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1980 Austin Princess


vulgalour

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28515441877_e6a0e13ca8_b.jpg20180713 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Found some copper plated steel wire coathangers today so thought I'd put some theory into practice and see if I was capable of shaping the wire to the profile of the crumbly arch lip.  My rear arches aren't as bad as they could be, but both need work to get them solid again.  My plan is to shape the wire, as above, then tack it into place so it's secure.  After that I can trim out the rust and fill in the gaps to stabilise the arch properly.  Hopefully it'll work.

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This is looking really good, a testament to just taking it steady and doing proper work with the sparkly stick instead of wobbing it up. Love the colour combo too.

 

I fall firmly into the camp of "if you'd have described your plans I'd have thought you were mental" but it just goes to show what I know, doesn't it?

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At the moment I've got the driver's door off and patiently working on the front wing filler bit so hopefully when I update tonight I'll have this side of the car looking somewhat reasonable.  Unless something goes wrong, of course.

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Hey look, that scabby old orange door is gone!

42693481234_1bd5105a62_b.jpg20180714-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

It was a bit of a faff, as always, to fit the door.  Fortunately Mike was here to help so getting it aligned wasn't as bad as doing it myself.  Even got it opening and closing and fitting as well as the orange door it replaced, so that's a big bonus.  I didn't get everything back on, just enough to get it operational, as I still have to fit the door mirror.  It's a bit late to be drilling holes and painting raw metal edges so I'll do that bit tomorrow, for now this is fine and will keep the weather and local cats out of the car.

42693481164_00a0e0e9ca_b.jpg20180714-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The door fit about as well as it did when it came off the car, though my repairs needed a little fine* adjustment with a rubber mallet in a couple of places.  That exposed a crack on the outer door skin, presumably where the metal is a bit thin as this isn't an area I repaired on the outside.  I'll clean it back and give it a buzz of weld when I'm at the unit next, it's not a big job.

42693481054_650177080e_b.jpg20180714-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Got the B pillar gap as good as it ever gets on this car.  Good old BL panel gaps here, not a great deal you can do about them apart from live with it.

42693480964_0e25bf2b70_b.jpg20180714-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

BEHOLD!  An opening window.  Since putting the orange door on temporarily I've not been able to open this window which, let me tell you, has not been fun in the recent warm spell we've been having!  You haven't really lived until you've driven a car with untinted glass, no air conditioning, and no windows you can operate from the driver's seat while the UK is experiencing a heatwave.  It's quite something.

28540437127_ae27c0e9e9_b.jpg20180714-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Finally, the scruffy paint blend on the front wing was tidied up properly and I got the majority of the filler work done on the back edge of the wing so it's now all nice and presentable.  I'm a bit fed up of working on doors so my attention will turn to the other jobs on the car now, rather than fixing and repainting that rear door.

42693480864_fae397d6ce_b.jpg20180714-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Tomorrow I'll get the mirror fitted to this door and the door card reinstated, then it'll be time to give it all a much needed bath.

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Today, I ended up doing some welding.  I didn't want to, but there you go.  I had gone to unbolt the nut that goes on the bottom of the driver's door mirror so I could both clean up the base easier and mark the holes for drilling in the new door easier.  Unfortunately, on the first turn of the socket it sheared the threaded end off the mirror stem without any warning nor excessive force.  Oh well, I guess that meant my easy day of fitting the mirror and washing the car would involve sweating while welding instead.  First thing I tackled at the unit was the bit of split outer skin.  This actually went very easily and when I've finished adjusting the bottom edge of the door so it sits against the sill a little nicer, I can now get all of this cleaned up and in filler properly.  For now, it's just got paint on to keep it stable.

 

42524287565_d281cbf09e_b.jpg20180715-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Inside the door I'd noticed, like on the orange spare, there were two stress cracks.  This is I think from the door having sagged in the past and needing to be slammed to close for years and it's the nearest weak point to the grab handle.  I don't think it's a design flaw that's caused this as the passenger side doors haven't suffered from it, just the front driver's.  Welded them both up, sloshed some paint on, but didn't waste time grinding it down since it won't be seen and this way it should be stronger.  The door handle did feel more secure after having done this, previously it felt like it had a bit of flex to it and now it doesn't.

28559014097_14cde5c8bb_b.jpg20180715-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Repairing the mirror stem was a fussy job.  I used a bolt that I ground the head down on and then welded to the stem.  There's a plastic insert this side where on the other stem it's just plain metal, and I couldn't get the insert off.  That made the job a bit more awkward since I was trying to avoid grinding or melting the plastic bit.  Still, on the second attempt I got the bolt somewhat like it needed to be and a trial fit on the bench proved it to be good enough.  I also used a nyloc nut on the bottom to prevent it coming undone as opposed to the plain nut that was there before and had rusted solid.

42524287435_3d4591a247_b.jpg20180715-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I made the decision to mount the mirror slightly further back on the door this time, which means the A pillar/gutter doesn't obscure the top inner corner now.  What I also managed to do was align the top hole in the most awkward way possible so it's nearly impossible to get a nut on the back of the bolt because it sits exactly behind the window runner guide.  The other two were much easier to access.

42524286975_49dd3f7e8c_b.jpg20180715-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

41620765680_2e957576f1_b.jpg20180715-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I also noticed the GB grille badge was not only wonky, but now loose.  To save it falling off somewhere, I popped that off and discovered it was only just held on with one of the bar clamps on the back.  The front end does look tidier without it, but I think I'll get some new fixings and reinstate it anyway because I quite like it.

42524286915_49dd3f7e8c_b.jpg20180715-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

After all that it got a quick bath to get rid of the filler dust but really, it was too hot and humid to do a decent job.  That was also the point I realised that after building up the inside of the door I'd totally forgotten to refit the moisture membrane.  A job for another day.  Happily, this front door now closes almost as nicely as the passenger front door and certainly better than it ever has before, so I'm quite happy about that.

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Had another petrol station moment, this thing gets almost as much attention at the pumps as high value exotica.  I love how excited people get about seeing it so much so that I offered today's admirer a sit in the driver's seat since I needed to put a fair bit of fuel in.  He was going to turn down the offer until I asked when he'd get another chance.  I hope it made his afternoon.  Now I've got things running nicer I'm getting about 24mpg around town in it which is respectable enough for what it is.  The Fuelly shows a mere 19.8 average but that's over the entire ownership of the car with all the ups and downs and fuel loss from repairs, etc.  I can quickly get that figure up if I do some motorway miles, I just haven't had any reason to for quite some time.

 

In fact, I've been so happy running the Princess I've been considering indefinitely mothballing the Rover after the house move.  I can't see myself selling the Rover, I actually like it too much to do that, but I don't really miss driving it now that the Princess is behaving.  Probably best to keep it around as a back-up, just in case.

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This might be useful to refresh your stocks:

s-l600.jpg

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F401331219949

 

Using voucher code PLAY20 brings it down to £17.59 posted to your door. I can't find it for cheaper anywhere else. Only seems to be that listing of fluid that it applies to and they don't seem to have much more in the way of stock left either.

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I either get Carlube or Silver Hook.  It seems to be the same product.  Carlube is cheaper at the moment but I've got 5L of Silver Hook for as little as £12 delivered before.  It's sometimes in stock at the local motorfactors too, which is handy, and I believe ECP carry the Carlube version sometimes.  It must be used in something more popular, and I've seen it listed for taxis for some reason, I'm not sure what taxi would be using it these days.

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I suppose I'd better do this water pump.  It's not a bad job, and the knocking from the old one had been getting worse, so it was definitely a job I shouldn't put off any longer.  Pleasantly overcast today, so there wasn't the stress of being blasted by the giant angry yellow face.  To start, the coolant was drained.  I wasn't thrilled about doing this because what was in was still blue but as I flushed the radiator it proved worthwhile as it was holding onto some brown sludge that definitely needed flushing out.  Something about Princess radiators means they silt up really easily.

 

Once the water is flushed out, the pulley needs to come off the water pump, the timing belt tensioner unbolted, and the alternator (which serves as the tensioner for the auxiliary belt) slackened off.  Then the belt can come off and you can inspect everything.

42644280535_f49c0a3550_b.jpg20180721-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Happily, everything was pretty clean.  What I had thought might be an oil leak seems to actually be some stubborn old oil deposits slowly running off the engine when it gets hot because all the points oil can come out here are nice and dry.  I scrubbed it all down as best I could anyway and will of course keep an eye on things but there were no fresh oil deposits, just ever so slightly runny old bits.  When you get a new pump, you need to transfer all the old bits and bobs onto it from the old pump, or buy new fixings. I went with the former because they're still all good.  I also dunked the bolts in thinners because the bolt heads on the water pump pulley had been painted red for some reason and I'd never got around to cleaning it off.  Now was as good a time as any to do it.

41741418750_f635dfe237_b.jpg20180721-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The belt was still in great shape, as well it ought to be considering how new it still is, but the tensioner pulley isn't so hot these days.  It still spins freely, but the pitting on the bearing face has got worse and the bearing is just starting to feel a bit rough.  These are NLA as far as I'm aware so I'm just going to continue using it until I can replace or refurbish it as I don't think I have a spare.  Also shown here is the water pump pulley which I didn't repaint because I can do that in the future if I feel I really have to, it looks perfectly fine for now.

42644280425_7d24efb90d_b.jpg20180721-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

With everything in bits and the waterpump face of the block cleaned up, I had my lunch and left it all to dry.  Assembly is fairly straightforward, order goes waterpump (and gasket), timing belt tensioner, water pump pulley, auxiliary belt.  You finish off by tightening the timing belt tensioner and lifting the alternator to tension the auxiliary belt.  You don't need to remove the timing belt, everything feeds into place around it if you're careful and patient.

41741418530_57cbb55c5d_b.jpg20180721-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Then it's just a case of refilling with fresh coolant.  I was happy that once things started circulating there was no detritus or sludge coming through so things must be fairly clean in there, which is how I hope it stays for a while.

42644280235_17d07766c5_b.jpg20180721-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Started running it up to temperature and kept an eye out for leaks.  I'd replaced the one jubilee clip that wasn't quite clamping tight enough on a hose join with a smaller clip, and that wasn't weeping at all now.  Then I started getting a rather large and regular drip under the car.

42644280125_a04be2ca97_b.jpg20180721-07 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

41741418230_3d869c6e3c_b.jpg20180721-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

That turned out to be the thermostat housing cap again.  The thermostat housing is pitted, as they always are, but there's not enough material to safely file it back smooth because they made these housings out of the poorest material they could get away with.  Ideally I need to replace it, or at the very least get some metal epoxy and a rotary file on it to reprofile it.  For now there's a knack to getting the cap to seat just so and seal things so I fannied about with that for a while.  Eventually the leak stopped.

41741417740_3fb1b7b93e_b.jpg20180721-08 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The system bled really easily this time and the temperature climbed up to 3/4 to trigger the fan and then dropped to half gauge where it sat quite comfortably.  Heaters blow lovely and hot (not that I need them to at this time of year), and all systems seem as normal as they ever are.  Fuel gauge even woke up a bit today.  I'm pretty sure the gauge issue is in the dashboard, I'm just loathe to pull the dash out at the moment and instead keep an eye on my miles to gauge when I need to put fuel in.

41741418070_8eba031df1_b.jpg20180721-09 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

While I was checking for leaks I heard something down at the front of the car rattling.  A sidelight bulb had jumped out of its socket and was jiggling about in the cluster.  Easy enough to pop it back in place, but this might happen again because I noticed it doesn't really sit firmly in place like it does the other side so I reckon general vibrations will work it loose again in a few hundred miles.

42644280025_77e7ca795d_b.jpg20180721-10 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Finally I got rid of the first bit of purple in the engine bay in favour of some copper.  It's not as rich a copper as I was hoping for, it works well enough all the same.  Wasn't in a mood to get the starter motor on and off or to faff about with the oil filler tube, I'll redo those another day.  Then I can look at doing a more detailed clean of the engine bay which it needs with all the bodywork I've been doing.

42644279785_75950e0655_b.jpg20180721-11 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The knock I'd been worried about is now gone and I'm left with the noise of the tensioner bearing and the normal mechanical noise of a running engine.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Right then, I kicked my weekend off by disabling my daily driver, because that's sensible of me.  I wanted to find out why the fuel gauge wasn't working properly and the suspects in this were in-tank sender, fuel gauge, and voltage regulator.  Since I didn't want to disturb the sender unless we absolutely had to and I wanted to do some jobs on the dashboard, pulling the dashboard made more sense.  I shan't bore you with yet another photo of the dashboard in bits on the drivers seat because you've seen that about forty times this month already (or so it seems).  Suffice to say it's a job I know how to do well now and, on pulling the dashboard, what we identified is that the voltage regulator appeared to be doing its job just fine, but power wasn't getting the gauge.  Swapped out the spare gauge I fortunately have and same issue, but then I didn't know if that gauge was good or not so we couldn't rely on that.  Next job would be to investigate the sender with the multimeter, which wasn't at home... so while Mike sorted that out I cracked on with the other thing since the dash was in bits again.

 

I stripped all the trim and instruments from the fascia so I was left with just the wooden fascia and the clips that are riveted to the back.  Dismantling the dashboard fascia fully wouldn't be sensible, it's not the most robust thing in the world and while I have got a spare, I'd rather keep it for emergencies/future restorations/other Princess owners in need.  Fortunately, the veneer on my dash fascia wasn't in great shape before I painted it, with some cracks and signs of lifting here and there, so it was fairly easy to actually just peel it off the backing plywood.

43003467964_f91a0ca8fb_b.jpg20180729-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Well, most of it at any rate.

43003467164_767175ea2d_b.jpg20180729-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

a little bit of sanding later to clear the last of the stubborn old veneer and glue residue, and then some filling so I could redrill the extra warning light - BL wired in a bulb for the headlight on the standard loom, but didn't make provision for it on this phase dashboard for reasons unknown, so I reinstated it with a spare telltale - and we were ready to go.  The radio blanking plate is likely quite a rare item, but the veneer on it is damaged from when the person stripping the car it came from (not me or anyone I know) took to the dashboard with a crowbar.  Still, it's useful for me and I'll come to that later.

43003466644_21db7dbcd0_b.jpg20180729-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

With the hole re-drilled, I smeared everything with suitable white wood glue, put the slightly oversized piece of veneer on the fascia and blanking plate and left it to set overnight.  Because of the various blocks and sharp trim clips on the back of the fascia, combined with the fiddly shape of it, I couldn't really use a vacuum bag or clamps so relied on gravity, books, old brake discs and a cast iron casserole pot to put the pressure on.  Cling film is used to both protect the table from glue and because it doesn't bond with wood glue so will come free of the fresh veneer without damage.

43003465564_91a43595c6_b.jpg20180729-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Next day, we had this.  At this point I'd started trimming areas back.  Note the blanking plate matches the fascia, that's because it's cut out of the same piece of veneer, something I was very particular about and was glad I spent the time to do.  There were a couple of pieces that needed a little extra glue where the pressure of the night before wasn't quite enough and the skinny bit under the blanking plate needed the plywood base regluing where it had delaminated, even though the veneer had taken extremely well here.

43003465054_1dab6fc39d_b.jpg20180729-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Little bit more trimming to get the rough shapes cut out now.  I already knew I was using the dremel with a sanding drum to take the veneer edges back, but I wasn't sure on how to do the telltale holes since they're small and likely very prone to splintering on the edges.

43003464204_b27ccb8b5b_b.jpg20180729-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I ended up using a pointy file tool in the dremel to make a pilot hole and then holding the board down while Mike drilled the hole just under sized for me.  I could then get the small dremel sanding drum in and open the holes out to the correct size.  This was the scariest part of the hole project because there's 7 holes and they're very visible on the dashboard so I couldn't afford to make a mess of it.  In the end, nothing to really worry about, they turned out quite well.

43003463724_d1d0c26759_b.jpg20180729-07 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

By 8pm I had the first coat of varnish on.  There's a couple of spots that look a bit dry in person, I'm not sure if this is glue residue I missed or if it's just slightly thirstier bits of the veneer.  I can see at midnight when it's ready for the second coat, or stripping back and a new first coat applying.  It's a very different colour to what BL ever used, I wanted something stripey with a red or orange hue to it that would both match the colour scheme and the 70s styling of the car.  So far, I think I got that right.  The finish will be satin rather than gloss, both to match the era I'm going for and to reduce any potential glare.  I'm hoping when it's finished and back together it looks like I haven't done anything.

43003462744_a47f924458_z.jpg20180729-08 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The blanking plate is actually going to serving a purpose.  The blanking plate has a chamfered edge all around and rests against two metal plates screwed to the back of the dash fascia.  To hold the plate in place, it then has two more plates screwed to the back of it, sandwiching it to the plates on the fascia.  I've got rid of the metal plates on the blanking plate (hopefully you're still with me here), so it's removable.  I'm going to be putting two small magnets on the back of the backing plate, since the fixing plates on the fascia are steel.  I'll also add a tiny piano hinge to the bottom of the blanking plate and a subtle nubbing or handle to the top edge.  Then, I can hide an MP3 decoder behind the blanking plate since I shan't be installing analogue tunes, and an inexpensive amplifier will be wired under the back seat to some adequate speakers front and rear.  Nothing super fancy, just subtle and, most importantly, hidden.  When the blanking plate folds down, in theory the decoder will be attached to it perpendicularly a bit like pop-up headlights work, allowing you to plug in a USB stick and fold it all away again out of sight.

42815817185_bcdbac7f33_b.jpg20180729-09 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

That's the theory at any rate.  Another cosmetic fettle was redoing the paint on the blower direction knob since the old paint had mostly flaked out.

43003504344_b098ba9585_b.jpg20180729-10 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Mike went through all the dash wiring again, dealt with any items he was unhappy with and then wrapped the whole lot.  This actually made reinstalling for testing loads easier because the wires go where they live now, rather than trying to turn into a plate of spaghetti.  It also looks hugely nicer.

43003462094_85d8d23abf_b.jpg20180729-11 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Well done, you've made it to the end of this post.  What was the problem with the fuel gauge then?  Annoyingly, something I could have fixed even at the fuel station when it happened.  The plug that goes onto the sender is a little loose, a wiggle and a push and the fuel gauge was working again.  We had a good look at this and a couple of the pins/sleeves are not as tight as they should be so a little time with some tiny pliers will see this resolved.

43719517531_3b37832f70_b.jpg20180729-12 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I'm not mad about pulling the dashboard, it's forced me to do some cosmetic fettling that I would otherwise likely have put off for a long time and it's really the only interior job to do on the car.  Providing the varnishing goes well, I should have everything back together again on Monday and then by Tuesday the putty to repair the thermostat housing pitting should have arrived to cure the one leak that worries me since I don't want it spitting all the coolant out at short notice.

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