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Aug 25, 2019 21:03:34 GMT
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There's a story and one actual car behind this semi mythical idea.
The "Pony" was a little 4wd truck designed for the Isreali military and using parts of the drivetrain and a modified gearbox from the Triumph 1300FWD (1966-71) The only real problems are 1) the diff ratios are ridiculously low, 4.875/1 and 2) the transfer box and gearbox is barely strong enough for the 60ish bhp 1300!
The actual car was a 4wd modified Triumph 1300FWD which was campaigned quite successfully in autocross for one season around 1967. One picture of it in action exists, battered to hell and airborne! But, apparently the tuned 1300 (still just short of 100bhp) was too much and it broke a lot of gearboxes!
ALL Dolomites, from the 1300 to the Sprint and all Toledos are RWD. The only FWD variants are the 1300FWD mentioned above, it's big brother the 1300TC and it's successor the Triumph 1500 1971-73, which used a long tail Dolomite bodyshell and an uprated but still weedy 1300FWD gearbox. Triumph found the FWD design too expensive to produce and reverted to RWD for all models after 73.
Steve
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Aug 25, 2019 21:15:56 GMT
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Probably off topic slightly but I read once that an AWD Dolomite was feasibly possible since Dollys were FWD and Toledo's were RWD so it's just the [mere ] matter of getting the right suspension fixings / subframes sorted along with drivetrain hacks and you can have an early-days WRX. No idea of how much truth is in it but they're basically the same platform and it always sounded like a lot of fun to me if someone did it with the appropriate tweaks to a sprint engine up front to make it really fly. Most rear drive shells can be converted to 4wd with 'relative' ease, welding and fabrication for front drive shaft space, transmission tunnel etc, the biggest challenge is finding a suitable transfer box to go with your engine. That's why most of the builds along that line would use an engine to match the donor transmission. Ferguson Formula built some interesting stuff aside from the Jensen's they where known for. 1965 Mustang, mk3 Capri 3.0 and a Triumph Stag where given the treatment. I like the idea of a 3 litre V8 4wd Stag powered Dolomite! Would be interesting I think. Although I have a love/hate relationship with 4wd's. I know they do the job well and are very impressive, but unless there is lots of snow or 700bhp, I get bored of them pretty quickly. There is in existence, 1 Original Stag powered 4wd FF Triumph 2000 estate which is in the final stages of a nut and bolt resto costing many many ££££££. And it's still only only 140odd bhp! I don't think you're likely to come across any FF bits cheap to do such a conversion unfortunately. And whilst a Stag (or Rover) V8 WILL go in a Dolomite shell, I doubt very much that there'd be room for the transfer box and front diff too!
Steve
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