project 1980 Austin Princess

[beko1987]

If its anything like the xm (which it probably isn't) its behave oddly for a few hundred miles, then settle down and be lovely!

 

Looking good now, I'm glad you didn't give up hope last year

[barefoot]

I'm in two minds about that!

[dean36014]

Can remember pumping these up when I was a mechanic. IIRC the measurement was 14 1/2 inches from the centre of the wheel to the wheel arch lip.

[plasticvandan]

i pumped my allegro estate up,splashed out on one of the proper pumps when they were on offer,still cost half as much as the car,got my money back for it tho made an enormous difference to how it drove,it had suffered from the pass side dropping down,stayed up for the time i owned it.

[Angrydicky]

Looks so much better at the correct ride height! I really like the badge too, looks like something a "mad old giffer" would have fitted to his Princess in the 80's. Not that I'm suggesting you're such a thing! Peaked numberplates, with the front in the correct position, will improve the looks no end as well. Not too keen on the James May sticker though I must admit.

[Rocket88]

Purple, white vinyl roof, Lotus alloys, black leather interior, [if such a thing exists] Jason Wyngard suit with shirts cuffs folded back...........................

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Love seeing the progress on this car. I always felt a little bad about picturing it at its lowest point on the cover of the calendar, but since you've fixed up the front end so well I felt I aught to fix the drawing to match. 

 

 

Sorry I couldn't be arsed to draw the mirrors. 

[vulgalour]

@beko:  If I'd let her go I don't think I could've forgiven myself, and I doubt I could have found another so easily.  Ride height seems properly settled now, it's surprising what a few days of use has done to even it all out nicely.  Best of all, the car doesn't suffer from a saggy arse when the car is full of people like she used to.

 

@dean: Correctamundo!  Mine hovers around that now, depending on ambient temperatures.

 

@AngryDicky:  The sticker is there because it seemed a waste for it to be sat in a drawer and will be gone when that wing is repaired/replaced/repainted sometime in the (far?) future.

 

@colc:  Jason Wyngarde/King, what a man!  What a role model!

 

@Conrad:  I was actually quite flattered when I saw the original incarnation of that pic on the Autoshite Calendar, so have no fear of causing offence because quite the opposite is the case.  I am going to be annoying now though, because I've moved the number plate again.

 

I was umming and ahhing about the number plate location, I know the previous position wasn't ideal, it was something of a bodge to get it through the MoT really.  I still don't like the front of this car with a number plate, there's no easy place to fit one.  I have been considering getting the shallowest legal one I can and fitting a bracket underneath the front valance for it. That way it's still visible for The Law but it doesn't intrude on the front end.

 

In the meantime, I thought I'd just redrill the holes - oh yeah, all the drills are dead - okay, so I won't redrill the holes to bolt the number plate to the bumper where the original number plate bracket fits, I'll zip tie it there instead.  The zip ties are all gone, you say?  Bugger.  Fine, I'll use this weird wire-cored string I've found instead and my knowledge of tying people things up.

 

 

Looks a bit better there, shame the string has to be visible though.

[vulgalour]

Went to the very local Renishaw Hall Classic Car & Bike show a mere 3 miles from home the other day and had a thoroughly good day out in the Princess.  As has been the case since MoT she's been flawless for all she doesn't look like she should be.  I was delighted at how many smiles she put on peoples faces, people who remember owning one, working on them or being forced to have one back in the day.  On the whole, they were cars remembered with affection for being surprisingly good and extremely comfortable in spite of the shortcomings.  Top Gear was mentioned several times too, but that's hardly surprising really.

 

Some snaps were obviously got, the first two by Tone_depear from Motoscat.

 

 

 

 

If it's any consolation to the people parked next to me, I made their cars look far better than if they'd been parked next to each other.

 

Obviously, all this faultless running meant something was well overdue to go wrong and today something did.

 

At first I thought it was a blown head gasket or something because it had the look of white smoke and at first I couldn't smell anything from it.  I knew I wasn't burning oil partly from the colour, but again from the lack of smell.  After a while, I got a stronger smell of petrol coming through and it became clearer that the car seemed to be overfuelling somehow.  Stuck my head under the bonnet to try and find the culprit and had a look at the carb again which I think is at fault somehow.

 

Driver's side is usually quite dry, today was no exception.

 

Passenger side tends to look like it's sweating a bit.  Most of the dampness is around the pin for the float bowl and when it's wiped clean no more fluid appears.  The other strange thing is that whatever it is leaking only smells partially of fuel and tends to have a yellowish stain to it.  My best guess from the smell is that it's a mix of the ATF in the squelch pot and a small quantity of fuel, but I'm not sure how that could be happening if that is the case.

 

Turned the car off and had a think and a good poke around and then tried turning it on to see if there was any sudden emergence of problems at start up.  Strangely, there was no leaking fluid and no smoke at all out of the exhaust and she ran clean and normally.  I wasn't aware that the IT fix worked on cars.  I'm guessing that it means I have to strip the carb down and rebuild it properly but it's such an intermittent fault I'm not really sure what's causing it.

[stuboy]

if it didnt play up u'd think it was broken

[vulgalour]

No picture updates, but after trekking out to the Oil Can Café earlier today I found I was getting a strange thrum through the pedal and occasional stutter at motorway speeds.  By the time I'd reached the café, stopping for a check over of the car and finding nothing amiss, I noticed the rear driver's wheel nuts were quite warm.  Turns out I seem to have a dragging brake rather than a bearing problem.

 

On the way back I got stuck in traffic caused by an incident on the M1, it had closed two lanes of the motorway.  I didn't try and see what had happened as I'd rather not know but I did thank the traffic officers at the incident as I drove past because those men and women do an excellent job keeping the rest of us safe when things do go wrong, and it's the least I as a car driver can do to acknowledge their hard work.  It was dismaying seeing so many people ignoring the info boards and not making use of the space I left in plenty of time for them to merge in front of me so when they tried to merge at the last possible minute I just blocked them out.  While in the traffic the cabin did get quite toasty but the engine stayed a healthy half-gauge temperature and I didn't have need to put the heaters on to cool her down.  In fact, the only problem had to be how sore my legs were after being stuck in crawling traffic for a good hour or so, one of the disadvantages of a car with power-nothing I suppose.

 

Anyway, once I got back I determined to finally sort out the rear brakes since I have the parts, the instructions and the tools.  It all went very smoothly with help and advice from my elders in the art of stripping and rebuilding brake drums.  Okay, so Dad nearly put a screwdriver through his hand and a rattle-preventer spring nearly took my eye out at one point, but other than that it was plain sailing.

 

Handbrake operation and the brakes themselves feel much better and less fuzzy than before so I'm looking forward to getting the other drum done tomorrow and later bleeding the brake system to bring them up to spec.  Also managed to go 100 miles on £20 which comes out at roughly 30mpg for combined driving, which I think is much more respectable than the fuel economy I had been getting.  Don't worry, I shan't be driving the Princess until I've done the other rear drum, the last thing I want is seriously imbalanced brakes!

[vulgalour]

Time for an overdue Princess update, I think.  What with my bandwidth getting exceeded on Photobucket, and then my PC imploding on itself, it's not the easiest thing to sort out.  However, I'm borrowing a PC to make this and other posts and have my bandwidth back so we'll see how we go.

 

Unfortunately, I can't show you the door bottoms after stripping them back and digging out lots of filler as those pictures are stuck in my PC for the time being, but I can show you what it looks like after I've painted them with red oxide of the non-porous variety.

 

Surprisingly, the majority of the wobbles and bubbles in the paint was down to excessive application of filler and fibreglass, with the exception of the trailing corner of the driver's door, there's a lot of good metal and some good repairs to all four doors.  Certainly, they don't need replacing  they just need unpicking, cleaning and rebuilding.  I'm off to a local fabricator to get a quote on these repairs who is willing to do the work fairly cheaply because I've done most of the prep and don't need him to paint it all when repaired as I can do that myself.

 

I did get one job done though.  Since getting the car, the window regulator in the driver's door has had a couple of stripped teeth and didn't work properly.  I finally had enough of it and had a stick welder to hand, this one in fact.

 

It's actually quite a good welder, but I think the best description I've heard is that "it's like trying to spoon hot butter into a badger's [img src=http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/underwire/2009/11/fox_60.jpg" style="max-width:100%]".  After I'd built up enough good weld to have the rough shape of the teeth I started with masking tape templates to find out what needed building up more or not at all. Someone with more experience could have probably done this much faster, but I was on the whole enjoying the process.

 

Eventually, I had the rough shape and I used the masking tape on the unused part of the teeth to get a good template, transferred it to my welded patch and used the cutting disc to slot the valleys for the teeth.

 

Then it was a case of carefully reprofiling all the teeth until it worked again.  Now the window goes up and down properly, I think one tooth is slightly wrongly profiled but not by enough to cause any hindrance to the regulator operation.  The passenger window has started to show symptoms of stripping a tooth as well so I'll likely have to do that side eventually too.

 

Biggest problem with updating the blog on the Princess is that nothing is really going wrong to need fixing.  I've got rid of handling issues with the suspension being sorted out, the brakes now work properly including the handbrake which is very good indeed.  It's like having a totally different car to the one I picked up all those months ago and I've just been enjoying using her every day.

 

Annoyingly, I did get a parking ticket and while I did try to contest unfortunately the law means I was in the wrong without knowing it, so that's me £35 down on that one which I could do without.

 

 

There are some minor issues, it is an old car after all.  My fuel guage, since getting the tank up to half full recently, decided that occasionally it should tell me I have no fuel and then be fine again.  I'm guessing this is an earth or sender issue but I keep track of how much fuel has been put in and how many miles I should have so I'm not worrying too much.  Twice, I've flicked the headlight switch and only had sidelights, but a dab of the brake pedal makes the switch work again.  This is probably another earth problem but I can't replicate the fault to be able to reliably trace the issue.  Back of the gearbox appears to be leaking a little bit of oil, it looks like the rubber grommet/bush that the lower selector rod goes into has worn.  It's a difficult one to trace because everything is just covered in oil under there but I'm not losing a significant quantity to worry about it.

 

In good news, the clutch release bearing has gone quiet, and while the clutch is heavy it's not worryingly so.  At the same time the CRB went quiet, so did the engine and she runs and sounds a lot smoother and quieter.  The gearbox makes a healthy and pleasing Austin whine, the exhaust doesn't blow and the engine has that faint sort of chuffling noise that a healthy O series is blessed with.  Overall, Princess ownership is a happy, happy thing.  Just wish I had more money/better weather to get the cosmetics sorted to match the mechanical side of things.

 

Finally, the BX has gone due to terminal rot (sad times) and I've replaced it with a 29 year old soft top VW, because that's sensible.  There will be a thread on the Golf when it gets here next Tuesday.

[vulgalour]

Bodyshops are sometimes quite frustrating with older cars.  Since my brother and I had dropped his Rover off at one place - who ended up dicking him around and not doing the work - we visited a few other businesses to see if anyone would take the Princess doors on.  The general opinion was that it wasn't worth it and they wouldn't touch it with a shitty stick which did take me by surprise a bit and I was all ready to go back to the DIY plan.

 

However, we went to see if the guy I'm buying the Golf from was about to organise some extra details for collection day and happened to get talking to the other businesses as said chap was out.  One of the bodyshops works with one of the fabricators and after discussing what was needed and showing what I'd dug out of the doors and what needed repairing I finally got someone willing to do the work.

 

At first, they were unsure I'd be happy with the quote, I think a lot of people still think Princesses are 1990s money and owners don't want to spend the money on them.  It was agreed that while only about the bottom 2" of the doors was damaged by rust, the bottom 6" were damaged by previous rust repairs and panel warp so that's what would need replacing.  The fabricator on site was willing to make some door bottom skins for the bodyshop to use and they'll rebuild the inner frames and repair the skins on all four doors at £50 a door which I thought was quite reasonable.

 

I'll have to do the paint and finishing work, but that's good because I'd prefer to see the repair naked so I know what's been done properly.  Each door will need to be removed from the car, stripped down and delivered to the bodyshop but that gives me the opportunity to sort things like the worn hinge pin on the driver's door and to get nice fresh paint on each door before they go back on the car.

 

Additionally, the work I'd already done on the front end was to my favour and the bodyshop guy said he could repair the damage on my front wing and make it look presentable for £120, all in and in primer ready for paint.  Bearing in mind a replacement metal wing is usually £150 before fitting and paint I thought that was also very reasonable and was very happy.  I didn't get a quote for the front valance, but he thinks it will be able to be straightened out a bit better and I'm guessing that'll be another £120-200 since it does need a fair bit of work to get right.

 

So £320 for all four doors and the damaged wing, plus paint and materials at about another £50 or so (painting the whole panel, rather than just the repairs) should see things shipshape and add value and extra life to the old girl.  Just got to get sorting this Golf out the way first and then I can start sinking money into the Princess properly again.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Blimey, £50 to fix a rotten door is a barg if theyre doing it properly, (i.e. with metal)

[Spiny Norman]

Yup, that sounds not bad at all, if they make a decent job of it.

[vulgalour]

Apparently, it's an easy profile to replicate and me digging all the filler and fibreglass and rust out makes  the job a lot easier.  I'm not averse to doing the extra work that's within my skill set if it saves me money.  A replacement door in the same condition as the ones I've got is about £60 per door, before delivery/collection costs and if I can even find them so the £50 repair cost is a double-win.

[vulgalour]

I was asked why there haven't been any updates on my build thread and the simple fact of the matter is that there's been nothing to update with.  In fact, the only incident I've had to report is that during the very hot weather the dash pot on the carb had got hotter than the engine and I was experiencing some vapour lock when setting off from car parks.  To counteract this, I just need to park the car in the shade when the temperature is 30C or above.  Now the weather has dropped to 25C and below I'm not getting any issues at all.

 

It seems unfair not to offer a visual update though, so I went for a bit of a jolly to see if I could find new things to put the Princess in front of and photograph.  This is Staveley Hall, one time home to the Frecheville family but now just Council admin offices which is quite sad.  I shan't bore you with a history lesson, but Staveley does have some interesting bits and pieces for those that might care to look, particularly Staveley Hall, the adjacent parish church and the Chantry on the High Street.

 

I'm just going to pretend this is my house for now.

 

The aforementioned church.  Back in the '40s (if memory serves, might be a bit earlier) there was a big old greenhouse on this bit of lawn joined to the side of the hall.  That's long gone now.

 

 

This is probably my favourite of the set.

 

Then I went to Poolsbrook Park which was created from waste land connected to the local collieries in the past few years.  I've never been to this park for some reason, but it's really rather nice.

 

In it's day, the Princess was comparable in size to a Cortina, so it seems about right that it's comparable now to a Mondeo.

 

 

Didn't half get some funny looks though.  I have a new annoying question from people that don't know what the car is: "Why'd you call your car 'Princess', what is it?", this is usually asked by the under-30 age group.  Also, it is not an Ambassador, cretins.

[pervypaul]

Some nice pics there mate, cars come on a lot since I last checked this thread.  I too went to poolsbrook for the 1st time about 3 weeks ago, was expecting it to be a bit of a hole, but it was rather pleasent

[HillmanImp]

I am surprised that it is still a similar size size to the Mondeo TBH, I would have thought the Mondeo was going to be loads bigger. 

[overrun]

I am surprised that it is still a similar size size to the Mondeo TBH, I would have thought the Mondeo was going to be loads bigger. 

 

100% this. My mk3 Mondeo is a right whale of a thing.

 

Very surprising.

[vulgalour]

Hot weather + full tank of fuel + slight incline of the drive =

 

 

 

Bumhats.  It's okay, I didn't want that paint anyway, or the underseal... Not gone back to bare metal thankfully but I've had to park the car on the flat at least until I use up some petrol as it's overflowing out of the filler neck when it gets really warm.  But hey, I know the petrol tank doesn't leak if the fuel has expanded enough to come out the filler neck.  I also know that if I'm going to keep it brimmed I have to be careful where I park on a hot day!  So pleased I found out about this before the car got repainted fully.

[Wilko220]

That's a relief - after seeing the thread title I thought you were going to say you'd put diesel in it!

[vulgalour]

Since owning the BX I do have to remind myself that there is no point keeping the used veg oil from cooking.  It's always disappointed to have to throw it away.

[purplebargeken]

That is indeed bigger than I thought.

[Spiny Norman]

That's a relief - after seeing the thread title I thought you were going to say you'd put diesel in it!

 

Not that much of a catastrophe in an old carb fed motor, is it? I did it a couple of times when we had one Diesel and one petrol car, and ended up with about half a gallon of the wrong fuel in both motors at different points. Never seemed to make any real difference, maybe the old Cavvy was a bit smoky but they'd both run OK with a little of the wrong fuel in them.

 

Reading this reminded me that my old 2200HLS suffered the same problem, not that I filled it to the brim very often mind you. One hot day just before I was due to set off on holiday I'd gone to the garage and filled the tank and parked on the very cambered kerb right outside the door, and an hour or two later there was a little trail of petrol dripping down the wing, just like on yours.

[vulgalour]

Turns out I can't be bothered copy-pastaing the missing posts.  Suffice to say, my gear selector pin needed replacing and you can't fit a driver's seat on the passenger side.  For more info, visit the blue forum: http://retrorides.proboards.com/thread/123005/1980-austin-princess-removal-van?page=45

 

Recently, however...

 

When is a car not a car?  When it's a removal van.  Recently, my brother had to move house and for various reasons found himself with little time to do so and no van and no means to obtain a van at such short notice.  Therefore we made use of the Princess in place of a van by putting the roof rack on and removing the seats.  It really was quite remarkable just what would fit and how well behaved she was even when fully loaded.

 

She'd carry farmhouse solid pine tables and dining chairs.

 

 

Dad's Omega was roped in along with Dad's trailer so we could move the white goods.  Yes, this was as precarious a load as it looked but judicious use of route planning and ratchet strap meant we were not a danger to anyone.

 

It was an ill planned affair, so it was well into the night that we were still packing and moving stuff.  Dad had to call it quits really early on, he was having a bad day with his back injury and even driving was too much in the end so it was down to me, my brother and his best mate.  We plodded on with the Princess and his BMW with the trailer attached.  Amazingly, we managed to get this 32" CRT telly in the Princess.

 

Loaded up all the ungainly bulky stuff into the Princess since it wouldn't go in the BMW.

 

It was astonishing how much baby and toddler paraphenalia was eaten up by the capacious boot, even with the awkward opening.  Truly a worthy machine for the job.

 

The last load the BMW had to take was a heavy one, we all cursed getting that drinks cabinet out of the house, one of the few things I've managed to cling onto since my whole world went upside down earlier this year and which is lodging with my brother at his new place.

 

We finally finished at 5am, we were all exhausted but I really hope it was worth the effort.  The house my brother and his young family have moved into is really nice, far nicer than the properties they've been forced to live in over the past few years, it's about time they got some good fortune on that score.  The Princess performed flawlessy throughout and was surprisingly well composed when loaded to the gunwales.  The suspension even feels healthier for the workout.

 

In fact, there were only two mishaps.  The first was my front number plate falling off, which fortunately was found just outside my brother's new house and is now screwed back on to the valance.  The second mishap was when my bumper touched the very low and virtually invisible brick wall at the side of the new house's driveway but no real harm done.

 

I treated the Princess to a full clean and polish for her endeavours and fitted the replacement rear seat I have.  By fluke I also located the rear seat belt mounting points when the rear seat was removed and since I've got some three point belts left over from the Golf, I'm hoping to fit those so my rear seat passengers feel and are safer.  Tomorrow, I'm off to get started on a house hunt in the North East which will mean a slog up the motorway in the plush surroundings of my funny old car.  Hopefully it will be the first step towards making a fresh start and getting on with my life.

[phil_lihp]

I've done some nightmare house moves before but a 5am finish takes the biscuit!  Good to hear things are on the up and the Princess is behaving herself, regular use is always better for cars anyway, better to be loaded up and worked hard than sat still for long periods.

[Timewaster]

How is the paint finish on the purple panel holding up? I've known rattle can paint jobs to fade and bloom faster than a red Vauxhall.

Just curious....

[Bobthebeard]

House moving is horrible. Racks up massively on the stress scale! Helping friends/relatives to move house only ratchets up the stress due to the personal involvement.... Have moved house several times, but helping my sister to move house was the final nail in the coffin! Never again! Shudder. Nothing was packed, nothing was thought about, nothing was planned and nothing went even slightly right. Resulting in massive case of toys exiting prams... This was in 1998 and the memories are still fresh and painful!

[vulgalour]

@Phil and Bob:  Never Again has been uttered several times by me after this one.  I was tempted to kill at least one person at least once in the proceedings, only the supreme comfort of the driving seat kept me sane, I think.

 

@ tontops:  It's holding up perfectly.  I'm frankly amazed because I didn't even finish the job off properly, but it still holds a shine, doesn't bloom or fade and the only bits of any note are from where the paint was thin from me rubbing it back too far.  Applied polish to the panel today after giving the car a much deserved clean and it shone up just as fresh as the first time I did it.  Seriously impressed, really, and I hope I get chance to finish it properly at some point.