project 1980 Austin Princess

[MikeKnight]

What the fuck do your neighbours think? 

 

Adding to what vulg said; it helps that we have a fence and hedge blocking the view for most of our neighbours and there's really only the house directly opposite that can see our drive. They've never complained.

 

I'm feeling much better now.

[vulgalour]

Today involved some of this because it's once again glorious and lovely.

20180420-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The back door needed rather more filler work than I'd expected and there's plenty of imperfections still remaining on this side.  I'm fed up of constantly trying to find enough time to make things perfect so I'm embracing the imperfections that need hours and hours of hand sanding to resolve and instead getting myself a reasonable 6' finish on everything. Much less stress and the car will look much nicer.  I can always deal with those imperfections a panel at a time in the future, or get someone else to do it for me if ever I can afford a proper respray.  For now, it's all a case of Thistle Dew.

20180420-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180420-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180420-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Oh yeah.  I changed the colour again.  Thank you to the three people I told for keeping it secret!  When I redyed the orange carpet the result was so good it made me rethink the purple and what I could go with that would match the beige.  I had briefly considered two-tone grey with an orange pin stripe but the amount of work involved to redo things like the engine bay put paid to that drastic a colour change.  Orange, equally, didn't go so well with the beige and I didn't fancy brown because there's already two-tone brown-and-beige Princesses in existence.  So I went with Rustoleum Balmoral to compliment the Rustoleum Antique White.  I'm glad I took the chance, I like this more than the purple, and if it mellows a little darker I won't mind that at all either.

 

Why Rustoleum?  It's easy to get, it's cheap, and it's proven to be really good for this sort of work on other cars.  I've used lacquer over the top of it in addition for the extra protection and to hopefully prevent colour fade but, really, I've found this paint to be pretty durable even when applied hastily and neglected.  It's good stuff, I'd recommend it.  You'll just have to pretend the whole car is going to look this smart when I'm done.

20180420-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

[JeeExEll]

Red !!

 

Looks good

[Parky]

Now that I do like. The purple was nice but that red really suits it.

 

Rustoleum is excellent paint too - are you using the Painters Choice variant or the standard stuff?

[320touring]

Just seen this on Twitter - looks fucking amazing:)

 

Love it!

[danthecapriman]

That does look smart! I prefer that to the purple.

 

 

Reminds me of British Rail ‘blood and custard’ livery!

 

[SiC]

From these mobile pictures that looks really good. What is it like close up?

 

Did you spray or brush paint it on?

[vulgalour]

Cheers chaps

 

Close up it's slightly orange-peel, as you'd expect for a fresh paint job.  I've not wet sanded or polished it yet  and the camera is fairly representative of the actual finish.  It's not a very deep shine, but that's okay, it is at least shiny now.

 

It's sprayed rather than brushed, and is the Painter's Choice range of colours which can be got for as little as a fiver for a 400ml can.  This portion of the car too about 2.5 cans to get a reasonable coverage, it could happily take the same again and likely will when I iron out the smaller imperfections at a later date.

[320touring]

That's not too bad cost wise

[plasticvandan]

The red is the nuts,makes the purple look pants! Based on my experience of using tractor paint/rustolieum,dont use t cut or anything with petroleum/ammonia,it melts the paint,but,especially in the heat we've had,you can ignore the wait 2 weeks brigade and wetsand with say 800g and I used g3 colour restorer to polish it up,then turtlewax,worked a treat for me

[Felly Magic]

That really suits it, I bet the paint was drying very quickly in this heat. It has been an absolute scorcher here in Zuffolk

[Parky]

Did my lawnmower with Painters Choice. Bloody excellent paint

[vulgalour]

Drying times weren't too bad.  By working on the shade of the house it's just about perfect and when I'm done I roll the car down the drive to bake in the sun.  Couldn't ask for a better set up in the circumstances really.

[oldcars]

That looks brilliant, duotone like the 75s. 

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I'd do it Champagne beige with the bumpers refitted. 

[Asimo]

 

Crying out for a Starsky and Hutch Torino stripe.

 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

 

39776255480_98a1c1c754_b.jpg

 

Crying out for a Starsky and Hutch Torino stripe.

 

Picture 10.png

Reminds me more of this:

 

[JeeExEll]

^^ Hey, a 100s and 1000s finish on the rear pillar and roof would be fab.

Literally.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

^^ Hey, a 100s and 1000s finish on the rear pillar and roof would be fab.

Literally.

The vinyl surface represents this quite well, I think.

[vulgalour]

If I take the paint off it'll rust to roughly the same texture fairly rapidly.  I'm gonna go fit some 20" wheels now and Fab branding all over and turn it into a donk.

[JeeExEll]

Just joking Vulg.

 

Do you have a 'concept vision' of what you want with the car?

Seems to be a very 70s custom approach of 'see how it goes' ATM.

Which is good.

(But, being an artist, have you done any concept drawings?).

[Tadhg Tiogar]

Just joking Vulg. ...

I wasn't!!

[somewhatfoolish]

Having perused the giffer trinket thread eye r disapoint that there's no chrome vinyl wrapping going on.

[vulgalour]

I should talk about The Plan a little I suppose, because there is one with the car even though it might not seem that way.  Some parts of the car are spot on for what I wanted now.  Some parts need much more work. In short:  late 70s/early 80s mild custom.

 

Front

The MG B lights were the best fit I could find at the time.  The longer they've been there the happier I've become with them.  I haven't found anything I like better and they look correct for the age of the mods I'm going for.  Also, they're really very visible in use, which is a big bonus.  The only thing I want to change on the front is to get the lights hidden, my ideal would be motorised flaps to give the illusion of a full width grille, it's just a looooong way down my list of stuff because the front end looks fairly well resolved now, bar the paintwork.

 

Rear

I'm almost as happy with this as I am the front now.  The BMW lights and more modern inner lights were the closest I could get to what I wanted at the time and while I prefer them over the stock lights, they aren't exactly what I want.  Now I have the 60s Ford lights I can put a proper matched pair in and get this sorted when I have some time to do so.  The new lights will also allow me to lose the foglights hanging under the car.  I'm really happy with the frenched number plate.  I'd like to figure out a tidy way to hide the exhaust tip too, or perhaps fit a dummy to the other side just to balance the rear end out a bit better.  I'm in two minds about keeping the boot badging, I think it helps to  balance out the proportions a bit but it's not in keeping with the sort of mods that were done in the style I'm going for.  The only other thing I want for the rear end is a rear window louvre, of which I've seen photos of a grand total of two for the Princess, I can see myself making one of these.

 

Profile

The side view of the car is almost exactly what I want now.  The beige-over-red looks right (and seems universally approved of, which is surprising) and helps take a lot of the height out of the bodywork while also making it look longer and sharper.  The black satin C pillar I like  since it blends in with the door frames and window rubbers and helps make the roof almost look like it's floating.  I won't be making the roof or A pillars black because leaving them beige helps the bodylines look better.  I'd like to get a light tint on the windows, it's a bit of a greenhouse with the untinted glass, I just can't decide on whether to go grey or brown for that at the moment.  I will be reattaching the stainless sill trim that runs along the top edge of the sill as this will again help with  making the body look longer and leaner and protect the doors from stone chips.  I won't be reattaching the chrome arch trims, it's too much and will make things look fussy.  I also think I'm leaving the door handles chrome, they work perfectly fine against the colours and  repainting them bodycolour is going to tip me a bit further towards 90s styling than I'd like to go.

 

Interior

This is the most finished part of the car, really.  I do plan to repaint the dash insert in copper to match in better than the current purple and I'll probably be  retrimming the parcel shelf in buttoned black vinyl or velour (if I can find a black velour that isn't prone to UV damage as the current stuff is).  I'd like to fit the Ambassador electric windows that I've got in the front.  I'd like to replace the gearknob, ideally with the goldstone ball I have (drilling glass is... problematic).  That's really it.  I like the Princess interior pretty much as it came from the factory and I don't feel like retrimming absolutely everything is going to offer me any benefits

 

Wheels

Lotus wheels for the summer (maybe even this year!) and chrome smoothie trims for the rest of the time is the plan.  I'm happy with both these set ups and they both look really right on the car.  I've toyed with white or redline (rather than full fat walls) tyres just because, but honestly, plain black is fine.  I've no intention of painting the letters on the tyres, I'm not going in that direction.

 

Engine

There's nothing I want to do here either.  Leaving it standard is fine.  I'll tart up a few bits and pieces, repaint the purple bits orange or copper to match the rest, but other than that there's nothing to worry about on this front.

 

So there you go, that's the plan.  It's taken far longer to get here than I wanted because of circumstances but it should come together fairly rapidly visually now I have everything lined up for it.  Getting that big portion of the paint finished has been a huge boost for me.  I look at the car and I actually like seeing a good section of it looking finished, rather than half-done. It's tricky, really, to convince other folks that it'll be done one day because it's been part-done for such a long time!  There's the doubters too, of course, that don't think I'll ever finish it (and sometimes it has felt that way too), but I'm feeling much more optimistic about my chances now.

 

I'll be finishing the paint on this side of the car, then the face and boot lid, then the driver's side last since that needs the the most amount of fettling before paint.  The rear panel I'll do once the rest of the car is sorted out.  The bonnet, for the time being, I'm leaving completely alone. It's a huge flat panel, it's going to be an absolute chore to paint and, ideally, I need to get it off the car to do a good job since I'm going to be restricted to rattle cans on it.  I'm seriously tempted fork out to get a 70s mural airbrushed on the bonnet, I have some ideas for that I've been keeping to myself (and will continue to keep to myself), the challenge there is going to be finding an artist I can trust to do a decent job.  I don't want the bonnet mural to end up being on the receiving end of Billy's observations!

[JeeExEll]

Fair enough, carry on . . .

But maybe the bonnet muriel best left til latr.

Hey ho, it's your car Vulg, and to fuck with what anyone else thinks,

[vulgalour]

Mural is the very last thing on the list and an idea I may well ditch once the bonnet is repainted.

[DodgeRover]

Do I foresee an oiled Conan the Barbarian as a mural on the bonnet. As long as it isn't wolves or dolphins carry on Sir!

[vulgalour]

Definitely not animal related.  Though now you've mentioned Conan, I'm sticking Grace Jones on my mural list.

[chodweaver]

What about one of the MP3 adaptor units from ebay that include bluetooth an SD and USB slot? You'll need to run a separate amp as they don't have the output to run anything directly.

Will find an ebay link later.

 

 

Edit like this one

https://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/new-Car-Audio-Bluetooth-USB-SD-TF-MP3-WMA-Board-12V-Wireless-Player-WMA-Speaker/112655170227

What is it with the Chinese and those effing awful fonts on the front panel!

[somewhatfoolish]

With Billeh in mind I'm picturing a tryptych; a stylized portrait of the owner slaving over a hot MIG to create his masterpiece, then Harris Mann, Spen King and David Bache play football with Derek Robinson's severed head, and finally a scene from that daft Princess advert with the bossman driving while his chauffeur sits in the back snogging some french bird.