project 1980 Austin Princess

[purplebargeken]

Purple!!!! The bonnet that is, not the clutch fluid, although that looks seriously rank and unhappy it really shouldn't be purple, nor is it. Purple is a good colour, although not if it's your complexion. That would be very bad. 

 

I've had Tramadol. I ramble. More than normal.

[Angrydicky]

Yes, I think it would look a lot better all one colour. Should there be a little crown badge on the bonnet too?

[vulgalour]

there should.  I've kept the crown from the old bonnet but since the Oyster bonnet is from a late car it didn't have one as standard.  I'm loathe to drill holes in the bonnet, but I'll have to when I want the crown refitted.

[overrun]

Look, no hands!  How did I fix this?  I took off a boot ram and refitted it and now it works.  I don't know how or why, but I'm happy it works now and a free repair is always a welcome one.

MISSING WALKING CANE ACTION GOES HERE

[fordperv]

^ dont forget the picnic blanket

[vulgalour]

Balls balls balls balls balls.

 

Happened between 10am and noon, I'm reliably informed by my Dad.  He said there was a little puddle and no list when he went out and a wonky car when he came back.  Did I say balls yet?

 

Looks like it's burst a sphere but not the one I expected it to if it were going to.

 

 

So it's about £130 for a replacement if I can even find one or about the same to get it refurbished and modernised or I can take my chances and rob one from the HLS.  I reckon I'm cannibalising the HLS in the short term because otherwise I'm grounded.

 

Balls.

[mouseflakes]

Just puncture the other three and switch to the blue forum. I'll send you a pineapple.

 

Are there (flexible?) pipes on these - connecting front to rear (I seem to recall from the old BL brochures I collected as a kid). Might it be a popped pipe (and the fluid has run back across the sphere)?

[vulgalour]

It looks like the fluid is coming from the sphere itself rather than the pipe.  Right now I'm too annoyed to have a proper look...  at least it happened while the car was parked rather than while I was driving it.

[HillmanImp]

Just puncture the other three and switch to the blue forum. I'll send you a pineapple.

 

   

 

Made me chuckle.

[vulgalour]

Jacked the car up to see if it might just be a pipe... nope.  Fluid just pours out this end of the sphere, I'm not entirely sure how, but it's like someone turned a tap on.  Doesn't seem to be a great deal of pressure behind it.

 

 

 

Now the car sits even lower on that side.  Super.

[beko1987]

Thats the scene that I dread seeing upon going to drie the XM! Good luck getting it sorted

[fordperv]

thats a kick in the teeth

[M'coli]

That'll be the Princess on her bad week.

[vulgalour]

That'll be the Princess on her bad week.

 

I do hope that means she's not working herself up to do this monthly.

[Bobthebeard]

That'll be the Princess on her bad week.

Just get used to apologising for everything you have said* and done* during her bad week. Normal service will resume for the next three weeks. Then repeat monthly until your Princess reaches the menopause in another ten years. After that expect random hot flushes and sundry unexplained emotional outbursts. Keep her until she is 60 or so and then take her out for a nice drive in the country now and then. Ideally including a farmers market and a garden centre.

[vulgalour]

Today my Dad and I trekked over to Yorkshire to pick up some valuable spare parts.  The donor in question was this phase 1 '77 Princess 2200 which originally was brazil metallic, a lovely purplish-brown with a gold fleck to the metallic.  Or at least it was lovely once upon a time but it had been repainted lilac-brown with a 4" emulsion brush and the roof was painted a combination of silver, white and olive drab.  The whole thing was rotten from nose to tail, there wasn't anything in the way of bodywork I could use at all.  The interior was much the same with a dead carpet, worn out seats and a great deal of sun and water damage.  The brown dash and centre console were tempting as was the early brown steering wheel but my funds would only stretch so far and, sadly, it wasn't quite that far.

 

Never mind, the main thing I wanted was a displacer but as it happens it was easier to drop the whole rear axle.  Some well placed bolt cutter action saw the axle removed complete with 2 healthy looking spheres, complete hubs and cross tube.  This will probably turn out to be something of a boon as it'll mean I can more easily refurbish the axle before refitting it to the car and it gives me some great spares to add to my growing stockpile.  It's not an easy thing to lug about on your own, but I managed it with a little trolley and someone to help guide it to a safe place to let the fluid drain out before I can get on with properly stripping this down.  Axle looks to be in reasonable condition and the car itself had obvious signs of plenty of mechanical work being done to keep it in good health, sadly the same could not be said to be true for the interior or bodywork.

 

What I was pleased with, and what ultimately cleared my bank account out, was the wealth of spares I did secure from the car.  I would have liked to have taken the front and rear screens, bumpers, tow bar, light units, steering wheel and interior brown plastics but both my funds and the time were limited so I spent an hour or so collecting this little lot.

 

It's difficult to tell what's there, so here's the rundown:

Towing mirror - fits on the driver's door of the HLS as a temporary solution

Full boot carpetting - not all original, but matches well enough

Rear light lens interior covers - both cars sorted now

Interior sunvisors and catches - ideal for the HLS, if incorrect for the year

Pair of complete sidelight/indicator units - very useful spares

Driver's front door window regulator - no need to weld the dead HLS one now

Phase 2 window winder - replaces the dodgy one on the HL

Handbrake gaiter - replacement for the missing item on the HLS

3 Wheel trims with centre logos - spares and replacements for damaged existing ones

5 chrome rim embellishers - I already have 1 good one and 1 bad one.

Spare wheel cover - that's one for each car now

Gear knob - good thread, should replace the thread-stripped one in the HL

Radio fascia - Hoping to fit to a modern unit for the HL dash

Windscreen stainless steel trims - rare, worth grabbing

Rear screen stainless steel trims - rare, worth grabbing

Parking Aid - it's giffer-tastic!

3 C-pillar interior courtesy light lenses - only need one, but spares are handy.

 

Should keep me busy for a while at least.  I salvaged as much as I could afford to and in all honesty there wasn't much more on the car that would have genuinely been of use to me.  I feel comfortable having parted with £140 for all that, and it gave me the opportunity to have a poke around a phase 1.  I didn't get any photographs at the yard as I didn't have my camera with me.

 

[michael t]

Well done, glad to see that rotten Princess was of use to you

[Pillock]

I can see Brown Interior Trim becoming some sort of currency soon.

[fordperv]

Good haul of bits there

[RedSparrow]

That's a result. Glad you didn't have to start pulling bits off the other car.
What do you mean by parking aid? am I being thick?

[vulgalour]

It's a bit of copper brazed to a steel tube into which goes an aluminium rod with a ping pong ball on the end and green/yellow electrical tape wrapped around the top bit.  Dad and the scrapman thought it was very strange that I went to the trouble of removing it from the scrapper.  It's the thing between the pile of stainless trims and the sun visors to the left of the picture.  Lets you see where the corner of the car is*.

[overrun]

U SO JDM. The parking aid is, anyway.

 

A £140 quid pounds is a fair whack. Did you try to haggle?

I always use a large scrapy haul as an excuse to barter. Still, as long as you got some handy parts. I can appreciate the unobtanium factors at play, too!

[vulgalour]

£140 is a fair whack, money I was trying to put away but the Princess had other ideas.  I have no idea what the rear axle is worth, but things like the aluminium window trims are £30 per window set and the wheel embellishers are usually about £10 each... it soon adds up to being a fairly decent haul for the cash.

[overrun]

£140 is a fair whack, money I was trying to put away but the Princess had other ideas.  I have no idea what the rear axle is worth, but things like the aluminium window trims are £30 per window set and the wheel embellishers are usually about £10 each... it soon adds up to being a fairly decent haul for the cash.

True enough. I forgot about the axle!

[vulgalour]

The weather is appalling here today so my plan of spending a few hours stripping down the axle ready for fitting it to the car were thwarted.  I got as far as freeing off the union for the hydragas pipes to the rear spheres.  Pretty much every other nut has a good inch or so of paint on it so they're a bit stubborn and it's difficult to work on this sort of thing when the sky is trying to drown you.  Overall, the axle does look pretty sound with plenty of paint keeping the vast majority of any rust build up at bay.  The perishable rubber components are in pretty good health.  The stubs of the rebound straps actually help with moving the axle around so I'll leave those attached, that's the actual reason, it has nothing to do with the fact that I can't budge the nuts that hold the rebounds strap brackets on because they're welded on with paint.  The spheres are nice and dry and while there is some surface corrosion, it doesn't appear to be anything more than that so I'm hoping they'll clean up well and be servicable.

 
With the pipes off I can see that one of the braided sections has split.  Interestingly, it's split near the sphere so it is possible that the hose on the HL has split too and that's what's caused the loss of fluid and pressure.  I'm hoping that is the actual fault and not a blown sphere but obviously I shan't know until I have the HL up in the air again to inspect.  Looks like I've got a bonus length of undamaged metal hydragas piping and one servicable braided hose off the replacement axle so far, so that's an okay start.  I've also got a set of 8 good chromed wheel nuts that will clean up well, just a shame they're the wrong fitting for the Lotus alloys I have waiting in the wings still.  I'll likely clean up and keep all the various unions on these pipes as I can imagine them being a useful part to have in the stash.

 
Weather got a bit serious so I busied myself cleaning the worst of the muck off the interior parts and sorting out which stuff to put in/on which car to reduce the amount of storage space it was all taking up.  The boot carpeting cleaned up remarkably well and is a combination of original and owner pieces.  Unusually, the non-original bits of carpet are actually cut to shape very well so should provide useful patterns and still be usable in the cars.  Dropped one of the spare courtesy light lenses in the HLS and the majority of the boot carpetting since it'll finish it off well.  The tatty but complete carpet trim for the bit between the rear lights has gone in the HL along with the spare wheel cover but I've not fitted them yet, they're both trim items that are tricky to find as nobody seems to keep them.  Spare rear light covers went in the HLS too, but I've misplaced the screws to fix them in properly.  Disappointingly, the toolkit was missing from the spares car I visited, I had hoped to get another jack ratchet handle and possibly another jack.  I have this desire to own four factory Princess jacks because I'm sure it'll serve some practical use at some point.
 
The only other thing I got fitted where the rim embellishers.  I've got 7 embellishers between the two cars and some are very good while some have holes in them.  The best four got put on the HL so they take up no space but it did highlight that I should really get different weights fitted to the wheels to make them look their best.  I like the embellishers, they smarten up the wheels considerably.

 
Pineapple time!

 
It really does look comical when you come onto the street, as I mentioned before, jacking the car up to inspect the actual fault resulted in a loss of fluid and a proper lean.  One of our neighbours was very worried about the car and asked not "what's wrong" but rather "when are you fixing it?" so there's a little hope for humanity yet as she is of the opinion the Princess has to be fixed and has to be seen as much as possible.  Told you, total fanny magnet is BL stuff.

 
I'm told the weather is set to get even worse over the next few days so I'll likely not get much done on this axle refurb for a while which is really quite annoying as the longer it takes the longer I'm grounded.

[overrun]

It really does look comical when you come onto the street

And then the suspension collapsed. HAHA. </joke>

 

Nice use of the kitchen sink. Did you not get a rollocking for such behaviour?

[vulgalour]

I avoid such conflicts of interest by apologising in advance.  I'm almost at the point now where it's expected and I don't need to apologise.

[overrun]

I avoid such conflicts of interest by apologising in advance.  I'm almost at the point now where it's expected and I don't need to apologise.

We should* all drive new KIA's.

[Grundig]

The weather is appalling here today 

I'm told the weather is set to get even worse over the next few days so I'll likely not get much done on this axle refurb for a while which is really quite annoying as the longer it takes the longer I'm grounded.

....Just get out there & get the job done! it's only rain  Man up boy, do the job, get wet & then have a hot bath - sorted 

P.s

I like the Passion you have for the wedge - keep up the good work 

[vulgalour]

Well it's dark now.  I can't work in the dark