project 1980 Austin Princess

[vulgalour]

@boobydoo: sorry... I guess I was supergrumpy about spending all day doing all that work only to give myself more work by being a twunt, and wanted to waste everyone else's by sharing the woe Still, I got to read some amusing anecdotes and reversing into things from fellow shiters.
___
Today I decided to have a look at what I'd actually done to the car. It's nowhere near as bad as I thought, as I had been reassured by other readers, so that's a good thing.

First job was to remove the bumper. Two 14mm bolts on the side which were quite stiff and two 13mm bolts in the middle which weren't. The twist in the bumper untwisted as soon as the driver's side bolt was undone. I was very happy to discover it looks like the back of the bumper has been waxoyled too just like the inside of all the doors and probably the inside of the arches. I've bent one bracket but the two centre brackets look a bit bent too, so I'll pull these back to shape when I refit. I'll give this a jolly good clean with the Autosol I've got before refitting it. There's nothing I can really do about the dented corner, but it's not so bad I feel I have to replace it with a new item right now.



While I had the bumper off I thought I'd have a look behind the number plate too and investigate the whole rear valance for damage and repairs. This way I can rectify it all before putting the bumper back on and it gets a bit more of the car finished that, admittedly, I wasn't going to do just yet. First thing was to remove the number plate and I think I now know why the number plate light doesn't illuminate it so well.




Next, inspect the damage proper. This is about when it started drizzling fine enough to get everything damp and mean I couldn't do paint, or filler, or much of anything. Bumper off, some paint came with it.


I knocked the rest of the loose stuff off too, and I'll get this sanded back before painting it so I don't end up with paint blistering up.


I noticed a crack in the paint on the rear panel too, and some paint has come off the seam. I'm going to have to remove the light cluster to tackle that properly, another job I didn't want to have to do yet.


After everything had been cleaned down with some plain water, I had a look at what other damage was there. There's a lot of little dents in this panel, mostly invisible when the bumper is attached, so I guess I'm not the only one to reverse into things.




There's even a matching (though less severe) dent and crease on the passenger side that's been resprayed before I got the car.


All in all, I'm at least comforted that I didn't do too much damage to the old girl. We're supposed to be getting slightly better weather over the course of the week, so I'm hoping to get this all rectified and put back together again.

So my goal this week for the Princess is to flat back and tidy up all the paint on the lower rear quarters, rear valance and rear panel. I'll also be getting the exhaust fixed of course which I've been saying for some time now, but the weather has meant I've not been able to get it done.

[vulgalour]

After a somewhat shakey start to the weather today, it cleared up nicely and I managed to get cracking on the back end of the Princess putting right what I did wrong.

First job was to get all the loose and cracked paint off. I did manage to crack a bit more paint knocking the worst of the dents out. There's a lot of dents on this part of the car, it looks like it's hit a fair few things in the past. Most of the dents were large and shallow and so only need a bit of persuasion in the form of leaning on the panel a bit, but the driver's side bumper mount had been pushed in a fair bit so I bashed that out with a hammer. The worst dents will need a puller to rectify properly because it's double skinned areas with no access from the back with the tools I have.

Eventually, I flatted back the incredibly thick paint with 400 grit getting rid of a few sags and some heavy orange peel in the process, and only just cutting back through to the old paint. This panel looks like it's been repainted a few times, the paint was very thick and there were a fair few layers compared to the other side I'd been working on before.


There was a rust stain starting at the bottom of the rear quarter/arch area that had just started to crack. I had a poke and a big chunk of filler fell off to reveal a small repair to a common rot spot. It's actually pretty solid and the filler that's left in the panel is very well stuck so I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to remedy this bit. I'll probably knock as much filler off as will come off and after rust treating the area, blend some new filler in and finish it better than it was.


On the same arch, door side, there was a bleb that I thought was rust coming through but was actually a splot in the paint. Seems to be a common theme with this car for 'rust bubbles' to turn out to actually be globby paint, not that I'm complaining.


After getting that rear quarter flatted back ready for paint, I moved round to the rear panel. Removed the lights and enough of the boot seal to get access before going at it with more 400grit paper. The top of this panel was really rough, like it had got a lot of muck in the paint or the brush used to apply it. There was also some rust staining where the lock sits, but this turned out to be little more than staining in the paint so I'm wondering if the contaminate was iron filings perhaps?


Likewise, over the rear light on the driver's side the paint was rough, and quite thin. It's a lot better now, but will need a top coat blending in.


Apart from the dents, this area isn't actually all that bad at all, it's certainly nice and solid. The more I prod at this car the more it seems she's been given an appalling paint job that hides what is a pretty solid body.


I only got as far as the lower part of the rear quarter and the driver's side half of the rear panel before having to call it quits as the temperature was dropping a bit and I wanted to try and get some paint on. Quite pleased with how it's turned out, I was expecting much worse.


Can't go and buy any grey primer as I'm out of funds so I had to make do with some red. The metal on the Princess starts to go orange a lot faster than the Polo, presumably due to a lack of factory rust-proofing, so I didn't want to leave it to chance too much. Didn't get chance to get any top coat on tonight so I'll tackle that tomorrow when I do a bit more remedial work. For now, it's tidy and at least not exposed metal. Unfortunately my can of red primer is now almost empty, but I do still have a big tin from when I did the work on the Polo, so if I need to I'll get that opened up.


I also discovered the rear lights are completely reversible. I won't be keeping them this way, the panel lines clash too much. I have no idea when this information will come in useful, but there you are.


Tomorrow, providing the weather is fit, I'll try blending in some new top coat and doing more flatting back in preparation for polishing the back end up and then fitting the bumper. Many, many hours to go on this to get it how I want it.

[boobydoo]

I can't believe how quickly you get things done! A sort of Ed China and Kim and Aggie in one!

[vulgalour]

No point fannying about when I've got the time to work, especially with BL's propensity to rot. I had to Google to find out who Ed China is >.> but at least you didn't liken me to Mike Brewer It's probably bad that I didn't have to Google who Kim and Aggie are.

[Wilko220]

Cracking work. Looks like that prang was a blessing in disguise as it prompted you to remedy those other bits and pieces. Always look on the bright side of life, eh.

This will be some motah when you've done with it.

[vulgalour]

This was going to be one of the last bits I dealt with as you don't see most of it behind all the lights and bumper, but you're right, it has proved useful doing it now. It has been raining all day here so I've not been able to do more work on this bit, annoyingly. I'm hoping it clears up a bit tomorrow, weather forecast seems to think it will.

 

I'm currently wondering where the best place to get stainless steel trim brazed is, the top trims I removed that came off in two pieces both sides look like there were brazed together at the factory before the brown paint was applied. I don't have the equipment to do the brazing myself, and I've only ever done a tiny effort at that sort of thing back at secondary school. Metal work was always more fun and interesting than woodwork, probably because you got to use hammers and fire.

[vulgalour]

Progress has been slowed by the weather, which gives me about a 1 hour window before an enforced 30-60 minute break thanks to the rain that keeps blowing in. Quite warm today, which is nice, but the rain and occasional wind I could do without. I've made good use of my time regardless.

Yesterday, I was playing about with the brightwork and getting it somewhat better looking than it was. First job was to get the paint off the boot trim, which is the result of some pretty piss poor masking by whoever did the dodgy respray on this car.


Attacked it with paintstripper, a green scourer and a sharp blade, after which it got a good going over with this stuff.


Which gave me a much smarter end result. It's another of those bits nobody but me is ever likely to see, but I feel better for having done it.


The bottom trims for the C pillars also got Autosol'd and while it's not too obvious in the pictures, in person they have a much more brilliant shine than before.


The top trims for the C pillars were covered in the original factory brown, then multiple layers of chrome paint and looked very sorry for themselves. Much scrubbing and application of paint stripper got them looking a lot smarter.




I didn't bother stripping the paint off the back of them. One trim slots together nicely, even though the original brazing has been split, but the other looks to have had a bit of a bash and will need straightening a bit. I'm hoping to get these rebrazed before I repaint them to match the C pillar, the stainless finish will look odd as it doesn't really line up with the gutter trims or any other lines on the car.




Other bit of brightwork was the bumper. Again, tackled it with the Autosol which removed all the tiny rust spots. It also did a really good job of making that new dent I gave the bumper a much less obvious appearance.


As previously mentioned, this car has been reversed into a few things. There's an old crease in the top of it where there are these scratches on the vertical surface, probably gained from a wall. The passenger corner also has some scuffs which are nothing to do with me.


Tried straightening the bent bracket by hand and couldn't. I'll get some tools on the job, but I need to straighten the bracket before refitting as there's no way this is going to sit straight as it stands.


After all that, I could get moving today on the bodywork. First job was to give the primered areas a quick blat of the paint I got from Halfords which, as it turns out, is a really good match for the old paint but a terrible match for the respray coat, which just makes me believe even more that the respray was a bit of a bargain basement job. However, I couldn't respray the corner of the arch until I'd done some more investigation into the filler there and I have mixed feelings about what I found.


The car did live in Redruth for a time, and I think it has been on the beach, as evidenced by the rust covered pebble and cockle shell that fell out, along with a screw that I hope isn't from the car, because if it is I have no idea what it was for.


Left me with a bit of a hole. Looks like that plate is actually on top of a rust hole so I'm expecting this to be mirrored on the passenger side and is just another spot of welding the car needs. I did expect there to be something unpleasant hiding back here as it's a grot trap so I'm not really surprised. I will tidy it up, apply some rust converter and a bit of paint until I can sort out getting it welded which will happen before the MoT in September. Shouldn't be too expensive to repair this bit.




Then it rained, so I had a break before getting back out again with the sandpaper to investigate the panel and see if I can use a little bit of filler on some of the dents. Passenger side dent was less severe after I'd cut back through a fair amount of paint. I'm in two minds about bothering to fill this bit as it's completely hidden by the bumper, but I have this habit of obsessing about stuff that I know isn't as perfect as it ought to be so it might be better to just deal with it now rather than having it nag at me.


Driver's side isn't too bad at all now. I could do with some stopper filler to help with the step in the paint that got cracked off as my tin dried up earlier this year when I went to use it.20120510-16 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

Still, she's looking a lot more presentable than she did. The new paint (from Halfrauds) blends in very nicely and is easy to work with so I'm optimistic that I can get this tidied up and looking better than when I collected her. I could just do with a decent dry spell of weather so I can spend a couple of days really getting this sorted out.


If I get chance to do more later, I'll update then. This update brought to you by Queen - Flash which was playing on the radio as I was typing, inspirational stuff.

 

[e287yba]

Looking very acceptable indeed .

[vulgalour]

Looking even more acceptable now that I got another break in the weather. Have to admit I got quite absorbed in the job and didn't realise how late it was until I stood back to admire a job finished well enough for now. On the whole, this whole section is ready for polishing up. I decided not to worry about the dents behind the bumper, there's no point giving myself more work than I need to at the moment and it's something I can come back to at a later date should I need to. I know that the bottom corners of the arches will need dealing with properly, on both sides most likely, but I'm not going to poke at them and make them ugly before the end of June unless I know I can get them fixed before the Waddington show. The whole point to the work I'm doing at the moment is to smarten up the paintwork and interior and then go back through the car at a later date and get the welding done in localised areas. I don't want to give the car a respray because for reasons that only make sense in my head I want her to look old, but cherished rather than brand spanking new. This will likely change when everything is done and I can save up for a full respray, but for now I think it better to look after her and use her than to splurge massive wads of cash on a complete rebeiging.

Much flatting back was done with the sandpaper and I came to a bleb similar to the one on the other arch that turned out to just be bad paint. On this side, it's bad paint and a minor bit of surface rust.


Happily, nothing serious, I've Kurusted it for now and I'll go back over this tomorrow (weather permitting) to remedy it fully. It's not bad enough to warrant a weld repair, it's only surface and probably down to a stone chip/bad paint combo.


The passenger side rear quarter flatted back pretty nicely. It's really stupidly thick paint on these rear lower quarters, probably from numerous repairs in the past.


There was a scratch in the paint down to the metal, I'm not sure what from as the bumper didn't hit this side, and as I went to blend it back in I slipped on the drive and applied a lovely sag. Well done me. Not too worried though, I need to cut this back a bit further for polishing anyway.


I decided not to poke at the obvious filler work in the bottom of this panel. I know it's hiding another hole, it's too obvious a fill not to be, and probably a patch like the other side has, and more beach detritus most likely.


Gave the boot lip some more loving, another couple of coats of new paint is seeing this look rather smart again.


In fact, the whole back panel looks much better now I've flatted it back and blended a couple more coats of paint in. The dents aren't massively obvious as the thickness of the old paint serves well to reduce the severity and this beige is incredibly good at making dents disappear visually.


I was hoping this would show the paint finishes on the car. The shuts all seem to be brush painted with a mix of sand and champagne beige. The top of the wing this side is the old greenish colour that's been resprayed and the boot lip to the right is what I've partially rectified. The bit in the centre you can just about make out the contamination and brush strokes in, quite rough to the touch too.


Finally, the bit I'm happiest with. Considering how bad this looked to me and how much work I feared it would be, this has turned out really very well indeed. As it happens, I didn't need the stopper filler as repeated flatting back and coats of paint has blended everything together nicely. There's more work to do to get it shiny again, but it looks so much better than it did.


Tomorrow we shall see what the weather does. Polishing up doesn't take too long, but it is laborious. I'm hoping to get the rear end shiny, the bumper bracket straightened and have the bumper and lights refitted. As a bonus, I'm hoping to do more work on the metallic brown to try and get that a bit more finished. A friend of mine says he can show me the knack of rivetting the trim clips back on (I'll be buying new clips, the old ones are mostly shot) so it's quite important to get it all tidied up.

[Shep Shepherd]

I wish that I possessed your bodywork skills!

[theorganist]

I wish that I possessed your bodywork skills!

 

Same here, I made a complete horlicks of tackling some rust on my Renault!!

 

This has been a fascinating thread to read so far, I take my hat of to you for your perseverance! I do love Princesses and yours is a particularly nice example.

 

Pete.

[vulgalour]

I don't know that I'd call it skills, it's mostly patience and sandpaper. You're right though, it is easy to make a hash of these things, I should know I still do occasionally. Thankfully, I didn't have to do any real panel beating on this bit of the car, that's something I'm not great at doing and is definitely a skill, much more so than paint in my humble opinion.

[vulgalour]

Yet more boring paint fettling happened today. The weather has been sunny, then rainy, then fiercely windy and constantly finger-numbingly cold. For that reason, I didn't get to the point I wanted to.

Dad showed me how best to straighten out the bumper bracket, so that's now ready to refit once I've finished more flatting and touching in of paint on the rear end of the Princess. I'm over the worst of the prep work on this part of the car, I think.

I've not started on the petrol flap on this quarter yet, which is why it's a different colour, but I have got the vast majority of the panel now down to 1200grit. There' a few spots where the bodywork is a bit high and the new paint is a bit thin, so I've got to touch those in to really finish off the prep work for this stage, but after that I'll be ready to work down through the paper before getting the G3 on. Happily, the finer the grade you work with, the less time it takes, I'm guessing because you're taking less material off every time you go over it.



One odd thing with the paint are these little low spots. I'm guessing it's something to do with paint mixture and application, but quite often I come across little low spots in the paint. The little dimples do sand out, the paint is thick enough to do that. You can also see another of those lovely paint defects on the arch in this shot which I'll need to blend in. I'm not removing the arch trims just yet, I'll do that at a later date as I see no point in disturbing them just at the moment.


Under the swage line on both sides is some quite ugly ripples in the paint where it looks to have been applied too heavily, and orange peel on this side that's almost as bad as actual orange peel. It's taking a while to cut back through this sensitively.


I'm most pleased with the back panel. It's now smooth where it's visible and barely needs any work to get it up to scratch. Even though much of this is hidden with trim, it will make a world of difference having been polished up properly first.


By the time I was adding the finishing strokes of 1200 grit to this panel, my fingers were turning into icicles and I was a bit grumped off with the whole job. I downed tools before finishing taking that sag out of the paint, and I'm hoping for better weather tomorrow so I can finally get my bumper and lights refitted permanently.




Best thing that happened today was my steering rack gaiters arriving ahead of schedule. I still can't do anything about that until next week because there's Stuff I need to buy that takes precedence over petrol for the car. Happily, it means I now have everything in place to shut up the exhaust and protect the steering rack joint so I can once again start using the car properly.

To finish off what has been a pretty excellent day, my housemate came home with a couple of bottles of Crabbies for me too, excellent post working-on-car drink reward!

[KruJoe]

Jesus Christ man, you have the patience of a saint. I don't know how you do it. All outside in the weather too.

The only beautification I willingly do, is just enough to get the thing legal. I don't have the gumption for anything more.

 

Whereabouts in the North are you?

I'd happily give you an afternoon zapping some patches on if it's not too far for you to come. They won't be the prettiest, but you'd soon hide them with your skills.

[vulgalour]

If I could get the car in the garage I would, but the light's not as good in there so I'd probably still push her out onto the drive to do the work. I'm probably spending too much time making this right, I'm the only one that'll notice, but it keeps me busy. I'm in Bolsover, which is a spit from the Motorway and almost on the Derbyshire/South Yorkshire border so I'm not North-North, but I'm well above the Watford Gap. Patch zapping would be welcomed! Cash is tight at the moment so it'll have to wait a bit I'm hoping that when I investigate the door bottoms they're repairable, I don't fancy trying to replace them with whole new items, nor do I see the point if my existing ones can just be repaired.

 

I could do with three or four days of warm sunshine and no wind so that I can really blitz the paint properly. I quite fancy giving the whole thing a gold pearl lacquer when I'm done tidying.

[e287yba]

... I'm probably spending too much time making this right, I'm the only one that'll notice, but it keeps me busy.

 

...

 

I could do with three or four days of warm sunshine and no wind so that I can really blitz the paint properly. I quite fancy giving the whole thing a gold pearl lacquer when I'm done tidying.

 

No, you've just "got it bad" and there's nowt wrong with that .

 

As KruJoe said, you have the patient of a saint... and taking your time, using the finer grades of sandpaper each time, is the key once the holes are filled and the area primed .

 

I 'did' the rusty surface 'bits' of my MG1600 in June 2008, now they need doing again... The 'bits' of your Princess featured in recent posts will last much longer because you've taken your time and not rushed them in a day (like I did), I am sure .

 

And we all dream of the holy grail of 3 or 4 days of breeze-free warm sunshine - a couple of times per car per year, please, so we can waxoyl the car later in the year as well .

 

Looking good .

[vulgalour]

Today, I spent about 4 hours on the Princess with polishing stuff. I think I'm starting to get the hang of it now. The weather has been pretty good, with a decent amount of light for what I was working on, and not too cold or too warm, which put me in a good mood and allowed me to really get stuck in on this job. After the work I did yesterday, and the lateness I got finished, I'd missed a few areas that needed attention. The back panel got a fresh coat in places where I had to resand from cutting through too much paint, or in some instances not enough. I can't polish this up until the paint has hardened a bit so I made a start putting it back together and I'll come back to this panel in a week or so if I have to. The bumper remained off because I don't think I can fit it myself without scratching the paint and I had no helper today.


After going round the back end and finding the odd bit here and there I'd missed before I got it all uniformly 1200 grit. I then went over it again on the passenger side quarter with 1500grit, attacking the top of the quarter as well because I wasn't happy with how not-quite-shiny it was. This turned out to be useful as it revealed a very faintly imperfect surface that the 1500grit got rid of. I then did the whole panel again with 2000grit. I wanted as smooth a finish as I could get and when I was done it felt and looked spot on. I'm sure people will tell me I have a lot of patience, but to be honest I just sort of zone out when I'm hand sanding if the weather is good and just get stuck into the job.


I have a few paint finishing products from the work I started on the Polo, but it turns out I'm still learning, as I shall go on to explain. After getting the panel smooth and removing all trace of orange peel and the like, I went over the top half of the panel with the Farecla G3, following the directions on the bottle. The end result was okay, but not great.


I could get a dull reflection to appear, I wanted that reflection to be as sharp as possible, which means more work. I gave it a blitz with the polishing machine I was given.


Better, but not great. Another go over by hand with the G3 and the polisher got it closer but I noticed the surface wasn't polishing up evenly.


Maybe some Autoglym Super Resin Polish would help? Nope, still not quite right.


So, I had a think about what I was doing and the results I was getting and applied the G3 directly to the polishing bonnet with a light spray from the water bottle. Set to work on the panel with that which took a bit of time but eventually, and seemingly all at once, the panel was super shiny.


Rather than waste time on my old method, I applied this new method to the bottom half of the quarter and it too came up shiny in a fraction of the time. Seems I'm getting the hang of the polisher too, my fingers don't vibrate off my hands when I use it so much now and I'm starting to figure out how best to get it to do the work for me. The key, above all else, is the perfect amount of dampness to the bonnet and to use as little pressure as possible on the panel. Some of the compound curves on this panel make keeping the polisher perpendicular to the surface difficult, but not impossible. I'll need to double-check this finish tomorrow in stronger light (if we have any) because I think it needs another quick blat to really make it pop.


The most satisfying thing was seeing that the shine on the quarter was better than the shine on the boot.


Best of all, once it's polished up to this standard, those little blemishes and small marks aren't noticeable unless you're about half an inch away from the car. I was a very happy bunny with this result.


I did make a start on the driver's side quarter but the light wasn't in my favour so I put everything away for the night.


I don't think the rest of the car will take me so long now that I've got a better feel for my tools and for the paint on the car. If the weather is good tomorrow and I have a helper, I'll get the other rear quarter sorted and the bumper back on. I feel like today has been a good car day.

[vulgalour]

Sadly, today was the last day of my holiday so I won't be able to spend masses of time on the Princess like I have this week. This isn't really a problem, I'll still spend a few hours a day on the paint when I'm not at my desk drawing stuff for people. This week has been excellent though, for all it was a shakey start, it's been good to really get stuck in to one of my cars if not the other.

After the success of the passenger side rear quarter, I had some pretty high hopes for the driver's side. Happily, I was not disappointed! The paint that's been blended in isn't a great match, I'll be honest, but I don't really mind as the worst of it is obscured by the bumper. I'll go back and sort out the petrol flap at a later date, it wasn't vital that I did it today and I'd like to remove it to clean it up properly anyway. The weather was warm and sunny, but ferociously windy at times which meant I had to be vigilant at cleaning dust and debris from the car as I worked so I didn't gouge the paint.


This side is done now. In person it doesn't look quite so green, I don't know what that's about.


The finish is super smooth, but not perfect. I haven't gone over this with a final polish or wax yet but when I do I expect it'll be really stunning compared to the bobbly door.


It didn't take very long to finish off that quarter now I know what I'm doing, about an hour and a half I think to finish off the sanding and polish it up. So I moved on to do the boot lid. Started with the 400 grit and it took forever to get the paint smooth, it was worse than it looked and being such a large flat panel, it wasn't very forgiving. Got there in the end.


I did the vertical aspect of it too, which meant removing the badges that I need to get some sticky pads to replace. The main reason for pulling the badges off is that one was loose and the sandpaper kept pulling dirt out from under them and I didn't want to risk scoring the paint. Careful application of a kitchen knife between the badge and the bodywork allowed me to slice through the foam sticky pad without damaging anything.


Then it was a case of methodically sanding, and sanding and sanding, making sure that I didn't have a panel with visible shiny bits like this.


Eventually, we got down to 2000grit and the polisher could come out. I had a frustrating moment when I'd put too much G3 on the bonnet and couldn't figure out why the panel wasn't coming up shiny. Plenty of water got the bonnet unclogged and a shine come through, finally. I think this will need going over again in better light, I'm not as happy with it as I could be, but happier than I was before I started the work.


The vertical aspect took less time but for some reason had been brush painted on the edges which was a bit of a nuisance to cut through.


I think you'll agree that's a pretty good end result, the Princess now has a shiny, shiny arse.


Finally, my housemate arrived from work just as I finishing off and helped me refit the bumper and the fog lights. I couldn't be bothered to relocate the number plate properly but I will when I can afford some posh raised-digit period jobbies. Dad had done rather too good a job of sorting out my bent bracket, it was a struggle to get the bumper back on but it sits really nicely now, you'd never know I reversed into the house just a few days ago.

[Father Ted]

Autoshite needs a "Facebook" LIKE button

[vulgalour]

Thanks, Father Ted

It is update time again.

Over the past few days the car has been sworn at a lot. She has suffered our tirade of verbal abuse and come out the other side none the worse for it. I'm sure she heard worse on the production line, and is entirely sympathetic to our plight when it comes to trying to do anything that involves access around the back of the engine. With the exhaust blowing like a good un, I trundled down to the parents' a few days ago to sort out a few things, namely the reverse lights, the steering rack gaiter and the exhaust.

Reverse lights
Delightfully easy job. With the car up on axle stands, I had one person at the back to say if the lights were on or off, and one person at the ignition to turn it off when I put spanner to metal because I found that sparks would fly otherwise and didn't fancy getting zapped. Following the instruction in the book, all that essentially needed doing was to turn the adjuster nut a full 360 degrees to get my reversing lights to be completely reliable. The adjuster is located on the side of the selector box, as illustrated below. Job jobbed.


Steering rack gaiter
The old gaiter on the driver's side had split all the way around. Wheel off, track rod end carefully undone and gaiter slid off after slicing through the cable ties. I got the new gaiter out of the box to find it's probably a universal part rather than a Princess specific. Some swearing was involved getting the gaiter to sit right at the engine end, but eventually it was on, everything slotted back together, the track rod end put back together and all was good.


We then noticed the passenger side gaitor has developed a split, but that's a job for another day. I've got the parts, just no love for the job at the moment so it will wait until I have the love back for it, won't be too long before it's sorted. While I was under the car I noticed the CV boots might need doing sometime within the next 12 months as they're starting to perish but haven't shown signs of splitting. It's on The List.

Exhaust
How we hate this job. We hate this job so much that if it blows again it is not getting fixed at home. One problem is that the downpipes appear to be sprained and the clamp from diff/gearbox to downpipe was snapped. A new bracket made from flattened copper pipe and cursed into place with hammers and other tools was sorted out. However, the usual location for the bracket couldn't be made as the bolt that would hold it is missing. Additionally, the broken bracket that was removed was located where the fabricated bracket has gone. It's not a pretty fix, but it is a good fix, at least until such a time as the correct bracket is available to me... or never, if this fix holds up for a few thousand miles.




The new cast clamp was interesting too. It didn't actually fit unless we used the sleeves from the old clamp, and then it fitted very, very well. 2 brass nuts were almost stripped of their thread and one steel nut rounded slightly when reassembling so shuffling of nuts on the exhaust system was done to get the best ones in the most suitable places.


I had a bit of a moment, there was a "straw that broke the camel's back" incident for me, and I didn't see the job through. The other guys did, finishing at 22:40 and getting the exhaust to seal properly for the first time since the car was bought. I am, and always will be, eternally grateful for their dedication.

The Result
Quiet. I drove the Princess to Rotherham and back today, via the M1. Yes, my tracking is probably off and my wheels aren't balanced as well as they could be. I have no untoward vibrations up to 50mph, but from 50mph to about 60mph there's a wheel out of balance. Above 60mph, heading towards 70mph the car starts to wander a bit. However, after having disturbed the track rod end to do the gaiter, the car does go where I want her to a lot better now at speeds of up to 60mph which is an unexpected improvement.

Noise in the cabin is much reduced, as is exhaust related vibration. Gasses aren't gassing my passengers, which is also good. There does seem to be some extra vibration through the pedals and tunnel, but it's mostly a low level thrum than a banging or unpleasant vibration. Over all, that's an improvement. Performance is much improved too, obviously, I find there's not great acceleration through first and second, but third is where the fun is, and I've not found where the end of fourth is yet.

Drama
There was some. On the way back from the meet, as we were going past a petrol station, I got a whiff of petrol in the cabin. Initially I dismissed it as just the petrol station, but it got stronger so I pulled over quick-sharp. By the time I'd stopped, turned off the engine and popped the bonnet to inspect, a small wisp of smoke was coming off my exhaust manifold. I had a very lucky escape. The new fuel pipe I'd put in from carb to fuel pump had gone soft and porous and was leaking fuel directly on to my exhaust manifold and was, I suspect, on the verge of catching fire. We called the RAC using Dad's membership card and the phone of generous resident of the house I'd pulled up in front of. About 70 minutes later, an RAC van arrived and a man came out to fit a new fuel pipe, complement the car and see us on our way. There was no further drama on the way home, thankfully, but I shall be going to the shop I got the fuel hose from to let him know of the problem, there's a good chance he's completely unaware of the issue and I'd rather he knew before selling too much more of it as it could be defective stock and he deserves to know about that.

In Conclusion
Princess ownership is odd. The car is a proper battle around town, parking is something I avoid wherever possible, reversing even more so. But there's this magical moment when you're on the motorway and the seat is just right, the car becomes easy to drive and you just waft along at whatever speed you fancy. It's bliss when it happens, and it happens every time I go for a trundle down a fast, open road. I hate and love this car in equal measure because when she goes wrong she tries my patience, but when she goes right it's just the most perfect place to be. I don't even mind only being able to get Radio 4 on the wireless while I'm driving.

I shall now be saving up to get my tracking done and my wheels balanced, but not until I've got that other steering rack gaiter fitted. I think that there's only niggles left to sort, general maintenance that's been neglected, and a whole pile of cosmetic pampering.

[cheguava]

Glad all your hard work didn't go up in smoke! Looks terrific with the shine restored to it.

 

My dad bought one of the first 2200 Princess models (1977 I think). It was properly shite - the engine had to be relocated, and there was just a litany of stuff that went wrong with it - not necessarily down to Leyland but their component suppliers were clearly taking the piss out of them, chiefly Lucas, Prince of Darkness. Wiper motors failed, oil seals blew, my old man had to get shut but nobody would take it as a trade - he ended up getting a 1800 Princess, and then his first ever foreign car.

 

And yet, of all the cars he had, I still remember looking at the Damask Red wedge in the garage and thinking "wow." It looked like nothing else at the time, and I think time has been kind to it. Great to see one looking so good.

[outlaw118]

Dude! Just caught up on this thread, and I don't care that i'm now late for work!

It's been said before, your attention to detail on the paint is astounding, and the time taken is to be applauded. Top work sir, look forward to the "finished" product.

[vulgalour]

Playing about on Photoshop with some pictures of Lotus wheels. This is why I need a set eventually.

 

 

 

They'll probably stick out a bit more than in the above shots, but they're the perfect design for the car. Eventually I'll be investing in a variety of shiny metal wheel trims and hub caps too so I can change the look. Still not lowering her though. I love the design of these particular Lotus wheels and since they share the same essential dimensions, they should (in theory) slot straight on.

[KruJoe]

Those wheels would look nice, I have to say.

 

 

Can I offer you another piece of advice about your exhaust bracket? There are no washers on there from what I see.

 

 

I'm sure you're aware that copper isn't the ideal material for the job, but it'll do for now. It's very soft, and is likely to tear. Next time you're under the car, take a few washers and a 10mm spanner with you. Fit the biggest washer you can under each one of the nut/bolt heads to spread the load. It will make the 'fix' last a lot longer. Without washers, the stresses on the bracket will soon cause the bolt heads to chomp through the copper.

 

If you have a tray of spare bolts, try some in in those empty holes too. Good luck!

[Anglevan]

Been an avid watcher of this thread and credit where credit is due - your doing a fantastic job of keeping BL's finest on the road.

 

Regards the exhaust and forgive me if this has already been mentioned (i've not gone back through previous pages) but are all the engine and gearbox mounts ok ?? and again sorry if I state the obvious but if they are worn it will put more pressure on the exhaust joint. Other than that not much to say just keep with it

 

Like the wheels by the way - not a fan of wheel swappage but they do look good in the 'shopped' picture

[vulgalour]

@KruJoe: Noted. Ideally I'd like a properly shaped bracket for the job, I just need to get on with looking for one. Bolts and washers will happen when I'm next under the car, which will be when I'm doing the other steering gaiter.

 

@Anglevan: Thank you . As far as I'm aware the mounts are fine. The exhaust managed a trip down the M1 to Rotherham and back (about 40-50 miles all in) without getting any worse so I'm hoping that we've actually managed to fix it now. Lotus wheels were picked because they work on the Elite, which has a similar shape to the Princess, they're the correct era and the same size (a little wider, perhaps) so they look like they belong on the car rather than looking like an aftermarket swap. At least, that's the theory.

[vulgalour]

Not really been using the car much lately, I've not been very well, but I'm back on track again now I hope so I've been doing some work on her. First of all, I need to go back to the 24th and relate some of the issues we've been having with a couple of people cutting through the garden. Up until recently, no damage has been done apart from some pretty lame attempts to break into my corrugated tin garage. The car was parked in her usual place and wheelies bins scattered about on the night of the 23rd to make it clear in a passive-aggressive sort of a way that it's not on cutting through the garden.

I came down the following day to find that this:




Okay, so they've moved the wheelie bins, no big deal. They probably couldn't squeeze down the side of the car, there's barely enough room for a leg.... oh:




Previously they'd broken the aerial but it was still attached, just, so I'd left it alone. This time they'd snapped it clean off and placed it in the bonnet-wing gap. They've also bent my door mirror up, pulled one boot badge off and tampered with the other one, and made another attempt at getting in the garage. Not a happy bunny about that. That lead to me constructing this. Eventually this wood will be turned into a proper gate, but for now it's an ugly barrier that makes noise if you try and dismantle it and is pretty impossible to get through. I'm happy to report it works, but it hasn't stopped them making yet another attempt on my garage. Thankfully, the police are aware and proactive about catching the guys in the act as it's a group of about 4 people that are causing the grief.


Next week the drive gates get rehung since I've got to wait to have enough manpower to lift the bloody things back in place. They were removed to get the Princess on the drive, but some modifying to the drive set up means they fit back on now and I want the added security again. So, what else has been happening? Well, Scoobypete from over on Retro Rides very kindly posted me a casette that I've been wanting. Happy days!


Found my missing badge at the foot of the drive, bent and covered in mud. Housemate straightened it out at some point without me knowing, I just need to clean it and refit it at some point.


I also fitted a new aerial. I couldn't find the wire coathanger I know I have somewhere, nor could I find one in the local shops, but I did spy this garden ornament for 50p. I will state that this is a temporary state of affairs, and was mostly done for the grin. Most amusingly, the reception on the stupid wire flower is better than on the original telescopic jobby. It works, but it's not here long term (I hope) as I want to fit an automatic aerial instead.


Other than the above, I've been doing lots of sanding on the top half of the doors which, in the case of the front door, were pretty badly finished.




The paint did cut through nice and smooth with no problems, it just took a long time. It even polished up okay which means the top half of the passenger side doors, both rear quarters and the boot are now done all bar a final going over with some finer finishing stuff.




Also tackled the roof. I thought this panel would take me a long time to do but it hasn't been resprayed. I gave it a quick going over with 2000 grit but there wasn't much point as it was already pretty smooth, so it mostly just got the G3 and polishing machine to bring it up to a fantastic shine. There's a few spots to remedy, but they're tiny things that you can't see unless your nose is almost on the paint so they'll wait for now.




My brother coerced me to blitz the rear pillar that's nearly done too, just to see how well it comes up. Obviously being a metallic paint with no lacquer or keying back before polishing means it's a bit orange peely, but it does look smarter than it had and helps make this side look a bit more unified until I get around to finishing the brown off in one go.


We are getting there.


In other news, I've resealed the tiny oil leak from the gasket for the fuel pump. The last time we sealed it we rushed a little bit, this time I took my time with it and it hasn't shown any signs of leaking at all yet so hopefully that will hold. I also discovered the source of the ticking noise from the engine - now that the exhaust isn't so noisy - is the spark leads breaking down, so they've been bumped up the list.

[vulgalour]

Today I did some stuff on the Princess again. Went out to do a few errands with the thought of buying some spark leads at the back of my mind. Checked out how much for a new set at Autosupplies and dropped off some flyers for the Motornutz show in August, they did me a full set of leads for about a fiver, last box they had on the shelf too. Time was getting on but I thought I'd see if I could catch the garage over in Whaley before closing time, which is when the Princess decided she didn't want to run smoothly at all, driving like I was in the wrong gear. I pulled into the hospital car park and changed the old leads...


For the new leads...


Which improved things for my trek out to Whaley - garage was closed by the time I got there - almost until I got home, at which point the rough running started to appear again. My brother pointed out that I hadn't tightened the spark plugs, and with that done she was running excellently again and the ticking is gone. The new leads are a lot tidier too, the lengths seeming to be a lot more suitable for the gaps they're bridging.

I did have a concern when I got back. I looked around the car, as you do, and noticed the driver's side front wheel was at a funny angle. My first thought was 'it shouldn't look like a Herald' and I was quite alarmed. The angle of the wheel was much more pronounced than it appears to be in the picture and was a different angle to the other three wheels. I only noticed it when I got home, until then whenever I'd parked up it looked normal. I'm concerned because I've seen a couple of pictures of Allegros and Maxis with front wheels folded under the car but I can't remember what caused it and I obviously don't want it to happen to me.


A look underneath doesn't highlight any damage to any components or anything loose, nothing looks bent when compared to the other side. The wheel nuts are secure and there's no play in the wheel.


I had helpers to refit my monumentally heavy drive gates so we had to get the Princess out of the way and a trundle up and down the drive seems to have put the wheel back to a more normal angle. I suppose there's a slim chance that it's just the angles of the drive, but it really was very pronounced with the wheel leaning over visibly onto the outer edge of the tread. The wear on the tyre doesn't indicate anything abnormal as that's nice and even all the way around and the car has had no noticeable pulling to either side when driving or breaking, there's been nothing to make me think anything was amiss, so maybe I'm worrying about nothing?


While I was investigating under the car I was also surprised by some damage to the front valance/wing area. I have no idea how I've done this. It looks like I've hit a rock or something going by the scratches in the black and the chunk of missing paint but I don't recall having hit anything at all and I've not been using the car that much of late. It was certainly damage free when we did the exhaust. I'll chase out the surface rust and bend it back to shape again, but I'd love to know how I managed it.

[vulgalour]

I think I have been worrying about an optical illusion on that front wheel, as Laurence over on the princess forum pointed out, I should assess on a flat space. So I did, and this is what I saw.

20120529-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

20120529-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

20120529-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

20120529-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

All seems even and healthy and, it being a warm day, the car is sitting slightly higher than normal which is one of those oddities of the suspension on these. Still haven't got around to getting the Polo back in one piece because the garage is like an oven and it's that sort of weather where you do the slightest thing and are just knackered from the hot. I really wish I wasn't working the hours I do at the moment, I'm missing out on the cooler mornings when I could get stuff done.

So, general update on the health of the car is that overall, things are good. I've still got to get around to fitting that steering rack gaiter, which I will likely do at my parents' this coming weekend. After that's been done I can get the tracking checked and get my wheels balanced properly, but I see no point doing tracking and balancing until the gaiter is done, especially since I'm not using the car for more than very short 2-8 mile journeys at the moment.

My three weeks off work (1 week holiday, 2 weeks bad health) has crippled me financially, which means I can't do all the things I want to, especially when it comes to going out for day trips and the like in the Princess. I'm going to have to let some things go too, which I'm not thrilled about, but Stuff is something that comes and goes, more Stuff will appear in the future for me to enjoy, and they do say all good things come to he who waits.

My to do list on the car is thus:
> Paint - finish flatting and polishing, so much of this to do still.
> Passenger side steering rack gaiter to fit.
> Tiny oil leak to resolve. Might be fuel pump gasket again, but could also be rocker cover gasket, not 100% on this one.
> Tracking
> Balance wheels
> Reattach boot badges
> Check rear drums. Handbrake will hold the car on most inclines, but not the steeper ones. Possible that rear drums aren't balanced and need adjusting.
> Waxoyl underneath (£60 at a friend's garage, saves me getting it in my hair and eyes)
> Few small weld patches, nothing serious, probably nothing that would fail an MoT.
> Replace/repair driver's door window mechanism

It's all niggles. I'm hoping that I can get all the above resolved before September so that my MoT is nice and easy.

[AnthonyG]

You're certainly cracking on with this. Are you bringing it to Shitefest?

 

What's the black car door in your temporary security barrier - Toyota Camry? Rover 800?

 

By the way those Lotus wheels look very right on the car - it looks like one of Harris Mann's original drawings.