Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[V8 Nutter]

When I rebuilt engines for a living we used to dread 1850 Dolomites coming in, the heads were always corroded to the studs, they could take hours to remove. Whoever designed that head broke every rule in the book. A problem with the smaller Dolomites, in fact all the small Triumphs the thrust washers were too small. The clutch used to get heavier with age, if it wasn't replaced, because of the extra load the thrusts would fall out allowing the crank to move forward chewing up both the block and the crank. Another BL failure. The thrusts were much the same as the Standard Eight which sometimes had a similar problem. As the engine got bigger and more powerful they never bothered to change the design. Phil mentioned the Rover SD1 the design of the cylinder head on that 6 cylinder was another triumph of "hope over experience".

[52classic]

BL Dolomite. What a classy little car, at least IMO. I had two of them. A 1300 in Honeysuckle, the first brand new car ever for me and a company car choice against an 1100 Escort. 1977 was a good year. New Job, new car, new house and new baby (in her 40's now!).

Even used that car to tow a Sprite Alpine caravan.

Couple of years later I opted for a 1500HL rather than a Cortina.

Another Dolomite memory was my occasion of driving one which had been modified by the owner to have the clutch and accelerator pedals transposed.
The bloke had lost his right leg and had learned throttle control with the left one. The clutch, he said, was easy enough with the NHS offering provided to him. My task was to get the car home for him, which fortunately didn't involve
much traffic.