project 1980 Austin Princess - Rear Brakes and Welding

[SiC]

This might be useful to refresh your stocks:

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.

[vulgalour]

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.

[Christine]

(Car) Lube for Fake Taxi?

[Noel Tidybeard]

maybe the princesss needs a new grill badge

 

[Ghosty]

nice idea! 

 

 

Don't sell your R8. You'd regret it. Nothing like 'em, and they're getting uncommon.

[vulgalour]

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.

20180721-01 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.

20180721-02 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.

20180721-03 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.

20180721-04 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.

20180721-05 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.

20180721-07 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180721-06 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.

20180721-08 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.

20180721-09 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.

20180721-10 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.

20180721-11 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.

 

[Noel Tidybeard]

its about time you got a montego thermostat housing and sacked of that poxy thing they lumbared princess & sherpa with

[vulgalour]

I know... but until the Rover is back on the road I can't risk doing any sort of work that's likely to disable the Princess for more than a day or two so I'll just limp along with what I've got for now.

[PhilA]

pretty clean

Spotless.

[vulgalour]

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.

20180729-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Well, most of it at any rate.

20180729-02 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.

20180729-03 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.

20180729-04 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.

20180729-05 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.

20180729-06 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.

20180729-07 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.

20180729-08 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.

20180729-09 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.

20180729-10 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.

20180729-11 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.

20180729-12 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.

[dozeydustman]

Dashboard looks ace! Glad the fuel gauge problem was also a simple fix.

[PhilA]

Dash looks like a sixties/seventies wet bar* so I think you nailed it there.

 

--Phil

 

 

*Meant in a positive way, of course!

[junkyarddog]

Nice job on the veneer.

[vulgalour]

Phil: that's kinda the vibe I'm going for with it so I'm glad you said that.

[Noel Tidybeard]

ironicaly the wood look suitably plastic! lol

 

i wonder if you could veneer the rear boot mouldings with the badges in

[PhilA]

 

I have a similar table.

 

 

Phil

[MorrisItalSLX]

That veneer looks the buisiness!

 

Is it Wenge?

[vulgalour]

No mate, it's Monday today.

[MorrisItalSLX]

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Apols, but the first thing I think of are these bellends. 

Looks smart, for sure. 

[vulgalour]

Today it is time to get the dashboard together and in the car.  Three coats of satin varnish got the veneer looking just how I wanted.  I could have gone the usual restoration route and applied heavy lacquer or had a go at French polishing but that felt wrong in this instance.  Besides, gloss varnish on dashboards creates glare and the Princess dials are bad enough for that.  So, with the last coat of varnish on and cured, I refitted all the trim items.  I considered removing the silver I'd added to the black plastic trims, but when seen against the new wood it actually worked really well, so I left them as is.

 

20180730-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The only item that now bothers me is the cigar lighter, I'd like to get something a bit more elegant, something in solid plastic with an indented smoking logo would be ideal.  On the back of the blanking plate I fitted some tiny, very strong, magnets.  These serve to stick the blanking plate against the metal brackets.  I may have to redo this though as one side seems to stick better than the other so it might drop out when I'm driving, we'll see what happens.  I'm saving the full modification of this plate into a door for when I've got the hardware to do it.

20180730-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

After fighting with the dashboard's four million components to get it back into one unit and then a couple of bulbs that didn't want to play ball, I eventually got the dashboard reinstated and tested.  On using the blower controls I was covered in tree seeds.  I have no idea where these were hiding, I thought I'd flushed them all out!  There's no vents on the back of the dashboard piece I removed so they weren't hiding in there.

20180730-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

fffffffff.  That's INSIDE the clock!

20180730-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Fitted my spare steering wheel which has better leather than the one that was fitted, but needs restitching on the bottom seam.  Also fitted the best of my two crash pads.  I'm actually genuinely delighted with the way the dashboard now looks.  It doesn't look like I've done anything, which is exactly what I wanted.

20180730-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180730-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180730-07 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

That's the interior finished now really, with the exception of cleaning since there's dust everywhere in there at the moment.  It feels very right at the moment, I feel like I can enjoy this now without wanting to twiddle with stuff.

 

[Zelandeth]

That looks lovely that does.

 

Still find the switch blank with the brake warning light in these really amusing.

 

Well done that...

 

Now c'mere and do the same for the front of the lower cabinets in the van...

[RayMK]

Very nicely done.  How do you know that they are tree seeds?  Depending on your temperament, the clock seed could be irritating.  My 'modern' has not got seeded dials but has a slightly crooked dealer's sticker on the rear screen.  Every time I look in the rear view mirror its crookedness distracts me.  Could make an interesting insurance claim if I bump someone . 

[vulgalour]

Zel: DIY!

 

It's actually surprisingly easy to do the veneer.  I bought a paper-backed offcut from eBay because I only needed a tiny amount and it was still twice as much as I wanted.  £16 for the veneer, about £3 for the glue, another £2 or so for the foam roller and the satin varnish I already had for the skip-rescue sideboard (which is coming along very nicely between other jobs).  The only nuisance really is the time it takes while you're waiting for glue and varnish to dry.

 

Ray:  It's from the silver birches in our front garden, the seeds from them are EVERYWHERE and the Princess spent some time parked underneath them.  Mike even took to fitting additional mesh to the 75 to stop the seeds getting into his vents.  I'm just going to put up with the errant seed because to get it out I have to dismantle the entire dashboard to get to it.  After a few bumps it should fall off... I hope.

[Squire_Dawson]

Looks like a pro job. Really suits the interior of the car. What's this headlight warning indication - is it green?

[vulgalour]

It is green, you've got sidelight/headlight (green), indicator (green), main beam (blue), on the top row.  Then choke (amber), oil (red), battery (amber), hazards (red) on the bottom row.

[Skizzer]

That dash looks absolutely fantastic.

[dozeydustman]

That is an masterpiece.

[Felly Magic]

With that dashboard you now need PLAH in the back for much timbery goodness

[Zelandeth]

Like the bloody needles from the Canadian Pine out the front of our place. They get into EVERYTHING!

 

Most recent annoyance from them is the discovery that the darned things have figured out a way into the roof lights in the van. They get under the bottom lip, then as soon as I start driving the airflow hope them over - so every time I take it out there's a half dozen or so sitting on the fly screen when I stop.

 

They're a bloody nuisance. Finding them everywhere under the bonnet every time I open it is always a worry...I know full well they burn well.

 

If nothing else if one does catch fire I'll have to aim it so it takes the bloody tree with it!

 

C'mon, dash photo with as much lit up as possible please!