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1980 Austin Princess


vulgalour

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June

 

Mike rewired the dash to bypass the PCB.  That sorted everything out but the main beam telltale which stubbornly refuses to work.  A job for another day.  on reinstalling the dash for the umpteenth time it broke.  Again.  So had to have the stupid plywood spacers reglued before it could be refitted.

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Finally got it all back together and working again. The new Sharp head unit with graphic equaliser is lovely except it needs some suppression because the electric fuel pump interferes with it, just like the rubbish aftermarket one did when I first got the car.  Job for another day.

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The distributor started leaking oil again.  This has only just had an O-ring fitted so I'm calling this Because BL too.

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Then I went to the shops and THIS happened. > :(

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I feared the worst, another displacer failure (and this is the corner I've JUST replaced).  After some investigation it looks like it's just a leak.  I'm yet to resolve this so the car is currently sat on the drive thinking about what its done.

 

You are now up to date.

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@michael1703: the MGB ring is exactly the same.  Doesn't seem to be a part that's available separately even though it's part of the construction on just about every BL fuel tank.

 

@AngryDicky:  Always does and always has.  One day I might win.

 

@Asimo:  all my own work.

 

@Stuno and adw1977:  cheers chaps.

 

 

I missed on little bit of the update which was the leak tracing.  When the front corner dropped, as it had been doing slow enough that I wasn't sure if it was or not, I had thought the displacer had popped.  Unusually, I still had bounce on all four corners, the ride was jiggly and I'd got chronic tyre scrub so I just assumed the worst as you do with Hydragas.  I had been getting a little puff of odourless white-ish smoke when the exhaust started to warm up which I'd dismissed as being down to the large amounts of rain just making stuff damp.  On closer inspection, however...

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That's Hydragas on the exhaust. Traced it back along the pipe and hidden against the bulkhead side was this peculiar staining.  Very well hidden, hence the use of flash.

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That goes back to the schrader valve block.  Another Princess owner on the Princess forum has had the exact same leak and the repair was to replace the block/pipe.  I haven't a spare replacement.  I do have some individualisers, they just need some adaptor stalks, so I'm considering pulling all the displacers off and forking out for them to be regassed when I get some adaptor stalks made.  This does, unfortunately, render the Princess unuseable until I've raised a couple of hundred quid to do this, it's not a cheap job.

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Because there's four of everything to do it gets expensive.  From memory, the regas service was £60 per unit plus postage and really you need to do all four at the same time.  The adaptor stalks I need for the individualisers are potentially the same sort of price because they need to deal with such high pressures and the fitting on the Princess displacer is an obsolete rarely stocked size.  I may be able to get rear displacer flexi hoses adapted to do the job or get a different design of individualiser made, it just won't be cheap.  Potentially, I'm looking at £500+ to sort the suspension properly or much, much less to just replace/repair the leaking pipe as a short term fix.  Ideally, I need the suspension system overhauling properly and I do need to invest this money otherwise it will just continue to bite me.

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Good to see ye back on here, n updating; one of them cars that's 'a bit different' with the likes of the custom rear lights etc etc....- ive no idea why you took the 'break' from the place for a spell; that's your own business...

 

Nice to see the Princess wearing the badge I sent you on; doesn't look like its improved the car's 'luck', but does add to its look, er, very well...

 

I have never seen a rear gauge cluster 'delete' / DIY rewire like that- impressive skills there by Mike...

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dieselassist:  it fits just nice on the grille there, the only thing is I can never get it to stay sat straight for very long.  What if it actually is working as a good luck charm, how bad would things have been without it!

 

I have no idea why I stick it out with this car, rationally it makes absolutely no sense.  I maintain it's not terrible even in the face of all these facts to the contrary, because on those days when it does work I find myself choosing to drive this instead of the Rover.  The Rover is quantifiably a better car in every single respect so why on earth would I place the Princess ahead of it in the enjoyment stakes?  I guess it's the same reason people like Landrovers which are pretty coarse, horrible, uncomfortable, leaky, basic deathtraps.  It's a mystery, it's a mystery, I'm still searching for a clue.  It's a mystery to me, shot in the dark, the big question mark in history.  Is it a mystery to you?

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It's not a mystery to me. Well-patched old jeans syndrome.


When you put a lot of your creative self into something it becomes far more than the sum of it's parts to you.
You are giving it soul and it fits you like you fit it.

Not the same as "fixing the bastard just so you can get to work tomorrow" which usually just makes you hate the heap.

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I have never seen a rear gauge cluster 'delete' / DIY rewire like that- impressive skills there by Mike...

 

Unfortunately it's nowhere as neat as I normally do those kinds of jobs, but I wanted to get it done quickly and it's a "test bed" that can always be cleaned up later.

 

I bet the problem with the high beam telltale is one of the crimped connectors has fallen out.

 

I don't like crimped connectors, they're horribly fragile, but they serve a purpose. When I re-do this properly I'll solder everything in place.

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I don't like crimped connectors, they're horribly fragile, but they serve a purpose. When I re-do this properly I'll solder everything in place.

Done properly, crimped connections weld themselves with the pressure through corroded surfaces and hold tight. Over a soldered connection, they are actually more reliable as solder will fracture with time and flexing and the additional heat required to solder old, corroded copper tends to make the insulation more fragile and prone to breaking near the joint.

 

I like my big crimp pliers, they are a must. I thought the same way as you before I got them as doing crimps with the wrong pliers makes for horrible unreliable connections.

 

Phil

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I've started the laborious task of transferring all my photographs to a new host.  Photobucket has been there from the start of this thread back in February 2012 and up until the last 12 months or so I've been happy with the service.  Now, however, the end is nigh.  Even though I pay the minimum ad-free fee of £2ish per month, they'll only give me grace until some time between December 2017 and April 2018 before hiking it to their absurd £400 per month tier for the same service.

 

So the race is on really.  I've completed March 2012 as of tonight and I'll slog away updating the links as much as I can.  There will still be some dead links as not everything here was in the Princess folder but everything that's relevant to this build I will keep.

 

I've had to prioritise somewhat too.  This is the longest running uninterrupted thread I've kept and, as such, the most important to keep whole.  I'll do the Rover thread afterwards and the Austin thread is already established on Flikr where I'm moving everything to.  The trouble isn't shifting the photographs, that's easy, it's keeping them in context that's taking the massive amount of time to do.  Unfortunately, my older threads on things like the Xantia and the Renault are going to be dead, I can't see me getting through the Princess and Rover threads quickly enough to get those updated before Photobucket nix my account.  I'll do my best, all the same.

 

I absolutely hate that Photobucket have done what they have, already there's so many threads that are incomplete that were useful reference points, now barely any use at all since the reference images are gone.  It's going to take a long while for a lot of forums to recover from this and I only hope other image providers don't pull the same stunt.

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  • 2 weeks later...

2012 photographs all updated (page 21).  Really wasn't a good year at all for the poor old wedge, she got knocked about a bit.

 

In more recent news, I spoke to scaryoldcortina recently and he reckons he can repair that leaking schrader block so, once I've got the suspension pipe off, I should have the Princess back in use again once I can get the local Hydragas pump contact to come out and do the do.  Happy days.

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