project 1980 Austin Princess

[ruffgeezer]

 

 

Calendar shot nominee! Or perhaps in this one's case colander shot nominee? 

[overrun]

Nice going, glad it is yielding many useful parts for your fleet.

 

I see the sun was shining, today. The radio also claimed this to be the case, unfortunately it never materialised up here.

 

I thought it was the law to stove in the soon-to-be-scrapped car, when removing items.

[Asimo]

It is such a shame that those O series thermostat housings have become such a nightmare.

I was chuffed to bits to find how easy it was to change a thermostat on my Ambassador, but it was only 3 years old then...

[vulgalour]

Bit more work on Orange Slice today, in part to make it look like I'm actually doing something and because I needed to use one of the axle stands it's sat on.  Three of the doors are salvagable and worth keeping whole rather than stripping bare so I took those three off.  I also unbolted the trailing edge of the wing I'm removing and found the rivetted patch on the bottom is actually a big piece of lead sheet.

 

Passenger front door is pretty good.  It's had some clumsy stonechip repairs all over the door as have the others, but on the rot front it's not too bad.  These doors do seem to survive the best on Princesses.

 

Driver's door is slightly worse than the one on the beige car presently.  I'm keeping this one in stock as it's repairable, but it's a bit far gone for me to be comfortable selling it to someone as a replacement unless their door is utterly ruined.

 

Rear driver's door is okay but needs more work still. This is fairly standard corrosion from what I've witnessed before.  Beige car's one of these is much better so it's another one I'm keeping back to repair at a later date.

 

With the Orange Slice back on one wheel, I trundled the beige car down the drive to get the rear bearing and brakes sorted.  I was hoping to get both sides done but the weather decided otherwise.  Delightful array of decrepitude on display here.

 

Princess Safari edition never got past prototype phase.

 

With the hub off I could have a look at the rear brakes on the passenger side, made sense to start here as this is the bearing that had failed.  The new brake shoes look barely used even by new brake shoe standards and I reckon I was lucky if this side was doing anything at all.  Tweaked the adjuster to get them to grip well enough to make the hub difficult to refit and while the handbrake and footbrake is improved it's still not good enough.  I'll repeat on the other side, I wonder if it's the quality of the shoes more than anything at this stage, they were very cheap and comparing them to the ones I collected from Derby they look to be of questionable quality when side by side.

 

The old bearing was very easy to remove and unsurprisingly sloppy.  The new one was surprisingly easy to fit, even though I had to be careful-old-school with a hammer and a flat blade screwdriver to ease the inner and outer bearings into place with plenty of fresh grease.  Once I got the old bearing out it was evident someone had repacked it with grease, presumably to get a bit extra life out of it, so I cleaned all of that out.  I also cleaned the grease out of the hub cap which, according to the manual, shouldn't be packed.

 

Put the wheel back on, started to jack the car up off the axle stand and then noticed it crawling back.  WAY too late I realised I'd forgotten to put the handbrake back on after fitting the hub and the car gracefully fell off the jack, knocked the axle stand over - without causing even a scratch, thankfully! - and stopped only when it had squished my new pot of grease.

 

I've been overdue a stupid moment like this. and after a bit of tweaking I could get the lid back on the grease pot so no harm done.  Annoyingly it then bucketed it down with rain so I had to down tools rather than doing the other rear bearing and brake.  Until I can get the car to hold on the handbrake on the steepest part of the drive I'm not going to be satisfied with their efficacy, it will almost hold now rather than just point blank refusing so I reckon I've made some improvement.

[vulgalour]

Bit of grindygrindy today.  Originally, I was going to strip the shell and weigh it in but I have time against me, as usual so it's proving quicker to chop the shell up and trailer it to the scrapyard to weigh in that way.  I'll keep the front end intact so I can strip components I need off it at leisure as I have almost everything I need off the rest of the car now.

 

I removed the remaining door, roof and B pillars first.  The roof will be used for repairing the beige car.  Turns out the repairs to the floor on the orange car was done by cutting the bottom of the front wings off - where the lead flashing is rivetted on - and using that metal.

 

Removing the driver's side sill was a nightmare.  It had been rivetted, welded, fibreglass and bodyfillered on over some of the original sill but not all of it.  We managed to get everything but the bit that closes on the A pillar off in one piece, the key part I need is the trailing edge and that came off lovely.  We weren't so careful with the other sill but I'll liberate the same trailing edge and may save some of the rest, I do have an unused partial sill that was liberated from the car shiter-Dugong tipped me off about so it's not a total loss.

 

 

With the sill off and just about all structural integrity now gone, we could make a start cutting through the floor.  The exhaust was knackered, as were the brake lines and while the hydragas pipes are okay, they're not perfect.  I have managed to save the rear hydragas lines, and the front lines are untouched so it's only the straight centre sections that are scrap.  Floor was cut so that the gear selector box didn't have to be split from the car.

 

Princesses are nose-heavy, as it happens, as demonstrated in this shot.

 

Ran out of time and discs to do more, but I did get the shell up on its side to inspect underneath and there's rot everywhere you don't want it.  The extent of the rust bug is fairly comprehensive, much more so than the beige car, and it demonstrates just where and how they like to rust.  The petrol tank has a large rust hole by the sender.  The floors had rotted out over both jacking points quite comprehensively, the rear corners which had been plated also had galloping rot that had spread into the inner sill, the old outer sill, the rear arches both inner and outer and was merrily going through the underside of the car as if it were an ADO16.  It would have been a lot of work to put this right so I'm really glad I made the decision to break this one rather than the beige car.

 

Tomorrow I collect welding supplies and more cutting discs so I can get this rear half cut down and weighed in, shouldn't take too long.  Everything from the A-pillar back is so light that I can move it on my own so I probably won't get much when I weigh it in.  The rest of the coming week is going to be devoted to getting rid of the bits of the orange car I don't need and getting as much work as possible done on the beige one.

[Shep Shepherd]

^

 

I wonder if a Volvo V70 would come apart as easily as that?

[vulgalour]

With a big enough cutting disc anything is possible.

[Skizzer]

Turns out the repairs to the floor on the orange car was done by cutting the bottom of the front wings off - where the lead flashing is rivetted on - and using that metal.

Didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this bit.

 

Good work - looks like this vindicates your decision about which cars to save.

[vulgalour]

Today I have finished using the rhubarb and custard machine and got the Orange Slice packed away ready to weigh in.  First, some more rust I found.

 

To the left is the usual boot floor corner rot, slightly to the right is a hole where the rear brake flexi bracket was held on by rust bugs holding hands and just by the bumpstop you can see the rot appearing in the chassis/cross-member that was covered with lots of underseal and some filler.

 

On the other side, the rust was so bad I could almost pull the bumpstop off by hand, it was held in with a mouse nest and a big chunk of fibreglass applied over the old underseal with new underseal put on top.  Rot is otherwise not as advanced this side but still worse than the beige car.

 

Petrol tank is utterly knackered.  You can see through it in several places and the metal has the consistency of tissue paper.

 

After some proper grunt work I'd got the floor pan out, the other sill off and the back end chopped up.  The hard standing was then swept clean for the first time since I got the red car and everything put away tidily.  Don't be fooled by this picture, the remains of the Orange Slice were very difficult to move.

 

Ready for tomorrow.

 

My pile of spares already removed.  Full rear axle on spare wheels, full roof panel most of the rear valance (going to use this for repairs mine might need), fuel filler flap and pocket, both B pillars, both sills and the middle and rear sections of the exhaust which were surprisingly solid.

 

 

After much deliberation, the beige car is now in temporary hibernation while I sort out all the MoT problems and some problems that aren't MoT issues over the course of the next month or so.  In the meantime, I'll get the red car sorted out for its MoT and use it as my daily until it goes to its new owner, giving me chance to iron out any issues it might have so it's good for the trek over to Wales.

[320touring]

this post puts me in mind of the fastes way to get the gearbox out an e30 318iS that your mate has crashed..

 

9" grinder to the roof, then floorpan and prop

 

[vulgalour]

A 9" grinder would have made this job a lot faster.  I was using a 4" or whatever the normal home grinder size is so it was a lot more work than I wanted it to be.

[Squire_Dawson]

You saved the fuel-tank sender?

[vulgalour]

The sender looked buggered, it was all gummed up on the outside to stop it leaking, so I didn't bother.  Do you want it?  It's still in the trailer but it'll be gone tomorrow afternoon.

[supermellowman]

These little round trim clips I haven't been able to find a supplier for. Since I'm putting the C pillar top trim back on I'm going to keep remove them. These are one of those fiddly little items you need and can never find.





I guess diameter is the key but those trim clips look suspiciously like the ones used for the side chrome waist mouldings on MGBs. 



 

[vulgalour]

In other progress I've managed to dismantle the rear axle from the orange car into almost manageable chunks.  While the pivot shafts aren't seized, the bushes are a really tight fit and I don't want to wreck them by dismantling the components further, a case of if it aint broke don't try and fix it.

 

Made sure to tape up the Hydragas unions on the spheres to keep them from getting contaminated.

 

The rear axle body mount brackets look fairly new bar a bit of surface rust.

 

Next up was to get the head off the orange car to get it rebuilt and swapped onto the beige car.  This went fairly well though the head itself was very well sealed to the block.  Internally from what we've seen so far it's in very good condition and should rebuild nicely.  For now I've filled the bores with old oil, covered with a plastic sheet and then with the bonnet to keep everything in stasis until I decided what I'm doing with the bottom end of the engine.

 

The head with the manifold still attached was rather a lot heavier than I was expected, but still carryable.

 

 

Head gasket set arrived today so I can get to work on this head like I did with the one on the red car and get it all rebuilt, I can likely do it in a couple of hours and get it all ready to refit without any trouble.  I'll be sure to check the head is nice and flat but to be honest I don't reckon there's been head gasket failure or anything, it seems to wear its 75k pretty well, just needs a good clean and service.

[vulgalour]

Totally spontaneously, I decided to get on with sorting out the cars today.  Not sure where the motivation came from exactly but I'm glad it appeared, it's been too long since I did anything productive with them.  Trundled up to my brother's with the tools in the boot and fired up the beige one.  Against all the usual talk, she fired up no bother and eased out of the garage with nothing more serious than a slightly flat tyre.

 

So far so good.  We then jacked her up, got the rear corner off to put it on the red car later and offered up the corner salvaged from the orange slice.  Everything was going really well until the last fixing bolt which proved to be a nightmare, it had to be sorted using special Dad Skills that only Dads of a certain age seem to have.  All back together we could then swap good tyres for bad so the red could have road legal tyres for the drive to the new owner's abode.

 

Then my brother decided we should explore the rust that the car had failed on the MoT properly.

 

I'm not particularly surprised, in all honesty.  Hadn't expected a hole on the passenger side though.

 

My brother reckons he wants to do that welding for me, he's more than welcome to do that.  In the meantime, we eventually got the corner back on and obviously lost a bit of fluid.  Surprisingly, the rear brake from the orange car is excellent but the original rear brake as fitted to the Princess is practically useless so I'll be swapping the other corner too.

 

 

This of course meant that the red Princess is now back on four wheels again too, with no fuss or drama.  Next job here is to finish swapping the good tyres on and getting it all refilled with fluids and whatever ready for it's first proper drive.

 

One surprise was discovering that amongst my spare steels are a pair of Ambassador wheels which while the same size as Princess ones have a different design which means none of the Princess trims actually fit.

[Ghosty]

Put the Ambassador wheels on the orange slice: problem solved.

[vulgalour]

One of them already is.  I think I've got 6 spare steels, it's a bit silly really.

[vulgalour]

I was called up to the garage today to inspect the works on the beige Princess and to offer some reassurance as to what should be done. There is a lot of air where there should be metal, but it's not as bad as it might be. I am, however, very glad we have decided to investigate and sort this as more bodgery was found.

 

From day one I knew about a blob of fibreglass in the front floor pan, driver's side. What I didn't know while I've been driving around in the Princess for about two years is that it was actually a skim of fibreglass resin on the outside covered with a skim of underseal. On the inside it was a skim of bodyfiller over that, then a patch of metal, then another skim of fibreglass before a skim of underseal and then the carpet. The original small rusty hole was not cut back to good metal and it had been left to fester. There's one reason for the fogging up inside the car I guess. This has been labelled as important, but not priority at present. Apologies for the poor photograph, I'm relying on my camera phone as I think I've accidentally packed my camera in a box, I certainly haven't been able to find it since the last round of packing/unpacking I've had to do.

 

The priority, and the reason I was called to inspect, was the rear floor pan that I'd failed the MoT last on. They've had a very good dig and found the floor is actually solid fairly quickly so a massive patch isn't required, the outrigger is still in good shape and the inner sill not as rotten as originally feared. There is a bit of rot further towards the front of the floor pan just ahead of that strengthener you can see, this too was unexpected, but I'm glad it's been found now, that will be properly explored and patched too. Luckily, I have good sections from the orange car to repair this.

 

Here's another clearer shot.

 

In order to find out how much needed to be cut out so repairs could begin - today's planned job, foiled by the undoing of bodges - the chrome arch trim had to be removed. At the trailing edge where I'd tacked a quick repair in all was relatively well, my repair was never great but it was good enough to see me through until I got a welder, so it's lasted precisely as long as I planned it to.

 

Once cleaned up it's not too appalling, pretty average if not slightly better for a Princess in this area. Good.

 

The back half of the arch too was in reasonable fettle. Since the arches are getting the inner lip rolled to accomodate the Lotus wheels a smidge more comfortably, some of the frill on the return edge (not really visible here) isn't an issue.

 

What was an issue was the leading edge, a good portion of which came away with the chrome arch trim. Some proper repair work was clearly begun, and it looks like some of the leading edge was welded, but then for whatever reason a whole load of pink fibreglass resin and bodyfiller was daubed in. What was concerning is that the trailing edge of the sill had a massive bash in and wasn't attached to the bodyshell, neither was the adjacent bit of wheel arch, the whole lot held to the body tub by filler which had let go, trapped water and happily rotted the corner out where I couldn't see. The chrome arch had held it all together and hidden it from view until we got to the point we're at now.

 

Suffice to say the chrome arches aren't going back on. There's a lot of very good metal in this arch, even more in the other arch we'd already stripped back for the repainting, so it's worth repairing it. Not going to bother trying to source a repair panel - there was one for very little on eBay recently - as we've plenty of suitably shaped metal lying about the place and a chap wanting to practice panel beating.

 

Because of the amount of welding to be done, it is no longer viable to do a patch-repair on the beige paint, we're going to have to remove so much paint to do the repairs that I might as well go back to a colour plan I wanted with some adjustment. New plan is a complete HLS style satin black roof and an Aconite purple body to compliment the black velour interior and really make the Lotus alloys and chrome work shout out. This is especially achievable as the rear screen is coming out to get the top corners of the surround sorted and all the doors are coming off to get the bottoms repaired properly.

 

It is going to take a long time and I shall be without my car for a long time. But what a car it should be when I get it back!

[vulgalour]

Today we drove down to Derbyshire from Stockton-on-Tees in possibly the least comfortable beavertail ever built. Still, it did good on fuel and was competent at hauling Princess.

Was glad that we could hire a self-drive vehicle, several trailer options fell through, most of which were man-with-trailer deals. Reason for the self-drive being better was that the beige car not only had a flat battery, but all of the spares had to be packed and the driver's seat bolted in. This was all done while the dregs of hurricane Bertha were rattling about the place. The new owner for the red Princess also arrived and more problems arose with that... full story at a later date.

One big annoyance was that after getting the driver's seat bolted in, as I got out of the cabin there was a very audible and perfect 'pop' before the side with the replacement sphere slowly began to sink. Unlike before, there was no puddle of green blood under the car and in fact the fluid that's disappeared isn't really visible aside from one tiny little drop hanging off the bottom of the displacer I'd replaced. I suspect the inner diaphragm has blown and filled the gas side of the unit with fluid. I can hope it's a bust union or pipe but I know it's going to be the sphere and I know that's going to be a nuisance to source and afford. I've not even driven the car on this replacement sphere so it smarts just that bit more than it might normally.

Other than that, once some charge was put in the battery she fired up as reliably as ever and trundled out of the sinking garage - there's some serious flooding issues, the garage and shed are actually all moving because of the saturation of the ground - down onto the road and had the good tyres swapped for bad so the red Princess can be safely driven away before loading her up onto the beavertail. Unfortunately I couldn't hang around to help out with the red car because we had many miles to drive and a deadline for returning the truck. I really wanted to help out, but the amount of time it took to pack and load and swap things meant I had no time left.


On the way back we stopped off for some much needed food.


I've been seriously impressed with Little Chef lately and this one was no exception to that. Superb service, polite staff, excellent food and not a bad price tag, an actual pleasure to sit down for something to eat. Anyway, there was something interesting in the car park so obviously we parked next to it.






Then it was a very, very boring drive back in horrible weather. Even as a passenger this particular truck was hard work, I don't think the seats were designed for human beings to sit in.


Just miles and miles and miles of this. Horrible.


13 hours after setting off this morning, the beige one is now safely tucked up next to the newer floaty bus and over the course of the coming week I hope to get stuck in to the work needed to get her fixed. There's not a huge amount to do, but I'm going to tackle as many of even the small jobs as I can before she returns to the road... it may get a bit out of hand.

[Lord Sterling]

Tis hard work these old cars, I know exactly how you feel. I had to do the same with moving and shoving all of my Rovers about sometime last year. Thankfully they are all nice and safe now.

 

I must say, I really like the wheel trims on the Xantia.

[KruJoe]

It must be a relief to get that job done eh?

 

I'd forgotten about your funky bootlid - it's brill! The last pic looks like you've been 'getting creative' on the side of the car too.

[vulgalour]

That side creativity is just satin black to keep the bare metal from being bare.  I'm not going to concentrate on matching paint on the repairs, I'll just use whatever's handy.  Once it's all solid I'll make a final colour decision but I strongly suspect I'm going to go back to the contentious Aconite.

[STUNO]

That side creativity is just satin black to keep the bare metal from being bare.  I'm not going to concentrate on matching paint on the repairs, I'll just use whatever's handy.  Once it's all solid I'll make a final colour decision but I strongly suspect I'm going to go back to the contentious Aconite.

 

I'm sure he is talking about the blue/grey stripes on the side. but there are some on the Xantia too. Must be overspray from the lights behind the fence

[vulgalour]

I had not noticed that... hmm... stripey Princess...

[Felly Magic]

Someone I know has just bought a bronze wedge to put back on the road, no doubt will soon me using it to pick up birds in Ipswich LOL

[vulgalour]

A more different person to the one Trigger posted had recently bought the MMM bronze wedge?

[Split_Pin]

I haven't caught up with this thread for ages but I'm glad I did tonight. Good work on all fronts, despite the odds. I like the hands-on detail and plenty of pictures!

[Felly Magic]

A more different person to the one Trigger posted had recently bought the MMM bronze wedge?

Same 'un, he's bonkers, bless i'm, but will no doubt have it on the road soon-ish

[vulgalour]

@IainL:  it's always an uphill struggle.  I wonder if this is what having children is like.

 

@Felly:  I think you have to be a bit bonkers to own/rescue a Princess.  If you were sane when you started ownership you soon wouldn't be.