project 1980 Austin Princess

[dean36014]

I have to say that looks absolutely cock on. Lovely retro feel to it.

[Felly Magic]

What about a black coachline between the burgundy & beige? You are doing this car proud. 

[purplebargeken]

Finally taking shape. Looks ace.

[vulgalour]

Coachline is going to be copper metallic, painted on.  I've done this before and found the end result far nicer than the vinyl equivalent, less hassle, and much cheaper.

[fordperv]

That colour is delicious, it looks so much better than the purple and I love purple

[mat_the_cat]

/\ Likewise. I thought the purple looked good but really liking the red!

[SiC]

I didn't like the purple. I do like the red and creme though.

[SiC]

I'll just repost and leave this here. I guess you probably know about this one through the princess community?

 

 

 

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F332633092446

[vulgalour]

I know about that one, yes, one of the best examples out there, I'm told.  Too expensive for me, and too nice!  Seems to have changed hands fairly regularly over the last few years for no obvious reason, some really nice classics are like that though.  I do wonder if owning a really nice car just gets boring.

[vulgalour]

In fact, I see your super nice black one and raise you this super rare metallic blue one.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AUSTIN-PRINCESS-only-12k-from-new/163017446344

 

[SiC]

I much prefer the round lights. Plus I like it more in black. That black one does look ready to jump in drive. As you said, it would possibly quite boring if you want to play with hammers and spanners. However I think anyone reading this thread would be a bit more hesitant in getting a princess mind. Gives the impression that they can be a bit of a Diva/Princess.

 

For me, it'd have to be the 2.2 6-pot.

[vulgalour]

2.0 is the best of the bunch and if you like automatics, when paired to one of those it makes for a well balanced car.  The 2.2 is a bit heavy and a bit thirsty for no real gain otherwise beyond the novelty of a transversely mounted straight six.  The fishtank headlights are said to be  bit rubbish too, compared to the twin rounds which are easily upgraded to halogens or whatever if you want to.  Of the two, the black one is probably the better car so obviously if I had to choose I'd go for the blue one.  Because I hate myself.

[wuvvum]

I can confirm that fishtank Princess headlights are indeed rubbish.

[captain_70s]

I know about that one, yes, one of the best examples out there, I'm told.  

 

It was certainly very nice looking in 2013 when I didn't buy it for £800...

 

 

The bloke had bought it to modify but found it was way too nice and was a rare poverty spec example so was selling it on. The fact I bought all the cars I have and not that one pretty sums up my utterly tragic life...

[GrumpiusMaximus]

That black one has just set up my morning.  Hnnnggghhhh....!

[JeeExEll]

It was certainly very nice looking in 2013 when I didn't buy it for £800...

 

P8037493_1024x768.jpg

 

The bloke had bought it to modify but found it was way too nice and was a rare poverty spec example so was selling it on. The fact I bought all the cars I have and not that one pretty sums up my utterly tragic life...

Saw this (then local) one around 2013 too, really really minty condition, especially interior.

 

Still on BIN £3,250.

Am sure it's not totally 100% flawless but, bargain.

A 70s car with character you can use everyday. (With 70s levels of maintenance, or else . . .).

Made of factory black too.

[SiC]

I reckon that's priced to sell for £3k. I really quite fancy it. Unfortunately any budget I had has been blown with this month's car expenditures. So can't even consider it.

 

Told my FiL though and trying to convince him to buy it.

(He'd like it but no storage to be fair).

 

I'll be very surprised if that isn't sold by the weekend.

[Mally]

You'd be far better off with an MGB, and I've owned both.

[SiC]

Isn't it basically a MGB but with better suspension and more doors?

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

The Princess 2 is a much better car. The 1800 B Series is so glacially slow, but the black one is a honey.

 

The Denim 2000 would be better for £2500, and £1000 painting it. BL sorted out the Hydragas and made a few other improvements.

 

Trapezoidal headlights are for winners.  I've got the HLS, peasants.

[vulgalour]

Isn't it basically a MGB but with better suspension and more doors?

 

You take that back!

[SiC]

The Princess 2 is a much better car. The 1800 B Series is so glacially slow, but the black one is a honey.

 

 

Would these fit to gain a bit more performance?

http://www.oselli.com/classic_oselli/engines/engines_mgb

 

I love that the power diagrams have been drawn with graph paper and a pencil for believable* accuracy.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I'm not sure - unlike the A and E Series, the transverse B Series retained the short tail crank but I think the block may be different. Just a gas flowed head, higher compression and a better cam will liven it up no end though, no .

 

Did 1800's have a 1.5 or a 1.75" SU? 

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Leyland Special Tuning did a conversion for the 1800 Princess , which was basically a twin SU and better flowing exhaust manifold . Similar, I suppose to the old 1800 S, but without the higher compression and 5 star petrol requirement.

Don't know how fast it was, but I remember magazines reporting on it and it was quicker than a 2200.

[Des]

Isn't it basically a MGB but with better suspension and more doors?

 

You're getting confused with the Sherpa van chap, admittedly it can be tricky to tell them apart but if you ever see them parked side by side the pre and post war differences are fairly marked. 

[vulgalour]

Today, I rendered myself without a car I can drive.  Because I'm an idiot.  But, the welding on the Princess really is a job I need to do before I move because I'm not sure when I'll get set up with a welder properly once I move so I might as well dig in and get stuff sorted.  It rarely takes me long to get things fixed now.  The wing is proving to be quite an involved job and not one I'm especially enjoying.  Happily the bonnet didn't need to come off, I noticed Rovamota had propped his bonnet pretty much vertical in a recent update on his build so we did the same which gave the access needed for the last wing rail spot welds.  Only they weren't spotwelds, it was a good 1/4" of filler over brazing.

20180502-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I suspect that isn't factory.  I suspect this is in fact a replacement wing too.  With the wing rail now un-welded, I cheated on the leading edge by flapwheeling the return to separate the layers.  I did this because I don't need to save more than this and it's easier to clean up and repaint the surrounding bits.  I made one mistake by thinking I had to take the spotwelds out around the return, which in turn meant removing headlights, headlight bracket, and grille, so I could get in with the drill.

20180502-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

What I learned when the wing came off is the extension fillet piece looks like it's actually part of the wing itself rather than the body of the car.  Also, the fillet was only held on by half a spotweld that didn't look very factory, lending some credence to the theory that this is a replacement wing.  It looks bad, but there's plenty here for me to reuse.

20180502-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

With  the wing off I could finally see what the real damage was underneath.  The extension piece is a little deformed and there's a difficult dent to knock out in the inner wing, but other than that everything is in pretty good shape.  There's no rust concerns at the nose end beyond what I was aware of on external panels and with the wing off I can clean and straighten what I need to.  I've already spent some time on this getting the metal work looking right again after this picture was taken.

20180502-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

While most things are fine, there is a rust hole behind the fuse box.  I didn't know about this at all and the only way I was likely to discover it was by taking the wing off.  It's an easy piece to make since it's just flat sheet, I just have to be careful of the wiring.  Of note is the little shelf to the top of the A pillar which serves ostensibly as a drain but in my case as a small composting area.  The wing aerial goes through the drain hole in this area and practically fills it, which is less than ideal.  However, the metal is all nice and solid so it just needs a really good clean once I've welded up that hole.  one strange thing is the large black blob which turned out to be some sort of sticky putty.  Underneath there was no hole or surprise, so I have no idea what it is or why it was there.  And yes, annoying the door did need to come off to get to the bolts for the wing.

20180502-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

With everything cleaned up for trial fitting, that's just what I did.  The front valance needs a slight massage on this corner but otherwise, things are falling into place where they need to and not fighting so I'm cautiously optimistic that this will all go together nicely.

20180502-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The panel gap between the orange wing and bonnet is hugely improved now.  Once the old wing was removed, everything sprang back into the place it should be.  The wing rail needs a little massaging from the damage caused by spotweld removal, but nothing patience can't resolve.

20180502-07 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180502-08 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The areas the orange wing needs repairing are the same I'd already repaired on the beige one, so I'll be chopping out what I need from the beige wing and fitting it to the orange one.  To get the beige wing to fit is going to need a lot of work, I suspect it's slightly stretched or buckled given how nicely the orange wing just drops on compared to it.  So the orange wing needs the corner at the top trailing edge, the lower trailing edge (I've already done the exact same repair on the beige one, so I'll cut that off and swap it over), and the lower leading edge.  the majority of the arch itself is in really good shape.  The other really big job is repairing the wing rail lip on which I need to weld up most of the old spotweld holes (some I plan to repurpose for bolts), and replace a missing section.

20180502-09 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180502-10 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Tomorrow I'll hopefully get some of the repairs done, probably the inner wing work first, and we'll see how I get on.  It's a lot of fiddly time consuming stuff to do on this.

 

[320touring]

I am jealous of your inner arch solidity!

 

Wing looks promising too

[vulgalour]

It's because it's such a modern car, you see, they barely rust at all

[vulgalour]

Got some more time in on this today and made some pretty decent progress.  First annoying task was moving the wiring out of the way.  I also had to move the bonnet release cable and that resulted in every plastic locator clip breaking so I'll have to reinstate that with new clips.

20180503-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

With that lot out the way I could investigate how bad that rust hole was.  Not too bad, as it happened, just had to be a bit of a funny shape.  While I did spend some time grinding back the welds I didn't go overboard because this bit is never, ever seen.  On this car, there was no point making it perfect here, just solid and not rusty.

20180503-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I cleaned up the blind side of the wing fillet and doused it in rust converter.  I couldn't do all of the other side with the bench grinder, I'll have to attack it with paint stripper and a wire cup brush in a drill, I didn't have time to do that today.

20180503-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I stripped back the surface rust and found no horrors lurking.  There was quite a bit of historic repainting as I've found elsewhere all over the car, but it wasn't so bad to deal with here since it seems to have been done with the wing welded on, rather than before.  A pillar was as BL intended, so there was nothing but a bit of surface cleaning to do there.  I then doused the lot in rust converter which I will leave until tomorrow.  I usually sand back when I've used rust converter before putting any paint on top as this seems to give a more durable finish and helps the paint adhere better.  Under here this will get stonechip, primer, colour top coat, and underseal of some sort to keep it all as absolutely healthy as I can manage.

20180503-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

More and more I'm sure the front wing I removed is a replacement.  There's signs of brazing around the front end too and I'm sure they didn't braze these panels from new.  The rear door this side also has brazing repairs so I suspect this is pre-restoration work and more likely DIY work in the mid to late 80s when Princesses were generally starting to look a bit tired but you could still get replacement panels for them. You can see on the slam panel that there's a couple of bright spots of braze and on the headlight support there's a long line that at first looks like sealant, but is actually more brazing.

20180503-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180503-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I was going to drop the bonnet to so I could keep as much dust out of the engine bay as possible to make cleaning up later and as I screwed the bonnet ram home, the captive nut decided it wanted to be free, so I'll have to tack that back on.

20180503-07 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Finally, I gave the orange wing an exploratory flapwheel and found, on the whole, it was in better shape than I'd expected.  The majority of the arch is in really good shape and the rot on the leading edge isn't actually as advanced as I feared.  Unfortunately I couldn't salvage the leading edge piece from the beige wing as it's rotted out here.  I chopped off the two sections I needed to repair the orange wing with but I don't think I can fit those until I've sorted out fitment on the car, so the next job is to bolt the orange wing onto the car so I can trim and tack the repair sections into place before welding it all, then stripping all the paint off, filling, and painting it all.

20180503-08 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

A few more days of my free time to go to sort this one out yet.  We'll get there, it's looking very promising so far.

[vulgalour]

Got another few hours in today but it was so warm in the unit, especially with my overalls on, that I couldn't manage as much as I would have liked.  I'll be going back in tomorrow or Monday to finish up, I hope.  One advantage of it being warm was that the paint on the inner wing went down quickly and easily, so that bit is finished now.

 

I marked out which of the spotweld holes were best to repurpose for new wing fixings and Mike drilled the holes for me.  I've straightened this out as best I can too, so I just need to replace the missing section (already cut out and ready to fit) and weld up the holes I don't need to use to sort this bit out.  For the bolts, I'm using some fairly small ones that go into clips that fit to the wing rail as this is the best way of doing it within the limitations of the space available.

 

To help fill trim, spotweld and small rust holes, I've been making use of this chunky brass fitting.  By holding it against the back of the panel I can sort of puddle weld the hole in without blowing through the thing steel or leaving loads of welding whiskers on the back of the panel.  It's saved me buying a block of copper or similar, which is what I was going to do.  If it gets too covered in welding blobs, just wire wheel it and it's good to go again.

 

With the inner wing done I could put the outer in place and start rebuilding it.  Fit is pretty good for the most part and to keep it that way it made most sense to tack the repair sections in place with the wing on the car, then remove the wing to weld them up fully.  There was a good amount to remove, but nowhere near as much work as putting the beige wing right.

 

With the big patches on the trailing edge at top and bottom welded on, I had another look at the spare wing for the leading edge piece I needed.  I've got two used K11 Micra wings that have some useful profiles, but none that were suitable for the complicated curves of the lower reaches of the Princess wing.  In desperation I sliced off the bottom of the spare Princess wing and cleaned it back on the wire wheel.  It isn't this side I repaired, it was the other side.  This side is the one that had been repaired before and had a thick skim of filler.  I cleaned it back and had enough of the original profile left to build out from that it was worth using.  There's a few edge bits I need to redo, but this is far easier than trying to make the piece from scratch and have it look anywhere near as right.

 

With that welded in place the wing is much more solid now.  I need to clean up and reattach the fillet, weld up the bumper and spotweld holes, and clean back the welding on the wing next.  After that I'll do the rust treatment, paint, etc. on the back of the wing before undersealing it and reattaching it to the car properly since it's going to be a lot easier to profile and paint the outside of the wing on the car.  It will also allow me to get it all back in one piece again so I can use it, so I'm not too concerned with the patchwork look of the outside of the wing for now.  The last job today was welding the captive nut for the bonnet rams back on.  Not a pretty job, but at least it's solid again.