project 1980 Austin Princess

[vulgalour]

Right then, these brakes.  Princess started no bother as has become the norm, and we trundled over to the unit.  Dismantling everything was actually surprisingly easy, in large part because Mike did that instead of me, but also because things weren't all rusted solid which made a very pleasant change.  The old brake pads still have loads of meat left on them and aren't particularly badly damaged really.  Even the pins and anti rattle/squeal plate things looked like they could be reused (they won't be).  Before disconnecting the hoses to the calipers, Mike stuck a bit of wood in them while I operated the pedal and most of the pistons popped free.

Annoyingly, 2 of the 8 pots are stuck, so Mike did battle with those on the bench while I dealt with that bit of flaking paint around the side repeater.  It is not my finest painting hour, I must say, at least the rust and bare metal are dealt with and that's all that matters at this point.

Removing the old discs was delightfully easy.  In fact, none of this brake job has been a war especially, which Mike and I were both surprised about.  To remove the discs you have to remove the split pin and hub nut, then clamp the disc in the vise to unbolt the outer hub part from the disc itself.  I haven't yet torqued up the hub nuts or refitted the split pin, the new discs are just in place until we're ready to put the calipers back on.

One of the brake caliper piston seals and retaining ring fell off which demonstrated the need for a rebuild (I have the kits, it's a job that will be done before reassembly) and the passenger side disc has started to warp with a very similar section of damage on the surface to what the driver's side had.  Both calipers are ready for a rebuild, perhaps past ready, and while they don't leak and the brakes do meet the legal requirement, it's clear they've not been working as well as they should for quite some time.  At least now we can fix that.  There wasn't enough time to finish faffing with the calipers today and Mike's said he'll get the sticky pistons unstuck this week so that everything can go back together.  The hoses and hard lines all look in good shape, which was nice to see, and while the calipers are scruffy they're certainly not in need of massive amounts of remedial work, just a quick tidy and new seals really.

The Princess can enjoy a little indoor break for the time being.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

^ 

Steve: “Dave, I’ve just gone to fetch that GT6 inside to have a tinker with it. You see it anywhere?”

Dave: “Yeah mate, it’s hanging on the wall over there, near the consumer unit. “

 

Great to see the old diva isn’t particularly being an old diva. 

[Rocket88]

On 5/13/2019 at 7:31 PM, vulgalour said:

The Daily Driver Challenge - Conclusion.

I decided to end the DDC at the point that it was clear the BX would be distracting me from using the Princess every day because it didn't seem fair to do otherwise.  The DDC took place from late November 2018 until early May 2019, a time of year when most forty year old cars are bundled up safe and warm waiting for the show season to begin again.  It was the least ideal time to be using a classic car and likely to be the most challenging, certainly the best way to get a fair estimation of the car's abilities and reliability over that period of time.

The short version for the 24 weeks of the DDC goes like this:

13 weeks of trouble-free boring motoring

1 failure to proceed: warped brake disc.  AA less than useless and refused recovery because I'd had the temerity to break down on the road outside a garage that was closed.

1 failure to proceed that was repaired at the roadside: carburettor issues

Various servicing and minor repairs.

 

The long version is that overall, a car with a reputation for being incredibly unreliable and being asked to drive in all weathers, at all times of day, including in the snow at night, proved itself capable of getting me where I needed to go whenever I needed to go there.  Had I needed to use the car for long distance commuting, I would have done more to prepare the car for use than I did.  Instead, I was asking the car to do between 50 and 100 miles a week, and to be able to go out whenever I needed it to almost every day.  The majority of the mileage was urban only, though there were some longer distance motorway runs and faster A road trips taken as well.  It was used in rush hour on occasion, late night runs, and got caught up in school traffic several times, all of which it coped with perfectly fine.

Repairs were needed.  Mostly this was simply down to parts wearing out, as parts do.  Before the test, a new main earth wire was fitted along with brand new tyres for reliability and safety.  I also used the DDC to highlight any issues I may have overlooked when the car was being used much less, and that meant quite a few small items were replaced that didn't absolutely have to be, things like the reversing light switch (which collapsed after a handful of miles and saw me refitting the original after cleaning it up), the oil pressure switch to cure a minor oil leak, an in-line fuel filter, a new carburettor gasket, a steering column upper bush, and new CV boots.  More serious items required were a lower ball joint, the front wheel bearings, electronic ignition (failed condenser also saw badly burned points), a brake disc, a rebuilt alternator, and some welding to a rear inner arch.  Other than that, a little oil was required since it consumes a small quantity.

Overall, I don't regard the items replaced as being that out of the ordinary for any car of this age and mileage and most of the items were quite old and had done quite a few miles.  At the close of the DDC, the only outstanding issue is the brake rebuild and the reason that hasn't been done is simply a matter of finding the time to strip down and rebuild everything.  I've never done anything with the front brakes in the seven years I've had the car, other than bleeding them, and I imagine previous owners were much the same, mostly because nothing needed to be done until this year.

Would I recommend using a forty year old car every day?  Generally speaking, no.   The problem with an old car is that it's an old car.  Unless you've gone through the whole thing and replaced every consumable item with good quality new, or as good as new, items, you're going to have a bad time.  Parts wear out and you need to be aware that when you press an older car into service you running a greater risk than usual of cascade failure.  I took the chance with this car because I've owned it for a long time and I thought I'd ironed out all the problems I was likely to face.  Many of the parts I've needed have been awkward to acquire, though rarely expensive, and some of the parts have been incorrectly described.  So if I was relying on the car to get me to work and back every day rather than just run me around on my errands most days, my attitude in closing on this experiment would likely be very different.

That said, if you're of the mentality that you want to experience this sort of thing, then go for it.  Just have contingencies in place.  If you're going to use a classic every day for a protracted period of time, it's wise to have a back-up car or someone with a back-up car, that can help you out if you do get stuck.  Also, approach pressing an older car into service like going into a really slow endurance race.  Replacing things like filters and hoses, ignition components, and making sure all your electrical stuff is in good order is very sensible.  Carrying tools and fluids in the boot is also very sensible and, if you can, having spares such as ignition components and belts, is very sensible.  One thing I've learned is that breakdown cover does not always mean breakdown cover, so you have to give yourself a fighting chance of repairing your car yourself to a standard that will get you home.

One positive of the DDC is how much more aware of other road users it's made me.  When you haven't got the driver aids of blind spot monitors and electronic ignition, parking sensors and ABS, you find your driving changes.  You look for and anticipate behaviour you might not otherwise notice.  It makes the act of driving somewhat more tiring as a result because you're concentrating so much more.  However, there were plenty of times that I found myself able to predict bad behaviour from other road users and prevent myself getting into trouble and those are skills I'll be carrying forwards.  I'm not saying driving a classic car will make you a perfect driver, it won't.  What it will do is make you more aware as a driver.  Older cars are less insulated from the outside world too, so I did find I was much more aware of folks on two wheels, and generally speaking people are nicer and behave respectfully towards you.

Now that I've completed the DDC it has proven that I have absolutely no desire to part with the Princess (not that there was any doubt) and that it is quite capable of doing everything I need it to do.  It's proven that I don't need a newer car, that I don't even need a radio, and that it's an affordable form of transport that makes me happy.  If I had to, I could use the Princess as my only car and this experiment has allowed me to get the car in really very good shape overall.  It's not perfect, it's not about to win any shows, and that's fine.  It's a car I can use and that I enjoy to use, and that's all that really matters.

Your comments about 40 year old running gear are spot on. If you think back to when the Princess was new, and then go back another 40 years, the difference in technology between the two eras was even more pronounced. The fact that the Princess is capable of being a daily driver is testament to your perseverance, but it's one of the reasons why I replaced all of the 403's running gear with modern stuff.......I do want to use it as an everyday car, and 50 year old oily bits weren't going to make that either reliable or pleasant.

[SiC]

Those calipers look massively over powered for the car?! I mean four pots and two brake lines!

The disc setup looks very much like my MGBs. I'm not looking forward to trying to remove the hub and disc combo.

[Asimo]

2 minutes ago, SiC said:

Those calipers look massively over powered for the car?! I mean four pots and two brake lines!
 

Really good brakes on these cars: two circuits, both circuits work both front wheels. Princess calipers were the brake mod for fast Fords for years.

[vulgalour]

I agree, the brakes are massively over-engineered for the car and it's not hard to see why they continue to be one of the most valuable items on even a scrap car, as Asimo says, they were a cheap and effective performance upgrade on Fords for a very long time, and standard fare for many a kit car.  Realistically it doesn't need the brakes its got and most Princesses seem to have survived without ever needing to have the front discs or pads replaced from new, it's entirely plausible that the ones on my car are the originals from 1980.  What's going to be interesting is how good the brakes will be when we're done, they've never been particularly lacking until the warped disc incident so I imagine they could even compare favourably to the BX brakes.

[PhilA]

Those pads look glazed tae fook. Rest of it looks in good shape though.

 

Renault pads looked like that, put new ones in and the difference even on old discs was startling.

 

--Phil

[vulgalour]

Trick of the light.  In person they're not very shiny, for some reason my phone-cam picked up a lot of shine you can't see in person.

[vulgalour]

Huff.

While the Princess has been at the unit waiting for brake parts, someone has been snooping around everything and snapped the door mirror off.  Fortunately I can repair it.  I had initially thought the weld between the original arm and the new threaded portion I had to attach is what had broken, it was actually part of the weld itself which had a weak point.  That said, the amount of force required to bend the mirror forwards to snap the weld must have been considerable and deliberate so I'm not particularly thrilled about it.  I'm just relieved it didn't do more damage, had the weld not failed it could have put a nasty dent in that panel, or worse.  I'll repair the mirror stem when I do the rear door, which I'll be doing over the next few days, since it seems a bit daft to haul the welder out just to do one little blob on the mirror stem.

In other news, the brake parts arrived so we could get on with that.  Mike had already stripped down, inspected, painted, and baked the caliper bodies as well as retapping one of the dodgy threads to a slightly larger size to accept a slightly larger bleed nipple.  There's three bleed nipples on each brake caliper on the Princess.  The old caliper pistons were difficult to remove, some had stuck, and several had corrosion and pitting bad enough to render them scrap.  Fortunately, the corrosion hadn't attacked the bores which are nice and clean, it was limited to the part of the piston that should be protected by the dirt seal, much of which had disintegrated on both pistons.  I bought a set of stainless steel pistons from eBay so this shouldn't be an issue in the future.

I've never done calipers before so Mike was talking me through how to do them.  Much simpler than I expected in all honesty.  We then encountered a problem when we realised that both of the O ring seals needed to be fitted before installing the pistons because otherwise the metal locking ring thing won't seat.  It's just as well we did have to remove the pistons, one of the seals we'd installed broke up as the piston was removed.  All of the other seals are perfectly fine and these are brand new seals, there was no fighting with assembly of the parts, it was all as snug as it should be, so we think this was just a defective seal and nothing more.  A new set of seals has been ordered so the brakes will have to wait a little longer for those to arrive before we can complete reassembly.

At this point I've spent more money trying to rebuild these calipers than it would have cost to just buy a new pair.  Unfortunately, I'm invested in the rebuild to the point that it wouldn't now be cost effective to buy a new pair, so let's hope nothing else goes wrong.

[purplebargeken]

Quote

When you haven't got the driver aids of blind spot monitors and electronic ignition, parking sensors and ABS, you find your driving changes.  You look for and anticipate behaviour you might not otherwise notice.  It makes the act of driving somewhat more tiring as a result because you're concentrating so much more.  However, there were plenty of times that I found myself able to predict bad behaviour from other road users and prevent myself getting into trouble and those are skills I'll be carrying forwards. 

This a milion times. The old farts amongst us will recall driving in the 80's with none of this witchcrafty stuff. Better drivers? Yes, I think so.  To an extent.

[vulgalour]

The seal kit and bleed nipple dust covers that I ordered arrived today, much sooner than expected, so Mike got busy rebuilding the calipers and now they're all done and looking lovely.

Bleeding process went very smoothly and everything was going well.  All that needed to be done was nip up the last bleed nipple and put the dust caps and wheels back on.  The last bleed nipple is the one that had to have the thread retapped.  The last bleed nipple did this.

Great joy.  Fortunately, the spare calipers haven't sold so we're pulling those off sale and hoping we can dismantle them to give us the bits we need and that they're in good enough shape to be rebuilt.  At least I've enough spare components to do this after having to order the other seal kit.  If we can't salvage things this way then it looks like all this effort to rebuild the front calipers, and the money invested, as a waste of time and I'll end up having to buy new calipers.  Oh well, that's just the way these jobs go sometimes.

[Noel Tidybeard]

helicoil time!

[vulgalour]

You can't helicoil it, part of the casting has broken off.

[Noel Tidybeard]

butterfingers!

[Meter rat]

Shit about the vandalism to the mirror. Hope the brake job works out.

 

[Uncle Jimmy]

I actually enjoy refurbing brake calipers; suppose I'm just wierd.

I'd build up that casting with the MIG, re-bore and re-tap.  As I said I'm wierd.

[vulgalour]

It's okay, Mike managed to salvage the good part from the spare calipers, has already stripped and painted it, so it should all be back together this weekend we hope.

[richardthestag]

Bollocks to the broken caliper. BUT had you sent these off then they would have still failed and it would have cost you more than it did.

Does that make sense?

[keef]

[vulgalour]

Not sure what's going on there, Keef.

---

We finally got the brakes sorted today.  Another bleed through and we found the rear passenger side drum was a bit recalcitrant until it spat out a blob of some gungy black stuff, presumably that's been floating around in the system for quite some time since I have bled the brakes on this car at least twice in my ownership and it's not done that since the first bleed through.  The pedal feels very different now, in a good way, so I'm looking forward to actually testing the brakes properly, which I'll do when the car isn't blocked in by a recalcitrant P38.

Yes, we did go to the trouble of fitting bleed nipple covers all round.  That's the first car I've ever had with a full compliment of those, they'll likely all ping off in a few months.  The only other job I could do today was repair the mirror, a simple case of cleaning back the broken weld and rewelding it with more heat.  Went back together no problem and, with the brakes done, we could get the car back on its wheels.

My list of jobs is quite small, though some are a bit expensive:

Re-gas displacers - driver's front especially in need and I have no spare front displacers

Rust repair and repaint of rear driver's door

Rust repair on rear arches

Repaint front valance and, maybe, bonnet

Fit new windscreen seal - To be done before the weather turns again, now it's finally warm and dry I stand a chance of getting it done.

Proper respray - I really do want to get the car properly resprayed.  Realistically, I'm expecting a minimum £5,000 investment on this which is a massive spend for me.  To me, the car is totally worth the cost, I'm not in this game to make any money (just as well, really, given my choices) and if it costs nearer £10,000 that's okay too providing I've got it. Luckily, £5,000 is going to take me ages to save up because right now I've got about a dozen different colours I like that I can't choose between so it gives me time to make up my mind.  Or find more colours I like.

[vulgalour]

Drove the Princess home today, finally.  The brake job was just one of those jobs where it was plenty of little things going wrong and then waiting on parts and so on.  That said, it was well worth doing.  All the while I've had the car until very recently the brakes have never felt inadequate and have always met the legal requirement so apart from general bleeding there never seemed to be any need to investigate further.  How wrong I was!  The brakes are so much lighter and more responsive now than they've ever been, it really has been something of a revelation.  It's difficult to explain it really, it's almost as though the brakes feel like they're off a newer car, just not an over assisted car with a dead feeling pedal.  It's like there's more fine control on the braking progression and I don't have to brake as hard or as early to slow the car down.  This isn't really that surprising given that everything is practically brand new up front now and all 8 pistons are working in the calipers rather than just 2.

Now to enjoy driving it for a few weeks before disabling it again to get the front displacers re-gassed.  At least that's a fairly straightforward job.

[SiC]

before disabling it again to get the front displacers re-gassed.  At least that's a fairly straightforward job.

Quoting this for when you are swearing at them because they won't come out.

[Noel Tidybeard]

22 hours ago, vulgalour said:

Now to get the front displacers re-gassed.  At least that's a fairly straightforward job.

[scdan4]

Hurrah for shiny new brakes. How short did you stop at the first junction?

[vulgalour]

About two car lengths.  Did that slightly awkward "oops I've slowed down much too soon I'll just creep forwards at 4mph" thing.

Had a surprisingly easy time of swapping the rear door for my (fairly rotten) spare so I can repair the one I took off and finally get it painted to match.  Eventually I'll replace that rear Allegro hubcap with a Princess one.

[Noel Tidybeard]

wots the difference?

[vulgalour]

With the hub caps?  Allegro ones have a smaller black circle and no scalloped edge.

[Skut]

On 6/24/2019 at 6:23 PM, vulgalour said:

 

That's a simply mental number of caliper pistons for just the front wheels. Like something from an aircraft. 

[New POD]

53 minutes ago, Skut said:

That's a simply mental number of caliper pistons for just the front wheels. Like something from an aircraft. 

On my old metro Turbo it had 4 piston either side. What happens is that gradually one after another seizes up until there's one per wheel working. 

In comparison to the Lucas Collette caliper with one piston per side, they are just full of cost. 

[vulgalour]

That's pretty much what had happened with mine.  Aviation redundancy engineering could well be inspiration for it, they do seem rather excessive for what the car is.  A frivolity arrived in the post today for the Princess.  I got some clear indicator lenses and orange bulbs to try out in place of the orange indicator lenses and clear bulbs up front.  I haven't got a preference either way on the appearance, though I do like that the clear lenses obscure the origin of the MG B units somewhat so they look a bit less like they've come from another car.

If I want to change back to gingercators, it's really easy to do.