL has been donated to the bloke who's shed it lives in on the proviso that he gets it back on the road. He's hoping to have it MOT ready by mid summer, when weather makes working on it less of a nightmare. Currently it's largely the same as it was in the last post but bits of the front and been filled, sanded and repainted in a shade of yellow that is vaguely similar to some of the shades of yellow the car already features. I've also left him the Sprint alloys and spare 1850cc engine as well as a host of other bits.

I'll be popping back up here periodically to check on progress and generally fuck about with cars on sunny weekends so you'll still get updates!

 

We've spent the last two days playing with the 1300. It turns on the starter, gets fuel and gets spark, still won't start. So far it has a new battery, starter motor, fuel pump, alternator, plugs and I've swapped the HT leads for a spare set, next step is the ignition timing which is now the prime target. My lease runs out on the garage at the end of the month so it needs to get MOT'd and down to Glasgow by then unless I can convince the owner of the garage to let me rent it for an extra month rather than the 6 or 12 month contract he wants me to sign... If I simply can't get it into that state I'll have it trailered down to the farm where the 1850 is and keep it there for a while.

 

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Once the 1300 is on the road the Civic is getting sold. If the 1300 holds out I'll not replace it, if the 1300 major causes problem I'll buy some £300 1.0 litre hatchback to get about in, something old enough to DIY.

 

 

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When did you last change the spark plugs on the 1300?  I wouldn't believe this would make much difference but it got both my Princess and Mike's GT6 running when nothing else would.  Both were situations where there was good spark, fuel delivery, compression and the timing was bob on and in both instances we completely dismissed plugs as making any difference whatsoever.

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When did you last change the spark plugs on the 1300?  

This morning! Gave the old ones a bit of a clean while faffing with the car last week but they were clearly past their best so I ordered some new ones and they got here yesterday.

 

If its not the ignition timing my only assumption is that the engine is simply too tired to go anymore, compression readings weren't all that great two years and 10,000 miles ago and they aren't getting any better!

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The cars have always been a case of "oh, shit it works now! Don't know why, don't know how, better just roll with it".

 

I find once one of them is actually on the road as a daily runner problems tend to vanish with use, the problem being when lots of expensive issues hit at once. The 1850's chassis legs and brake pipes disintegrating just after I spent hundreds having the prop shaft and tyres sorted is a good example. The 1300's clutch hydraulics and starter motor dying on the same day a week after I blew £200+ on exhaust work and 2 days before the MOT was booked was another...

 

I'm still operating under the hope the 1300'll actually pass an MOT with the sharp edges on the wheel arches given a smear of fiberglass and some light tinkering elsewhere. It may well be poked full of holes like the 1850 was, or utterly fail the emissions test... Best not to think about that and to find an MOT tester who isn't dodgy per-say but errs on the sympathetic side!

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How long has it been parked up? If it's worn and a bit gungy anyway the rings could have stuck and you'll have even lower compressionz. Give it a sniff of easy start (sounds like it wouldn't harm it!) and see if it chunders up. Good luck!!

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