83 Triumph Acclaim Sprint

[logicaluk]

Where to start.....
At the beginning i suppose

Ive had triumph acclaims for on and off for 15 years and loved every one of them they tend to handle rather well, go resonably quickly some seem quicker than others, but ive always planed to build a properly quick one.

A couple of years ago my mate barry and i swapped this car for the spares some chappy had bought it for, to fix his acclaim, the head was off the engine but he said it was a minter and way too good to break, needless to say he was mistaken but a deal was done and we hauled it back to my workshop, as barry needed a daily, we grabbed an engine and triomatic box, steering colum and a matching door lock, off the pile and had "frank" up and running in a couple of days and ready for an MOT by the end of the week. Barry drove frank round for abit until he found himself a landrover discovery then as i was between classics i took frank to our local club meets.

I had been looking into wheel options and found the 15" BMW mini minlite wheels with the standard 175/65/15 tyers give the same rolling radius as 145R13 but with a lot more width, this fits on the acclaim with about 5-7mm clearance between the shock and tyer wall. the center fits the hub locating ring add some new wheel nuts and they weigh the same as the 13" steelies and compleatly transformed handling.

I fitted the modified grill i had been working on for a while

20160601_215621_zps8odg2scv by logicaluk, on Flickr

franks paint work was pretty bad so i rubbed the paint back with a green meanie, I had intended to give him a rustolium paint job but couldn't decide on a colour so left it with flat paint and blacked out the crome.

20160531_184553_zpspaffiz9x by logicaluk, on Flickr

We drove frank around like that till his MOT ran out and all i wanted to do was modify it to go quicker so first thing to do is make the structure realy solid.

More soon
Dan

[luckygti]

Ooh, love an Acclaim. Look forward to seeing what you do with it!

[qwerty]

This sounds like it could be interesting. Honda B series??

Tom

[logicaluk]

Yes i could go the B series engine route, but have you seen the price them....

[customsinc]

I swear thats my uncle stans old car :/

[logicaluk]

Could be customsinc how long ago did he have it.

[logicaluk]

Well we pulled frank appart to have a propper check and found both rear seatbelt mounts were corroded and the floor beside them wasn't the best but as luck would have it my bud barry ("tart" of this parish) is a bit of a demon with the hot metal glue gun

IMG_20160602_194409_zpspgcdprjm by logicaluk, on Flickr

That was followed by this

IMG_20160602_194352_zps5ncibch6 by logicaluk, on Flickr

And was repeated on the other side.

Then frank was rolled on his side to complete the welding and start on the inner cill repair

IMG_20160602_194358_zpsxzjbesnq by logicaluk, on Flickr

Thats when we spotted this

IMG_20160602_194402_zpsfcfjoepf by logicaluk, on Flickr

Which from the pic dosent look too bad but is right behind the front suspension mounting. To repair it we had to unspot weld the whole lot which was lucky as we realised they were all corroded including the pocket the suspension arm locates in to.

20160602_210553 by logicaluk, on Flickr

I had recently had to scrap my previous Acclaim ginger as she had completely rotted through the bottoms of the A posts but as the shell was still here she was rolled over and donated the required panels as the were mint.

20160602_205053 by logicaluk, on Flickr

There was also the matter of the inner cill repair right beside the rear radius arm mounting, and of course the bolt was seized in the bush, i tryed every thing to save the bush as there made of unobtainium but in the end we just had to but angry grinder through the bolt and bush. Any one with an acclaim i can recommend trying to undo the rear radius arm bolts and bathing them in copper slip.

20160305_111640 by logicaluk, on Flickr

Then i cleaned off the underseal from the front wheel arch to stich weld all the different pressings together and made a reinforcing plate to strengthen the shock tower

20160402_175250 by logicaluk, on Flickr

The the whole engine bay was cleaned up, degreased and rust converted before having a coat of red primer.

Then we had to stop to do an engine rebuild on another car and rebuild the bottom 6" of barrys discovery.
And that almost brings us up todate, a few days ago i put franks rear suspension back together and with a little help fro m some from a couple of friends rolled him back right side up, turned him arround and layed him on his other side, next up is striping the last of the under seal on the front wheel arch.... yay i hate underseal.
Dan

[logicaluk]

As a cunning diversion from scraping under seal, I went to the local rover breakers and had a rarther enjoyable hour routing arround cars and sheds and found a pair of brake calipers that look about right but they had been sat outside on a shelf and the pistons had seized so picked them up cheap, stopped at ecp on the way home and picked up new discs and pads and proved to my self that they were indeed the 262mm vented set up i had been looking for. So i rushed home as got out the acclaim hub dropped a disc on and

20160603_214547 by logicaluk, on Flickr

Looks good i can make up some hub rings to centralise it and the countersunk screws are i the right place looking good sofar

20160603_213952 by logicaluk, on Flickr]

So close to being a bolt on upgrade. Not sure how to tackle the miss alignment, ill see if a rover 25 hub carrier can be persuaded to fit which in turn will mean my mini wheels wont fit. Or ill have to modify the caliper carrier.

Dan

[logicaluk]

Just looked into the wheel sizes again and the mini wheels should fit unless the hub face moves much.

Has anyone modified a caliper carrier before?

Dan

[79cord]

Glad so see the effort your willing to go though to save it already !

Not sure what later Rover 25 hub-carrer might do to suspension geometry/alignment/bumpsteer.
Try some early CRV/vtec Prelude/Integra Type-R calipers. Designed for 282 discs with the bigger hub carriers, so will fit yours with the 262. Tested fitted on my '81 Prelude. Not exactly light though, & will require different proportioning valve & possibly bigger Master cylinder due to bigger frt wheel cylinder bore.

2g Prelude rear discs, will also fit straight on, though probably too rare now & rear caliper mtg brkt bolts to the rear spindle mount (old drum backing plate) differ. Rear wheel bearings/spindle dimensions/concept changed radically for later Rhonda, perhaps get an old rear drum machined down so some std/common rear disc can fit over it or bolt to the back?

[logicaluk]

Cheers for that cord, I had been looking at taking the hub carrier and attempting to retrofit the rest of the suspension on first glance it does look close, but the more i look at it the more i don't think it will work as it will push the hub face out by 10 to 20mm.

Did you test fit the caliper on your prelude with the pads in? I was thinking about that last night but thort the pad would foul on the hub part of the disc.

I'm starting to think I'm looking in the wrong place for the brake upgrade, think ive read somewhere ford calipers have 90mm mountings it would be so much easier to just make and adaptor plate.

Dan

[ettorebugatti]

You could always clock the caliper a little bit round and make an adapter that bolts on the back of the upright and then you can mount the caliper in between the 'ears' of the upright.

[qwerty]

D16 and a turbo?

Tom

[79cord]

I did wonder if the CRV calipers/carrier might foul the disc as later Civic's apparently need some machining to fit, but I didn't notice any problems (my Accord needed 3mm spacers to fit 4g Civic calipers), Pretty sure I had pads in.

Thinking D16 Vtec would be relatively subtle Fun & original d/shafts would probably fit the Transaxle. Though D16 DOHC is a sweet elastic rever too & probably easier to run on Carburetors if so inclined.

[logicaluk]

Jun 4, 2016 20:06:22 GMT ettorebugatti said:

You could always clock the caliper a little bit round and make an adapter that bolts on the back of the upright and then you can mount the caliper in between the 'ears' of the upright.

Cheers ettore i did look at clocking it but it looked all wrong and there was no space to fit th adaptor plate.
Dan

[logicaluk]

Jun 4, 2016 22:13:05 GMT qwerty said:

D16 and a turbo?

Tom

I drive a d16v1 (EP2) daily and its a cracking engine with the lighter body it would realy fly. But no not for the foreseeable future. And theres a tax implication as well. A turbo could well be in its future tho.

At the moment i just want frank back on the road, i need him MOTed before August as SWMBO has decreed the 2 seater special too cold, uncomfortable and probably wet for a tour of scotland.

Dan

[logicaluk]

Thanks cord i hope your right as ive just ordered a set of 282mm calipers.
Dan

[logicaluk]

Oh i hate it when i get a long way into a post and accidentally delete the whole curse word thing.........

I stripped the calipers i got from the scrapyard and the pistons were in very good condition so they were duly rebuilt with some red rubber grease, i found some 282mm disk calipers on ebay, the description said pistons and sliders move freely but when they arrived i couldn't get the pistons to move at all, the seller was a bit funny telling me i had to return them at my own cost and only refund if he found fault with them, leaving me out of pocket for the return carriage and by the sound of it the whole lot if he wants to say there fine, so i spent quite some time getting one out so i had some photographic evidence, now ive sent it to him hes not replied since, ill let ebay deal with it.

In other news i cleaned up the other front arch oh how i hate underseal and seam sealer then i stitch welded all of the panels

20160613_190510_zpsxstlkd0k by logicaluk, on Flickr

Barry came round and fitted the turret strengthener i made, did some localised rust repairs and finished off the front suspension mounting.

I took the hot air gun and scrapers to the rear wheel arch.

20160613_190558_zpsjvzygkco by logicaluk, on Flickr

Dan

[79cord]

Confirms again the lengths you are going to for a good result!
Guess the 262 calipers would still offer much bigger pad area for use with some 242mm vented Civic brakes, & still a big improvement on the original.

[logicaluk]

This week i have been mostley stripping underseal

20160620_203417 by logicaluk, on Flickr

Probably most of next week too....
Dan