project 1980 Austin Princess

[vulgalour]

Shall we have some photos with this update?  I think that'd be nice.  First up, the alternator.  oooh, shiny.

Got a friend to help me tension the belt fully and I'm happy to report charging is normal... mostly.  It puts out a reliable 14.2volts with no load from various devices, dropping as you'd expect as various things are turned on and the load increased.  Happy days.  However, I noticed recently the mystery stumble has reappeared, a thing the car has done all throughout my ownership and I've never pinned down.

With the multimeter on the battery I could see that when the stumble happens, the voltage drops significantly sometimes as low as 5v which is bit odd.  Worse when the car is cold, it goes away once everything is warmed up.  I checked the rotor arm and cap, they both had slightly dirty contacts so I cleaned those up which improved matters a bit but didn't solve the issue.  Plug leads and connections are all clean, don't appear to have any damage, aren't brittle, etc.  Coil seems to be doing coil things and the electronic ignition seems to be operating normally.  I didn't pull the spark plugs, haven't had the energy to go that far just yet, so I'm wondering if it's perhaps a fouled plug causing the issue and as things get hot, whatever is fouling the plug gets burned off and that's why the problem goes away.

Another electrical gremlin is my headlight switch is being recalcitrant.  Some days it works just fine, other days it refuses to latch in the fully on position.  I do have a replacement switch and a new headlight wiring loom with relays and correct configuration for twin lights, it's just another job I haven't yet had the energy to do.  It'll get done soon-ish.

The most recent malady had been the clutch slave cylinder just splurging its guts out.  Fortunately even though this is a rare part there was one available on eBay when I needed it so I scooped that up and aside from it taking a little while to fully bleed, I can report that's fixed the problem.  Or at least it's fixed the problem where I couldn't select gears properly.

The rotational squeak persists.  Since I can't find any signs of the cause at all, there's nothing on show with the brakes, wheel, front axle, bearing, CV joint, etc. and it's not related to any sort of input from the clutch or brake pedal, I'm at a total loss as to what it might be.  I have noticed since doing the clutch slave cylinder the volume of the squeak is much reduced so the only thing I can think is, given the condition of that clutch arm boot (I've never been able to find a replacement for it) is that maybe some of the clutch fluid has got in and contaminated the clutch a little bit in one spot.  I'm not experiencing a slipping clutch so I don't think it's done any harm if that is the case, I just can't think what else it could be at all and nobody that has looked at the car can find the cause of it either, all we can agree on is it's something on the driver's front corner.

When we next have some dry weather I'm going to have another go at that rear axle mount bracket.  I didn't have the strength to do it last time, perhaps in a few days I will.  It's only two bolts I'm struggling with so once I've got those cracked off I can quite easily replace the part and then maybe, just maybe, I can book the people in for doing the suspension regas.

I've also chased Pilkingtons again for where my windscreen that I ordered in June has got to.  I'm pretty disappointed at how long it's taken, especially considering how much it cost me.

[vulgalour]

Had a bit of a headlight mishap recently in that I had to go out in the dark and after setting off, the headlight switch failed.  Limped home on sidelights and hazards since I couldn't fix it at the side of the road.  I did have a spare switch in the car but it didn't want to work.  Turns out that was just corrosion from lack of use and it being in storage forever.  The reason the old switch had failed is it had at some point got quite hot and melted the plastic pushrods inside.  This is probably because BL never put a headlight relay on the Princess, and neither did I.

Short term solution was to disconnect the inner pair of headlights to reduce the load on the switch and not use main beam after cleaning up and installing the spare switch.

Today I had a look about fitting the relay wiring harness and encountered two problems.  On the battery side there's fixings I could already use for mounting the relays and the fused wire to the battery easily.  Unfortunately, the wiring harness is the wrong way around for my car.  The headlight wiring on the Princess main harness has the battery and headlight feed on opposite sides of the engine bay, but the relayed harness I bought assumes they're on the same side, so that means I have to do some extending or shortening of wires to get it all fitted.  I don't have enough brain or materials for that today.

No bother, went to just plug the originals back in and one of the original wires snapped right at the crimp for the headlight plug, so I had to put a little splice in there to get my headlights back.

Longer term I'm probably best replacing the whole original headlight wiring harness with new wire since it looks like the original is quite brittle in places (as is to be expected, it's in an exposed spot and is above forty years old) and I'm just not up to it yet.  At least for now the headlights are working and safe enough, I doubt a single pair of the LED headlights have more draw on the wiring and switch than the halogens they replaced so I shouldn't have to worry about things getting hot.

Sorry for the lack of pics here, I haven't the mental capacity for that either today, just wanted to make a record of the goings on for future reference really.

[vulgalour]

Squeak identified!

Got the front end on axle stands and rotated the wheels and the squeak was immediately apparent.  It's the CV boots - which are healthy, devoid of damage - rubbing on themselves.  There's not really anything I can do about that and it explains why the brakes and clutch feel totally fine.  It also explains why the squeak sometimes goes away when you turn the wheel because doing that with the car on stands exhibited the same behaviour.  I'm guessing the reason the squeak disappears after driving is that the cv boots warm up just enough to make the rubber soft enough not to squeak.

What a ridiculous problem.  At least I don't need to worry about it, just have to put up with the awful noise when it's cold.

[Zelandeth]

10 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

Squeak identified!

Got the front end on axle stands and rotated the wheels and the squeak was immediately apparent.  It's the CV boots - which are healthy, devoid of damage - rubbing on themselves.  There's not really anything I can do about that and it explains why the brakes and clutch feel totally fine.  It also explains why the squeak sometimes goes away when you turn the wheel because doing that with the car on stands exhibited the same behaviour.  I'm guessing the reason the squeak disappears after driving is that the cv boots warm up just enough to make the rubber soft enough not to squeak.

What a ridiculous problem.  At least I don't need to worry about it, just have to put up with the awful noise when it's cold.

Interesting one.  Glad it's been identified though as it was bugging the hell out of me and it's not even my car.

Wondering if something like bumper gel might work to provide just enough lubrication?  Or maybe belt dressing?

[vulgalour]

Belt dressing might make it worse as that would increase the friction I would have thought?  Bumper gel might do the trick, a friend suggested silicone spray which probably would do the trick but can be a bit sticky and pick up dirt.

[Noel Tidybeard]

dry lubricant like ptfe spray?

[Rocket88]

Smear of Vaseline?

[vulgalour]

I'll add them to the list of remedies to try.  Something has to work, right?

[Noel Tidybeard]

21 hours ago, Rocket88 said:

Smear of Vaseline?

[Rocket88]

4 hours ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

😀😀😀

[SilverMachine]

glad your feeling a bit more yourself fella, and hopefully closer to a full diagnosis! after just reading about your squeak discovery, i thought talc could maybe help, but that would negate any usefullness after becoming wet. Then i remembered windscreen wipers are covered in some sort of graphite as a lubricant, not a grease though! find a lump of graphite or dismantle several pencils and sand them to make a powder to use as a lubricant?  maybe not that much of a practical solution after all. am wondering now if new ones have any sort of graphite on them?

just of interest, what sort of spec was your main pc that decided it wanted retirement? apologies if you have already said!

[Zelandeth]

4 hours ago, SilverMachine said:

glad your feeling a bit more yourself fella, and hopefully closer to a full diagnosis! after just reading about your squeak discovery, i thought talc could maybe help, but that would negate any usefullness after becoming wet. Then i remembered windscreen wipers are covered in some sort of graphite as a lubricant, not a grease though! find a lump of graphite or dismantle several pencils and sand them to make a powder to use as a lubricant?  maybe not that much of a practical solution after all. am wondering now if new ones have any sort of graphite on them?

just of interest, what sort of spec was your main pc that decided it wanted retirement? apologies if you have already said!

Graphite powder should be available from any locksmith I'd think.

[vulgalour]

@SilverMachine the old machine was built on a tight budget with a mix of new and second hand parts (the oldest being a hard drive that was 14 years old when the PC died... but still works fine) and had provided more years of service than I ever expected it to.  It was almost obsolete when it was built, let alone now.  Don't have the specs to hand, I might have mentioned them before, but I was doing stuff with the machine that by rights it shouldn't have been able to do and it wasn't until I bought the second-hand laptop that I found out just how much it had been holding back my workflow and ability to do pretty much everything.  It was fine for Windows XP but it couldn't run Windows 11.

@Zelandeth I do have some graphite powder that I bought to sort out the starter motor which magically fixed itself so I'll add that to the list too.  Definitely less time consuming than processing pencils!

[bunglebus]

Just been having a nose at your items, some really fun stickers etc in there at a decent price so I may be making a purchase. Shame VW are so litigious as that's my main interest. 

Cheers for the follow back on Insta too, hopefully you won't be offended if I say I didn't realise how young you are, I just don't associate an Austin Princess with anyone below retirement age, even pink ones...

[vulgalour]

I shall take all of that as a compliment.  I am a sprightly 43 with the mind of an octagenarian.

[SilverMachine]

Octagenarian  =  8 legged old person......  just how my mind works. apologies....

2 videos in 2 days? your spoiling us sir! and i could show you worse cable management! proper wood furniture is the best, i have 2 small tables my late great uncle made and there great.  been sort of looking at beauraus wondering if i would use one... and where it could fit in!

 

[vulgalour]

14 hours ago, SilverMachine said:

Octagenarian  =  8 legged old person......  just how my mind works. apologies....

 

I'm definitely not three thousand spiders in a trench coat pretending to be a person.  Absolutely not.  What would ever give you that idea?

[SilverMachine]

6 hours ago, vulgalour said:

I'm definitely not three thousand spiders in a trench coat pretending to be a person.  Absolutely not.  What would ever give you that idea?

lol are you sure?

just the word, i am actually a couple years closer to getting my spider trench coat though!

[High Jetter]

8 hours ago, vulgalour said:

I'm definitely not three thousand spiders in a trench coat pretending to be a person.  Absolutely not.  What would ever give you that idea?

You have a web presence, shirley?

[vulgalour]

I'm getting caught up again on things.  Today I managed to finally clear my September work backlog, and I've made good headway on the October backlog too.  I've been picking away at video editing while I've been recovering so that means we can go back in time a bit to when I started the epic saga of the Princess rear brakes because I wanted to find out what was knocking...

I also put out a little vlog recently to get my Youtube audience up to speed on what's been happening, and a studio tour (marvel at my lack of space) so if that takes your fancy, have a gander.

Happily I can report I'm doing much better and I think by the time my most recent fit note expires later this month, I'll be almost back to my old self.  I've done the occasional full day of work, though I'm mostly still only able to do part time hours slowly with lots of rest between.  I'm finding and respecting my limits while I recover.  I'm also very keen to get back to work properly on my own terms which will mean me shouting for financial help a lot more than usual in the various places I occupy online so that I can achieve that.

Maybe one day I'll earn enough to buy a little house, that'd be nice.

[vulgalour]

This morning was another bit of a milestone for me.  I've managed to replace the rear axle support bracket on the passenger side that was completely shot and had been banging annoyingly, it also seems to have been the cause of the mystery full-body-shake the car had under heavy braking from speed so it's nice to have resolved that.  I do now have a couple of trim squeaks I can hear that I couldn't before, typically.  Unfortunately, even though it only took an hour and a half, that's my physical abilities spent for today if I want to stand any chance of being up to attending the gym tomorrow, something I'm currently only doing for half an hour a week, but which is good for my mobility and general mental health so I don't want to quit.

Getting used to this new way of doing things is very frustrating.  Respecting my limits is rough going, and it's far too easy to push just a little bit too far by accident and then ruin my whole week.  I just have to accept that some days I'm going to be able to do things and some days I'm not, and that slowly each day is getting a little bit better.

The job list on the Princess is getting shorter all the time too, which is nice:

• Valve shim correction - find the correct sized shim for the one slightly noisy valve
• Suspension - Regas all displacers, about £600-700 since it'll require a call out rather than me sending them off to be done.  Daily driver problems.
• Oil Leak - Fuel pump to head mounting point.  Going to re-gasket and re-goop it short term, long term I'm fitting an external electric pump to cure this fully
• Service - oil, coolant, plugs, etc.
• Welding - All four arches need attention, have the panels to do it.  Front inner arches have a couple of tiny patches needed in non critical spots, door bottoms all need a bit of attention
• Windscreen - new seal and NEW SCREEN to fit.  This is happening in spring.
• Paint - the roof is getting done first when the screen goes in, we'll do the rest as and when I can afford it.
• Headlights - Got a relayed harness to go in, but it's handed the wrong way, so I need to do some wire length changing to get it the right way around

It's not a bad list really, all very manageable.  The car is much happier now it's in regular use, as cars often are, and it's pretty cheap to run as a daily since there's no requirement for tax or MoT (it will get one eventually), and the insurance is absolute peanuts.  I feel like I made the right call keeping this one instead of keeping the Maestro as some folks had suggested I do when I had to make the call, this car is much nicer to be in and makes me happier, although I do miss having a hatchback with folding rear seats sometimes.

[vulgalour]

Had some snow to  clear off the car this morning.  Also managed to go to the gym, yesterday was a total bust for it but I managed a few more minutes and a bit more weight today so I'm feeling good about that as it's a step back towards full health.

Princess can be pretty cold blooded so she wasn't particularly keen to run nicely until there were a few miles under the tyres, after which she was fine.  We're at the time of year now where it's definitely unusual to be piloting something this old regularly.  I was particularly grateful today for the surprisingly fierce heater once there was enough heat in the engine for it to actually use.  Regular use has definitely cut the fogging up problem right down, even with the leaky windscreen seal (new seal and screen are waiting to go in, has to happen in spring when I'll have help and the roof painted).

I'm going to visit a local company called Pheonix (their spelling) who apparently do engine work, they might be able to sort out that valve shim so I don't have to.

[vulgalour]

Got to add tracking to the job list, and I'd forgotten that steering rack gaitors should have been on there too.  I'd been planning to do the gaitors earlier this year, the old ones have split right at the ends, but then I got ill.  Recently, I slammed into a pothole I didn't see until it was far too late - it was dark and misty and an unlit road - and it's knocked my tracking off a smidge so since the track rod ends need to come off to fit the gaitors anyway I think I'll chuck the whole job at the local garage and get it all done at once.

This week I've returned to work officially in a part time capacity too because my health is improved enough to allow it.  Hopefully the next week I'll be back full time.  I'm no longer getting the fatigue which is nice, instead I'm getting some degree of insomnia, and trouble multi-tasking sometimes.  I have to go quite slowly still, especially with anything that requires concentration, and I'm still limited on what I can do physically.  Happily, I do seem to be on the mend and I'm feeling a lot more like myself.

The other thing I'm hoping this means is I can start earning again.  Right now I'm reliant on benefits to keep me afloat because of being off sick and I want to get off them and live better.  Getting another 'regular job' at the moment isn't an option, that's the thing that put me in this mess on top of everything else, so I want to find ways of making my self-employment more profitable instead since I can manage my energy levels and sleep patterns a lot better with that than I can anything else.  Plus I enjoy my self-employment, it's very rewarding.  https://www.angyl.co.uk for more on what I do.

[vulgalour]

Part 2 of the brake job has been up on Youtube for a bit now.

Annual tradition happened too.

 

There will be more Princess vids soon, don't worry.  In other Princess news, while she's mostly being well behaved, today on investigating the lack of horn I learned the compressor for the air horn has seized.  I've tried the usual squirting of potions and percussive maintenance and all I got was a good spin, a bad spin, and then very hot test wires so I'd say that's pretty terminal.  It's only about £10-15 to replace it so I'll get a new one ordered.

[SilverMachine]

35 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

Part 2 of the brake job has been up on Youtube for a bit now.

Annual tradition happened too.

 

There will be more Princess vids soon, don't worry.  In other Princess news, while she's mostly being well behaved, today on investigating the lack of horn I learned the compressor for the air horn has seized.  I've tried the usual squirting of potions and percussive maintenance and all I got was a good spin, a bad spin, and then very hot test wires so I'd say that's pretty terminal.  It's only about £10-15 to replace it so I'll get a new one ordered.

yes quite suprising how uncommon those rear brake parts are, i did half expect them to be common parts bin items from the mgb, landcrab, maxi or moggy is there the possibility that these parts could be a viable conversion? also had me guessing when you were sat in the van, did think it was some kind of microcamper, not a chairman r5! was told recently that an airhorn set that plays the chorus from sandstorm,the popular darude single from a decade or so ago are apparently available, but ive not seen any on the normal places i buy stuff. may look on wish or something see if they appear there. van vid has appeared in the feed so will watch that soon! also is quite a rare thing that r5 chairman, although i remember mk3/4 escort versions and even metro ones, and an anglia one features alongside a mk1 capri in the low budget wingnut film 'bad taste' dont expect much from it and you will be entertained! especially if you know a derek! i digress, looking forward to seeing your progress!

as for insomnia, caffine in coffee or fizzy pop can contribute to that, also have your eating habits changed considerably or times you eat? is there more ambient light shining thru your curtains?  can also be a state of mind issue too. not sure what suppressed mine it gradually just went away, hopefully its just temporary. even being hungry will keep you awake longer. do you eat supper? many people dont, and you dont need to go mad! cereal, muesli, toastie whatever you feel even a few biccies or crackers with your hot chocolate but maybe avoid anything too heavy or oniony! hope that helps a little!

[vulgalour]

Ah Bad Taste, never a more aptly named film.  I genuinely expected the rear brakes to be compatible with something, anything, it's weird that they're not.  Same thing with the clutch slave cylinder, that's Princess/Ambassador specific and not shared with anything even though it looks really similar to a classic Mini item.  It is very tempting to get some musical horns but I think I'll stick to just the plain duo tone ones like I have fitted.

The van isn't a Chairman conversion.  That's also my first ever Preview video, so we'll have to see whether or not anyone turns up early for the chat on that one, not really sure what to expect there.

[SilverMachine]

5 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

The van isn't a Chairman conversion.  That's also my first ever Preview video, so we'll have to see whether or not anyone turns up early for the chat on that one, not really sure what to expect there.

apologies i was using chairman like people use hoover i did think you had mentioned it was formerly a wheelchair carrying van though? i could be wrong! did you see the amendments i put about insomnia, although that was related to your even earlier post

 

[vulgalour]

It is a wheelchair van but unusually, not done by a coachbuilder in the way Chairmans were.  As far as I can figure out so far, they were done in-house by Renault themselves by a specialist company Renault employed for the purpose.  Gotcha on the use of 'Chairman' like 'Hoover', makes sense.

I'd missed the edit on the post re: insomnia.  My eating habits etc. are still much the same they always are.  Since that last health update things have steadily improved.  I'm getting about 6 hours sleep a night, usually unbroken, and getting as much daylight as this time of year really allows.  I don't drink caffeine late, I barely have sugary drinks since I have to avoid sweeteners and sweeteners are in all the sugary drinks I used to enjoy now, and supper is a rarity.  The thing I'm having the most trouble with is pain.  I've had pain constantly for twenty years, that's nothing new, it's just the level of it since my recent spell of very bad health.  Ibuprofen were working, but since I maxed out the dosage and was getting bleeding gums, I've had to stop taking those.  Paracetamol and codeine which I've been prescribed recently don't touch the pain at all, might as well take Smarties.  The only thing offering me any relief, allbeit temporary, is hot baths.  When I get cold I physically seize up in addition to the pain, to the point I'm having to walk with a stick fairly often now.  This all lines up with the experience of others with ME that have reached out to me.

Since I can't get pain relief, I'm just tolerating it, out of necessity.  When I can manage it, I do some work outdoors for an hour or two and then rest for a few days.  I'm slogging away at my job doing 6-8 hours a day five days a week and it's helping keep my mind off the pain most of the time, except for when it isn't and it's so bad I can't draw or type or hold a cup, etc. Gym time is down from three 1 hour sessions a week, to one 30-40 minute session once a week at most.  I go to the gym because some movement is good, I have to be careful because too much exercise triggers the fatigue and stops me working.

Best of all, I'll get no answers until at least mid-February because of NHS waiting times and I can't afford to go private to get a quicker investigation/diagnosis.  On paper I'm fit and well, in reality I'm physically disabled, the Job Centre is not a fan of this and just want me in work unless I get a note from my gp.  I can get an indefinite fit note for 'stress' from the GP but then I can't do my self-employment.  It's rough.  I'm also moving house in a few months which I'm dreading as that's a lot more physical labour than I think I can really do easily and it's going to take a heavy toll on my ability to work and therefore earn.  I'm not letting myself worry about that for now, I'll deal with it when it happens.  Who knows, maybe my health will be better by then, it's so much better now than it was in October after all.

[bunglebus]

2 hours ago, vulgalour said:

the Job Centre is not a fan of this and just want me in work unless I get a note from my gp

Just keep at it with that lot, I'm pretty sure their role these days is to try and prevent spending, more than it is to provide the help that people need. I'm sure there are great individuals within the organisation but overall they're hard work to deal with.

Must be especially hard if you're on your own and finding things difficult anyway, best of luck and don't give up.

R5 van looks great, I'm still kicking myself because I dithered over one being offered on here years ago, for a giveaway price. I had my R5 Campus at the time which was a really fun thing to own, and a van with a ramp and higher roof would have been great for transporting bikes etc.

[vulgalour]

Keep an eye on this one then.  When I'm done with it the plan is to sell it and I reckon you could get a small motorbike in the back, or a couple of pushbikes, there's all the factory tie down points and even the wheelchair ratchet straps still present which is handy.  I just need to figure out how to get the rear lift/ramp wired up properly, everything is there apart from the wires themselves so hopefully it won't be that difficult to figure out.  I've got very little to actually do on it, which is good because I didn't want a project, so when I come to sell it the van should be all sorted and road legal and whatnot... I hope.