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1980 Austin Princess


vulgalour

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It's synthetic enamel, tractor/machinery/modern coach paint basically.  Roller or brush on, fairly low odour, minimal fuss, single stage.  I probably would have got a better first finish with rollers given how quick the paint's drying but that's much messier to apply so I'll persevere with brushes.  The Rustoleum is what I used before and it's okay, but does need a lacquer to stop it fading on top so it takes a lot longer to do and is much more pricey than going the brush-paint route.

Engine wise, there's one popped up in Buckingham on eBay (well two, technically, with the same seller) that's NOS from a Marina and I'm probably going to go for that one since it's easier to collect and we've made a space for it to live until I'm ready to fit it, providing it remains in budget.  Have decided to not worry about having the Princess on the road just at the moment and instead concentrate on all the jobs I want to get done, so that's paint and new engine, suspension when I've saved up for it, and windscreen when I've saved up for that.  Next year it should then all be sorted I hope.

Hopefully this focus on the existing projects is going to pay dividends even though there's strong temptation to adopt something new while I'm without personal transport.

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The synthetic resin enamel does dry a bit quick,I used a lot of it over the last few years on motorcycles. My dad had some craftmaster coach paint which I used on a few projects and it is simply the best brush paint I have ever used,it is more expensive than what you would be used to paying but I would hundred percent recommend trying some if you want a satisfying painting experience.oh,and you have turned a car I hated into one k like,so top marks!

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The black should go better, it always has when I've used it before.  I was toying with going for a more expensive paint (didn't know about Craftmaster), but instead went for somewhere in the middle.  Had I not bought enough to do the whole car I'd definitely go and buy some more, as it is I'll just stick with it and adjust my technique.  Small areas, worked quickly, seems to be the best approach.  Get it nice and smooth and very quickly dress it lightly once or twice and then leave it alone was giving me the smoothest results so that's what I'll go with.  I'm used to putting on long slow strokes and then dressing a few times in opposing directions before moving on.  This will just have to do for now.  Nothing a bit of wet and dry and some elbow grease with the polish can't sort after.

The brushes, I should mention, were recommended by @puddlethumper and are Hamilton Perfection pure bristle, a very comfortable brush to use, and really nice bristles, a very well behaved brush too so the paint actually goes where you tell it to.  Definitely worth the asking price which seems much more reasonable once you've used the brushes for a bit.

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That was a fun project. I have been plotting some more lace paint, as it happens, I just haven't settled on a design yet and I want to see how the car looks in just the black and pink before I start making it any fussier.  The black wing mirrors are making a comeback, and the Lotus wheels too once I've got the paint to sort those out.  This was 2013/4, how time flies!

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28 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

I was having the most trouble on the bonnet and roof, as it happens, I imagine a roller would help me get the paint down quicker in a thin even coat compared to the brushes?

For roof and boot I would definitely use a roller first then a brush with very little paint on it. Work the brush towards where  you have painted to blend it. Keeping a wet edge as short as possible is best so the edge where you began is not starting to dry before you get back to it. 

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26 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

That was a fun project. I have been plotting some more lace paint, as it happens, I just haven't settled on a design yet and I want to see how the car looks in just the black and pink before I start making it any fussier.  The black wing mirrors are making a comeback, and the Lotus wheels too once I've got the paint to sort those out.  This was 2013/4, how time flies!

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I remember some sort of lines with lots of 90* angles? Bit like the tubes screensaver from Windows 95?! 

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I don't know?  Can I swap the crank out of the FWD into the RWD?  I can't find anything conclusive about the compatibility of RWD and FWD O series, just hearsay of "it's the same engine, it should work" and, on the face of it, they do look the same.

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Just had a quick browse of the archives for some engine refs.  With the clutch assembly being on the end (or back, in the Marina) of the block I'd being working on the understanding it would be the same crank application since the crank is driving all of this to connect via cogs to the gearbox in the sump, rather than the gearbox sticking off the back of the engine.

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But if that's not the case, I'm happy to be educated before spending money.  On all of the pictures of the RWD application I've seen, all the bits look the same except for the gearbox which is the conventional long thing for the Marina etc, and this stubby satellite thing on the Princess.  I honestly don't know which approach BL would have taken in the development on this, the gearbox in sump is already weird enough so it wouldn't surprise me at all if the actual engine, crank, etc. was exactly the same between the two.  Then again, I say that as an engine luddite so I'm probably talking out of my bottom.

Edited to add:  the gearbox end of a Marina/RWD application engine.  I'm guessing/hoping the shaft in the Princess clutch housing thingy goes into the end of the crankshaft just the same on this engine as on the Princess.  Everything else (sump aside) looks identical between RWD and FWD application.

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6 hours ago, vulgalour said:

Engine wise, there's one popped up in Buckingham on eBay (well two, technically, with the same seller) that's NOS from a Marina and I'm probably going to go for that one since it's easier to collect and we've made a space for it to live until I'm ready to fit it, providing it remains in budget.

Don't know how far away you are but I am in Buckingham so if you wanted me to give the engine(s) a quick once over and maybe take some photos of the crank end let me know the address and I could pop round.
 

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Thank you for the offer, if I need to call you in as our expert in the field, I will :) We're about 2 hours drive from Buckingham, as it happens.

Been doing some more searching and I'm moderately certain the crankshafts are actually the same.  Over on LeylandPrincess there's a handy engine rebuild with a useful shot of the gearbox end http://www.leylandprincess.co.uk/enginerebuild.htm

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This looks, to my eye, the same as the same end on the Marina.  Aronline has an article on the O Series and it's suggested there that the benefit of the O Series was that it could be mated to both the FWD gearbox and the RWD gearbox and used pretty much across the entire range as a result with minimal cost.  Additionally, there's a couple of crankshafts listed on eBay as being suitable for both Marina, Sherpa, Princess, and Ambassador applications and while none of this is absolute knowledge, it does all point at it arguably being a straight swap for the engine at least.  I feel like it's a calculated risk at this point, though an expensive one.

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Another little paint update.  With what was left in my first 1 litre tin I had a bit of an experiment off car with some thinners and found that if I thinned the paint to more the consistency of single cream it actually didn't dry as quickly and could be dressed out.  However, once thinned and done on a larger area than my test sample, I found the paint wasn't actually flowing as well as I'd like and drying with brush streaks in.  This isn't the end of the world, however, because I now know roughly how much to dilute the paint so that I'll have enough time to dress it with a brush after applying with a gloss roller, per @puddlethumper's recommendation.  I feel like I'm in a more comfortable place with it.  The bonnet was easily one of the worst panels for the streaky look, as you can see in this close up.

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The other issue is that the first coat of paint hasn't hardened as much as I need it to in order to take out the worst of the problems on the surface so I'm going to leave this for about a week before having another stab at it.  Experience has taught me it takes 4-6 days with synthetic enamels, when used outdoors in cooler weather, before it gets hard enough to really cut it back heavily.  At the moment the paint still feels a bit plastic-y, for want of a better description, it's hard enough you can't dig a fingernail into it, but if you go at it too much with sandpaper it just clogs the paper after a while.  After a few days, this plastic feeling goes away and the paint usually sands very nicely.  If you do this job indoors in a heated environment, it hardens much quicker.

It looks okay for now, though I do wish I'd gone with a different, and probably more expensive, brand.  Ah well.  Worst case is I waste my time with this pink and have to redo it with better paint, that's hardly the end of the world.  Also of note is that with the second coat, in person at least, the pink isn't so vibrant and is more towards the colour I expected, more of an orange hue to it in all lights now.

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I ran out of thinners today too so I'll get a fresh tin ordered and some decent gloss rollers before we try for coat three.  The first two coats were done with just one litre so I should have more than enough to do the whole thing since I've still got two litres of paint that aren't thinned down just for the pink, and another three litres for the black which is less surface area.

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Currently pink over the previous dark red, though the colours are close enough that it does make it look like the red is the pink in shadow.  Eventually it'll be pink over black, like the lower of these two mock-ups I did.

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Once I've got the black and pink done, then I can judge whether or not to go with any of the detail pieces like coachlines.  It may get a twin copper line on the pink to echo the original trim option, and I've some badge options that may or may not appear on the car.  Just want to get the black and pink done first and see how I feel afterwards.

 

 

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The engine plan has changed slightly in that because I'm going to have to at least partially pull apart a new engine to inspect it, might as well pull the one I've got apart first before committing to buying a new engine.  I need to get tools anyway - engine crane and stand of the folding variety ordered so I stand a chance of fitting them in my limited space when out of use - whichever route I go and I'm not in a rush to get this all done.  So, we'll pull the original engine, and go through it to find out what if anything is amiss.  If it turns out the existing engine needs serious work, then I'll buy a new one to replace it and do the inspection thing.  If it turns out the internals on the engine are well within tolerance and the issue is with the head, or just the head gasket, then I'll have sorted the issue for less outlay and have peace of mind that the engine is in good shape.

I'm considering sending both heads to a reputable machine shop and asking them to build one good one out of the best bits of both.  I'm also looking to get the distributor replaced/refurbished while I have everything apart.  The block will also get inspected by someone that knows about engines.  Consider this a winter project, 2020 has been a bust for events anyway so it's a good time to disable the car for a bit to get to the bottom of whatever it is that's wrong with this engine.

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Found a break between dry spells to stand in the rain and do the compression test today.  Took me a moment to realise I could unscrew the end fitting on the compression tester I bought to get to the smaller fitting and o-ring rather than trying to rely on the rubber cone adaptor, so I'm hoping that has lead to accurate readings.  The readings were consistent, so that's good.

First job is to take out the spark plugs.  1 (I've numbered the cylinders 1-4 from left to right as you look at the engine from the front, easy for me to remember and not get muddled) was paler than the other three so that's where I expected the problem to be.  3 is a bit of a nuisance to get out, thank goodness for ratcheting spanners.

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Workshop manual tells me the compression ratio is 9:1 on this engine and it should be giving me a reading of 170-195psi.  Here's what I got.

Cylinder - First reading - Second reading
1 - 85 - 80
2 - 158 - 158
3 - 145 - 145
4 - 150 - 150

All those numbers tell me is what I already knew, which is that the head gasket has failed.  I'm guessing the low reading on cylinders 2, 3, and 4 is in part due to the blown head gasket and in part due to 40-odd years of wear and tear on things like the piston rings.

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