project 1980 Austin Princess - Nearly Exploded (Probably)

[Spiny Norman]

I've been trying to find that advert for a while with no luck. Always good to know what a car cost when new, in this case probably around the £4,000 mark.

 

1700HL isn't it? £4841 in December 1980, according to CAR magazine.

[vulgalour]

Whatever colour I eventually settle on (still not decided) I'll be doing all the prep work myself and I'll need another car to use while it's in the shop getting done which may be the Polo, or another stupid purchase, I'm thinking the latter is more traditional.

I'm not in the finest of moods this evening and it's not just because of my twisted/sprained/otherwise fubarred knee (I swear, my body is actually made of cornflakes) but because of my parents' neighbour. Today, I went to visit the folks to drop some stuff off and get Dad to decypher the electric window motors I bagged recently and to put the working light cluster on I had also baggified. Was out in the back garden nattering with Dad and heard the neighbour come back, shortly followed by a horrible thud and the sight of the Princess lurching down the drive.

Suffice to say, I used some choice language. The neighbour was mortified and I was so furious I was just shouting all manner of horrible things, Mum cooled it all down by taking me indoors with the promise of a cup of tea, and it worked. A little later when I'd cooled down and stopped stomping about we actually discussed things like rational people and decided both cars could be repaired for less than the cost of excess on the insurance and that the neighbour would pay. Had my parents' neighbour been a knob, a gentleman's agreement would not have been reached, but he's actually a really decent fellah and knows precisely how much the Princess means to me, and has even helped with repairs and fettling. I cooled down a lot when I realised it was me being the arse, not him, and that it was a bit unfair of me.

So, what happened? Well, I'd parked in a different place to usual leaving enough space for him to get his Corsa B down the drive without having to get me to move the car. I have this knack of blocking him in or out when I visit my parents as the drive is a shared entrance. Unfortunately, he was paying so much attention to the side that his wife's garden was that he didn't realise how close he was to the Princess until much too late.



The drive is on an incline until you get to the bottom, which, combined with the weight of my car, meant she moved a lot more than the low speed of the impact would normally create. He can't have been going more than a single figure speed, I doubt it even registered on his clocks. First thing to do was check my boot opened and closed okay, which it did.


Next, have a look at what damage has actually been caused. Inside, it's no worse really than when I reversed into the house that time, bumping the other side.


The light cluster on his Corsa was smashed by the swage line on the Princess, his bumper leaving a black mark further down the corner. My bumper has bent his rear valance and broken the trim clips for his bumper and arch trim and possibly bent his floor pan. I also broke one of his bulbs.


Difficult to photograph, but this side gained a large shallow dent which, after I'd assessed everything, popped out almost completely with the slightest lean of the hand. When I get the bumper off this should pop out completely with relative ease.


It's given me some work to do. Yes, I could book it in at a body shop but I think it would be cheaper and more useful if I get a set of dollies and repair it myself. One should always see an adversity as an opportunity if at all possible, and getting some useful tools out of an accident would be a favourable option for me. This is not going to be an easy repair, it's a very complicated area of the car in terms of curves so it's likely I'll have to use a little bit of filler to get things really smooth here. I have done a similar sized repair with some bits of shaped wood and a ball peen hammer years ago on a Ford Sierra, I'll have to see if I can remember how I went about it when I tackle it.




It wasn't a complete wash out today, Dad managed to help me decypher the electric window motors so we know how to plumb those in. Unfortunately, one of the switches is broken so I'll be taking that apart to see if I can fix it. We couldn't test the motors, but I have no reason to believe they won't work. The dodgy light cluster has been replaced and now my lights work properly, though I do need to clean it up and swap the good lenses over.

Tomorrow, I'll make a start making this corner weatherproof at least, a lot of the paint has flaked off and when I tried to remove the loose bit of pinstripe tape, it lifted most of the run and some of the crappy respray so I now have a decidedly patchwork thing going on. Got to look worse before it looks better I suppose, now just to decide what colour I'll go with.

[Shep Shepherd]

Oh no! Having had The Volvo sustain damage at the hands of another driver while it was parked recently, I feel your pain

[Paul Dupart]

I've been following this post and all your great work from day 1, my Dad has a Princess in the 70's and I really liked it.

 

What a bloody shame for this to happen!

[michael1703]

Dont do a "father Ted"

 

 

 

that wants a big thump from the inside with a nice block of wood as a drift, end grain on, 3x2 with the edges smoothed a bit with a sander might fit

[vulgalour]

XD Hooray for Father Ted, warning noted. That corner is quite strong, but I'm hoping that it'll mostly just pop back out with a good thump providing I use the right shaped tool. The black mark further down is an easier dent to undo and thankfully access to the dents is good because of the construction of the wing. Going to have to remove so much paint on that corner though, it's lifted loads of it :/

[HMC]

gutted for you, but at least the guilty party is fully on side, i had a similar experience at work and the person in questions attitude was more or less its an old car so what, which didnt go down well!

I presume as its not metallic etc getting the repair to blend in will be not too tricky?

[vulgalour]

I'm not sure what I'm doing paint wise at the moment. I've still got some beige in a can, so that's probably the sensible option but I could use it as an opportunity to go all paint-sample on it... probably more sensible to use the beige. The more I think about it, the more I'm finding purple an appealing option.

[vulgalour]

Sometimes, what starts out as something unpleasant ends up being something useful. This incident with me being reversed into is one of those things, as much as I was (and still am a bit, if I'm honest) annoyed about it, being bumped has actually done me a bit of a favour. I'll explain why in a bit, but for now here's what I've been up to today. I was hoping to get the car back in one piece and painted, but there simply wasn't the time so I'm provisionally off work tomorrow if the agency (or anyone else) calls so that I can get this finished.

I'm nothing if not impatient when it comes to fixing things at times, and the same is definitely true of the dents on the Princess. Having a look around the place I found a wooden handled scrubbing brush that I usually use for cleaning tyres which had the right profiles to use as an impromptu dolly/drift. It was narrow enough to allow access to the worst of the dent, and a suitable curve to match the corner of the car. It was also wide enough to serve as a suitable flat surface for the larger shallower dents so that I didn't end up going all Arts and Crafts on the bodywork.

Initially, the dents were easy to get out to the rough shape required, the time consuming part of the job was fine tuning to eliminate use of filler as much as possible. I don't think I did too badly.






A lot of the paint had already cracked, knocking the dents out only cracked it more so I knew I'd have to strip a lot off to repair this corner. I set to work with the paintstripper and while it worked I peeled off the brown vinyl stripes on the sides.


A couple of applications of paint stripper, scraper and wire brush were needed to clear a large enough area to get the dented bits back to bare metal, this too was time consuming.


What I found lurking under the paint was a large patch of flash rusting. I wonder if this is down to the bad respray which is lifting off all over the car? It could also be down to poor previous prep work. I also found some very pink filler in the back corner, something I've learned usually means someone has done a fast bodge repair and used excessive hardener just to get the job out faster. Thankfully, the metal is solid overall and I've not found any further cause for concern yet.


All stripped back, I wiped the panel down to clear any residue of paint stripper off and let it dry.


Found I prefer the car without the brown stripes, so I worked around it and removed the rest.


Also found more problem areas, like this paint lifting under the driver's door handle which appears to be applied directly over road dirt.


And this area on the other rear wing where the paint lifted off like wallpaper with the vinyl tape. For a brief, horrifying moment I thought the paint would come off in one complete sheet on this corner. I also found more blistering on this side of the car and I have just given up hoping to salvage this respray, it's appalling.




Last job for the day I managed was to get the bumper brackets from this...


...to this, with the help of a hammer.


Now that this paint is buggered it does give me an opportunity to change things a little more to my own taste. Don't get me wrong, I like the beige, it's very suitable for the car, but given the opportunity to personalise something I generally always will. This leads me to what options were available to me and I found myself coming back again and again to this sort of thing.




British Leyland did two purples I like which were Aconite and Black Tulip, the latter is too dark but the former should be perfect for the Princess, especially with the brown interior. The Princess was a dynamic, interesting and unusual car so I never really understood why people had them painted in such dull, conformist and boring colours. For tonight I've applied Kurust to the bare metal and tomorrow I'll set to with sandpaper and filler properly before adding paint to get things watertight and depending on the cost, I'll either patch in with beige as a temporary measure, or try out the purple to see if it looks as good in person as it does in my head.

[Skizzer]

You're an absolutely top man for turning this into something positive!

 

I'm not sold on the purple though. Can't we convince you of the benefits of Fox Piss Bronze?

[Guest]

If your putting it to a vote - Black tulip wins. I did state on here a long time ago its one of my faverate 70's colours.

[vulgalour]

Black Tulip is nice, it's the sort of colour I wouldn't mind having a suit made out of, but I think it'll look too dark on the Princess. If I can, I'll probably get a sample of both to see which I prefer in the real world rather than just in my head.

 

I do like the foxy sparkle, and the green triangle colour BL did, but they're not as exciting to me as the purple for some reason. Maybe I don't want foxy sparkle because my seats are that colour already and I'm suffering from brown overdose when driving the old girl?

[DSdriver]

Fantastic SKILZ with a hammer. I am impressed. When I watch professional panelbeaters just reach inside a door and bash it with their fist so the dent pops out or weld a tag onto a panel they can't get behind and pull it out with a slide hammer I know I could never achieve such a result. Wonderful to watch though.

[Shep Shepherd]

What are you, some sort of Gothic car bodywork god?

 

I still think you should paint the car Reynard Metallic/Metallic Fox Piss/Foxy Sparkle, as the colour would compliment the interior perfectly. Having said that, Aconite would make the car unique

 

Pawnote: IIRC, the metallic green is called Tara Green

[Wilko220]

Do you know if BL made the Princess available in that purple colour then?

[PhilA]

Super Minx by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

Black Tulip ftw. It's not half as dark if you put it over white primer instead of grey. Looks awesome in the sun and hides the dirt like no other.

 

--Phil

[vulgalour]

@Wilko: I'm fairly sure they never did, but it's in the family so it makes sense. Plus, it's an excellent colour.

 

@Phil: Well... now you put it that way I definitely have to get a sample of each to try because that Minx looks excellent in that colour.

[PhilA]

@Phil: Well... now you put it that way I definitely have to get a sample of each to try because that Minx looks excellent in that colour.

 

It's a bit of a moody colour. At night it looks almost black, especially under yellow streetlights. It goes with reds and browns- the interior of the Superminx was red and it looked good. In bright sunshine it acts a bit like black when it's polished up, giving nice reflections off the lines of the car, and all other times, it's well, just a bit purple really.

 

I'm still digging the beige though, despite liking the purple

[vulgalour]

Today I got the two samples of paint mixed up, one for Aconite and one for Black Tulip which I got in cellulose brush-on as it'll be easier for me to work with at the moment. The samples are really just so I can make a decision on colour, I'll take some snaps of the paint when I've got it on the car.

I have decided one thing; Fenwicks of York garage have a lot to answer for if they are indeed the ones responsible for the 'restoration' work on this car. Everywhere I look there's more bodgery and it's just starting to annoy me a bit now. I'm expecting to have to spend the next five years or so putting right all the wrongs and sourcing little bits and pieces to bring her back up to something stunning again, it would take less if I were more of a cowboy.

Anyway, what have I been doing today? Not a lot really, replacing the bumper has been held up as I didn't get chance to get the paint sorted and I've mislaid one of the bumper bolts so I've been driving around without a back bumper lately much to my own amusement. I prized off the wheel arch trim, in part to clean it but also so I can properly prepare this panel for new paint. I wasn't expecting it to be so easy, or the old fixings to turn to orange powder.




Worryingly, what little paint was under the chrome wasn't really attached to anything. The chrome itself came off with minimal distortion and will get fully cleaned as I'd like to reinstate it, but I'm curious what the gooey stuff inside the trim is, it has the appearance and texture of glazing putty and seems to have done an excellent job of doing naff all.


The arch underneath is a bit dusty and rusty, but quite solid. I'll get the wire brush on it and the Kurust afterwards, on the whole it looks salvageable.


There's also a funny little plastic stone-chip preventer which was hiding something I didn't want it to.




So I reckon there's going to be a hole where the arch meets the sill at the front and another hole at the trailing edge of the arch that's been hidden with pounds of filler. Tomorrow I'm making a start on stripping all the paint off this wing and treating all the rust. I might get chance to do some filling work on the dents that remain and possibly make a start on primer work. I know I could just patch up the dented bit, but what's the point in that when I know there's other damage to rectify here? Whether or not I get to point I'm trying out Aconite and Black Tulip remains to be seen, but pictures will be provided, obviously. I'm daunted and excited in equal measure at the prospect of sorting this quarter out, it's not what I planned to have to do on this car and is much more involved than I'd like for a daily driver.

[purplebargeken]

I can understand your mixture of horror and excitement at the prospect of doing the work needed to bring the car up to a bloody good standard. Bodges will always be lurking close by and it looks like you've found a couple of culprits. You are developing skills and abilities to stand you in good stead to tackle these things. If you are taking off large areas of paint you might want to thing about trying a poly version of a knotted wire grinder brush. Damn sight quicker and less risk of getting punctured. In relation to brushing paint you could look at rustoleum paint which used by car and van folk quite happily. It comes in a zillion colour combo's and is happiest being rollered on with a small gloss roller. Just a thought.

 

Keep going!!!

 

Ken

[vulgalour]

Bodges... don't talk to me about bodges It's okay though, it could be worse. I'll find out how the paint I bought goes on by brush (bear in mind I've only bought sample quantities) before I decide what final route I go with it.

Today, my brother and I got to work stripping the back corner down completely to bare metal. I had nothing doing after having to turn down work offered due to a damaged medial ligament in my knee and I'm a bit restricted in what I can do, but sitting on a chair stripping paint off my car is something within my abilities at the moment. I started out with paint stripper and a scraper which was really slow going because of the way the respray paint would come off in sheets on some areas and be like concrete in others. I got a fair way just doing it this way.


This is the bit I was worried there'd be a massive hole hiding under filler. I was almost correct in my assumptions too, once I'd got through the filler and chipped the thick fibreglass resin off the really quite solid (if ugly) weld repair here.




Eventually I got it cleaned up and wire brushed.


It looks worse than it is, which was nice.


More work was done and later we used a flap wheel which brought it up like new, clearing away all of that rust without the metal being thin. I don't have any post-flapwheel pictures for some reason.


The top of the arch contained a large amount of filler for no discernible reason. This metal isn't rusted through, dented or repaired but for some reason a previous bodger saw fit to just apply a trowel full of wob. Very odd, and a theme common to this corner as we would discover.


This is the other corner of the arch and has a really odd repair. There's new metal let in behind the frilly stuff and on the arch lip return and it's nice and solid. Why they did this instead of cutting out the lace and letting new metal in I don't know.


It too cleaned up rather well, though I did remove about eighty pounds of filler and fibreglass from this area which seemed to serve no purpose.


Then the rain came down so we went into the garage. Somewhere between going in the garage and finishing the flap wheel work all my pictures went missing, but suffice to say we cleaned it all back to bare metal, eliminating all of the rust, fibreglass resin and filler and revealing some solid if ugly weld patches along the bottom of the wing. All in all, I was quite pleased with how sturdy this corner turned out being and, bizarrely, it looks better to have the weld patches on display than the terrible wob-fest that was hiding it all.


I planned to just Kurust the relevant bits that needed it, but somehow ended up dosing the entire panel. It kept things rust-free at least until we'd had something to eat.




After the Kurust had dried and food had settled we got the primer out and gave the panel a lick of fresh paint. Many of the previous 'dents' turned out to just be atrocious paint with the metal beneath being perfectly sound We then flatted the primer back to reveal the high spots and make it ready for the second coat. It was already looking better, with the swage line looking sharper and the whole panel looking better for being tidied.


A little while later the second coat of primer went on, the panel looking better still. We didn't get any further as it was getting on and I didn't want to risk the paint curing strangely overnight. Thankfully, the garage stays pretty warm and it's been a mild day so I'm not too worried, but we'll see what I've got in the morning.




I'm quite proud of how good this looks now. Tomorrow there will be the small bits of filler applied to finish of the dents in the corner and another one or two coats of primer to make things perfect before the paint goes on. The welded patches are being left on display until I can afford to get them cut out and replaced properly but since they're sound and free of rust, I'm happy enough to just paint over them in the meantime and blend them in later. There is method in my madness with this as I can't really afford to take the car off the road for a full respray, it has to be done piecemeal as she's my daily driver.

[MikeKnight]

You seem to get a lot of work done when I'm not there. I'm either a good distraction or a bad influence.

[vulgalour]

I seem to recall I got a lot of work done ON YOUR CAR while you were here, ferrying you about for parts that were all broken in MY CAR. Jealousy is an ugly thing

[MikeKnight]

So I'm a good distraction then.

[vulgalour]

After much flatting back of last night's coat of primer and then some small amounts of filler on the arch and bumped corner, everything was set to do the exciting things. I had taken pics to demonstrate how little filler is needed to rectify bodywork compared to what came out, but my camera seems to have eaten those. Instead, here's a panel with two little samples painted on it.


I decided that the Black Tulip, while nice, was too dark and washed out the lines of the Princess in much the same way the beige does. Instead, I went for the brighter Aconite and I must say I'm thrilled with the shade when applied to the larger panel, it's just what I wanted. The car will be hard to miss when done, of that I'm pretty sure, my only concern (and it's a minor one) is that it's a bit of a hippy bus colour.


Initially, I applied the paint which is cellulose 1 pack brush-on stuff with a gloss roller, forgetting entirely that the roller is made of material that solvents in the paint will dissolve. It took a while for me to make the connection with the strange whisps of purple candy floss and what was going on, and I finished the entire panel before my brain figured it out. First coat was promising, apart from a few spots where the roller had left it a bit rough, the paint is really nice to work with and goes quite a long way.


After it had dried off a bit, which took next to no time, I went over the panel with a brush rather than the roller which worked far better with the paint settling out smoother and easier than with the roller. Very quick and very easy, if I'd done the first coat this way I know that 2 coats of paint is plenty for this panel for suitable coverage.


The finish isn't perfect, sadly, because the roller cocked it up quite a bit but it's not beyond rescue and hasn't reacted strangely with anything over the last couple of hours so I'll flat it back and use the last bit of paint to put a third coat on if need be. When the paint is thick enough it will get cut back and polished as usual and probably get a clear coat on top at a later date. I reckon if I buy 2 litres of Aconite I shall have enough to paint the entire car and a bit left over.


Recently, I bought a nodding tiger circa. 1970 from eBay. There's a bit of a tiger theme going on inside the Princess, it just sort of happened, so I'm rolling with it. Made by Golden Plum in Hong Kong, my little creepy nodding tiger has seen better days.




He's missing his whiskers, and I think he's missing his tongue. The flocking has faded from brilliant orange to a dull brown and worn off in a few places like the tip of his ears but I don't really mind. I think the stripes are hand applied, they have the look of a brush stroke about them. I have considered getting him reflocked in his original orange and repainting the stripes, but I shall probably never bother. Here you can see what he should have looked like, but I doubt I'll ever restore him back to that as he's very fragile. Eventually, he'll be fixed down to the parcel shelf, probably with some strong magnets inside his paws or something, I've not decided yet.


Overall, I'm satisfied with this. It would have been easier to patch in with beige as a temporary fix but having stripped back the panel, dealt with the rust and excessive filler and found what has been repaired has put me in mind that doing a proper repaint is actually a good idea, even if it will take me a long while to do so. Right now, I'm rocking the hippy bus/council estate look.

[Micrashed]

I like the "Harlequin" look.

[Spiny Norman]

Sorry dude, I've been well impressed with your work on this car so far and have said so on many occasions so please don't take the hump, but that......

 

 

Looks fucking awful.

 

I know, your car, your way, but seriously...... rethink.....please.

[vulgalour]

It's okay, don't panic! It only looks so bad because of what happened with the roller, seriously. There's some remedial work happening tomorrow and it will all be fine. It's only paint, it can be fixed, we all make the odd mistake here and there and mine was using the rollers when I should have just stuck with the brush (I'm sure there'll be a snide remark about beige along shortly) as that's what I know.

 

My plan B is rebeigination, so there is a contingency in place.

[fiatdaft]

Please don't and now is the time to fix that quarter panel damage.

[Shep Shepherd]

In my opinion, I think that a bare-metal repaint in the original colour and the reinstatement of the C-pillar vinyl and the pinstripes would be the best long-term solution for this car.