project 1980 Austin Princess

[derskine]

Fairly sure I bought a first line track control arm for my old polo, after 6 months the anti roll bar bush was rattly/knackered.

[PhilA]

Yup, you'll get an oily haze from a failed gasket, stem seals or knackered rings.

 

Normally it's the water channels that fail on the gasket as they usually have much closer proximity to the bores than the oil feed and returns for the head.

 

Phil

[Rocket88]

If you cure all the oil leaks, the poor old thing will rust through in about 20 minutes.....................which is why Mnin FRONT subframes never have to be replaced..............

[mat_the_cat]

The QH ball joint however had the rubber boot held on with bloody elastic bands, WTF?

 

QH did transfer all BJ production to India in the mid 2000s, which may be a factor. I was never directly involved with them, but I did hear that the production conditions were 'less than ideal'...

 

Had a Veco drop link fail on me exactly a month to the day after I put it on, which was disconcerting to say the least!

 

[vulgalour]

New track rod end arrived today.  Glad I hadn't driven the car since the one on the car had deteriorated noticeably on the motorway, there was a good inch or so of play in it so it's no wonder it was unpleasant to drive on.  New TRE was easy to fit but predictably my tracking is now off by a good margin and will need doing again so I've got that organised for tomorrow.

 

Gave the fluids a check and found that the water leak might not be from the engine but rather rainwater draining in an odd way as the water level hasn't dropped.  It also gave me the opportunity to find out the fibrous heat shield between exhaust and carburettor has pretty much disappeared which would explain the continued grumpiness with hot starting.  Going to have to get a new one of those made, affordable smart suggestions welcome as the only thing I can think of doing is getting a stainless steel one made up, unless you can buy the heatshield fibreboard stuff and just cut and fold it to shape which must be cheaper.

 

Plans to do the brakes and oil on the red Princess were thwarted by the weather but I did at least get a fresh can of fuel and dumped that in ready for doing the oil change tomorrow if the weather isn't too atrocious.

[Grundig]

 

 It also gave me the opportunity to find out the fibrous heat shield between exhaust and carburettor has pretty much disappeared which would explain the continued grumpiness with hot starting. Going to have to get a new one of those made, affordable smart suggestions welcome as the only thing I can think of doing is getting a stainless steel one made up, unless you can buy the heatshield fibreboard stuff and just cut and fold it to shape which must be cheaper.

 

Aluminium sheet - DIY friiendly as it is easy to work with, bend, shape, cut etc 

[vulgalour]

I know aluminium is good for camping pans as it lets heat through, this seems counter-intuitive to me for keeping heat out.  Am I applying daft logic here?

[mat_the_cat]

Or search eBay for exhaust gasket sheet. That might give a little more heat insulation than aluminium sheet as there is a layer of paper between the outer skins of metal.

 

EDIT - Aluminium is a good heat conductor but a sheet of just about anything will cut out radiant heat fairly well, so the difference may be minimal.

[vulgalour]

Oil leak - now cured.  I was genuinely surprised at this.  Turns out the spacer block wasn't the source of the leak, that's ludicrously well fixed to the engine, instead it was where the pump joined the spacer block which only had the top two thirds sealed.  Cleaned up all surfaces, new Loctite brand sealant and job done, not even a smear of oil anymore and no hot oil aroma in the cabin.  There's also significantly less oil on the floor and placing a mat underneath the car revealed a few black old oil spots in the shape of three edges of the sump gasket so that's probably where that's coming from, just as well the new sump gasket arrived today.

 

Water leak - my water pump either died or came close to it today.  When I'd sorted the oil leak above, I finally located the source of the water leak which is where the water pump seals against the block.  I've ordered a new pump (£15) to replace it and I'm really hoping it resolves the leak properly and eliminates the horrible noise the pump has started to make, it sounds like the bearings aren't working or the impeller blades have got mangled, it's not nice.

 

New problems - air bubbles in the expansion bottle.  Now, this has me worried.  When I'd fixed the oil leak there was nothing untoward at all, no oil-water cross contamination and no vapour out the exhaust, all was well.  But after driving for about 10 miles to do my errands and checking for oil leaks anew I found there was a steady stream of bubbles coming into the expansion bottle.  My first thought was that it's the head gasket again, then after looking for a second opinion it was suggested it could in theory be the water pump sucking air in since it's also letting water out.

 

Since there's been no increase/loss of power and no cross contamination of water or oil I'm hoping it's not a head gasket failure, but if it is it I'll strip the head down fully, remove the sheared manifold bolt and sort out the partially stripped threads for another manifold bolt and one of the fuel pump bolts and get it all rebuilt properly.  I'll drop and clean out the sump too so I can fit the new gasket to hopefully clear up the leaks.  It's more work than I really want to get involved in, I didn't want to get wading into this level of work until after I'd moved house but it wouldn't do any harm to do it before hand so the car is in the best of health for when I need to make the journey north.

[vulgalour]

Yesterday was one of those days, I thought today might be better.  Get on and do some car work before work-work, right?  Okay, let's check the beige one with a clear head shall we, see if we can find out what the score is.

 

First up, that water leak.  You can see some spots of water on the bottom of the block here and a water stain running down it, on the floor you can see a water stain where it spat out a good amount on firing up.

 

First thing I noticed was zero bubbles in the expansion bottle, no vapour, water or other moisture out of the exhaust either.  Taking a sniff, coolant bottle has no aroma of exhaust gasses either so I think I can probably assume it's not a head gasket failure which is a good thing.  Second thing I check was the top hose to the radiator which has no water in it at all.  Then I noticed an intermittent eruption of bubbles in the coolant bottle as the engine warmed up but not a steady stream, much as you'd expect to see in a pan of water being heated but still the top hose was devoid of water and cold.  I'm hoping this means that the water pump has failed and air is getting in the same place water is going out after all, it certainly seems more unlikely now that it's head gasket failure.

 

For some good news, here's the oil free under-the-fuel-pump area that hasn't leaked since I sealed it at all.  Back of the block is drying out nicely too which no appearance of fresh oil so here's hoping I've sorted this out at least.

 

Then I tried to sort out the red Princess.

[vulgalour]

Owners club sticker, took me too long to decide where to put this.

 

Ace Café sticker (gift from a shiter, was it purplebargeken?  I can't recall and the letter that came with it offers no real clues), which I'd already decided on a location for but for some reason just didn't get around to fitting.  I ought to get myself to the Ace one of these days, feels a teensy bit fraudulent having one of their stickers in the window and not having been there but I shall view it as an incentive.

 

 

[vulgalour]

Right, feel okay today so I decided to get on with water pump replacement.  Bought a NOS Unipart item from these guys: http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/jolly_good_car_spares_ltd  who have been an excellent source of quality parts at very good prices and post stuff out really quickly with decent packaging.  Try them out, I think they're neat.

 

Old pump removal was fairly straightforward, if you're careful you don't have to remove the timing belt, but undoing the bolts on the pump pulley was a little more difficult as they were extremely tight.  Dad and neighbour showed me how to brace a spanner across two of the bolt heads while undoing a third, car in first gear to provide resistance.  The same technique helps with doing them up again afterwards.  You have to remove the pulley to remove the pump and you have to swap the pulley from the old pump to the new one.

 

 

With the pump, auxilliary belt and timing belt tensioner removed I could give everything a thorough degrease before rebuilding and find any additional leaks that might be hiding.  Remember, I didn't take the head apart when I removed it from this engine to do the head gasket like I did on the other Princess, so I wasn't too surprised to find that there is fresh oil around the head behind the cam sprocket, that means the seal there has likely gone hard.  Another job for another day, it'll mean doing the head again and stripping everything down, pretty involved and not something that's desperately in need of doing right now.

 

Old pump off then, found that it had a slightly gritty bearing and had definitely been leaking around a couple of bolt holes.  There was also some corrosion on the face of the block where the water was leaking out so that's all been cleaned up along with as much of a degrease as I could do without dismantling the entire side of the engine.  There was a lot of very crusty old oil all over this side.

 

Likewise the belt cover and belt tensioner were really crusted up with oil, so much so it looked like very bad brush painting (some of the state of the belt cover is bad brush painting, to be fair).  New pump went on easily, there's a little bit of flash rusting on the pulley mounting surface, but it rubbed off with a finger tip so I'm not worried about that, the rest of the pump is in excellent condition as you'd expect.

 

Belts tensioned properly, system refilled with water, quite a bit of air burped out and fired up the car.  The first thing I noticed was the funny dubbadubba noise I'd developed along with the bubbles in the expansion bottle had now gone.  There's a bit of belt whine and the auxilliary belt could ideally do with being replaced as it looks like it's getting on a bit and starting to go a little hard.  Temperature in the pipes is now even and the car gets up to temperature promptly but the jury is still out as to whether or not the fan switch has stopped working as I've not managed to get the engine hot enough for it to turn on

 

I really need a new thermostat housing, I'm still looking for one and the last time they were available I had no money to buy one.  The one I've got leaks intermittently and has now, helpfully, started leaking from the base.  This is possibly due to the coolant system circulating and pressurising properly and the water is now looking for the next easiest escape route.

 

I've got a spare factory radiator fan so I may put that on if it's any good, I'm the only Princess owner I know running a non-standard fan and the only one that's needed to but I'm also the only one that seems to have had so many problems getting to the bottom of the all the engine issues I've had.

 

[Noel Tidybeard]

can you not use a stat housing of a 2.0 montego?

[vulgalour]

I'm told not, though they're no easier to come by.  I've also learned today that the Sherpa, Ital and Marina versions all have different variations which means not even those will always be a straight swap over.  It is more annoying to locate a replacement for the thermostat housing than even the suspension spheres.  Made another enquiry with another contact in the hope he's got one in stock that's affordable.  There doesn't seem to be an easy swap in replacement and at this rate I might end up getting a custom unit made, shortly after paying for which a NOS example is bound to appear.

 

Ordered a replacement auxiliary belt today which should be with me later in the week so I can replace the tired one.

[vulgalour]

New belt fitted, Continental brand.  Marked improvement over the old one and now it's properly adjusted I've got no belt whine at all.

 

I checked the head bolts and found that the one to the right of the distributor was off-torque so brought it up accordingly and the micro-bubbles have stopped.

 

The distributor is definitely weeping oil and the oil is finding its way into the spark plug wells as a result.  It's a simple matter of fitting an O-ring and I think I have one somewhere, just a case of finding it and fitting it.  The thermostat housing decided not to leak at all today for no reason and the only oil leaks are now two tiny spots from somewhere down the back of the engine that I can't find the source of and could, for all I know, be working their way back from the distributor.

 

Can anyone recommend a really good engine degreaser that I can spray on and just watch the crusty oil slide off without dismantling the engine or getting a hosepipe or jetwash out?  Pretty bored of using a toothbrush now and there's some areas I can't get to without taking the engine to bits which I don't really want to do at this point in time.

[Talbotman]

The best stuff I use to de oil and degrease is brake cleaner. It's strong very flammable and pungent,but does the job very effectively if sprayed in a bottle.

[vulgalour]

Went for the early MoT (not due until the 12th of April) and failed, as I expected I would, on rust.  That's not a problem because I have the car booked in for some welding on Wednesday to resolve this.

 

What I didn't expect was to fail on this:

1 - Nearside rear wheel bearing has excessive play

I checked this recently as I've had a noise at the back  I couldn't find and the wheel had no play in it but up on the ramp you could wobble it like the wheel was loose.  That's annoying as that must have gone very recently.

 

2 - Nearside rear brake recording little or no effort

3 - Nearside rear parking brake recording little or no effort

I know about this.  I've rebuilt the rear drums a couple of times and adjusted the cables, there's new shoes fitted and I've only once managed to get these to work well enough to scrape through a test.

 

4 - Offside Front constant velocity joint is insecure

That's worrying.

 

5 - Offside rear (sill) body or chassis has excessive corrosion.

I know about this, I expected this to fail.

 

6 - (n/s steering rack mounting) Steering retaining device insecure

Like point 4, this is worrying.  There's been a niggle on this corner that I've never been able to locate or diagnose, at least now I have something to go on.

 

7 - Parking brake: efficiency below requirements

9 - Brakes imbalanced across an axle (N/S/R)

 

Advisory

9 - Nearside rear body has slight corrosion

 

 

It's not a bad list, and with the exception of the troublesome rear brakes, nothing I've fixed has since failed.  At least the emissions were a pass.  I got a verbal advisory on the front brakes which are getting close to being a bit crap but again, I'm aware of this and I do have some spare discs in stock that may help resolve this issue.

 

Overall, not too shocking.  Get myself a couple of wheel bearings, refurb the rear drums again and try and find out what's actually loose on the steering rack/CV joint area and go from there.  It is more than I wanted to spend at present, I may have to rethink some of my plans a bit but I'll get her sorted and freshly MoT'd again... I don't really have a choice.

[purplebargeken]

T'was me for the Ace Cafe sticker. Looks bloody good on the car!

[Alexg]

That should keep you busy for a bit, but all worth it for another years wedge action.

[Squire_Dawson]

Zintec is the stuff to use for a heatshield. I used it on my Allegro, around 1mm thick, it is fairly cool to the touch on the carb side even when the engine has been for a long run.

 

I think you might have to bite the bullet with the engine degreaser; it's not a particularly pleasant job but with an old paintbrush and then rinsing it off they come up very well. I bought a gallon drum of Carplan Engine Degreaser which is apparently largely paraffin. Of course, a clean engine not only looks nice but oil leaks can be spotted and traced more easily.

[Bren]

Cellulose thinners makes an excellent degreaser - 5l costs around £10 and lasts for ages.

[Inspector Morose]

Neat TFR. And wear gloves. Thick ones.

[vulgalour]

I got that biggest of all boons to the rare car owner but also the biggest of problems:  a potential spares car.  A lot of the post-delivery time was spent agonising over what to do with the three Princesses I have and which would be the best course of action.  In the end, sanity did prevail and I will only be keeping two cars.

 

Red Princess - this car is trying my patience.  Every time it looks sorted, something else breaks and I've honestly had enough of it, I'll be happy to see it gone.  It needs the new owner to inject some fresh enthusiasm into it because it's not a bad car, I just feel like it's fighting me and that to me says it's the right time to part with it.

 

Beige Princess - turns out I'm not as sentimentally attached to this car as I thought, the prospect of a better condition orange Princess was enough to tempt me to break it to save a car in a more desirable (to me) colour.  However, using the primary principle of Better The Devil You Know and some good old fashioned prodding of the other car, a stay of execution has been granted.

 

Orange Princess - this car is restorable, it genuinely is.  Money and time has been spent on it very obviously, but it's just a bit more rotten in places the beige on isn't, the mechanicals are an unknown quantity and I can't really sink into another rescue mission.  To save this one is going to take more effort, time and money than putting the beige one right and getting another year's motoring out of it.

 

That means that the orange car, good and rare though it is, will be broken.  A full pictorial report will be arriving shortly to explain just why this decision was reached and what the Orange Slice will bring to the table.

[Skizzer]

Sounds fair enough.  As Mrs Skizzer often tells me as I coo over the eBay tat thread, we can't take all the kittens home.

[beko1987]

Sounds like a good decision, and a rare opportunity to stock up on rare and fragile parts! If you polish up all the good panels etc they should sell easily

[vulgalour]

Picture time.  The car arrived on a beavertail truck and the brakes are on-off, when we were pushing it off the truck we though the brakes had stuck on, it was only when we looked underneath that we realised the selector box was hanging loose and wedged in place so there was a bit of jiggling to get it free before we rolled off the truck.

 

This car is a genuine barn find, having been squirreled away by its second owner - who had owned it since 1986 - back in 1995 on his farm.  I'm told the car was a sod to get out of its resting place and then when the yard I bought it from got it back, nobody really wanted to race it and they had no idea what they were going to do with it.  I swapped some pictures of the Queen for the Princess, a fair exchange all round, and we eventually got the car down the drive.

 

First impressions were that the car was good, and restorable.  Resplendant in vermillion with a pristine black velour interior.

 

I also thought the car had a list to the front driver's corner, you'll have to take my word for it that it doesn't.  When we got the car down to the hard standing it sat level and at the correct height, I daresay the suspension on this one is exceptionally good.

 

Driver's door top hinge pin is worn out and the door sags, it won't close properly.

 

Brand new metal sills are present on both sides and appear to have been welded in very well.  Someone has spent some money on this car and it was one of the big reasons that breaking it was initially a difficult decision.

 

The bonnet won't close properly either, but the valance is in reasonable shape with some rust evident but not huge quantities.  The slam panel is in great condition but the bonnet has rust by the driver's side hinge which is not a location I've seen these go on, I suspect it's to do with the plant life and bird detritus in the same area.

 

The engine is all there, an earlier O series it still has the parts I need, including the all-important thermostat housing which saves me £40 immediately.  I'll be removing and rebuilding the head before putting it on the beige car, especially since both cars have done about 75k so wear should be about the same.  The carburettor has already been removed and fitted to the red Princess to see if it will solve the overfuelling issue.

 

The bottle resting on the brake servo is the fuel tank.  Looking under the car you can see a hole in the fuel tank and a fairly hefty bash, I also have to assume the sender/pump is knackered.

 

This picture pretty much sums up this car.

 

More shortly...

[twosmoke300]

Can't beat having a spares car

[vulgalour]

There were quite a few tax discs in the car, along with a soggy Haynes manual, a Wolseley Hornet handbook and some other bits and pieces.  12 months tax back in 1994.

 

There were also, ominously, quite a few breakdown stickers.  Green Flag for starters.

 

National Breakdown, I also have two stickers still on their backing in great order for the inside of the screen, not the same design as this, sadly.

 

And just to be sure, a little help from above.

 

Ancient brittle newspaper from the same time the car came off the road.  Again there was newspaper under the carpetting, I'm wondering if it was there to soak up the water in the front footwells or to provide sound deadening because the red Princess had the same stuff.

 

Let's take a look inside, shall we?  I've been aware of black interiors in Princesses, but it seems more common fitment to Ambassadors.  I'm not normally a fan of black interiors in cars, I find them pretty oppressive, but apart from some minor surface mould on the vinyl which comes off without leaving marks, the interior in this one is pristine and I shall be keeping it.

 

Same dash fitted as the one I put in the beige car, but in slightly poorer condition.  The twine is to hold the window up and unfortunately the arm rest is past its best.  Not sure where I'll find another in black.

 

They all do that, Sir.

 

Lack of head restraints isn't unusual, I'll be keeping things this way until I find a replacement black set or dye ones I've got spare.

 

 

Radiomobile radio might be worth something to someone, looks in good order.

 

 

Headlining is great, be suitable for the red car, shame about the head grime though.

 

Boot is great too, but the toolkit is long gone.  Some donor sheet metal for the beige on in here.  Check out the quality inner arch repair, there's the same thing on the other side.

 

More soon...

[vulgalour]

Looking under the car, you'd think all was well.  It doesn't look as tidy as the red car under here, nor does it look as untidy as the beige car.  You can make out the selector box here too, sitting a tad too low as it's no longer attached to the car.  You can't change gear at all, the clutch pedal feels like its not attached to anything.  Another nail in its coffin really as I don't fancy trying to find out what's wrong here where there's nothing amiss on the beige car.

 

I had some time left to make a start on the strip down.  I was slightly alarmed when one of the seat bolts pulled a chunk of floor out with it where the metal was thin and holed.  There's also holes above the outriggers and there's been two welding patches let into the rear corners of the floor where the beige car will eventually need work.  More reasons for the orange car to be broken, really.

 

In addition to this work, both rear arches are rusted worse than the beige car as is the leading lower edge of the front wings.  Okay, so the rear screen surround is better and it has brand new outer sills, but the boot floor is not much better than the beige car, the rear quarter lower corners need repairs the beige one doesn't and the windscreen seal is perished.  All in all, the orange car needs more work than the beige one to get through an MoT and too much to get it to the same standard as the beige car at this moment in my car ownership.

 

There were some bits of stuff in the car, it being something of a time capsule.

 

Mystery bottle is mysterious.  There's evidence the previous owner was a sheep farmer and church goer and this bottle has some sort of oil in it and a label on the base saying 'Twin lambs'.  Very cryptic, probably medicine or something.

 

 

This made me smile as Mum used to buy this stuff when I was little.  The bottle is spotless so I'm hoping some collector or props place can make use of it, unlike the other stuff I kept this.  Shame it's empty.

 

I've already made my money back in this car on parts I would need to buy and parts I do need to buy and there's more parts than I myself can use on my cars so some stuff will be up for grabs.  Once I've finished stripping it down I'll be able to make a comprehensive list of what's available.  If there's anything in particular that fellow wedge owners need do let me know and hopefully it'll be something I don't need and you can buy from me.

 

I will offer the warning that there's likely not going to be a lot left over when I'm done.  This car has almost everything I need for the two I've got including a good amount of bodywork but do ask anyway, there's a good chance that there's something on here that's not of use to me that I already have a glut of since I've been hoarding parts for a while now.

[HMC]

 

 

 

Great pic! Has to be a contender for the calendar.