project 1980 Austin Princess

[danthecapriman]

If it were me...

 

I'd go for some beige flames in the purple strip, just behind the front wheel! Like the Anglia from 'the young ones'! Maybe a bit far!?

 

More seriously, great work so far, the purple looks good!

[vulgalour]

Welding set up is fairly basic really, can't remember the welder I'm using off the top of my head, it's a good one but not top of the range.  The things that really helped massively:

> Nearly, then completely empty CO2 bottle replaced with a brand new bottle of CO2/Argon (Argoshield, I think it's called?) mix from Adams Gas who are excellent.  Many thanks to Angrydicky for the initial tip off with that one.

> brand new reactive welding mask to replace the dodgy reactive mask and the flippy-lens non-reactive mask

> new clamps, both C and butt-weld types, so I can hold panels where I need them

> new flap disc so I can clean surfaces far better before welding

 

One thing I couldn't change is the steel quality.  Working on the sill was good as I was welding replacement sill sections to a replacement sill rather than the car's original steel.  The floor I was welding Princess bonnet to original Princess floorpan and the quality of both was poor, some parts of the steel behaved like it was thin when you welded it even if it wasn't, other parts welded exceptionally well first try.  I'd been warned about this issue with BL steel of the period and it was pretty tiresome to fight.  The front wing wasn't so bad where I did weld it but underneath the paint there's more evidence of that variable steel quality in the way some of it had rusted underneath the paint.

 

The only other thing that led to improvement was practice and persistence.  Having decent inexpensive tools was the biggest help to get me on my way and then it was just a case of learning how to control the metal and adapting my technique.  Sometimes you need to linger to get a good weld, sometimes you have to be a bit on-off with it, sometimes its in between... definitely an intuitive thing and I can understand why people have a problem getting good welds.  You can't trust the welder or the metal to behave exactly the same from one inch to the next.  Oh, and being patient, letting the panel cool regularly and not overworking a single area, that's absolutely vital.  I think I can improve further yet, the biggest thing holding me back now is a lack of practice at fabrication and learning how best to make the ideal patch for a hole.  I've only done butt welding on all of these repairs, even though an overlap would have been easier given the extra metal thickness you can then work with.

[Noel Tidybeard]

what you need is a purple spinning plughole muriel on a beige bonnet

[DeeJay]

Get your old lace curtains out again for above the sharp line.

[Timewaster]

after mocking up today with a scrap of gold I had in a spares box.

Blimey Vulgs. I thought you were skint!

[vulgalour]

sorry.. gold*

[vulgalour]

Couple of jobs done on the Princess today.  First was taking off the old fuel filter which had definitely seen better days.  It's been on there a while now and I do mean to get one of those nice glass-and-chrome ones, I just can't resist how cheap these things are and they do the job well enough.

 

New one on and churny-churny until it had filled and fed fresh fuel to the engine...

 

... and I could churny-churny because for £35 my starter motor was refurbished and now works so well it's rather caught me by surprise.  The starter has always been a bit slow, I'd put it down to the car just being old, turns out it was already on its way out when I bought the car three years ago.  The refurbished item wasn't repainted (at my request) and they even cleaned up the bare alloy bits.  Did a cracking job visually and in terms of performance.

 

 

Four bolts later and it was back on the car.  Another fiddly nut for the power lead and I had a working starter motor.

 

The car was willing to churn and the refurbished motor wasn't now killing the battery as it had before.  Usual routine undertaken of cleaning electrical contacts and checking fuel was getting to the engine when I found the car wouldn't fire until I finally diagnosed the issue as being that I'd got two of the three wires connected to the coil in the wrong order, that done the car fair burst into life with a heartening willingness and even idled reasonably well.  Planned to spin the car around when an almighty screeching started up.

 

Obviously I was concerned about this and at first thought I'd fitted the starter motor wrong somehow.  Checked belts, checked items for heat, looked for obvious damage and started the car again.  All was as it should be, no screeching, so stuck it in reverse (which it was reluctant to do) so I could turn it around in the yard.  Drove back about 2 yards before an almighty screeching began again.

 

Very worried now I went through everything I could, started the car and left it out of gear to wait and see if the noise would manifest.  Absolutely nothing did.  So I gingerly put it in first gear and attempted to drive forwards the two yards I'd given myself.  Queue a clutch that was squealing and slipping like a pig on ice.

 

Just as well I bought that new clutch kit then.

[Christine]

pig on ice  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Die0SCFZ4bA

[vulgalour]

OMGDRIFTYO

[Christine]

vulg, ive got a Hella  prinnie 1.43 kit .Its been sitting on the dashtop of my van for 5 years , , I know the wheels are missing,they were used on sommat else ... do you want it  .? The shell has warped a little , but it should pull down square when you cement it together.

[vulgalour]

sure, I'll take that on.  I might even have some wheels.  Shall I PM you an address and you can let me know what postage would be?

[Christine]

Address'll do , i can afford to post it, it weighs nothing  .

 

It's "Heller " princess ! Of course,  "Hella" make headlights !

[vulgalour]

It's the same kit I've got part done which I really should get finished off.  I should see if I can get some matching scale Lotus wheels too.

[Ben_O]

I have always hated these cars but after reading all 89 pages of your thread, i must say it is really growing on me and i admire your tenacity keeping it together and on the road.

 

Well done!

 

Ben

[vulgalour]

Thought I'd be good and do some work on this old crate.  It drives and stops so I planned to drive it across the yard so I wouldn't have to walk so far getting tools and whatever.  Got as far as turning the car 90 degrees and then it wouldn't idle.  Then it would but use of the accelerator bogged it down.  Now it won't even start.  WTF?

 

FINE I'll work where I'm stuck then.  Got the tools and faffed about jacking it up with not enough clearance for the jack and all that hoohah.  Wheel off to access the four bolts to free the upper arm and then depressurised the system on this side so I don't get covered in Hydragas fluid when removing the displacer.

 

Then found that the largest spanner I have is  24mm and the fitting for the displacer is bigger than that.  Then found the adjustable goes big enough but doesn't have enough grip to turn the fixing.  Fine, I'll come back to that.  Turned my attention to the four bolts that hold the upper arm assembly in places.  Two came out easy peasy, one I can't get any tools in at and the fourth is now round.

 

Tools away, locked up, cover back on the car.  Absolutely no patience with it to try and get to the bottom of why it's suddenly decided not to run - and yes, I did check sparks and carb and fuel situation, and no nothing was amiss so there's no reason for it to do this - and less patience still fighting with bolts and fixings when I haven't got the right tools to hand.

 

URGH.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Just fucking burn it.

[Bren]

It's 30 years since I went in a princess.

 

I was surprised at the ride quality and roomy interior.

 

I had considered bending my dad's ear to get one, alas the SD1 won in the end.

[Bren]

Sometimes better to pack your tools away at times like this.

 

Have a brew and come back refreshed.

[vulgalour]

At the moment I reckon The Rev. has the best idea.

[purplebargeken]

 

 

It's 30 years since I went in a princess.

 

I never realised you knew the royal family!

[vulgalour]

The unit has a strict one-in-one-out policy.  Actually it doesn't, but we are very limited on space.  Princess got an opportunity to come in so I could replace the front displacer with tools easier to hand.  When I attempted this job I was thwarted by two bolts, today that didn't happen because I had the magical grab-a-bolt-with-sharp-bits tool and a more different combination of ratchets and extensions.  The pivot shaft came undone easily and was easy to knock through, though I didn't remove it fully as it needs to hold the displacer in place for a little bit first.  The job was going well!  So of course I was foiled by the nut on the hydragas pipe that needs to be undone to free the displacer which is so stuck it started to twist the pipe.  This is a Very Bad Thing, because new pipes aren't available and have to be custom made, if only British Leyland had used something more substantial than mild steel for them.

 

Never mind, I could still inspect the inner arch for any damage, knock off the loose layers of paint and whatever and find a rust hole.  Yay, more rust to deal with.  This needs fixing too because it's in a structural area and I have that sinking feeling that it's only going to grow much worse given the overall appearance of the metal in the vicinity.  I shall try and be optimistic, even though I sacked off this part of the car for today.  You can see shiny silver metal through that rust hole to the top left just above the small bolt hole.  Nuisance.

 

I needed to inspect the passenger sill for rust so I could match it to the driver's side.  When I bought the car I knew it was a bit tender where the sill meets the front wing so this bit didn't surprise me beyond it being better than anticipated.  Pretty easy to fix this too.

 

The other end of the sill was an unknown quantity.  After digging out lots of fibreglass in the wrong profile I was left with a rather accurate map of the Himayalas constructed from clumsy patches.  I also found two holes that were previously hiding under filler and more fibreglass.  Nothing new here on this car.  Don't know what I'm doing exactly about the repair here as I don't think I have a repair panel for this bit.  I have got more metal to work with so I'll likely bash it into a shape something a bit more like factory and just make it look tidier than it does now.

 

On the other front wing I took back the filler and paint to the arch partly for the repair work needed.  I decided to do the same here and was suddenly confronted with about an eighth of an inch of filler underneath a really heavy couple of paint jobs and a rather special arch repair.  It's the same method I used to repair the rear arch on the opposite side but instead of cutting out the rust and filling the pie-cuts, they've just tacked this whole thing over the frilly arch lip and smeared filler on top.  This is a lot of time to sort out, time I didn't want to be investing in this part of the bodywork.  It should at least be the last bit of this nonsense to find on the car, I've poked every other panel and part and dug out all the rest.

 

Not sure if I've made progress, gone backwards or stayed about where I was today.

[purplebargeken]

It is odd that sometimes actually doing miserable stuff on old cars gives the impression that in reality nothing has actually happened. 

 

It is something that has puzzled quantum physicists for a rather long amount of time. 

[vulgalour]

I just realised I used the section that would have repaired that sill end to repair the front wing the other side.  D'oh!

[vulgalour]

Chopped off that manky sill end today, bit of an awkward thing to repair.  Glad I did, underneath were a few layers that were causing problems.

 

With the patched sill section removed and the closing plate literally pulled off because it wasn't welded on properly I could see what I was dealing with.  A little bit of frilliness to trim back but it's otherwise quite good and there's enough healthy metal to weld new pieces in properly.  Really, I should have chopped this out before repairing the inner sill and floor, life would have been easier on that then.

 

De-fillered the front wing.  There was a lot of filler hiding in the bottom corner here covering a patch I already knew about.  I need to cut this out and let a larger patch back in as the metal has holed beyond the repair.  Shame really, the repair wasn't too bad here originally, looks like they bothered to seam weld, cut out the rot and dress it back better than the other repairs on the car.

 

Found a bit that needs attention at the front too.  The wing shouldn't be welded to the front valance like this, there's a return lip on both that should be spot welded together.  Not entirely sure what I'm doing with this bit for now beyond repairing that little hole that's appeared in the wing just at the bottom of the headlight opening.

 

I'm definitely moving the side repeaters.  I really don't like the stock location and since it's only a case of extending some wires and drilling a hole I might as well do it while I'm doing the rest of the wing repairs.  You can also see here just how much filler was hiding in the wing, much of it for no reason at all because it wasn't covering repairs or even bad metal.

 

One thing I am doing is de-bumpering the car.  The back end looks pretty tidy without them, the front not so much because of the sidelight-indicator units.  I had a bit of a think and realised that I can relocate the side repeaters into the headlight trim.  You can get clear lens versions too and they'll sit in the gap above.  The old sidelight-indicator holes will get plated over to finish the front end off and the bumper mounting holes filled front and rear.  You can see the two little holes where my number plate used to be fixed, it will be going back there.

[Christine]

Have'nt they got to be 3 square inches area ?  Sommat i remember vaguely from kitcar building...

[vulgalour]

Maybe.  I was looking at options after making the post and thinking they might be a bit too tiny and invisible so maybe something more like MG B units would be suitable in the old location, something that's smart but doesn't stick out too much.

 

[Angrydicky]

Those sills look a little far gone to me, judging by the pitting they look quite thin. Would it not be better to replace them, rather than patching?

[vulgalour]

Replacement sills would be lovely, but nobody makes them any more.  Finding them is difficult too, even more so than finding front wings.  Repair is the only option and since I have three good rust-free partial sills that's become my solution.  It's more work but easier than trying to make the sills complete from scratch so it's what I have to do.

 

This side is much worse than the other, there's pitting all along where the stone-chip trim goes and in a few places it is far too thin to leave as is.  I'm pretty sure that I'll be patching these sills well into the future too because they'll just keep rotting and replacements will still be impossible to find.

[Angrydicky]

Hopefully you've got enough partial sills to make most of one good one. If you can I'd slice through just below the sill step leaving that intact, then that gives you something to weld to at the top. It'll be a bit of a trial and error getting everything lined up, but at least the profile doesn't look too complex so you should be able to make any missing sections, using the bits saved off the scrap cars to copy.

[vulgalour]

Upside-down day today so I got some hours in on the Princess before work.  Someone on the club is selling a bunch of Princess parts, including some complete sills, so I'm not working on those until I've collected them.  I'm hoping at least one of the sills is for the passenger side, it'd save me a lot of time and effort.  Instead, turned my attention to the nose end since my new lights had arrived.  Found that the few small holes in the valance I was aware of have got no worse, now I have the means these will get patched properly.  There's a lot of paint on the front valance too, it must have had at least four resprays judging by the layers I went through.

 

Chopped out the rust on the front wing and let in a section of one of the partial sills I've got that I can't use to repair the existing sill.  The profile is similar enough so it was easier to manipulate this than a flat sheet.  I've got to trim and fold the return and try to get the arch flare into it before filler and primer goes on.  Got about half way around on filling the pie-cuts which just takes forever and welded up the little hole in the leading edge of the wing.

 

Offered one of the new MG units up to the hole in the valance and found the hole was ever so slightly too big.  The units are also slightly curved. They do look better than the originals without the bumper, if a little too new and shiny.

 

When I let the new panel in I wasn't that keen on it, mocked up it looked fine, it bows out slightly to match the profile of the new units.  I may have just done things clumsily.  I'll be deleting the bumper bracket nobble and I may cut out this patch and fit a flush one so I start with a smooth valance.  It could be easier to modify the MG light unit to fit the valance and look better.  In fact, the curve of the MG unit is so minor it can probably be taken up with an extra foam gasket.  We shall see I suppose.

 

It's progress.  Progress is good.