project 1980 Austin Princess

[vulgalour]

Since the mercury has dropped a little, let's ignore the fuel gauge which has gone back to not working, and the water pump which is working well enough, and do some welding instead. Not much, mind, it's hot in the overalls.

 

20180703-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

That's the big patch done.  There's just the bits on the side and the corner, most of which it looks like I can salvage from the orange door on the car, and then it's the much simpler job of repairing the outer skin.

20180703-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I might have that done this week since the first week of the month is always a bit quieter with work and even if the temperatures stay high, I should at least be able to plod through these last repairs.  When the door is welded up I'll finally be able to get it in paint and get the front wing sorted too.  It's not going to be a lot of fun to do the alignment but once done it shouldn't need doing again for a long time.

[vulgalour]

It was lovely and cool when I started today, soon became unbearable at the unit as the day went on.  Still, got some more welding done and very nearly finished one side of the door.  The rusty bits were very rusty but also very localised so it was surprisingly easy to cut back to good steel.  This was really the most solid bit that I removed, which is the bit just under the door latch.

20180704-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I'd taken the worst of the spare doors I'd got in with me, a rear passenger door.  It was too far gone to repair, really, but ideal for offering donor sections once it was stripped down.  I've saved all the fixings, latches, and glass because they're they sort of bits that are very difficult to source and always useful to have as insurance against future mishaps.  The door skin isn't much use as a door skin due to lots of dents and rust, but it is a really large piece of useful steel.  It also looks like the inner frame has useful shapes to help with the remaining door repairs too.

20180704-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

It took one of the pressings from the rear door to replace the rusted out section on the front door as it was exactly the same.  I also took a folded edge from the inside frame of the spare door to repair the rotted out different edge on the door I'm repairing which saved me quite a bit of time fabricating the shape neatly.  The welds are fresh from the gun, they'll look better once I've given them a tickle with the flapwheel and splashed a bit of paint about.

20180704-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to finish off the corner of the inner frame and maybe even finish off the outer skin.  Fuel guage today has read empty, just under the red, quarter gauge, in the red, half gauge (for about a second), and just peeking up out of the red.  I'm looking forward to pulling the dashboard this time because the new veneer has arrived and I have all the tools, glue, and varnish needed to re-veneer.  I've never done veneer work before so it'll be interesting to see the theory put into practice, it looks straightforward enough, it's a lot like wallpapering and I'm pretty good at that.

[dozeydustman]

If you have one of those storage bags you connect to a hoover to vacuum seal everything in, pop your dash & veneer in that - will help keep it flat while the adhesive sets.

 

[vulgalour]

I was going to just use a bunch of bricks separated from the veneer by a towel or similar.  That vacuum bag idea is inspired, though perhaps less ideal for my application since the dash panel is full of holes for dials, etc.  A great solution if I was building from a fresh plain panel and drilling the holes afterwards, that's today's new thing learned.

[dozeydustman]

Vacuum bag veneering a piece with holes is fine as long as you're careful with where you spread the glue if using contact adhesive. Edd China did it on an early episode of Mike Brewer gets Edd to spiv up shite Wheeler Dealers (XJ-S I think) on a centre console piece which had many holes for gearstick, handbrake etc.

[vulgalour]

The temperature dropped considerably today, so that made progress lots easier.  After replacing the missing corner of the inner frame, I marked out and chopped off the bottom of the outer skin where needed.  Repairing the inner frame wasn't too difficult, though the repairs even when dressed back are clearly not professional.  Really, I needed to dismantle the door into component pieces and spend a very long time fabricating repair sections rather than just making it solid and I genuinely haven't got the time for that.  I can redo this all in the future if I desperately want to win trophies at shows, but for a daily driver it's perfectly acceptable.

 

Anyway, after chopping out another enormous section of the door bottom I could get a section taken from the door I'd cut up and tack that in.

20180705-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Then it was just a case of spending an age putting tacks in.  Then tacks between the tacks.  Then tacks between those tacks.  Then welding every third gap between the tacks.  All in an effort to keep the temperature of the panel down.  This worked, but my panel cutting skills left something to be desired so it's going to definitely need filler when I dress the welds down.

20180705-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Dealt with the two minor rust holes in the odd places and then doused everything in rust converter because I didn't have time to get paint on this today.

20180705-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180705-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I'm happy enough with it.  I would have liked to have done a better job but I haven't the tools, skills or time to do that so I'm going to chalk this one up to experience with lessons learned for the next door I do.  It's also only the second door I've repaired so I do need to cut myself a bit of slack.  Next job is to dress the welds back, fill on the inside where required, and paint the inside only.  I think I'm then going to fit the door to the car before foldiing the lower edge properly and before painting it so that I stand a better chance of getting a nice even gap at the bottom.  Then I can drill the drain holes, paint the door, and build it back up again.

 

I'm fairly hopeful that realigning the wing and door and getting the paint work done will go fairly quickly and the car will very suddenly look very good all at once.  I'm going to probably put off repairing the last door (rear driver's) until I've done the lower rear wing repairs and got the new rear lights in.  It's all quite exciting now I've got this driver's door sorted.

[vulgalour]

Today could have gone better, it could have gone worse.  I only intended to do a trial fit of the repaired door and fold the outer skin over.  That progressed into dressing back the welds and getting it as close to being read for filler as I could.  It's not the finest repair in the world, but it'll certainly do the job.  I was going to put the drain holes in, but Mike has the only working drill with him today elsewhere.  Still, the door is as finished as I can make it before the pretty stuff now and it should do the job for a few ,more years, I hope.

 

20180706-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180706-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Since the driver's door was off, I thought it'd be a good idea to get the wing stuck on properly.  I abandoned my idea of converting it to bolt on because, honestly, I cba.  When I started this I could, but now I most definitely cannot, so if it gets replaced in the future I'll be cutting it off and may consider converting to bolt on then.  After much faffing and clamps and more faffing and clamps I got the wing lined up as well as it would with everything else and welded it to the cleaned up wing rail.  When I've got the drill I'll put a few more welds in on here, so don't worry about how few there are for the moment.

20180706-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Got the edge that joins the valance tacked together.  I'm not going factory for the join, I'm just welding it smooth and flattening it all off when I'm done.  I need to get this on the ramp or stands or something to do it properly, I hadn't the patience today to do more than tack weld it in place.

20180706-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The most satisfying bit was getting the headlight surround area stable again.  The gaps on both my plastic headlight surrounds have always been terrible and they're about as good as they're willing to get now.  The gaps on both are the same, so it's balanced at least.  There's more work to do here, things are tacked together so it's stable enough, but there's some more welding and a little trim alignment fettling to be done in the near future.

20180706-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Then there was a problem.  After getting everything all tied togther nicely I closed the door and... it didn't close.  The panel gap between the door and wing had gone.  Now, I went around everything and adjusted things and moved things and fannied about for ages to try and figure this out until I eventually admitted defeat and decided to instead slice the back edge off the repaired wing and weld it back on about 2mm further forwards.  This was difficult and stressful to do because I was too hot, I was not taking the time I should to be making a really nice job of it, and I was a bit fed up.  I was also really eager to get the car back in one piece properly so I could get home for something to eat.

20180706-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I sorted out as much of it as I needed to so that the door would open and close again, tidied up, and went home which is where I took the pictures in this update.  I am at least happy that the panel gaps are better, not perfect, but certainly better.  This job was still easier than the last round of welding, and the next job of dressing this back and finishing the welds will be easier still.  Each job will continue to get easier, because each job is progressively smaller now.  I hope.

 

20180706-07 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

[RayMK]

I don't know how you can do anything in this heat.  I found it exhausting just taking a mug of coffee in to the garden, trying to avoid the huge cracks in the lawn. 

[vulgalour]

Probably just plain old bloody mindedness.  I want this wing and door and the chin all in paint before the month is out and the only way I'm going to manage it is by pushing on and drinking a lot of water so I don't turn into a pile of sand.

[vulgalour]

Welding did not happen today.  Instead I stayed at home and did paint, getting regular football updates from the cheering of the neighbourhod.  I gather we won.  I don't care about that though, I care about getting paint on this door so I can fit it to the car and have a window that actually opens.

 

20180707-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I didn't do any filler work on this at all as the bits that are visible are going to be easier to do the filler work on the car and the bits that aren't visible, I'm not putting filler on.  There is literally no point putting filler on bits of this car you cannot see, so I will not waste my time on it.  At least not this year.

20180707-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180707-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Amusingly, I now have the drill but both times I've gone out today I've forgotten to get the drill bits (only got masonry ones here) for putting the mirror and drain holes in, and have also forgotten to get the door glass since I can't use the one in the orange door because of rotted out window guides.  That's okay, it's the weekend and a scorcher, so it gives the fresh paint a bit of time to harden before I start bashing chunks out of it fitting the door back to the car.  No welding happened either, it was almost too hot to be painting in the shade and it's definitely been too hot to be driving a car with no air conditioning and a window that you can't open.

 

Nearly there now though.  I'm excited about how much better the car is going to look in a couple of days.

20180707-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

[Ben_O]

I thought of you the other day when I resprayed a Mini at work.

 

 

I thought it was a similar colour to the purple on your princess and then remembered you had started changing to red

[vulgalour]

That is a nice purple though.  Looks like it should contain a hazelnut smothered in caramel.

[Felly Magic]

You are being modest as always Vulg, from here on the computer it looks like you are doing a cracking job, I bet the paint was drying just as fast as you were applying it

[Ben_O]

That is a nice purple though.  Looks like it should contain a hazelnut smothered in caramel.

It is actually called Cadbury Purple Metallic and is an in house special from an online paint supplier that my customer requested.

[320touring]

Great progress on the door front, I imagine I'll have similar to do on the Oxford in due course.

[AdeMk1]

I painted my XR3 in Ford Purple Velvet which looks very similar to that Mini colour.

I miss that car, took me 4 years to do a full nut and bolt resto then stupidly sold it!

[vulgalour]

Trouble with sharing tools is you sometimes have to put jobs off, that's why I haven't put the repaired door on the car today.  Instead, I waited until it was cooler and headed over to the unit to see what jobs I could finish off.  There was an incident with weld splatter going down my ear so that made me down tools a bit early.  Even so, I got plenty of little fiddly jobs done.  Jobs like the front wing seam I hadn't finished (this was actually the last job, doing the underside is when I got the inside of my ear welded).  There's a bit more to do on this, I have to let in a small 2"x4" patch where the wing is a bit thin underneath but I'll do that on the lift when it's free to avoid ear-weld interface.

20180708-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Flattened off the welds on the other end of the wing and did a little trimming at the bottom so it follows the line of the sill better.  The panel gap disappears at the bottom as the bottom of the wing isn't actually secured yet, I need the drill and suitable drill bits so I can get that attached with bolts or weld and then the gap will pull something like again.

20180708-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The biggest job was doing the rear lower quarter section.  My repair piece is a little crude, I couldn't get my head around the bit of the panel where the curve of the wing meets the flare of the arch so I got it as close as I could and I'll profile with a small amount of filler.  Also welded up the bumper hole which will be on the receiving end of some filler as well.  There's a small piece of arch to replace here too, something I can do later since it needs thinking about for the best approach.  I also need the car up in the air a bit so I can do the join between the outer and inner wing underneath the car that I couldn't easily get to today.

20180708-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

There's very little welding to go now:

- driver's rear arch return

- passenger's rear wing lower corner

- new rear light buckets

- rear window surround repairs

- upper C pillar trim holes (6 of, easy job)

- rear driver's door lower corner repair

 

It all feels a lot more managable and definitely more in the realm of tinkering than slogging now, so I'm starting to really enjoy myself.

[vulgalour]

Got a little further today.  I've been very patient about getting a pair of Austin A30 sidelights for an idea I've had for ages which I nicked from the Citroen DS of old.  High level indicators.

 

20180709-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180709-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

They're only designed to be supplementary at a level more common for modern drivers.  The high level brake light made quite a difference so high level indicators felt sensible.  I wanted something that would blend into the rest of the car and options were very limited.  I didn't want to go modern and had tried a few things before settling on these.  The only issue was the price, with pairs often going for £50+ which is frankly insane.  My pair cost me about a tenner  It took a while to find a spot I liked them, I wanted them to be fairly invisible, even though they're a substantial chunk of chrome, and to flow from the line of the gutter as much as possible.  This was the best location for them to go so that everything could be installed.  I still need to add some grommets/rubber washers to prevent water ingress, I just have to wait for some of the correct size to arrive.  Inside the car you can access the nut on the back by simply popping the interior C pillar trims off and the wires can run straight down into the boot since it's open from the gutter all the way to the bottom of the wing.  Routing the wires is really easy with lots of space to work in.

20180709-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180709-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

It's been pleasantly overcast and cool today so between other jobs I did what filler work I could before it got late enough that I had to get paint on.  The areas I've done are presentable but, like a few other small spots, will need me to go back later to make them perfect.  For now, I'm happy that the areas painted look smart.  The rear wing is lots better now there's no a hole in it.  Not really sure how I got overspray on the rear tyre, everything was covered up.

20180709-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Top of the wing just over the side repeater had a dent.  You can't see it now, of course.

20180709-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The paint wasn't drying fast enough to mask so I did a rush job to just finish this corner.  I can redo the overspray bits when I've a bit more time.

20180709-07 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Front end looks hugely better.  When I've finshed the wing-to-valance seam underneath I can get this all painted properly.  It's just nice having it look fairly uniform at last.

20180709-08 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

[DodgeRover]

I can't for the life of me remember how a standard princess looks at the front but are you getting a ram air effect at higher speeds? It can lead to a weak mixture and stalling coming down to idle from speed.

 

Glad to see you making progress, I hope to see this tootling around in the flesh one day

[adw1977]

I love the high level indicators.

 

I can't for the life of me remember how a standard princess looks at the front

[vulgalour]

I have not experienced any issues with excessive cooling.  In fact, what I have experienced is BETTER cooling getting moving after being stood in traffic which, I'll be perfectly honest, has been very welcome just lately!

[DodgeRover]

Sorry was thinking more about excess air being forced into the carb causing lean running - thinking about it given where it's situated it's probably unlikely

[vulgalour]

20180713 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Found some copper plated steel wire coathangers today so thought I'd put some theory into practice and see if I was capable of shaping the wire to the profile of the crumbly arch lip.  My rear arches aren't as bad as they could be, but both need work to get them solid again.  My plan is to shape the wire, as above, then tack it into place so it's secure.  After that I can trim out the rust and fill in the gaps to stabilise the arch properly.  Hopefully it'll work.

[Felly Magic]

Top work again, the high level indicators are a work of genius. Well Done sir

[Pillock]

This is looking really good, a testament to just taking it steady and doing proper work with the sparkly stick instead of wobbing it up. Love the colour combo too.

 

I fall firmly into the camp of "if you'd have described your plans I'd have thought you were mental" but it just goes to show what I know, doesn't it?

[vulgalour]

At the moment I've got the driver's door off and patiently working on the front wing filler bit so hopefully when I update tonight I'll have this side of the car looking somewhat reasonable.  Unless something goes wrong, of course.

[vulgalour]

Hey look, that scabby old orange door is gone!

20180714-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

It was a bit of a faff, as always, to fit the door.  Fortunately Mike was here to help so getting it aligned wasn't as bad as doing it myself.  Even got it opening and closing and fitting as well as the orange door it replaced, so that's a big bonus.  I didn't get everything back on, just enough to get it operational, as I still have to fit the door mirror.  It's a bit late to be drilling holes and painting raw metal edges so I'll do that bit tomorrow, for now this is fine and will keep the weather and local cats out of the car.

20180714-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The door fit about as well as it did when it came off the car, though my repairs needed a little fine* adjustment with a rubber mallet in a couple of places.  That exposed a crack on the outer door skin, presumably where the metal is a bit thin as this isn't an area I repaired on the outside.  I'll clean it back and give it a buzz of weld when I'm at the unit next, it's not a big job.

20180714-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Got the B pillar gap as good as it ever gets on this car.  Good old BL panel gaps here, not a great deal you can do about them apart from live with it.

20180714-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

BEHOLD!  An opening window.  Since putting the orange door on temporarily I've not been able to open this window which, let me tell you, has not been fun in the recent warm spell we've been having!  You haven't really lived until you've driven a car with untinted glass, no air conditioning, and no windows you can operate from the driver's seat while the UK is experiencing a heatwave.  It's quite something.

20180714-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Finally, the scruffy paint blend on the front wing was tidied up properly and I got the majority of the filler work done on the back edge of the wing so it's now all nice and presentable.  I'm a bit fed up of working on doors so my attention will turn to the other jobs on the car now, rather than fixing and repainting that rear door.

20180714-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Tomorrow I'll get the mirror fitted to this door and the door card reinstated, then it'll be time to give it all a much needed bath.

[vulgalour]

Today, I ended up doing some welding.  I didn't want to, but there you go.  I had gone to unbolt the nut that goes on the bottom of the driver's door mirror so I could both clean up the base easier and mark the holes for drilling in the new door easier.  Unfortunately, on the first turn of the socket it sheared the threaded end off the mirror stem without any warning nor excessive force.  Oh well, I guess that meant my easy day of fitting the mirror and washing the car would involve sweating while welding instead.  First thing I tackled at the unit was the bit of split outer skin.  This actually went very easily and when I've finished adjusting the bottom edge of the door so it sits against the sill a little nicer, I can now get all of this cleaned up and in filler properly.  For now, it's just got paint on to keep it stable.

 

20180715-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Inside the door I'd noticed, like on the orange spare, there were two stress cracks.  This is I think from the door having sagged in the past and needing to be slammed to close for years and it's the nearest weak point to the grab handle.  I don't think it's a design flaw that's caused this as the passenger side doors haven't suffered from it, just the front driver's.  Welded them both up, sloshed some paint on, but didn't waste time grinding it down since it won't be seen and this way it should be stronger.  The door handle did feel more secure after having done this, previously it felt like it had a bit of flex to it and now it doesn't.

20180715-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Repairing the mirror stem was a fussy job.  I used a bolt that I ground the head down on and then welded to the stem.  There's a plastic insert this side where on the other stem it's just plain metal, and I couldn't get the insert off.  That made the job a bit more awkward since I was trying to avoid grinding or melting the plastic bit.  Still, on the second attempt I got the bolt somewhat like it needed to be and a trial fit on the bench proved it to be good enough.  I also used a nyloc nut on the bottom to prevent it coming undone as opposed to the plain nut that was there before and had rusted solid.

20180715-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I made the decision to mount the mirror slightly further back on the door this time, which means the A pillar/gutter doesn't obscure the top inner corner now.  What I also managed to do was align the top hole in the most awkward way possible so it's nearly impossible to get a nut on the back of the bolt because it sits exactly behind the window runner guide.  The other two were much easier to access.

20180715-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180715-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I also noticed the GB grille badge was not only wonky, but now loose.  To save it falling off somewhere, I popped that off and discovered it was only just held on with one of the bar clamps on the back.  The front end does look tidier without it, but I think I'll get some new fixings and reinstate it anyway because I quite like it.

20180715-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

After all that it got a quick bath to get rid of the filler dust but really, it was too hot and humid to do a decent job.  That was also the point I realised that after building up the inside of the door I'd totally forgotten to refit the moisture membrane.  A job for another day.  Happily, this front door now closes almost as nicely as the passenger front door and certainly better than it ever has before, so I'm quite happy about that.

[fordperv]

This is looking great vulg keep chipping away

[vulgalour]

Had another petrol station moment, this thing gets almost as much attention at the pumps as high value exotica.  I love how excited people get about seeing it so much so that I offered today's admirer a sit in the driver's seat since I needed to put a fair bit of fuel in.  He was going to turn down the offer until I asked when he'd get another chance.  I hope it made his afternoon.  Now I've got things running nicer I'm getting about 24mpg around town in it which is respectable enough for what it is.  The Fuelly shows a mere 19.8 average but that's over the entire ownership of the car with all the ups and downs and fuel loss from repairs, etc.  I can quickly get that figure up if I do some motorway miles, I just haven't had any reason to for quite some time.

 

In fact, I've been so happy running the Princess I've been considering indefinitely mothballing the Rover after the house move.  I can't see myself selling the Rover, I actually like it too much to do that, but I don't really miss driving it now that the Princess is behaving.  Probably best to keep it around as a back-up, just in case.