project 1980 Austin Princess

[vulgalour]

Back from the local garage, recommended by a friend, and pleased to say they treated the Princess like any other car, which is good.  The ball joint boots are now done and while I wouldn't normally need to provide the kit, I had bought them intending to do it myself and just couldn't get things apart, so they were happy enough to fit what I provided.

I also got them to look at the squeaky brake since it had decided to play up again today so I stood the best chance of them finding out what that is.  Mechanically, it's all functioning properly.  Discs and pads are healthy, pistons retract properly, but they did mention the squeaky side is a bit stiffer than the non-squeaky side and advised to keep an eye on it.  There's nothing apparently wrong to fix so nothing could be fixed.  It at least gave me peace of mind that there's nothing about to go dangerously wrong there.  The only thing I  can think is that maybe a front hose is less than perfect internally, or it's time to do another brake fluid bleed and refresh.  I don't know.  There's nothing apparent to fix so I just have to ignore it for now I guess until something goes wrong, just old car stuff.

The other nice thing about the garage is they didn't point out anything dangerously amiss on the car and they didn't make any noises like they didn't want me to go back with it, so I might have actually found a pretty decent garage to use.  Their hourly rate is £50, which seems sensible, and the work done - 2 lower ball joint boots, grease, and front brake dismantling and inspection - was £90 which also doesn't seem totally unreasonable for a job I literally could not do myself.

[Rocket88]

If ever you need anything done of a more “ involved” nature, I know of a cracking garage in Brigg

[Dan302]

5 minutes ago, Rocket88 said:

If ever you need anything done of a more “ involved” nature, I know of a cracking garage in Brigg

Which do you use? There's a few I used in Brigg 

[Rocket88]

Engineering place called Drury and Boston

[Dan302]

10 hours ago, Rocket88 said:

Engineering place called Drury and Boston

On island carr opposite Maptech, they took over the unit that used to be my gym, ive heard good things 

[IronStar]

Did they inspect the pads in caliper off fashion on that knocking wheel? If that one side is knocking, but nothing seems amiss, maybe the pad delaminated from the backing? I’ve had this happen on 159, and “well there is something really wrong” moment didn’t occur until it fully delaminated and felt like failed tripod joint after it started sticking the caliper. 

[vulgalour]

I assume they had them off so they could check the pistons were retracting properly, I'm not sure you can test that with the calipers on.  Hopefully they would have then seen any delamination occuring.  I will say after I got the car back from the garage the brake behaved a lot more normally and the squeakiness when it appeared wasn't as severe and quickly went away again so I wonder if it just needs a bit of exercise?  I've got a nice run coming up next week, should be a pleasant evening's drive, that'll help I'm sure or give something an opportunity to go very wrong on an unlit Lincolnshire A road in the middle of nowhere.

[plasticvandan]

It could be a partially collapsed brake hose,I've had that on a reliant kitten where one front brake literally wouldn't retract,took ages to locate the fault,the hose had collapsed inside and so pressure would open it up and put the brakes on,but it would close up after so fluid couldn't return. Does sound like they are just right from lack of use previously though.

[vulgalour]

I've noticed since the garage visit that the squeak is much reduced and when it does appear, it's a lot less loud than it was.  Seems to be working itself out and the brakes themselves don't feel like they're dragging or pulling my sideways when I use them.  I'm also not getting that knock that I was now, that seems to have gone.  I'm also not getting any weirdness with the pedal, it returns normally, and doesn't behave strangely like sinking abnormally or going really hard.  Brakes aren't getting hot either, or at least, they're not getting unusually hot.  It's just an embarrassing occasional noise now that I'm having to put up with for a bit.

If any of that changes, I'll of course look at replacing the hoses although they weren't done that long ago from memory.

[vulgalour]

I do apologise for the very text heavy updates lately, taking photos and video and stuff is more than I have energy for lately.

Things have been going well until a couple of days ago when my work pc shat itself without warning.  Looks like the motherboard or graphics board have failed.  Fortunately my hard disks are okay.  Unfortunately I'm now in the process of setting up a new work station so I can get things going again and have lost half my income until that's done.  Luckily I'd just finished paying for a second hand laptop that I got as a back up machine and while it's not perfect, it will hopefully allow me to do the basics until I can afford a new PC (about £2k).  Repairing my old PC isn't really an option, it's upgraded as far as it can go, is 8 years old, and not really up to what I need it to do and hasn't been for a couple of years now.  The house move ate up my PC replacement fund which is why I hadn't replaced it.

In better news, I've been working on building my new social circle and found myself heading over to Market Rasen yesterday, somewhere I've not been in a very long time.  Pretty nice run out except for my satnav chucking me down a road that seemed to be sliding off into the neighbouring fields and ended in a broken bridge, so that was an adventure.  Some of the roads are a very unpleasant type too, with undulations and adverse camber that tries to throw you into the ditch or oncoming traffic so even when I wanted to I couldn't do the speed limit safely because I was spending all my effort just keeping the car in a straight line.  Manual steering can be a bit of a chore at times like this.

On faster roads I found myself unwilling to go over 60mph even when I could, mostly because I just didn't know the roads that well.  The car is capable, I just wanted to respect my limits as a driver on roads I didn't know.  The drive home was done at gone midnight and that's when I was reminded how dark Lincolnshire is.

Most of the drive home was done on pitch black roads with nasty bends, that alarming road surface previously mentioned, and me being quite tired.  I was incredibly grateful for the LED headlights recently installed, they made the drive home much safer and allowed me to keep the speed up to a respectable level where on the old halogens I would have been crawling along at 30mph or so I'm sure.  They light up road signs and sharp bend signs well in advance so my forward planning was hugely improved and made the drive much more relaxing than it might have been.  I think I've got the alignment somewhat sorted too, nobody flashed me or drove evasively.

In recent years I've not had need to go on roads that are over 40mph and it shows in my driving now.  I've lost a fair bit of confidence and while the car is perfectly capable I definitely need to do more faster driving to build that confidence back up again.  I've never enjoyed motorway driving so I'm glad there isn't really any of that to do in Lincolnshire, it's almost all A and B roads, but it does mean it takes longer to get anywhere.

The run out does seem to have made that intermittent squeak go away so hopefully the brakes just needed the exercise.  There is also an occasional clonk unrelated to the brakes but that could just have been the road surfaces to be honest, some of the compressions I hit were pretty nasty even at lower speeds and I know I scraped the exhaust once on a particularly nasty section of road, even though the car isn't that low.

Finally, since adjusting the carb my urban fuel economy is back up to about 26mpg now which I'm happy about.  Didn't seem to use much on the run out yesterday, so hopefully that's back up in the mid to high thirties again.  New windscreen should be arriving soon too, providing there are no delays, and I'm looking forward to that and getting the roof painted.

[Rocket88]

Ref roads…. It may be flat up here, but some roads are really bad for badly repaired subsidence. Cambers can be hazardous as well

[vulgalour]

Had a run out to Leeds recently, somewhere I have never driven to or in.  By the time I got home I'd done about 160 miles in a single day, car didn't miss a beat.  What it did do was hit an amusing milestone.

I can report on a run I'm getting just a bit over 30mpg, that's on roads where I'm doing 45-55mph, so that's pretty respectable for a Princess with a 1.7 lump and about what you'd expect.  Motorway would get me better mileage and I could have gone motorway to Leeds but as previously mentioned, I don't enjoy it and the time saving isn't enough for me to want to do it yet.

I am keenly aware of my lack of funds at the minute.  Between saving for the new PC and the house move there's not a lot left and I've got two expensive jobs I really need to attend to on the car, namely the welding on the back end (happily recently got a lead on someone who might be able to do this for me for a sensible price and who is no stranger to BMC/BL stuff), and a re-gas of the suspension.  I especially need the rear suspension sorting out, it's very flat, the pivot shafts are seized, and one of the axle mounting bushes needs replacing.  I simply don't have the funds to splurge several hundred quid on these jobs right now so they have to wait.

We are coming out of a quiet period with my artwork at least, and things should be getting busy between now and November, so I'm hoping that redresses the balance somewhat now I have a laptop rigged up to serve as my work machine.  I'm also trying to manage the stress of training and learning the new part time job while making time to maintain a social life.  It's pretty exhausting, but it is getting easier as routines start to settle in properly.

I always find it takes about six months to settle after a house move and I moved in March so by the end of September I should be back on an even keel, I certainly feel like I'm getting there.  This move has been tougher than most because it's been a change of job, relationship status, living status (a detached 2 bed bungalow with garden, drive and garage, to a room in a shared house with a narrow drive and small garden), and long distance relocation to an unfamiliar area.  Really, it's amazing I've got as far as I have in such a short period of time, and annoying that I'm going to have to uproot myself all over again within a year.  A lot can happen in that period of time so who knows where my life will be by then?

I have got another mode of transport incoming too.  It's retro and of similar vintage to the Princess, even more manual and two wheels.  More on that when it's been built up and is ready to use.

[plasticvandan]

Weirdly more interested to hear about the two wheeled 70s transport than the princess,maybe its more authentic 70s working class transport to me than what was a fairly high end car 😅

[SilverMachine]

Awesome princess milestone!

have you managed to investigate the pc fail point? could be something simple or did it let out the magic smoke?

[vulgalour]

PC was a double whammy of mother board and graphics card failure.

[vulgalour]

Well, today has been ups and downs.  I'd already welded up a tiny stress crack under the rear seat, and noticed a little bit of rot on the axle mounting point and thought all was well.  All is not well.  I've had a mystery noise from that corner and today I had reason to remove the rear seat base again to get some furniture transported with the car.  There are new stress cracks in the area I'd welded, my welds are holding just fine, the cracks are just in the same area so something is clearly amiss.

Had a look and found that the small rot on the axle mount is actually still small, but because of where it is there's an undue amount of flex happening in a localised area.  I think this has been accelerated due to some of the awful roads I've driven on recently and it's shaken some more rust free that I couldn't see for underseal.

That's this weekend's challenge set.  I can't do the job exactly as I'd like to, I haven't got the relevant tools, but I can do an agricultural repair.  I'll clean off as much of the rust as I can and at the very least get an overpatch on to make sure the axle mount and the body are properly connected.  I'll also weld up the stress crack, and any others I might find, so I can make sure that corner is strong again.

I would love to get this area properly welded by someone else.  Fact is August has put me through the mill something chronic, I'm down nearly half the wages I would normally have and have been handed a big bill to meet due to the artwork pc dying.  I've not been able to take new work on until this week, and it's not yet the busy part of the year.  It's rough, financially, and there's nothing to pay someone to work on the car with until at least next month now.  The car can't wait that long, I have to do something to address this problem now to stop it becoming something more serious.

Most of all I would just like a break, please.  Financially or otherwise.  I just need things to be boring for a couple of months so I can catch my breath a bit.

[vulgalour]

It never stops.

 

Okay, let's focus on the positives here otherwise I'll implode.  I have found and addressed a serious structural issue on the car, I had just enough welding gas and steel to do it, and just enough grinder consumables, so even though I've got no money to replace any of that right now at least I had enough in stock to get it done.

I'd been noticing a creak and a knock from the rear passenger corner of the car, and hadn't been able to identify it.  Another symptom were stress cracks appear under the rear seat on the same corner.  Something was definitely amiss, I just couldn't see what.  Windy as heck today but the rain had stopped so I had to see what was going on.  I need the car operational for commuting and for visiting friends and since it's a long weekend thanks to the bank holiday there was no reason not to look.  I'm glad I did.

No video, I wasn't in the mood since this isn't a job I wanted to tackle.  What I found was under the car at the back there's a brace that runs from the bottom of the axle mount and spot welds to the floor.  This had cracked across its width and was very rusty, they're always very rusty because they're not the best design on that front.  Happily it's little more than a very long narrow shallow box shape made in fairly thin steel so it was easy to give my housemate a crash course in panel fabrication and they had me one made up in no time at all.  Was nice to pass on a little bit of knowledge and they were happy with what they made.  When I took the remains of the old brace off it was clear that the axle mount was separating from the body unseen because of the brace, which had failed, obscuring it from view.  This was why I was getting the stress cracks and the weird noises on this corner.  The other side is still pretty solid but the brace does need doing that side before it gets as bad as this one.

I suspect the rougher roads I've been on recently have been what's killed it and raised the issue, which is good since it means I've had to address and bad since I've had to address it.  After replacing the section of floor that had rotted out above the brace (this had been repaired before, I can't remember if it was me or a previous owner that had done it) I could then drill spot weld holes in the repair to attach the new brace, hooray for not having to weld upside down.  Unfortunately to get access to the axle mount I had to chop the end off the perfectly fine new outer sill that was done a few years ago... cocked up the angle of the cut and chopped it off in two pieces.  There wasn't money for me to buy a finger sander, which would have avoided me doing this, and I had to get this fixed *now* so I couldn't wait for an alternative solution.  Nobody I know locally has one to borrow either.

The other thing I discovered is the closing plate for the sill wasn't actually attached at the bottom, this might have been my fault as it's a devil of a thing to get into when the sill is on, so I addressed that too since I had the end of the sill off.  It was then welded back on and seam sealed from the back.  I haven't ground the welds flat, I've no gas to chase pin holes and no money to buy gas, so it can stay ugly for now.  When the seam sealer is cured this will all be covered in paint and underseal to see it good for as long as needed.

Underneath the car things are actually pretty reasonable all things considered.  There's some bits of underseal I need to clean up and reapply and that rear axle bush needs the car to go to a garage because I am not dealing with sheared off bolts again at home.  I've got the part, just need the money to pay a garage to fix it.

On the other side of the car it only needs the brace making and fitting, I shouldn't have to chop the end of the new sill off for that one.  I will need more gas so it can wait for now since it's not causing any problems.  I'm glad I've dealt with this problem, I just wish I could have afforded to pay someone to do it for me, I didn't enjoy it.

[vulgalour]

Test drive complete.

You know that thing when you fix something and you didn't realise just how many other things were problems and had just got used to as foibles?  Yeah, that.  The welding has fixed a creak and a clonk, which wasn't unexpected.  It's also fixed a rear end shimmy that I thought was down to the suspension being low on the back.  It wasn't, that shimmy must have been because of the flex in the body-to-axle joint.  Car rides and handles considerably better which is both nice, and alarming.

I can also now hear a very, very quiet creak on the driver's side so that's next on the hit list, just got to save up the £100 needed for materials (gas, cutting discs, paint, etc.) so I can do that in one hit.

The illumination for the speedo is not improved, not that it would be from welding the back end, and there's nothing wrong with it.  The bulb is just really dim, it's always been that way.  It's the worst one to get to as well, requiring blind navigation around the steering column support bracket and wiring loom to get to.  An LED is probably the best way to go, all the bulbs in the dash illumination run through green filter lenses so any plain white LED bulb will do.

[EyesWeldedShut]

10 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

very, very quiet creak on the driver's side

Hip replacement needs greasing?
I do admire your dedication - welding a car on stands is a lovely* thing to be doing.

[Zelandeth]

Well caught on that one before it caused a catastrophic failure.

Imagine that the effect on handling etc has been similar to what I've currently got on the Volvo due to a soggy front trailing arm bush, which is allowing the rear toe angle to vary depending on loading.  Which hopefully will be fixed next week.

Beware of running cold white LEDs through filters - the resulting colour will tend to be a lurid cyan due to the gaps in the LED output spectra.  Admittedly, if the choice is that or not being able to see the speedometer it's an obvious choice!

[Angrydicky]

My dash illumination is absolutely pathetic as well. More like a 50s car than a late 70s one.

[vulgalour]

2 hours ago, Angrydicky said:

My dash illumination is absolutely pathetic as well. More like a 50s car than a late 70s one.

Do you find the outer instruments are lit better than the middle one?  If so then that's TADTS.  The speedo only has a single bulb at the top illuminating it, I feel like there should be a second one at the bottom really, but BL didn't see fit to do that.

 

@Zelandeth it's a green plastic thing for the filter, rather than a gel or similar.  Was intending to fit a bright warm white if I can get a proper bulb for the fitting so it matches the rest of the interior lighting.

[vulgalour]

New annoying problem.  Occasionally, the starter doesn't engage properly, this is a problem the car has had the whole 12 years I've owned it but a problem that's so unpredictable as to when it'll do it that I've filed it under TADTS, especially since whenever the starter has been taken off and inspected there's been absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Recently it's been that most, but not all, days the starter now won't disengage on the first start of the day without a tap from a hammer.  Not really sure what that's about.  Any ideas before I look to see if replacement starters are still available?

[High Jetter]

Replacing the pinion used to be a thing, but is it throwing & retracting smoothly? Maybe a clean with petrol might ease it

[jonathan_dyane]

Clean with petrol then graphite powder (pencil 'lead')

[vulgalour]

Thank you for the advice.  It has stopped doing it now, typically.

[Zelandeth]

Any decent locksmith should be able to provide a bottle of graphite powder which would probably be an ideal lubricant for something like this.

[High Jetter]

8 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Any decent locksmith should be able to provide a bottle of graphite powder which would probably be an ideal lubricant for something like this.

Not sure about that. The advice for BL & Ford engaged pinions was petrol clean, nothing else IIRC. Obs renew if teeth chewed. I don't recall any lube mentioned, but it kinda makes sense

[vulgalour]

This morning, chilling in the garden with mates and their neighbour pops around "Your visitor's car is leaking something."

Always an alarming thing to hear, especially when you don't have something like air conditioning to explain mystery fluids.  Only so many things it could be and I was honestly expecting a little bit of an oil leak and an over reaction from a neighbour.  Turns out it's the fuel filler cap, the brand new one I've fitted, that up until now hasn't leaked a drop, car was merrily dribbling fuel out on to the road.

I had parked slightly up on the curb to be out of the way, the fuel filler flap side was therefore on the low side of the car.  It had almost a full tank of fuel.  The sun had been shining on that side of the car all morning.  Turns out my new filler cap isn't actually vented so the  combination of the above factors was just enough to pressurise things to push a little bit of fuel past the rubber seal.  It was also just enough to strip the top coat of paint off down to the red primer so I'll have to repaint that rear quarter for the third time this year.

When I opened the cap it did a little hiss and that was it, no drama.  Put the cap back on and it's not leaked a drop since so I'm pretty sure it was just because of a specific set of circumstances combining.

I shall keep an eye out for a replacement vented cap, hopefully one of those with a decent rubber seal will fully prevent the issue.  In the meantime it's just something I'll have to be a bit more aware of when it comes to outside temperatures and fuel level.