project 1980 Austin Princess

[Dick Longbridge]

You seem to have fully grabbed the bull by the horns on this project, once again. Good to see - the old bird is looking more solid by the day.

[vulgalour]

It should be the last big welding job to do.  After this it's doors and rear panel and those are much easier to tackle, especially the doors since I don't need to immobilise the car to do those.

[320touring]

Good work on that - I have some outer wing welding to do on the Oxford, but as it's not structural it's waiting on a clear day..

 

I can start to see how you've done the shaping, so am storing the information for when I get onto making pretty bits:)

[Timewaster]

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

 

I can't see anything past that awful number plate.

[Felly Magic]

I've always wondered what an Ambassador would look like with a twin headlight Princess nose on & Princess chrome bumpers. Good work once again Vulgalour, and it's been bloody hot here today too, so I can well believe you were at gas mark eleventy in overalls

[vulgalour]

I can start to see how you've done the shaping, so am storing the information for when I get onto making pretty bits:)

Happy to be of service. However, very little of the shaping is done by me! Instead, it's almost entirely done by the spare bits of wing I chopped off. I couldn't figure out how to do the wing where it curves under the car but also curves in the opposite direction for the arch flare and then sharply returns for the arch face. I cheated on the lower trailing edge too by using the back end of a half-cut sill for the other side of the car which was close enough to look right. You can get away with a lot more when it's a car you're unlikely to ever park next to, lines don't have to be absolutely perfect, which is a relief on the complicated stuff.

[Isaac Hunt]

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.

My Dad fitted one to his 1800HL Princess. He always claimed the B Series in the Princess used smaller valves than the B Series in the 1800 Landcrabs. The Special Tuning Kit was twin 1.75 SU's and a Tubular Exhaust Manifold. I was made up cos I had a Dad with a 'breathed on tuned motor'. I later used the twin 1.75 SU's on a Marina 1.8TC in which I put an 864 Cam. Bloody Hell that thing flew in a straight line (well for a 1.8 Marina it did) and you were alright until you came to a sharp bend in the road.

[vulgalour]

Today was a rare day off properly for me so I determined to get the Princess sorted enough to drive it home.  Was a bit delayed by it being a bit of a scorcher and I didn't really want to be welding in the height of the heat today.  The short version is this.

20180507-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

It's not finished yet, there's still stuff to do, I just ran out of time and after having the driver's door put up a monumental fight for an hour and fall on me twice (remember, last time I did this it was easy peasy and almost a joy to do), I just didn't have the energy to do any more.  By 9pm I was heading home after about five hours work and goodness knows how many pints of water to stay hydrated, satisfied that things were good enough.  I didn't take many pictures of the progress because I just knuckled down and got on with it so I can't show you the amount of work I did cleaning up, rust treating, painting, and undersealing the inside of the wing, nor the work done undersealing the inner wing you can't get to once the outer is on.  What I can show you is the extent of the repairs.  It's not my finest work but the condition of the two wings I was working with made it very difficult to get a better finish, a skim of filler and you'll be none the wiser.

20180507-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180507-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180507-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

At the moment the wing does sit too far forwards and the panel gap between the wing and the bonnet needs closing up a little.  This is something I can do later since it's just slacking off fixings and pushing the wing about until it's where it needs to be.  Then I can finish the paint and the lower front corner repairs.  I also managed to straighten out the dent in the valance reasonably well so it lines up pretty well with the wing, I just need to finish tidying up the edges so I can secure it fully.

 

Then it was a case of cleaning off the windscreen, connecting the side repeater (which I left in the engine bay so I don't make a complete hash of the fresh paint on the wing) and driving home.  Princess started absolutely no bother and drove home quite happily, it was a big sense of achievement to actually manage to do that, even if the wing isn't quite finished yet.

20180507-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180507-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

[vulgalour]

Made the executive decision to leave the front wing alone for now.  After considering how difficult it is to take on and off because of having to take the door off, I decided it would be wiser at the moment to repair my original driver's door and have it painted and ready to go on before doing this wing.  This way I won't have to then remove and refit the door again after doing the wing, I can do both at the same time.  So today I made a start on that.  Limited time again because I only have 2-4 hours a day spare on work days  so I didn't get into the welding.  Also, there was almost no filler on this panel but that's because there was so much paint on it you didn't need filler.  In places there were five resprays evident not including the quick tart up I'd done with the purple pre-MoT.  Happily, overall the door is in reasonable shape (for a Princess door on a car that lives outdoors all year round).

 

20180516-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180516-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Removing the lock escutcheon was a bit annoying, got there in the end when I figured out which bits came apart and which didn't.  The rust staining under the waist trim turned out to be the usual Princess problem, something that's much more advanced on the orange door.  A fiddly repair, but not too daunting.  Further down the panel there's also a tiny hole about the size of a stonechip, which was a little strange, hopefully that will just fill with a quick blob of weld like doing a trim hole.

20180516-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Leading edge was much better than anticipated.  This was still wearing mostly just factory paint and is in good shape so I've only attacked the obvious problem areas here rather than stripping it right back to bare metal.  Nice to find a good solid bit of door where I expected problems.

20180516-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Equally, the lower edge which I had thought was really bad, was actually fairly honest.  There's not a great deal that needs replacing here and even the historic repair in there is done well.  Whoever replaced that square of door bothered to cut out the rot and shape the patch piece well enough that I'll leave it alone, no point undoing adequate work.  The trouble with these doors is that the drain hole isn't the lowest point water sits and because of the way they're made, you can't put drain holes in lower down.  The only solution, really, is to fill the bottom of the doors with cavity wax until it's coming out of the drainholes and seams and hope it never dries out enough to trap moisture.

20180516-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The only negative surprise was on the trailing edge under the door latch where there's always been a blob that looked like thick paint.  It was actually filler.  There's a strengthening panel inside this part of the door which looks to be unaffected beyond a bit of surface rust.  Rather than chop out what must have been very small holes back when this was bodged, whoever did it decided to put enough filler on that it nearly smoothed out the panel pressing and ignore it.  Worked pretty well until I poked it, in all fairness.

20180516-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Now I have to decide whether to do the outer skin or the inner frame first.  I don't want to lose my reference points on either but I'm not in a position to be putting the door on and off the car repeatedly to check fit.  It's also not a job I'm skilled enough to do with the door on the car.  I'll probably make a template of the outer skin, repair the inner frame after cutting away what I need to of the outer skin, then repair the outer skin, seal, and paint.  I'm going to try and take it slower on this repair as I want to do better than I did with the other door I repaired which ideally needs the sill edge redoing as it's ever so slightly off.  I want to get good at doing door bottom repairs, the sort of cars I like owning always need this job doing so it would be a useful skill to master.

[vulgalour]

Made a start on this today properly and began by using a combination of hand tools to unfold what's left of the door skin edge where it folds over the inner frame.  It was bad, but not as bad as I'd expected, so that was a fairly positive start to things.  I roughly marked out the bits that were too far gone to work out what to replace.

20180518-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

This edge and corner is going to be a fiddly thing to put right because of the pressing.  Not sure how well I'll be able to recreate the factory pressing for the corner so I may go with a simpler shape since this bit is seriously prone to rotting out so will likely need doing again in the future no matter how careful I am with the repair.

20180518-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Then it was tape, angle grinder, and brave pill time so that I could cut a massive hole in the bottom of the door.  I do not like this bit.  I was in two minds about leaving the step on the repair panel to the left, the metal is really good there but it's also a funny shape.  I decided to leave the good metal in because getting the angle grinder in was harder than making the repair piece the correct shape.  Very much a compromise, a proper repair would most likely involve removing the whole door skin and that would certainly have made access to this bit a lot easier.  Never mind, we're doing it this way.

20180518-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Got the first large repair piece made, offered up a couple of times, and the nearest fit I could manage within my skills.  I'm not talented enough to do the whole repair of the inner frame in one piece, I'll do the corner and that trailing edge as two separate pieces before stitching it all back together.  I got it all tacked in place, tweaked where needed, and got on with the welding.  The welds started getting really spitty and ugly and I realised the gas bottle was empty so I had to stop, which was a little frustrating.  New gas bottle on order and I'll pick this up again when it arrives.

20180518-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

[320touring]

Have you considered using hobby weld? They rent out bottles and you just take it back and swap it for a full one when empty.

 

You pay the bottle rental when you first get it, then it's just the refill of gas you pay for.

[vulgalour]

That's how we do it.  My bad for saying 'order a new bottle' when I actually mean a refill. I forget what the company is called, Angrydicky put us on to them. they're pretty affordable.  I think we last had a refill when the Rover had the sill done, and that was above a year ago of me welding rusty old nonsense so it's pretty good going.  Just annoying the gas ran out too late on a Friday to order more, will get a refill order in on Monday and should be up and running again Tuesday/Wednesday.  Refill should see me through what's left to do on both cars then.  I should check what's left on the welding wire reel too, it is an enormous one and seems never ending so I never check it, which is just asking for trouble really.  I'm going to miss this welder when I move, it has been a good friend.

[320touring]

Coolio! Just thought you'd be getting through similar volumes to me, and didn't want you to miss a trick:)

[DodgeRover]

SGS gases is cheaper for us than Hobbyweld. Wierdly their Argon/ CO mix seems to weld cleaner than BOC Argoshield.

[Steve79]

Just popped up on facebook, you has been spotted

[vulgalour]

\o/

[vulgalour]

Do you know what though, Mike pointed out it's a naughty driver there.  He's doing 42 in a 40 and using his phone to take a picture.

[PhilA]

I want to know what people's suggestions were.

 

It's a Lamborghini, mate

 

 

Phil

[Steve79]

Guesses were limited to these. I felt it best to satisfy their curiosity and have directed them to this thread.

[PhilA]

Impressive. I would have thought a wider variety of randomness.

[vulgalour]

That rear wheel does look a bit funny now it's been mentioned, but it's just the photograph.  In reality it does not look like a Minor that's about to experience trunnion failure.  Disappointed they managed to guess what it was, but also sort of pleased that people still know what a Princess is.

[vulgalour]

Dieseling.

 

Mike and I have been trying to get to the bottom of what might be causing this.  We've already gone through the electrical components, timing, carburettor settings, etc. and everything checks out as nice and healthy with no obvious cause for concern.  Fuel consumption is also about where it should be and there doesn't appear to be an issue with loss of compression or any issue with oil pressure.  Just some days it runs on quite badly.

 

I did wonder if it's my recent driving habits as I've been doing lots of very short 4-10 mile hops and rarely do a long run.  Today the dieseling was very bad, with the car running on for 10-15 seconds when I stopped for fuel.  I decided to take the car on a higher speed road and blow out the cobwebs and when I got home after that, it didn't run on at all.  This isn't the first time a good run has cured the issue but I'd like to know what's causing the issue in the first place and if there's something else I can do to stop it.

[Des]

I fear the only cure may be to travel back in time 20 years ago to buy petrol. I dicked around trying to effect a cure some years ago, gave up and fitted one of those Escort II Tecalmit air valve Ford bodges.

[vulgalour]

SOC said much the same.  I do value his opinion, just looking for more in case I missed something serious.  The really annoying thing is that back in 2012/3 it didn't do this so I imagine it must be something they did to the fuel between then and now, since I'm using ostensibly the same stuff.  Some folks have said use premium rather than regular but the Princess has always run like utter garbage on premium so I run it on regular and until very recently, never had a problem.

[DodgeRover]

How fast is it ticking over? We had a sigma that did the same until I slowed it down a tiny bit - only 50 rpm or so...

[vulgalour]

I don't know, because I can't remember and I have no rev gauge (as standard).  What I do know is it was correct when we went through everything, something like 800, I think? That might be wrong.  It's actually idling and running really nicely so I don't think it's rpm related.  It does seem more likely it's as Des and SOC have said which is modern fuel being rubbish.  Some folk have recommended sticking a lead additive in but I can't see how that would actually help.

[SiC]

Do you have anywhere near that still sells genuine 4-star? There is a place near me that still does, under the BWOC banner.

[Asimo]

 

I think every B series I've driven did this, even in the days of leaded petrol. It became quite automatic to cut the engine in gear and gently stall it!

 

Many carburettors have fuel cut-off valves so as to stop this problem, but not SUs.

 

I suppose you could try cooler plugs?

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Going back 30 years when I set these up[ with a Crypton tuner, two engines were prone to running on and they were the Ford Crossflow and the O Series. Ford fitted an anti run on valve on the later mark 2 Escorts, a device that opens when the ignition is switched off to flood the carb and ports with air. Another thing was Forte decoking stuff, hold it at 1500 rpm and pour this stuff down the carb to burn off the coke deposits. A bloody good caning might achieve the same results. You may also want to retard the timing a couple of degrees and/or set the idle at 750 rpm.

[Zelandeth]

My second Metro did this the whole time I had it, despite having spent no shortage of time, effort and money stopping it.  No other running issues...just refused to shut off cleanly on a warm day.

 

I eventually just got used to being prepared to stall it if necessary...