project 1980 Austin Princess

[STUNO]

And more congratulations.

[Ghosty]

I'm really, really happy.  I'm also slightly confused because I've grown that used to the struggle it's difficult to believe I've achieved the goal.

 

 

It's like when I got my R8 running properly, it's almost surreal.

 

Congratulations, Vulg. Happy motoring!

[trigger]

Congratulations dude!

[Felly Magic]

Once insured and you are out to play in it, that is when it will start to sink in. We are all chuffed to bits for you, and it's one more wedge on the road

[vulgalour]

I got insurance for less than £100, fully comp. I cannot complain at that! Lancaster, as it happens, this being the first time I've met their age/experience criteria.

 

After getting the insurance sorted out this morning, which was unbelievably easy, I could crack on with the jobs that needed doing. I removed the exhaust clamp that was blowing so I could clean that up at the unit and help Mike bleed the brakes on his Supra. While I was at it I picked up a new compliment of dash bulbs, I haven't fitted those today. On getting home I fitted the cleaned clamp, which is a chore because it's the awkward side, and while I haven't cured the blow it's reduced it to a point that its tolerable now. I *may* have to drop the downpipe and clean the flanges more thoroughly, this exhaust has been a perpetual problem in this area and there's not a great deal you can do about it because of the way it's designed. Mini and Allegro owners will know this problem well.

 

I then had to run the car up to temperature to bake the exhaust paste which also meant moving it. Found a little memento from last night on the garage door, there was an awful lot of oil getting leaked onto the exhaust and the car was in desperate need of an Italian Tune Up so I expect there'll be more of this as I work through the niggles. Not a speck left today, thankfully, the exhaust seems quite clean.

 

I knew getting the car warmed up was going to result in the cap leaking. Just to be certain it was the cap and to prevent it spraying the oil all over the engine bay again, I taped an old square of flanneling over the cap to see what would happen.

 

 

 

 

As soon as the car was up to temperature, oil was just steadily flowing out from under the flanneling. At least that confirmed the source of the leak. Until I resolve this I can't use the car, it's just too noxious and the plumes it makes out of the grille and edge of the bonnet is just asking for a pull, I need to sort it. The caps are NLA and while they look similar to the one on the A and B series engines, they're much larger. I know this because I bought a B cap to try and it just falls in the hole.

 

The oil smoke gets much worse than this.

 

I took the cap off to find out how it was leaking. I had thought it was coming through the plastic body of the cap but on unscrewing the cap, the O-ring stayed stuck to the engine and it was clear the oil was finding its way between the top of the O-ring and the cap's casing. That, at least, should be easy to resolve by using more sealant above the O-ring as well as below. You can see just how the whole underside of the cap, both inside and outside of the oil filler hole, is covered in oil here.

 

There was enough nice weather to make a start on cleaning the worst of the oil spray and storage grime out of the engine bay and its starting to look somewhat respectable in there now. I'll fully resolve the oil cap leak by rebuilding the original head and refitting it since it's the later type that doesn't have an oil filler in the top, relying instead on the longer filler pipe that is still attached to the block of my car (red cap to the left of the distributor).

 

So I don't make a mess of the block paving, which is a bit of a nuisance to clean, I've parked the Princess on the gravel for the time being. I did go for a tiny little drive around the houses, which was fun, I just can't do anything meaningful until it stops spewing oil out. It's about as different as it can be to the Rover, it's quite startling getting out of one and into the other. It feels a bit more real today, still surprising and weird that this car is actually fully road legal and still mine, but at least a bit more real.

 

[Rocket88]

Not familiar with these lumps, but could the oil leaking past the cap be caused by excess back pressure...........do these have a breather system, it could be blocked?

Congrats on all your hard work, I'd have set fire to it months ago!

[vulgalour]

I don't think it's a back pressure issue, I think it's because of the oil cap O-ring being old and hard and just not sealing.  Because the cam is under the cap it throws the oil up at it and it just seems to be that the oil is finding a way to get out instead of draining back down into the engine rather than it being blasted out.  The cap doesn't jiggle about or anything like I'd expect it to if there was a lot of pressure going on.

 

I think there is a catch can/breather thingy on the back of the block next to the fuel pump.  I've never investigated it so it is probably worthwhile me doing that as it could well be blocked.

[Eddie Honda]

The caps are NLA and while they look similar to the one on the A and B series engines, they're much larger. I know this because I bought a B cap to try and it just falls in the hole.

Tis a GFE6005 for the later O-series? :

 

 

cheaper here:

 

 

You need not have bought a B cap to try: "NOTE :Not suitable for the 1.7 or 2 litre O-Series Diesel engines fitted from 1978 onwards."

 

It must be a GFE600x?

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

There was an excellent bodge on Mini exhausts where the cheap shit aftermarket downpipes wouldn't seal against the manifold. So clean it up, jack the exhaust against the manifold and then a strip of coke can about 25mm wide around the joint with a smear of paste - then fit the clamp on top and do it up tight. That used to work wonders.

 

On Minis etc, a missing lower exhaust to engine bracket would cause havoc.

[twosmoke300]

Please put the cambelt cover in before a stone or a finger gets in there and ruins your day . !

 

 

Great news on getting the old girl back on the road -might motivate me to get my bike done - but prob not

[vulgalour]

Eddie:  That's the correct cap for my car as standard, but my engine isn't standard in an odd way.  It's a 1980 block with a 1979 head, so I have two oil filler caps rather than just one.  The red mushroom type as you list there is perfectly fine on mine, it's the black one that's wrong, and they're not interchangeable.

 

Rev:  tried that, didn't work.  I ended up getting a pair of chunky cast Mini brackets to replace the original flimsy Princess ones, paired with the Princess clamp shells which can seal the exhaust.  It's just difficult to get it on the first attempt and I'm annoyed I didn't quite get it seated right.

 

Twosmoke:  I'll be doing that when I swap back to the 1980 head, there's no bracket to hold the cam cover on this 1979 head.

 

Refitting the original 1980 head will fix all the problems, I'm just waiting on my gasket kit order arriving really, and I want the original head tested and skimmed if necessary.  At least swapping the head is an easy job.

[Squire_Dawson]

Yes the exhaust clamp design is woeful. It was carried over from the inline transmission cars (Austin A30 and Morris Minor) where it actually works without trouble. However, due to the torque reaction of the engine combined with a transverse layout, there is little 'give' so it ends up breaking away again. Be careful not to over-tighten the clamp as it can crack the cast iron manifold. If it happens regularly you will need to check the engine steady bushes.

[plasticvandan]

I used to use a jack under the downpipe to firmly push the flanges together,seal then clamp,never had a leak afterwards.

[vulgalour]

That usually works, but not always.  They're really finicky.

 

On the oil breather front, the thing I thought might be that is an oil catch can which can be removed easily so I'll check it isn't clogged up anyway.  I could get it repainted nicely too since it's got horrible flakey paint on it from previous restoration* work.

[MikeKnight]

Genuinely surprised this has an oil catch can in the system, and a direct-to-sump one too. Nice design.

 

Usually it's just a bit of old hose jammed into the cam cover.

[dollywobbler]

This is good progress.

 

Your garage door mess is just old, fully-choked car hurling dirty water out of the exhaust. They all do that sir. I was at a Rolls-Royce dealer the other day and spotted that one car had blown a right load of filthy muck all over another rather nice car. They must have fallen out.

[Eddie Honda]

so I have two oil filler caps rather than just one.

Ah, I've just noticed now you've drawn my attention to it.

 

ELIMINATE one.

 

[Noel Tidybeard]

Genuinely surprised this has an oil catch can in the system, and a direct-to-sump one too. Nice design.

 

Usually it's just a bit of old hose jammed into the cam cover.

 

iirc bmc/bl engines of this ilk do have the oil catch tank type breater- certainly the a+ in a 1.3 maestro had one

[dieselassist]

congrats on the mot win man...!

[Cavcraft]

Nice one on the MOT, great stuff!

[vulgalour]

While the site settles, I'm holding off updating here for a bit.  You can get the latest over on the blue forum: http://retrorides.proboards.com/thread/171230/austin-princess-rover-414sli-update?page=89

[purplebargeken]

Didn't realise the O ring had a square profile. Weird.

 

https://www.amazon.com/O-Rings-Square-Seals/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A16413611%2Cp_n_feature_ten_browse-bin%3A3549491011

[purplebargeken]

http://www.hitechseals.com/products/O-Rings.asp

 

http://simplybearings.co.uk/shop/p81579/3mm+Section+50mm+Bore+Square+Section+NITRILE+70+Rubber+O-Rings/product_info.html

[For Fiats Sake]

Like for update.

[crapcarcollector]

Vulg, understand you are waiting for settleage to occur, but unnoticed this in my weekly copy of classic car weekly and I seem to recall you looking for people who can service spheres. I have no idea, but saw this, thought of you...

 

http://www.hydragasandhydrolasticservice.com/

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[vulgalour]

CCC: I'm aware of the service.  I really ought to get my displacers re-gassed, there's just been so many other jobs to fix ahead of them.

 

April 2017

 

Fixed the leaking oil cap with PU sealant.  No more fog machine.

 

Replaced the broken speedo cable with a new one.

 

 

Then the PCB in the dash decided it didn't want to work any more.  Fuel gauge, dash illumination and telltale issues, lots of fun, took ages to figure out.  The dash was in and out more times than an inny-outy thing.  Also meant no night driving because I had no idea what speed I was going, no legible GPS speed alternative to make use of and there are speed cameras in the vicinity.  Bit of a nuisance.

 

 

Front seat covers were modified to fit properly, finally.

 

We did some fine tuning to get the car to run nicer and replaced the throttle return spring that I should have replaced five years ago when I bought the car.  Both things made a marked improvement in the driving experience.

 

 

As a treat, the engine bay was given a thorough degrease and polish for the first time in years.  Was looking pretty swish under the bonnet now.

[vulgalour]

Finally got some new door seals, the old ones were falling to bits and my spares not much better.  I couldn't afford the original velour covered ones as they were four times the price of the plain vinyl ones I ordered.  I didn't need the plush velour covered seals anyway, it's not as if this car is that original any more.  Made a huge improvement to general noise when on the move.

 

 

Then, we decided to install the in-tank pump I'd got as part-payment for the Renault.  This would resolve the oil leak from the mechanical pump which I'd had enough of and should, by all accounts, be a very simple job.  So knock the locking ring around, let the fuel drain into a stack of recepticles and wait.

 

Fit the new pump in the old sender housing.  Everything was nice and clean.

 

Then find out the three tabs that should hold the locking ring in place are only two and a bit and the fuel tank now won't seal.  Remove the tank.  You can't buy a tank, repair would be the only solution.

 

Oh well, this lot could be dealt with, a job I was saving for later.

 

Happily, a chap over on Retrorides had a spare Landrover fuel tank in his scrap pile he was saving "just in case" which was the correct ring type so he chopped that out and sent it to me free of charge, for which I am still very grateful.

 

The tank was then sent to a local company to repair and in the meantime the brackets were dunked in white vinegar to clean off the rust and the mechanical pump removed.

 

The original blanking plate was clean, repainted and fitted with some sealant in addition to the bonded rubber gasket in a belt-and-braces approach.

 

The boot floor was also inspected.  This bit of welding I didn't want to do, and could only be done with the tank removed, so had to be done now.

 

[vulgalour]

Fuel tank came back and a lovely job was made.

 

Tank brackets were cleaned up and painted.

 

The fuel tank was stripped and painted.  This took forever because there was some sort of resiny protection on the underside.

 

 

 

It was then smothered in underseal and reinstated under the car.

 

In the meantime, the boot floor repairs had been done and that too was painted and undersealed before the tank was fitted.

 

 

 

[vulgalour]

May 2017

 

While the tank was off (these updates are slightly out of date order because of the condensed nature) the inner rear wings were also repaired.  Part of the outer rear wings were removed ready for repair too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've still got to finish this area, there's a reason I haven't, more on that in a bit...

[vulgalour]

With the tank reinstalled it decided it was going to leak.  No matter what we did with any combination of new and old seal and locking ring, it just wouldn't seal and threatened to damage the new repair in the same way the tank was damaged before.  I had to walk away from it at this point.  Thankfully Mike managed to get the ring to seat properly and in more belt-and-braces applied some fuel resistant putty just in case even though it wasn't leaking after he'd got the ring to stay put.

 

 

With that done I had my first drive ever of the Princess without oil smoke wafting in through the vents.  It was very strange and made me think there was something wrong.  Life was good, the car was behaving well and I even treated it to a sunshade because of that heatwave we had.  It got so hot at one point the sunstrip shrank and fell off the windscreen.  You may notice the Rover has changed a little bit too... more on that elsewhere.

 

I needed to get the Princess and the Rover and me and Mike back from the unit in one go so Mike drove the Princess and I followed in the Rover.  Nearly home and the indicators stopped working, it had burned out the new relay I'd fitted not long ago so when we had time we headed back over to the unit with me driving the Princess following Mike in his car and a bit of this.

 

Turns out the relay I bought was the wrong kind, which we only found out when we got to the unit, so drove all the way back home again because it turned out the tools we needed weren't at the unit after all and waited for the new posh one to turn up.  Easy to fit, indicators working again, yay!  Had a little earth problem initially with the relay clicking constantly that ended up resolving itself and now it only clicks when it should.

 

Right at the end of May I learned my windscreen seal has gone porous.  These are NLA and a non-standard profile.  The club has a pledge drive to get an order made up which I forked out my share of, just waiting on other members paying up so the order can be placed now.