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1980 Austin Princess


vulgalour

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Addendum to the Week 18 update.

 

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Got the call from the garage to collect the car.  A test run had been done to make sure the brakes were behaving properly and all systems seemed good.  A good run back of about 40 miles or so.  After a few miles it was very clear the brakes were indeed much improved so I decided to see just how much the Princess really would let me put the hammer down once we got onto faster roads.  It was quite blowy on the A1M so it was a bit of a handful at 70mph, and clearly the car is happier in the 55-65mph bracket so I dropped down to that after a short time. It also became clear that the driver's side front wheel bearing will need replacing soon, at higher speeds it's just started to make the same sorts of noises the passenger side one had.  It would have been done at the same time as the other one had the kit I bought not been incorrect, so I'll order a new kit and DIY now I stand a chance of getting the hub nut off.  There's also a slight vibration at 70mph that feels like one wheel is slightly out of balance, which is either that or the wheel bearing that I'll need to replace.

 

Certainly, no real causes for concern on the way home and it was nice to be able to drive it again.  One quirk I didn't realise the car even had was when it was mentioned it was a bit awkward about going from second to third gear, sometimes requiring a double de-clutch.  I paid attention to my own gear changes on the way home and it turns out I automatically knock the car briefly into neutral when going from second to third, because it you try and force it straight from one to the other, it doesn't want to.  I tended to have issues going from third to second, turns out I don't automatically drop into neutral between the two when I do that.  I'm not really sure what could be causing this, perhaps something synchromesh related, but it's not a problem for me and certainly not something that makes the car dangerous in any way, so I'll leave it as is.

 

The used spare discs I had were perfectly servicable once skimmed.  I would still like to overhaul all of the front brake components and get them in the best health all the same, I just have a bit more breathing space on that now since it's £150 minimum to get the parts needed to do it all.  Once shown the disc that was causing the problem, it was very easy to see the issue and clear that it was indeed warped as well as having a small piece missing just at the point of the warp.

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It's nice to have that sorted properly and it gives me a bit of education on what a warped disc feels like to drive with, and what it looks like, should it happen again.

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End of Week 19 report.

Not a lot to report, the most exciting thing I did this week was vacuum the cabin and order parts.  I've got new front brake discs and pads, I'm going to rebuild the spare calipers so they're good as new, a pair of lower ball joints are on their way and a new wheel bearing kit is heading over for the driver's side which has started grumbling.

I had a trip to York to do today, about 120 mile round trip, and while I trust the Princess could do it I didn't want to tempt fate with that grumbling wheel bearing given the distance and the higher speeds I'd be travelling at so I chickened out and got a lift in the housemate's Range Rover.  This turned out to be a good idea as I wasn't feeling too well on the way home so it was nice not to have to do the driving.

The trip to York was to collect a few interior bits for the BX and if I'm feeling better tomorrow, I'll be working on that for a little bit.  Princess is still doing my regular duties, I'm just avoiding any sort of 50mph+ long drives until I've done the wheel bearing.

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End of Week 20 Report

 

Coolant - no noticeable usage

Oil - 400ml required.  This is likely down to the motorway mileage done recently, does tend to consume a bit when doing higher speeds.

 

This week some goodies arrived.  New brake pads, new discs, pair of lower ball joints, and a correct wheel bearing kit.  Delivered, this was around £120, so a fairly big spend by my standards.  The discs are one of the most expensive items to acquire, and one of the most needed.

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I also had a look at cleaning up my spare gear selector box.  The one on the car has had a bolt in place of one of the pins all the while I've owned it and you need to periodically tighten said bolt if you want to keep gear selection.  I was hoping I could simply clean down the spare and swap it over.

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Here you can see the pins that push into the casing.  These are used to locate the bayonet-slot cup that holds the gear level ball and spring in place.  The pins had a reputation for snapping off and while it's not terribly difficult to put another pin in, most folks seem to have bodged whatever they had to hand in there instead.

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One thing I noticed on my spare was that the base plate had been whacked from the side.  I'm not entirely sure how you'd manage to do this other than perhaps hitting it with forklift arms when moving the car around, so perhaps that's what happened.

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Unfortunately, when I finally cut through the thick layer of gunk on the casing I found that it's very badly damaged with several cracks.  It's realistically beyond repair and certainly not suitable for swapping with my original so I'll just have to look at getting the original repaired properly with a new pin when I have an opportunity to take it all apart.

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The other thing I wanted to find was a new steering column bush.  Thankfully, Beiderbecke of the www.leylandprincess.co.uk club had the part number available (along with those goodies at the start of the post) and I've since learned the same bush is used on a variety of BL stuff and is still readily and cheaply available.  I can get the bottom bush too.  This was an advisory on the MoT and I'd like it not to be on the next one so I'll get some new replacements since they're only a couple of quid.  Fortunately my spare steering column helped me see what parts I needed without taking my car apart.

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Today, I tackled the wheel bearing that couldn't be done at the garage because one of the kits I'd bought was wrong.  I'd been told the job is fairly easy and it is, especially when the garage has already undone everything and put it back together again, so it was really about as pleasant as any job with your head in a wheel arch can get.

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The most difficult part was getting the old oil seals out, the rest of the job was very straightforward.  The old bearings felt a little bit gritty once removed and the noise it had been making made it clear it was ready to be done.

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I would have liked to do the ball joints next but I didn't have a socket that was the correct size, all the imperial and metric sockets I had access to were just a little too big, or just a little too small, so I'll have to go and buy a socket just for this job.  That's fine, more tools is good.  Instead, I turned my attention to the spare front hubs and removed the calipers ready to rebuild them.  I noticed that the caliper on the car that was on the warped disc is sticking a little as suspected, so the new brakes are going to sort that out before it becomes a bigger problem any time soon.  The front flexi hoses looked in reasonable condition so I'm hoping I don't need to replace those since I'm not sure I've got a set of fronts, just rears.  I noticed that one of the spare calipers looks to have barely used pads in and one caliper is much cleaner and newer looking so I wonder if the car they came off had brake work just before it came off the road in the 90s.  Don't worry, I won't be re-using the old pads, it's merely an observation.

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The drive home revealed all the bearing noise is now gone.  Now the loudest thing is the noisy speedo cable, (I have been given a suggestion on how to improve that which I'll be trying soon), the tyres, and the wind noise from the driver's door window seal, so I'm getting down the list.  I even found the reason for the tyre rubbing on the arch liner, which is that the liner had cracked around one of the fixing screws and the screw had fallen out, so the liner isn't sitting as far back in the arch as it should.  There's always jobs to do, they're just not big scary jobs any more.

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It was suggested I fit a rubber O ring under the collar that screws into the gearbox to take out the slop that causes the rattle so I'm going to give that a go.  If it works, it's an easy fix for you too, maybe.  I don't have a radio to turn up and I can only put up with my own singing for so long.

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S'funny, someone said the same thing over on the blue forum and yes, I think it probably is.  I know that there's a few parts bin bits on the Princess shared with the Mini so it wouldn't surprise me if this was one of those items.  On the plus side, that means potentially I could fit a better selector box intended for a Mini to improve the gearchange.  I can get some measurements for you so we can see if they are.  If you've a spare looking for a use and it is suitable, I'd gladly rehome it for you.

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S'funny, someone said the same thing over on the blue forum and yes, I think it probably is.  I know that there's a few parts bin bits on the Princess shared with the Mini so it wouldn't surprise me if this was one of those items.  On the plus side, that means potentially I could fit a better selector box intended for a Mini to improve the gearchange.  I can get some measurements for you so we can see if they are.  If you've a spare looking for a use and it is suitable, I'd gladly rehome it for you.

Excellent.

I have one in the shed so ill dig it out over the weekend and share a picture with some measurements.

If it is the Mini type, then a KAD quickshift might be an option for you.

They are a bit marmite as the close the gate right up making the gears really close together and some people hate that but I personally prefer it.

If you don't hear anything from me about it, then feel free to PM me and remind me.

 

Cheers

Ben

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Will do.  I don't really understand how the remote selector box could improve the gate spacing, I would have thought that was dictated by the gearbox internals.  Still, a slightly less separate-postcode-for-each-gear approach to selection would be welcome.

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There is a change in the ratio of the lever arm that the thing braces against to actually push the selector shafts.

 

I had a short-shift arm that came with the replacement gearshift lever for the Renault and while it made the gears really close together it also made the shift intolerably heavy.

 

The action of improving the bushings made a significant improvement to the standard factory position of the gears though.

 

 

Phil

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  • 2 weeks later...

End of Week 22 Report.

 

I forget to do an end of week report for Week 21, so I've rolled the two together.

 

On attempting to rebuild the spare calipers I've got, we learned that 3 of the 4 pistons in each caliper are completely stuck in place.  We also learned the old brake pad retaining pieces are rusted away, like so.

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This is an ongoing issue, so far we've tried putting 300psi of pressure into the calipers and the pistons simply won't budge so it may be a job I have to farm out.  I'm loathe to dismantle the brakes on the car in case something goes wrong and I end up without the car, so I've basically done nothing with the brakes since fitting the skimmed disc to solve the warped disc issue.  This is fine as a short term solution, but not as a long term one and it's annoying to have the new parts to go on the car, but not quite be able to fit them because I want the calipers rebuilt to make the best of the job I possibly can.  I don't want an old sticking caliper or similar to ruin a set of brand new discs and pads.

 

The massive socket I ordered arrived so I could do the balljoint that was advised at MoT.  I re-used the old shim which seemed to be the correct size, fortunately.  I've not done pre-load balljoints like these before so I'm hoping I did it right, time will tell of course if these wear out much sooner than they should.  The passenger side wasn't advised but I wanted to do it anyway, I was thwarted by simply not being strong enough to undo the balljoint that's fitted, even with very long poles.  It could do with being on the workshop lift, but that's been occupied for quite some time by a Rover 75 so I just decided to leave that side alone for now.  Here's new and old parts.  I did have to swap the spring-type o-ring from the old balljoint boot to the new one because the new balljoint boot had a rubber o-ring that wasn't strong enough to hold the boot in place.

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Next MoT item was the upper steering column bush.  This is fortunately an easy part to get, shared with a plethora of BL vehicles.  Removal is somewhat involved, requiring this scene to happen again.

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Eventually I had the inner column out of the outer sheath and had the old bush removed.  It was very clear to see where the play was coming from once it was removed, the whole thing had shattered.

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I couldn't find a replacement bush for the lower end of the column but given how tight a fit the existing one is and how fiddly it was to reassemble everything as a result, I doubt that's going to be a problem.  Unlike other BL stuff, the Princess has a narrower bush at the bottom of the column of a different design to the top one, and I couldn't find that part, so I'm glad the one on the car was okay.  Assembly was fairly straightforward and I've now got rid of an occasional dashboard squeak and a dashboard rattle I couldn't place, so that was a happy little bonus.  Steering feels more direct, and also heavier at lower speeds, the latter is less welcome than the former.

 

The other item I wanted to resolve was the interior light.  I'd had a problem with the old festoon bulb melting the holder, which is also integral for the rear view mirror.  I had a spare, and that too had obviously suffered the same issue since it had a partially melted spot where mine had a melted hole.  To resolve this I ordered a warm white LED - this was a pain to find, ended up going to my local motorfactors and special ordering it - since I hate ultra bright LEDs in cars.  The light quality isn't as nice as the old incandescent bulb, but now it never gets hot so I'll never have the melted holder issue.

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Next up was to try and identify the cause of the minor oil leak.  Normally, I'd just take this opportunity to wave my hands in the vague direction of the car itself.  However, I wanted to be a little more methodical so I started by giving the engine bay a quick clean down.

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That highlighted that the wiring that runs across the front of the block needed to be re-wrapped.  The old electrical tape someone had used has gone brittle and isn't sticky on the inside any more so it just flakes off.  This had been hidden when the engine was much oilier on the outside than it is these days.

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The main oil leak at the front is the O-ring for the distributor shaft.  I've had recurrent problems with this as finding an o-ring that's the correct size is surprisingly difficult and after a while, they seem to stop being effective which means it weeps oil all down the front of the block, into the spark plug wells, and onto the floor.  You can see from the cleaner portions where the oil has been seeping.

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The other oil leak was a surprise.  The engine used to be very oily on the passenger driveshaft side and I'd assumed this was the driveshaft seal.  It's not, the oil is actually seeping up from the speedo cable.  Another o-ring here should fix that and might even fix the rattle it has.

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Happily, the rebuilt carburettor is staying spotlessly clean, never sweats fuel, and never gets oily.

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I gave the fluids a check too.  Brake fluid isn't terrible, though will be changed when I do the brakes.  Coolant has gone from being quite blue to now being very pale blue, the gunge in the bottle is just residue on the bottle itself, I could do with chucking the whole bottle in a dishwasher really.  Oil is getting ready for a change, it's not terrible, but it's due June/July time anyway.

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The underside of the engine used to always be slightly greasy looking.  Now it's mostly dry apart from the aforementioned leak points.  This is a huge improvement over when I bought the car and I'm happy about it.

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Another irritation has also been solved which was something rubbing on a tyre on full lock and certain suspension articulation points.  Turns out, one of the arch liners had got broken and an edge was catching the tyre.  I trimmed that back and the problem is now gone.  Shown here is the good side and the now-trimmed broken side.

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Other than that, the only problem its thrown at me is that the alternator is sporadically charging incorrectly, not at all, or too much.

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The massive socket I ordered arrived so I could do the balljoint that was advised at MoT.  I re-used the old shim which seemed to be the correct size, fortunately.  I've not done pre-load balljoints like these before so I'm hoping I did it right, time will tell of course if these wear out much sooner than they should.  The passenger side wasn't advised but I wanted to do it anyway, I was thwarted by simply not being strong enough to undo the balljoint that's fitted, even with very long poles.  It could do with being on the workshop lift, but that's been occupied for quite some time by a Rover 75 so I just decided to leave that side alone for now.  Here's new and old parts.  I did have to swap the spring-type o-ring from the old balljoint boot to the new one because the new balljoint boot had a rubber o-ring that wasn't strong enough to hold the boot in place.

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These bastards only concede to high levels of heat and violence.

 

Warm up the housing with a blowtorch until it smells like all the grease inside has melted.

 

Wearing welding gauntlets reach for you biggest stilson wrench.

 

Apply it to the nut or the housing for the rubber grease cap and give it a tug.

 

If it doesnt move, more heat to the housing

 

if it still doesnt move a 2ft extension to the stilson handle.

 

if it still doesnt move more heat

 

It will concede I assure you

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happy to see things are continuing to go relatively well :)

 

on the festoon bulb front, are things melting from poor electrical contact, or from the heat of the bulb?

 

if so it might be worth making sure the festoon bulb you have fitted is not too high a wattage for the application (iv seen Festoon bulbs in everything from 5W to 21W)

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Heat of the bulb.  You can't actually turn the interior light off so if you leave the door open the bulb does get hot enough to melt the plastic of the holder, which is exactly what's happened.  Some sort of heatshield would have fixed it, or the ability to turn the switch to an off position, but I guess BL didn't have that much money available.

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