project 1980 Austin Princess

[vulgalour]

More progress on this today.  I've decided to do the rear lights ahead of the filler work on the screen surround so that I can do all the filler work in one go when the lights are installed.  First up, disconnect and label the old light units, this should make wiring up for the new light units much easier.

20180920-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Then take the flapwheel and very carefully buzz the seam away where the buckets meet the back panel.  This was slightly easier on the inner buckets because I could wiggle them about since they're going straight in the bin.  The outers required a more measured approach.  I did a good enough job at putting these in that they were annoying to remove.  I'm also glad I made the decision to use just a couple of spot welds and seam sealer on the backing plates because that meant they weren't too difficult to remove and realign for the new lights.  This saves me buying and waiting for a new pair of cake tins to arrive to replace the outer buckets, so I can just crack on with the job.

20180920-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The reason for removing both pairs of buckets is that the outers needed realigning.  The BMW lights have an angled back so the buckets for those weren't installed straight.  The new Ford lights have completely flat backs and are considerably easier to install.  Mocked up with a new bucket.

20180920-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I do lose a bit of depth on the outer buckets, but not so much it's a problem.  The central chrome piece will stick out from the buckets with the red brake light buried behind them, which is the look I want.  The back panel has a curve side to side and leans out at the top so there's no straight edges to work with on the car, everything has to be aligned mostly by eye to begin with and then tweaked afterwards.  Here you can see the new bucket pushed into its new home and the old outer bucket, both will need material trimming off once they're welded in.  I found it easier last time to weld the buckets in place and trim the excess off afterwards rather than trying to trim them exactly to shape.

20180920-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The two holes matched in size does look better than the previous staggered arrangement.  This is no surprise because this is how I originally wanted to do it but had to improvise when I couldn't get a second pair of the Ford lights I wanted to use.

20180920-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Got some tape out and mocked up the new lenses.  That's why it looks wonky in the second picture.  I'm happier with this, it fits the panel shapes better and is much more what I had in mind.

20180920-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180920-07 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Next job is to make all the backing plates match and weld those into the buckets before welding them into the car.  That will allow me to screw the lenses in place which will help with alignment.  I'm not sure I'll get this all done over the weekend but I should get a good way with it.

[320touring]

#rocketboostaz

[JeeExEll]

Aw this is gonna look fucking ace.

Nearly a year on from original idea (4th Oct last year) but now is the time to do it.

 

http://autoshite.com/topic/10789-1980-austin-princess-2009-buckets/page-84

[PhilA]

Nice. I saw a pair of those lights go by the other day in my rear view, a little Ford pickup truck.

 

They look nice in the sunshine. I look forward to seeing this all painted up with all the afterburners in place.

 

Is the plan still to remove the fog lights below the bumper and integrate them?

 

 

Phil

[Tadhg Tiogar]

I smiled when I saw the "buckets". They reminded me of cooking pots, a bit like this

[PhilA]

Great buckets of fire?

 

Phil

[JeeExEll]

^ Aye. A couple of days ago there were real flames shooting out of those 4 round holes. How cool was that.

 

Certainly cooler than any manky old Batmobile.

[vulgalour]

I've been given a good bit of advice on lining up the buckets using a baton of wood and some screws to hold them all in a nice straight line, so that's helpful and should save me a lot of time.

 

For the fog lights, I was going to integrate a single one into one of the clear lens portions of the new lights.  I've had a second thought about this and am now considering just moving one of the existing fog lights underneath the number plate and removing the other.  I won't know if that works until I see it in person, but if it does then it saves a bit of work and I'll simple have the two inner clear lenses as reversing lights.

 

I'm also not sure if I'm having all four red lights as running and brake, or having 2 as running and 2 or 4 as brake.  Decisions, decisions.

[PhilA]

I was looking at dual red/white LED's here (popular for fire department and ambulance vehicles) and realized you need to change those to modern GM light sockets.

 

Why? Those are wedge base.

 

Phil

[Noel Tidybeard]

i would think 2 brake and all 4 tail

[Des]

Would it be possible to engineer scrolling brake lights that follow a circle counter rotating?  And hang on some nipple tassles.

[MarvinsMom]

we aprove, this thread is much better without fire.

[vulgalour]

Des:  Bit tricky to do scrolling brake lights with a single incandescent bulb and I'm not sure the tassles would suit me.

[Zelandeth]

I'd say having as many brake lights as possible can only be a good thing these days.

[SiC]

Lightbulbfun probably be able to hook you up with some 1kW stage lighting bulbs so you can outshine even the brightest and most modern Audi brake lights.

[Ghosty]

I'd have two running and four brake, because then it's more obvious you're braking.

[JeeExEll]

All 4 running for maximum speed, and lit during the day too for instant acceleration.

VULGERBiRDS ARE GO GO GO !!!

[vulgalour]

I lost the weekend's progress to a cold, unfortunately.  I started today by cleaning off all the stuff that needed cleaning off the old backing plates and the old buckets and then measuring to find something the right size to cut the backing plates out to.  As luck would have it, the back of the smaller lights I'd fitted is the correct size for the hole I need to cut out and that just so happens to be the same size as the hole already cut out in the old outer buckets I'd cleaned up.

20180925-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Then, using advice offered I scrounged around the unit for a stick of something to put across the back of the buckets to get them in line.  It was a bit of a challenge to find something that wasn't too long to go in the boot or too short to reach the back of both outer buckets, and not having a saw didn't help matters.  Got there in the end.  I also couldn't really screw the wood to the back of the buckets because they had nothing to screw to and I didn't have a suitable sized piece to put in the hole from the outside to sandwich the backing plate to the wood on the inside to keep things secure.  So I improvised with masking tape and a ruler.  It was a lot of tweaking and moving and measuring, and re-measuring, and measuring again.  I got everything as close as the car would let me and the whole process took rather longer than expected.  Oh and I welded the backing plates to the buckets before installing them, which made life a lot easier, I'll go around the seam with seam sealer as I did before which proved both a great way to prevent water ingress and a good way to give a nice smooth finish.

20180925-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Satisfied everything was lined up it was surprising just how far the buckets had to be moved from the original position when they were accomodating the slanted back BMW lights.  I did try one of the new buckets in the hole to make sure I had the maximum depth I could get just in case buying new ones for the outer would make more sense and the difference was only 2-3mm so I've just reused the old ones.  The new lights will have the chrome sticking out a little bit with the red lens frenched back and I'm absolutely fine with that, it looks pretty good in mock up.

20180925-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I had enough time to get the outer buckets tacked in place, and you can see here where the holes for the fixing screws of the old lights  have been welded up since they don't line up with the holes needed for the new lights.  Things welded very nicely, the welder was behaving and I was relaxed enough that this wasn't a stressful job today.  I'm optimistic that the final welding will go fairly well. I'll be trimming a bit of excess off the buckets just to make it easier to weld around the bottom edge, but I won't trim them flush until I've seam welded the whole circumference.

20180925-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I ran out of time to go further than plonking a lens in the hole and I'm quite happy with it.  I may do the same measure, align, and tack weld of the inner buckets just to make sure all the lights line up properly with one another before seam welding things, that way if I do need to make adjustments, it won't be too difficult.

20180925-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

[vulgalour]

This is an important update because it's the first time the idea in my head has been realised in the meatspace.  This is what I wanted to do before I chose to compromise with the BMW lights and this is what I'm happy with.  I had to untack the driver's side outer bucket and reposition it, on checking alignment today I found it had moved, probably when I was tacking it in, and I hadn't noticed.  This was very obvious when lining up the new inner buckets.  The backing plates for the inner buckets were easy to cut the middles out of, weld into the buckets, and get installed into the back panel.  I also found that it wasn't too bad trimming the panel out to accept the larger inner buckets now I've got a feel for the shapes and how they stretch and distort across the panel.  Before too long, I had a nice uniform rear end shaping up.  I've welded the top two-thirds of each bucket here, and trimmed off most of the excess material but ran out of time to finish the bottom third.

20180929-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

For marking up the fixing holes for the lights I found I couldn't use the marker pens because they were too fat to get through the screw holes, and the skinny pencil I had didn't show up against the bare metal of the backing plate.  I could have driven home and got a skinny pen that would fit and work, or I could grab the roll of masking tape next to me and improvise.

20180929-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Centre punched, small pilot hole drilled, and then a larger hole made for all 16 fixing holes and that was that job jobbed, allowing me to finally see if my measurements were good enough and if all this work had been worth it.

20180929-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

It very much is.  I'm really happy with how this looks, it's exceeded my expectations.  The only issue is the passenger side outer light which sits pointed every so slightly up.  I suspect this is because I bent the backing plate a little when drilling the fixing holes, the drill went with a bit of a bang on the top two holes, it will be an easy fix at any rate.  That's also the replacement lens, which is a slightly paler red than the others, combined with the camera lens distortion and, well, you get the idea.  It's just a teensy bit off and I'll sort it.

20180929-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The chrome centre pieces stick out just enough to be interesting, but not so much they look goofy, sitting almost as far out as the waist line of the boot lid, which is pretty much ideal.

20180929-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I did think I'd want to remove the fog lights from under the car but seeing it all together I'm not so sure I do.  They don't look out of place on the back.  I will unbolt them to see what things look like without to make up my mind for certain, but I could well be keeping them.  It's one less bit of wiring to work out if I do.

20180929-07 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Suffice to say, I'm very happy with the result so far and I'm looking forward to splashing some paint on the finished bodywork very soon.

[fordperv]

They look fantastic I can't wait to see them illuminated

[coalnotdole]

I think they work SO much better than the BMW lights. I think having them in line makes a huge difference. Well worth revisiting!

 

Rear Light wise I'd be tempted to have the outers as tailights only, brakes on all 4. Indicators on the outers and reverse lights on the inners.

 

Altogether its much cooler than an Ausin princess has any right to be!

 

Joe

[Asimo]

looking properly 1979 Custom Car centre-spread!

Just need to loose the fog lights somehow.

And needs louvres for the rear window. Flush steel louvres and inset glass. Fog light concealed in the top corner of the louvres........

[vulgalour]

I agree, they look better than the BMW lights, but then the BMW lights were always a compromise.  The difficulty was obtaining two pairs of the Ford lights, postage from the US was always the killer when I did find complete undamaged units, so it took a long while to sort out.

 

I know Autoplas did a rear window louvre for the Princess and I'd still really like one.  Chances of finding one at all are incredibly slim, in all the time I've been looking I've only ever found two examples and neither were to be parted from the cars they were fitted to.  The rear screen is pretty big and doesn't seem to match the shape of anything else, so it looks like using a louvre off another car (like a Ford Capri, for example) isn't an option either.  I'll probably end up making one, it's usually what I do.

 

Tomorrow I hope to get the welding finished and hoping I don't run out of welding gas since my supply is quite low now and then during the week I hope to get the filler, paint, and wiring done.  Next weekend I might even have the rear screen fitted and be driving the car again.  Hopefully there won't be any more repairs that need me to take the car off the road for a substantial period after this.

[PhilA]

The fog lights need to go. </opinion>

 

With four lights the same design and size, it's tidy and completes the bumper-less custom look.

 

Nice job though, that looks smart. Does need chrome exhaust though.

 

Phil

[vulgalour]

I still fancy lakes pipes, there's just no easy way to fit them and have either of them functional and I doubt the O-series sounds like anything other than garbage through them.  Will probably chrome tip the existing pipe and fit a matching dummy pipe on the other side for balance.

[PhilA]

How about Bellflowers instead?

 

Phil

[vulgalour]

Needs a flat bottomed overhang for bellflowers and considerably more overhang than the Princess has to pull it off.  I did briefly consider fabricating some 60s lower wing fins to accomodate them but again, the lack of overhang cocks up the proportions too much.  Shame, they look good on the right car.

 

 

I am still tempted by some of those church organ speaker covers (I've also seen them described as air conditioning vents, so I suppose either could be true), but they're rather pricey for what they are.  They're also not really in keeping with the mid-80s mild custom look I'm going for.

[PhilA]

It's good you've thought this through. The end result is turning out well.

 

Phil

[chompy_snake]

 

Only thing in my mind right now is .... "BOOP"

[MorrisItalSLX]

Those lights look the business! Really suit the look.

 

What about an E-Type fantail exhaust?

 

 

And internal louvres?

 

 

You can still get them custom made here in Australia, I’ve been tempted to get some for the Jag.

 

http://www.autoshades.com.au/