The 1957 "The Dope" Dauphine

Insurance sorted through Lancaster who i always tend to use for the old cars, service seems great and always there for any questions. They beat their own renewal quote and added an agreed valuation. I've added this on this time round as actually replacing it wouldn't be too easy. Mods, SDP+C fully comp and 6k value for £105 for the year.

Well thats been a year since paying the funds to buy it back already! Since then its had an engine thrown together and slapped in along with a 4 speed gearbox swap, a 12v conversion plus plenty of little bits and probably more miles put on it than its previous 25 years 😅. Long time for me to own a car tbh 👍🏻

Love this car!

Been smashing the miles on the dope since the schools have gone back but today I suffered a failure. Went to leave a Morrisons after the wife decided we needed some gardening stuff 🤷🏻‍♂️ and it only just had the juice to fire. A quick check on the heater screen (which can display voltage) showed me had 10.1v..... looks like the alternator has given up. Drove 10 miles home fine and I think I have a spare in the shed so should be a quick easy fix. Still it's been great using it so much, plenty of people stopping and chatting about it and wanting pictures 😁👍🏻

Well that was a curse word day wasted on the Dope. The exhaust manifold had a crack in it so the plan was to replace it with a direct fit 4 branch manifold........ This was meant to fit with my stock inlet and carb. First issue it wasn't going to work with the stock inlet. once separated there's a big hole in the bottom of it. Not too much of an issue as I had a spare inlet suitable for a weber carb. It needed a few tweaks but nothing major. So I started bolting everything up only to find the centre exhaust runners wouldn't fit flush with the head. The whole thing was all twisted and bent out of shape so much so it wouldn't pull up on the studs. I even tried double layering the the gasket to take up the space but it wouldn't work. I've decided to cut the manifold up to release the tension and will hopefully be able to manipulate the pipe work and reweld it, possibly sleeve it where the new joints are. So what I expected to be a couple of hour job been a day messing about and getting no where. Pretty peeved. I also need to sort out a linkage out for the carb as it runs backwards to the current setup. Urgh just want to burn it now. Might just refit all the old stuff so the car is useable.

Hopefully it does. Just a majorly disappointing day of grief when it wasnt expected. Though I should just reside to the fact it will probably go wrong if I work on this car lol

This has been my experience of working on my Skoda as of late so absolutely can empathize, fix one thing, another breaks or the part just isn't as described/bad fitment. I haven't posted my frustrations to my thread but imagine buying a replacement gear stick with fresh bushes on the end and a replacement gear knob for that same gearstick, from the same person. You'd assume, that gearstick's thread would match the knobs thread or the seller would say they don't go together, imagine waiting three weeks for those parts too, imagine getting absolutely covered in grease to also discover the balls/bushes on the end of the stick also aren't the same as those on the original car. To top that the knob doesn't fit the original stick, so money/effort wasted all round. I REALLY hate those kinds of days.

Tres Kewl....

P.

What started as a quick rinse ended with a full clean and wax. Made use of the child free sunny day. Almost totally out of poor boys nattys paste wax now though, it has served me well over the years, so easy to apply and wipe back. Here have some boring pictures of it (y)