project 1980 Austin Princess

[Noel Tidybeard]

run a piece of string thru window

[Zelandeth]

22 minutes ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

run a piece of string thru window

We did get an old Bedford coach back to base on one occasion with me hanging through one of the floor hatches manually operating the throttle lever on the fuel pump.

Double declutching was a little interesting, and I was half deaf in my right ear for a few hours afterwards, but we made it!

[vulgalour]

The choke cable idea is a good one and had I got more space to open my door to get to the pedals and a choke cable end that didn't like to fray whenever you look at it, I would have given it a go.  I had enough tools to thoroughly mess up the carb settings to compensate for a lack of choke should I need it, though the car was still warm enough that I shouldn't have.

Likewise the string idea, a great one if you have a length of string (and okay, I could have gone into Homebase and got one, it was another thing I didn't have in the car) and you wanted to navigate the three roundabouts and entirely uphill run from the retail park to my house.  I didn't fancy trying to do that and breaking down in an even worse spot, or having a mishap, waiting seemed the sensible course.

 

I have ordered replacement battery cables and a replacement throttle cable so I shall have some tinkering to do once they arrive.

[Noel Tidybeard]

might be worth making an earth that goes from engine to battery as well as body-->engine

[plasticvandan]

Buy an earth cable from hellfrauds,and fit from block to battery,will make a world of difference

[vulgalour]

It does have two main earth cables fitted.  One is the original braided cable from battery to engine block.  The other is a modern cord type from battery to body which was fitted after the car did this last time a few years ago.

The earthing problem didn't change at all when I cleaned up the cord cable connections, which were already very clean anyway.  It changed when I cleaned up the braided cable connections, which also looked fairly clean, so I strongly suspect the braided cable just isn't providing a good enough path and the secondary cable wasn't able to pick up the slack which is why the throttle was chosen as the alternative path.

The braided cable is the one I shall be replacing with a new cord-type.  I'm also replacing the positive cable to the starter motor since although it looks fine it felt sensible to do the two main battery cables.

I do wonder if this might be the underlying problem with the electric in-tank fuel pump too because although I haven't been getting any other electrical issues, it might be a poor main earth isn't allowing the pump to operate at proper efficiency.  I'll test that when I fit the new cables and if it does improve matters I can then remove the mechanical fuel pump and the oil leak it will eventually inevitably acquire because TADTS.

[vulgalour]

New battery cables fitted and a new throttle cable fitted and we are back in action.  Fun fact, Austin 18-22 throttle cable works just fine for the later Princess models, which I thought it would since it's the same carb, bodyshell, and pedal box even though the engines are different (B series in the 18-22 instead of the O series in the Princess).

Now I just need a few nice days and some free time to collide so I can get on with proper cleaning and welding repairs where required.  I should probably put some fresh fuel in too, what's in it looks like Irn Bru and the fuel gauge needle is almost in the red.

[Talbot]

On 02/11/2023 at 12:04, captain_70s said:

those pressures make the car pretty crap to drive but deviation could invalidate your insurance.

Come again?  That simply cannot be true!

[vulgalour]

You'd be amazed what some insurers will invalidate a policy on, at least apocryphally speaking.

[vulgalour]

Today the weather was absolutely stunning.  Got my tools out to crack on with the sill repair on the Princess, really the only difficult bit of welding (that I know about) left to do, everything else is minor cosmetic things like wheel arch lips that are easier to deal with.

Just lately the car has been letting off a faint whiff of petrol.  It always has, to be fair, throughout my decade or so of ownership.  I kept looking for leaks and wet patches and couldn't find any, the lines and tank were always dry so I always put it down to Old Car Stuff.  That meant I didn't worry about it too much today when welding up the sill.

I had already replaced the very trailing edge of this sill some years ago, that repair is still sound.  The damage is along the rest of the sill for the bottom inch or so.  It looked frilly but more alarmingly is that when I actually cleaned it up the outer and inner sill weren't attached which only became apparent as I started removing the rusty strip.

The cause of the rust is that in the past before I got the car, someone cut the original outer sill off but left the bottom inch of it attached to the inner sill.  Luckily, the inner sill is still really solid so no need to do work there, and it explains why there was nothing to see needing repair underneath the car.  They then slapped a new sill over the top of everything and didn't attach it very well along the bottom edge.  They also didn't put any protection inside the sill.  How it's lasted as long as it has I don't really know.

Some years ago I salvaged an outer sill from an orange Princess I used to own that was too rotten to save.  Fortunately, it had a brand new outer sill attached on one side which ended up being a perfect donor for this repair, what was left being just long enough and the right section to match what I needed.  It took me longer to clean the original outer sill off the car than it did to prepare the patch and then I set to welding it in.

Still going smoothly I made a start grinding off the knobbly bits of welding since I was having to do this laid on my back so the welding looked pretty ugly, and the petrol smell was getting quite strong.  I still couldn't see anything amiss, there was just some water dripping out of the drain at the front... wait.. what drain?

I very quickly downed tools.  While the car was jacked up with the nose down, the front hard line had started to drip fuel at an increasingly alarming rate.  All of the hard fuel lines on this car have underseal on them, have the entire time I've owned it, and it's been through numerous MoTs with no bother on this front.  Today was the day it failed.  Once back on the level the leak slowed and then stopped, which was a little odd.

It was now too late to finish the grinding and any pinhole chasing so I threw some paint on and ordered some new copper fuel line, rubber fuel line, clamps, and pipe bending tool all of which came to about £35.  One job I did want to do is drop the fuel tank so I can refit the rubber grommet around the filler neck and repaint the filler pocket properly.  It was a job I was saving for another time but since I'll be replacing the whole fuel line I might as well do it at the same time and then I'll finish the grinding and welding on the sill once I know things are fuel tight again.

I feel like I've had a bit of a near miss today with this one.

[2flags]

That was a bit of luck to find it then. That could have so easily ended in disaster. Well at least you now know what the problem is. As long as it is only the pipework then the cost isn't too onerous. 

[danthecapriman]

That was a potential disaster swerved!

I must admit, I’m always suspicious about brake lines & fuel lines that have been covered in underseal or grease. Obviously it’s an attempt to stop them rusting but it also means you can’t see the actual metal they’re made of very well. 

[PhilA]

Well done on discovering that. Amazing how long old fuel lines can last and then fail very suddenly...

Also, if you were close, just screw the idle stop screw in to get about 1500-2000 RPM and drive the thing home...

 

Phil

[vulgalour]

I have been lumbered with a cold since the last update and that has held up any sort of progress.  I've got all the parts waiting to go on and thought since it's cold and dry outside today I'd have a go at getting some of the fuel out of the tank.  The electric in tank pump is too weak to help with that, so at least I know it's not the earth cables causing that issues, it's the pump itself, and I don't think the mechanical one is the best way of pumping the fuel out since I'd like to not burn out my starter motor with that much cranking.  I haven't got another pump to use so thought I'd try the old syphon-with-a-hose trick.  Seems the Princess has an anti-syphon tank because I can get some fuel out but then the flow quickly stops.  There's no drain plug on the tank either so it's going to be a messy job of jacking the car up, disconnecting a line, and using gravity.

At a guess there's 30 litres of fuel in the tank at the moment which equates to about 30kg of weight, plus however much the tank itself weighs on top of that.  I don't fancy trying to manhandle that on my own underneath the car on the driveway so it's pretty important I get at least some of the fuel out of it before dropping it off the car.

The last time I dropped the tank I had access to a two post lift in a workshop and an extra pair of hands so it was an awful lot easier.  I should have taken the opportunity to replace the lines then but because they looked perfectly fine at the time and there was a lot of other work going on, they were deemed suitable.  Ah well, that's hindsight.  What I'm planning to do instead is jack the front of the car up as high as I can and get it on axle stands, then disconnect the flexi hose that joins the two hard lines about halfway down the car and use gravity to drain the fuel out from that point.  This also means I'm going to replace the hard line in two parts as it is on the car because now I can see a very good reason for it being done the way it is.

Once I've got as much fuel out as I have containers to put it in, I'll then drop the tank and can make and fit nice new lines, paint the fuel flap pocket, get the fuel flap refitted, and button it all up again.  I do have spare factory floor clamps if the ones on the car are damaged so that's good because those are NLA and a bit of a pain to make, they just bolt to the floor and keep the brake and fuel lines nice and snug to the bottom of the car.  I don't trust that I can find a garage that could do this job quickly for me, and then there's the hassle of actually getting the car over to them since I'm not at all comfortable driving it now I know it has a bad fuel line so I'd have to get it transported there and... yeah... I'm better off doing this one myself.

[vinyljunky]

These look so good in black

[grogee]

8 hours ago, vulgalour said:

I have been lumbered with a cold since the last update and that has held up any sort of progress.  I've got all the parts waiting to go on and thought since it's cold and dry outside today I'd have a go at getting some of the fuel out of the tank.  The electric in tank pump is too weak to help with that, so at least I know it's not the earth cables causing that issues, it's the pump itself, and I don't think the mechanical one is the best way of pumping the fuel out since I'd like to not burn out my starter motor with that much cranking.  I haven't got another pump to use so thought I'd try the old syphon-with-a-hose trick.  Seems the Princess has an anti-syphon tank because I can get some fuel out but then the flow quickly stops.  There's no drain plug on the tank either so it's going to be a messy job of jacking the car up, disconnecting a line, and using gravity.

At a guess there's 30 litres of fuel in the tank at the moment which equates to about 30kg of weight, plus however much the tank itself weighs on top of that.  I don't fancy trying to manhandle that on my own underneath the car on the driveway so it's pretty important I get at least some of the fuel out of it before dropping it off the car.

The last time I dropped the tank I had access to a two post lift in a workshop and an extra pair of hands so it was an awful lot easier.  I should have taken the opportunity to replace the lines then but because they looked perfectly fine at the time and there was a lot of other work going on, they were deemed suitable.  Ah well, that's hindsight.  What I'm planning to do instead is jack the front of the car up as high as I can and get it on axle stands, then disconnect the flexi hose that joins the two hard lines about halfway down the car and use gravity to drain the fuel out from that point.  This also means I'm going to replace the hard line in two parts as it is on the car because now I can see a very good reason for it being done the way it is.

Once I've got as much fuel out as I have containers to put it in, I'll then drop the tank and can make and fit nice new lines, paint the fuel flap pocket, get the fuel flap refitted, and button it all up again.  I do have spare factory floor clamps if the ones on the car are damaged so that's good because those are NLA and a bit of a pain to make, they just bolt to the floor and keep the brake and fuel lines nice and snug to the bottom of the car.  I don't trust that I can find a garage that could do this job quickly for me, and then there's the hassle of actually getting the car over to them since I'm not at all comfortable driving it now I know it has a bad fuel line so I'd have to get it transported there and... yeah... I'm better off doing this one myself.

Yep I'm with your plan, let gravity do the work. I've manoeuvred the Maestro tank in and out a few times now, and it's a ballache with fuel in (see my spannering thread feat. petrol in earhole). 

Funnily enough the Maestro hard fuel line is on my list to deal with, there's a bit of surface rust but nothing major. 

[vulgalour]

Every year I mean to do the windscreen seal on the Princess and every year I don't get around to it and so every winter I have condensation issues.  I've got a new seal to fit, there's no real reason I haven't done it.  I'm not a total monster, I did buy a car hat to deal with the problem now that it's too cold to be risking fitting new rubber seals and old windscreens.  Car covers have to be fitted back-to-front on the Princess because of its weird shape and since de-bumpering I have to use the slots in the wheels to put the hooks through because everything else has been smoothed out.

You'll have to excuse the Facebook Marketplace style photo, I cba to go back outside just for that.

[Rocket88]

Gangsta tints innit……

[SilverMachine]

just reading this from the beginning, still in single figures page number wise and still beige (i think anyway some image links are not playing nice thanks photophucket!), wondering how many miles you have spent piloting the old girl since becoming her keeper and caretaker over ten years ago?

as always keep up the good work!

[vulgalour]

I don't think I've spent that many miles actually driving it, use as the main car has always been somewhat sporadic, I've almost always had a second car to use alongside so the mileage got shared between them.  Photobucket obliterated the history on this, I do still have all the photos but replacing them is going to take an absolute age and I simply haven't found the motivation or time of late.

--

Took the Princess on its first proper test run since replacing the rotten fuel line, something I've been putting off because my confidence was knocked back somewhat with it given the recent problems it threw at me.  That's silly, really, because those problems were easily and fairly quickly resolved and the car has never failed to just work since sorting them out.  The most immediate thing I've noticed since replacing the fuel line is that the constant whiff of fuel the car has had my entire ownership has gone, from both inside and outside.  This is a little alarming because myself and numerous other people had tried over the years to find the cause of the fuel smell and none of us could find it so I can only assume fuel vapour was escaping through a porous section of the old steel line that I've since replaced and has been doing that for at least a decade.

The other amazing thing is that the mechanical fuel pump doesn't appear to be leaking oil from the spacer block like they normally do, so I'm calling that a win.  There are some black specks in the fuel filter, I'm not sure what that could be and I wonder if it's related to the in-tank electric pump dying.

Generally speaking the car runs quite nicely all things considered.  The only thing that persists is the flat spot when setting off, another thing it's always done.  Again, I've had several people look at this and only ever managed a temporary fix.  Sometimes topping up the dashpot helps, sometimes it doesn't.  Some days it doesn't do it, most days it does.  If you dip the clutch and give it some more revs when it tries to die it picks up and sets off as normal and it was like this on the old clutch and slave cylinder as well as on the new clutch and slave cylinder.  No idea on that one, we'll figure it out some day, for now I just drive around the issue.

The good thing is I feel more confident in the car's abilities now.  The car cover is keeping a lot of the moisture out, even if  the wind does keep trying to turn it into a parachute (bungee cords to the rescue on that one) and that makes it more pleasant inside.  I just need a run of good weather again so I can finish tidying up the sill repair and giving the car a proper clean, that's a big ask in December.

[Datsuncog]

Midwinter spannering's never fun. But kudos for persevering, and overcoming!

[vulgalour]

In my mission to gain confidence today we went to town to run an errand, that means stop start traffic and Christmas shoppers to navigate.  All of that was fine, what wasn't fine was the AA van with an SUV on a towbar trying to merge into me because somehow they were oblivious of the bright pink car visible in their mirror.  After that they then realised they were in the wrong lane and repeated the maneouvre on another car they had also somehow not seen at all.  Baffling.

As for the running, it does seem to be getting better with use (it always does, to be fair), and the flat spot issue seems to lessen as the car gets up to full operating temperature so maybe it's something to do with the hot/cold air intake if it's temperature related.  Temperature and charging all look to be nice and stable, I've not driven it enough to judge fuel usage yet.  My goal at the moment is to actually drive the car to rebuild my confidence in its reliability and to use up some of the fuel in it to make dropping the tank for the rear line replacement easier.

The most noticeable difference is definitely the smell.  This car has always been slightly stinky after even the shortest drive and now it's not, which is a little strange, whether or not that will remain to be the case in warmer weather we'll have to see.

For now this is about all I can do, the weather won't allow for any sort of cleaning work, certainly not for any sort of bodywork, so I'm as well just trying to make sure I drive it (which actually helps keep the interior dry too) and keep it mobile until the weather improves and I can do some real work on it.

[Rocket88]

Try a bit of Captain Tolly’s finest on the front screen rubber….

[vulgalour]

It's a bit past that sadly.  We're more in the forty three layers of bathroom silicone territory.

[vulgalour]

Okay so since the last update I've been using the Princess sparingly because I haven' t needed to do a lot.  It did throw a problem at me last week where it would overfuel.  First time it did it I had the car die at traffic lights and then start up but not be happy about it, pulled into a service station and tapped the carb and it stopped overfuelling so I put that down to a sticky float/needle.

The second time it did the overfuelling was at a different busier traffic lights and I couldn't get it to stop playing silly buggers.  I even partially dismantled the carb at the lights to try and resolve it but it didn't want to know.  Resigned myself to having to remove the carb at a later date.  One person did ask if I needed a jump start and as soon as I said it was a carb issue they wound up their window.  Rude, but fair.  Finally got it to reluctantly run without totally flooding out and limped it the few hundred yards home with it occasionally trying to die, kangarooing, and then clearing up totally.  I was a bit concerned it might be that the electric pump was working properly again and maybe I had too much fuel pressure or something since it's running in tandem with the mechanical pump and determined to investigate when I got chance.

Then work got busy for a week and I didn't need to use the car so it sat idle until I had time one lunch break to investigate.  First job was disconnect but not remove the mechanical pump, looping the fuel hose around so the pump just pumped in a small circuit while the engine was running rather than spraying fuel all over the engine bay.  The main fuel line was reconnected to the carb as per factory and I tried to start the car with just the electric in tank pump.  I was somewhat relieved to find out that the electric pump still can't pump fuel up to the filter, let alone the carb, showing that while it does make some noise it's actually not working for whatever reason.  Reconnected the mechanical pump and prepared to remove the carb to have a look in there and maybe clean it out.

First, I started the car, just in case, and it was fine.  The overfuelling issue was totally gone.  I let it warm up and the overfuelling didn't reappear.  Can't fix it if it isn't broken so I just called it done.

 

Today, took the car out on some errands I needed to do and apart from the usual manual choke cold start and cold weather grumpiness, she was good as gold.  Seems to be using less fuel than I'd expect, which is nice, and might even be high 20s mpg instead of mid to low 20s, I'll know better with more miles and some maths.  I'm not really using the car a lot at all at the moment.  These last few weeks before the house move are all about knuckling down with work and not spending as much as I can possibly manage.  I do my best to use the car for a proper warm-through run once a week, even if I've no errands to actually run, to keep everything moving and drive any damp out of the cabin.  Helps to keep the front brake discs from going rusty or the rear drums from sticking too, as well as making sure the tyres aren't getting flat spots.

For now, we are back to An Car status and as long as she can stay that way for a few more weeks I shall be perfectly happy.

[vulgalour]

Yesterday I had the rare treat of a passenger in the Princess since we both had errands to run and it made sense to do it together. While I've been using the Princess more often unsurprisingly it's been staying much more dry inside even when it's been raining a lot so we didn't get damp bums which is always a bonus.

The belt screech is vastly reduced, which makes sense since the roads were vastly drier than last time I was out and the temperature is up, but it did give a couple of cheeky squeals.  I've ordered a can of belt dressing on the recommendation of another forum, I'm pretty sure a previous owner had the same problem since there was some stuff on the pulley when I got the car which was probably old belt dressing.

The flat spot issue with acceleration is definitely engine operating temperature related. Once the car was properly up to temperature the issue went away totally, while it was still cold I was having to guess a bit more than I would have liked for the bite point setting off.

I also learned I'm hopeless at parking this car lately. The Maestro was an awful lot easier to place being much more square and without the C pillar blind spots the Princess has, it also had lighter steering and a better turning circle. Parking the Princess is awkward due to the large turning circle and the sheer bulk of modern cars in car parking spaces that are realistically too small. Happily the Princess is narrow enough that even my worst parking jobs were still within the lines and with time will come familiarity... I hope.

I'm still not putting a serious amount of miles on the car or venturing on to any roads that are above a 40mph limit, and am keenly aware of the jobs I want to do later this year, especially since I am taking advantage of the MoT exemption it benefits from. The plan is very much to get settled in the new place, work through the niggles and potential MoT issues I can find, and then book it in for a fresh MoT and see where we end up. It does feel wrong driving it without an MoT and I am being somewhat hypocritical since I said I wouldn't do that, but circumstances being what they are with the house move it's just the most practical solution for the moment.

[vulgalour]

Finally, a nice day of weather when I'm not at work!  Decided to crack on and do a few jobs that weren't video-worthy but all needed doing.  Found lots of little rust bubbles that will need attending this year, I foresee a summer of welding lots of patches that are almost too small to bother with and too big to be able to leave alone.

First thing was to replace the broken wing mirror.  This one was my fault, somehow my coat caught the mirror glass, popped it out of the housing and dropped it on the floor.  I then broke the mirror glass trying to reinstall it, because of course I did.  Old mirror housing had one spinning bolt, naturally, so I had to carefully cut through the stem of that.  Fitting the new one was pretty easy and setting it up wasn't too onerous a task either.  I didn't do the other side since it isn't broken and I didn't want to go making more work for myself.

Next up, wheels off so I could wrangle the front arch liners back into place.  There's no nice way of doing these and they're damaged from before I got the car and have picked up more damage since.  I've got mixed feelings about putting these back in really, just can't bring myself to do away with them permanently while they're still at least functional.  They're held in with three or four screws and the arch lip itself, none of which you can see because I didn't try to take a photo until it was all back together and the car was back on the floor.

Between putting the mirror on and the arch liner on I did splash some paint and underseal over the new mirror's nuts and bolts to hopefully prevent rusting, the arch liner will also help since it covers everything away from the splashed up grime.  Another job I've been procrastinating on was refitting the fuel filler flap because I wanted to get the paint done.  I can do the paint later, for now it makes more sense to have the car back in one piece.  Easy enough to do once I found some proper fixings and suitable washers, then splashed some black on the primer just to stop rust.  I do need to repaint this flap because of a reaction that happened when I was doing a test run on the enamel paint I got, possibly a reaction between the primer and the gloss.

Finally, after clearing out the boot and tidying it up, I fitted the replacement light lenses.  The inner passenger side red lens had developed a crack that was going to start letting water in and causing corrosion issues.  Finding '64 Galaxie rear lights isn't that easy in the UK and the ones I could find that would match in the US were often from sellers who wouldn't post at all.  Luckily, I had a friend in the States willing to be the middle man and got a really nice pair of basically new lenses to go on.  They do have a different chrome boss, there were several different designs, but I don't mind that in this instance.  I replaced both inner lenses so I've got a matched set.  Car is sitting wonky because it had just come off the jack and I didn't jiggle it to settle it out level, just Hydragas things.

The driver's side front inner wing has a bunch of little patches that I'll have to weld in this year, nothing serious or complicated, just age related stuff really.  I've got a new outer wing to go on this side so I'll likely bundle fitting the wing and doing the repairs all together in one week of welding fun.  Access is at least pretty good for the most part and it won't need to look nice.  I'm unlikely to be able to do any welding before I move house now, which is a shame.  It's another logistics thing really, having the good weather and spare time in February is unlikely and I'm nearly out of gas in the current bottle.  I don't want to have to buy a new bottle of gas right before moving house/part way through a job and then have to buy another when I'm at the new place (I don't want to put a gas bottle in the van we've hired for moving with).  It can be a spring/summer job instead when we've got longer days and I can take a bit more time over it.

Last job I found to do was topping up the dashpot on the carb as it was a bit low.  That'll help just in general, it always does.

[vulgalour]

Built from aluminium salvaged from an old Lanchester boot lid, and covered in carpet that was formerly a Princess carpet set, I have finally finished the custom rear light covers and trim panel in the Princess.  It only took me eight years.

Hopefully it will take me rather less time to do the other trim panels in the boot.  I do have a board for doing the back of the back seat, and the exposed metalwork all needs to be redone in black.  The original floor mat wants to be replaced ideally, either in red carpet to match the interior, or black carpet since it's the boot so it's not mega important, I'll use the original as a template when I do that job.  Wheel cover is the original and can stay as is, and I need to replace the boot seal at some point since it has more issues than just overspray.

[vulgalour]

Today the Princess has been very good for errands, appears to be doing very well on fuel, and has generally behaved itself.  Had to use the headlights for the first time in ages and noticed the driver's side one was super droopy, suspected the adjusters had backed themselves out.  Turns out they hadn't, the adjusters are firmly seized in place and I cannot move them.  Somehow, the headlight support ring had jumped off the top locater peg which was now pushing the aim at the floor.  Easy fix at least and headlights realigned.  Then the reversing light went on partial strike and every time I look at the wiring to try and find out what's amiss, it's working fine, with or without the new cover in place.

Just old car nonsense really.

The other thing I noticed is a distinct lack of boom from the boot since installing the new light covers, which is nice, except that now I can hear the wind noise from one of the driver's side doors that happens at about 38mph.

[vulgalour]

Today has been full of errands, to save time (the weather was dreary and I didn't want muddy shoes) I rather lazily drove to the gym.  In protest, when I stopped at the end of the street the Princess hurled a hubcap off.  Luckily I could grab it and pop it back on and it seems pretty secure so I've no idea what that was about.  Car is definitely driving a lot better now it's been taken out once a week minimum, which is nice.

On one errand found myself parked between a Toyota Yaris GR and a Hyundai i20N.  I didn't blend in very well.  Was also weird how small the Princess looked between them, stood alone it still looks like a good sized car.