1977 Triumph Dolomite 1850 HL The "Day Job"

Good job. I think you have overdosed on the brave pills.

Short update which doesn't reflect the manhours spent.

Have also had a couple of distractions in the last fortnight, my Daughter got married which I'm sure you can appreciate was job one preparation wise for the last month. The day went well and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Secondly I finally got around to running in a dedicated 4mm cable for my Tandem Compressor which means I can run both units at once. I'm now in the Happy position of the Compressor being able to overtake my air grinder, by which I mean it will kick in whilst I'm using it and put more back in than the grinder takes out rather than eventually running out of puff. Just need my electrician nephew to give it an inspection and supply a certificate for it now.

To the car, picking up from the last image a small repair ws let into one of the many sections of the internal part of the screen surround.



Then it was on with getting rid of this pockmarked and bodged up area.



The challenge here was not being entirely sure what it was supposed to look like. Fortunately a NOS screen surround appeared on Ebay. I resisted the temptation of buying it, but the photos were excellent and it allowed me to zoom in and confirm my guesswork.

So I made this repair section, well actually this was my second attempt, I discarded the first one as it wasn't good enough.



The rough area was then cut out and the repair trimmed to size and let in.



Note the excess material at the rear of the picture, the panel needs trimming back to meet the drip rail which is currently absent, both parts have to have a "kick" in formed into them where the door skin wraps around. I concluded that trying to measure and form that correctly without this part being fairly firmly in place would be doomed to fail. The A post was a bit to snug in the pocket that this panel forms but a light dressing with Hammer and Dolly got it fitting OK.

Probably at the point now where the A post needs to be fastened in permanently, the top needs to be spot welded to the area in the first picture, the drip rail then goes over the top of that so the sequence is decided for me really. But first I want to try the door on the A post whilst its temporarily mounted to make sure it all looks as expected.

Thanks for reading

Sean

Onwards then

The inward kick proved a bit tricky to form out of the metal already let in so I fabricated a small piece with the correct shape on the bench, cut back the metal I'd just let in and inserted the profiled section to get here



I then reworked a salvaged section of drip rail to create the required taper



This won't be fitted until the A post is welded in so time to do that then. Holes drilled in the socket into which the top of the A post slots. All areas to be welded were gone over to remove storage rust and given a coat of weld through primer and once dry the A post went in for good.





I had hoped that the majority of this would be welded using the TIG technique I learned at summer school last year but it proved less easy on the car, most of the flange in the door opening went OK but the forward flange is not flat and the torch couldn't sit flat on it as a result. I resorted to drilling holes and plug welding that side. The top face was a mix of both processes, you can see the 3 good TIG welds in the middle, more experimentation required to make this repeatable but I think the effort will be worthwhile as they are very neat when you get it right.

Next job is the fit the drip rail repair and sort out the repair section to close the scuttle panel back up.

Thanks for reading

Sean

Onwards then

I prepared a length of L shaped metal which was then manipulated in the shrinker/stretcher to achieve the required curves to form suitable repair sections. A straight line was drawn through the holed flange area which was then removed.

New sections of metal were then let in. The three pin holes were also welded up.







The area sitting behind the prospective repair panel was given a coat of Zinc weld through primer, as was the rear of said repair panel.



Final trial fit of the repair.



Just need to go around the flanges providing holes for plug welding and we can think about welding it in.

Keen to know how the collective would approach the thin return flange where the panel meets the Gutter. It was spot welded originally but by what must've been a much more delicate head than usual as the flange is very narrow. Its just not wide enough to drill for plug welding. Only option I can see is to edge weld it. It will be covered with a bead of sealer so I think that will work but keen to hear if anyone else has grappled with this issue and how they addressed it.

Thanks for reading

Sean

Thanks Chris, I was kicking that option around in my head, also wondering about using panel adhesive but that would inevitably be damaged by the adjacent welding.

Thanks for the reassurance that I'm not conceiving a bodge!

Sean

More progress today

Thinking about fabricating repair sections for the chassis leg with the correct curved corners saw me tinkering with various bits of metal I had lying about. I have a generous supply of 30mm box section and it has rounded corners, could it be the correct radius? I took some sheet and smacked it around a section of box and it turns out it's exactly right, result. Then dear reader a degree of mission creep developed and it occurred to me that this was a very crude way of forming flanges and it was really time I had a folder. I concluded that I had everything required apart from some hinges, most DIY folders seem to be made from angle but I figured box section was therefore better as it must be more rigid. So I ordered some hinges from Amazon after pondering and discounting the idea of knocking some of my own up on the lathe. Once they arrived a couple of hours of cutting, welding and tappling later and we had this,



It seems to work very well indeed. The top bar can be moved back to allow for varying thicknesses, the width between clamps bolts is 700mm which I'm hoping is enough. It does lovely rounded corners as is, and crisp ones if you insert a piece of angle. I've ordered a length of 3mm flat bar to use instead for a more professional set up.

Back to the car then.

Immediate area of focus remains the chassis leg but it occurred to me that it would be useful to get the floor to a position where it was a good fit first in case I needed to use it for reference. So I started by removing what was left of the old floor from the chassis leg. Keen readers will spot the previous shonky repairs to the leg.



The flange at the bottom of the picture also comes into play for attaching the floor. Turns out it's a bit frilly where it meets the inner sill. I will attend to it when I replace the inner sill. That panel is a simple L shape piece that forms a box with the floor area towards the rear of the car and will be simple to fold up a repair (did I mention I made a folder? I did?)

This is the replacement floor panel.



In a previous post I think I suggested it looked like a decent stab at what is quite a complex shape. Turns out I spoke too soon as its a reasonable bus ride away from fitting.

The chassis leg steps down to accommodate what I'm calling the bowl area of the footwell. The gearbox side of the chassis leg is much deeper and the higher part of the panel sits on it. Clamping this flange to the floor reveals the bowl to be a long way from meeting its target mating flange. Its also too far forward.





Time to step back and ponder. I concluded that depth of the bowl on the chassis leg side was inadequate. Therefore it need to be extended, actually more likely totally remade. This was not a disaster as it's basically flat or folded the tricky fabrication is in the bowl, which could remain. So I sliced a chunk off and offered it up again. Better, but still too far forward, which seemed to be as a result of the panel being a touch too long overall, so a bit more cutting ensued.

That got me here.





With an acceptable fit to the chassis leg I was looking for.



Happy with the day's proceedings.

Thanks for reading

Sean

Lovely stuff, coming together nicely

Well what a faff that turned out to be! Every piece of the Jigsaw took at least two goes to fabricate accurately but this is the position as things stand this evening.





The next step will be to fully weld it up, I've offered it up and it needed just a minor adjustment to flatten the flange slightly so that the bulkhead return sat nicely on it at 90 degrees for spot welding, easily achieved with a few blows of a Hammer.

Next job was to build a new crush tube for the subframe bolt. This consists of a circular pad on the underside of the chassis leg through which a tube passes. I had a piece of tube already which I'd liberated from the pattern replacement leg so this was cleaned up of previous welding. The pad was cut from a piece of 2mm sheet I had lying around, it looks about right when referencing the intact passenger side chassis leg. I then measured the amount the tube protrudes through the pad on the passenger side and welded the two parts together to get this



Once I've welded the leg up fully the next step will be to reattach it. Then I need to fit the Subframe to the passenger side mounts which will then allow me to accurately locate the crush tube, which can then be welded in. We can then think about fitting the floor and reacquainting it with the Bulkhead.

Feels like progress.

Thanks for reading

Sean

Alas with my limited experience, Raptor follows the pattern of the underlying body quite closely, it doesn't seem to have the fill/spread/leveling effect you'd hope for.

It sounds wrong but the tinyest smear of bodyfiller under the Raptor will get you where you want to be.

Hope it helps.