Hi to everyone who are interested in Classic Cars in general and to the “Triumph” marque in particular. My son Timothy and I are members of the “Triumph S.Wales” group as well as the T.S.S.C. & Dolomite Club, and our purpose, via this page, is to advise all Dolomite & Toledo owners of our existence and to promote our great little cars!

    You do not have to be a member of the above mentioned organisations to contact us or to join in our meetings or accompany us on our many organised “Runs”.  We are a friendly group of classic car enthusiasts and we are prepared to help anyone to keep their cars running!

With the help of my mentor Bernard Littlewood I will update this page with details of the projects that I have been involved with for the last 5 years that we have owned our 1980 Dolomite 1300.  Hopefully you will find them of some use and interest!  From the outset you must appreciate that I am a keen amateur and not a qualified engineer so what you will find is that I tackle the problems very slowly! What I hope will be of help, will be identifying problems, trying to resolve them and giving confidence to tackle them!

PLEASE ENSURE THAT YOU TAKE ALL THE NECESSARY HEALTH & SAFETY PRECAUTIONS!

Enough of the preamble I shall start with the most recent project renovating a Dolomite Sprint alloy wheel.  Although we have a nice set of 4 for summer use we bought 2 more in poor visual condition however they were basically strong. After repair we wanted at least one to have as a good spare!

• Initial cleaning showed that much of the black paint was covering corrosion, (appears like white powder).  So with the use of power tools clean back to shiny aluminium without jeopardising the integrity of the strength of the metal.

• Hand finish with various grades of sand paper 80, 120, 240 etc. As the rim of the wheel & the back are to be painted Black there is no requirement to “polish” the surface.

• The front decorated part of the wheel requires the most detailing and takes the most patience!  I started with 240 grade then went to 800 wet & dry then 1200 w&d to achieve a smooth shiny surface. The more work you put in now will result in a better mirror finish.

• Using the “brown” pre-polishing bar with various polishing drill attachments keep buffing until you have a very good shine.  Clean off with Vienna Lime!

• Finishing with the “Blue” polishing bar and polish up to get your mirror finish!

There are many “U” tube demo’s available and polishing kits are available from e-bay approx. £20

Cosmetic appearance poor, however wheel is strong & without serious damage.

Progress after 4 hours of power sanding, wire brushing, and hand sanding!

By Gwyn Evans