project 1980 Austin Princess

[vulgalour]

I know, thinks I, the weather can't be that bad today it's only been a bit drizzly and I can flat back paint in the drizzle. House is a bit cold this morning, I'll have to put a nice warm..







... maybe I'll just stay inside today.

Mister Bunny's response to the weather was much the same as mine.




I was hoping that the pictures I'd got demonstrated the better fit of the exhaust, but it's not as hugely apparent on digi-film as it is in person.

BEFORE


AFTER

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

 

 

 

 

 

Looks sweet.

 

I had a mega early one (late 1974 build) in Glacier white, a base model with no vinyl on the C pillar. Along with the Morris snouty front end it looked like an ant eater. I thought the Austin / HLS with the big one piece lamps looked best. Like the TR7 and XJS, time has been kind to these. The usual wankers will make snide remarks in The Guardian 'ten worst cars ever' kind of nonsense but the Princess is a sharp and unusual bit of design. As a car it had a lot going for it once the usual BL disasters were sorted out.

[Spiny Norman]

 

That's got to be a contender for the AS 2013 calendar!

 

Really loving this thread, keep it up.

PS...The temptation to make some lame "Not a happy bunny.." comment has proved too much, sorry..

[vulgalour]

Tiny little update today really. Normally, I'd have a bunch of pictures to share with you, but not today, the camera just wouldn't cooperate for some reason until it got dark, and then it would cooperate but the flash wouldn't go off. I have no idea with my camera at the moment, I think it's unwell.

 

Car-wise, the exhaust is even worse and having had a look and a feel, the entire downpipe join on the passenger side is blowing, it might as well not even be attached. Car sounds atrocious because of it and probably isn't running so well either, so I've bumped exhaust clamps up the to do list.

 

Additionally, when I had done my quota of work and got out to do some wet-sanding, the weather decided to help. I got most of the section done that I wanted to and found out that the top part of the front passenger door has so much paint on it that I could cut back quite a way and get the start of a pretty good finish. Looks like dust or something has got into the paint on the flat surface next to the weather strip, so that's another tiny section to blend in when I go round and do that. I was hoping to get the metallic paint on the bootlid finished off, but the weather unfortunately put paid to that.

 

Overall, I'm happy that the paint on the Princess just needs some TLC and, at most, a fresh lacquer coat. I doubt there's any point going for a full respray as all the problem areas are very small and localised, making them rather easy to blend in.

[vulgalour]

Update time!

I'm still trying to find out how water is getting into the boot. I think it's coming through the trim holes in the pillars but I'm not 100% sure, I'm going to do some leak testing with kitchen towel and a watering can to find out when I have a dry day. In the meantime, I'm just mopping out the water whenever I see it and when there's a dry day I'll get the drill out and make some drain holes before rust proofing and painting it so it doesn't get worse.




Exhaust was blowing again so we tried to fix it. Only the passenger side down-pipe to manifold join is actually blowing, so I only split that side.


Removed the clamp and cleaned up the old paste. The top of the clamp all the way around is soot covered as the blow starts at the join on the clamp on the wing side and then creeps around until the whole join is going. Since we had the time, we did this properly rather than bodging it.


Once everything was cleaned up, we got the trolley jack under the exhaust pipe... well we tried but the bump on the garage entrance meant we didn't have enough room. Got the factory jack - which is very well designed - and found the ratchet has gone in the handle so we had to bodge some tools together to serve as a handle.


Once everything was in place, the join was pasted up as normal and then the trolley jack used to get the pipe seated properly and held in place so you don't have to have a billion pairs of arms to hold everything together.


Because we knew the exhaust would blow again we tried to take some extra precautionary measures, getting the aluminium tape and wrapping it around the join after it was all seated. More paste was then applied to the clamp before applying that too.


Once everything was bolted up and the the car run up to temperature the blow was gone, which was great... for a few miles. Then the blow was back again. I didn't have time to redo it before the club meet and just pushed more paste into the worst of the blow that had appeared but of course this was never going to work and by the time I got home again it was blowing just as bad as ever. I'm waiting on some new cast clamps arriving that my Dad has ordered which may solve the problem as it could be the current clamp is shot. It could also be that the downpipe is buggered on the ends because of the previous bodgery that we documented. I suspect this exhaust will continue to be a headache for some time to come.

At the club meet, I got to meet a slightly newer Austin.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Have you got a clamp on the bottom of the downpipe that attaches it to the back of the diff?

[vulgalour]

I don't know. I'm told a bracket has come off the pipe somewhere around the gearbox area so I'm wondering if that's part of the problem?

[Rocket88]

Good tip for leak traceing. Get a tin of talcum powder, and apply to suspected point of water ingress. Water will leave a trace mark in the powder.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Sounds like the same thing, the exhaust is supposed to be fastened rigidly to the back of the gearbox/diff, if its not the movement of the engine will pop the manifold joint after the 3rd set of traffic lights! I know this from bitter experience. If the clamp is missing you can easily make one from a bit of steel plate and an ordinary exhaust clamp and just bolt it on via one of the nuts holding the diff on. Without that I can say for certain that your cast manifold clamps will not solve this problem.

[Rocket88]

Just get another ordinary exhaust clamp and a bit of flat Dexion [with holes in it] attach clamp to pipe, then use Dexion to bolt to appropriate diff housing nut/bolt.

[meggersdog]

Without the diff clamp constant rocking of the engine can cause the lip of the downpipe to crack so have a real good look before applying more paste.

[vulgalour]

Today's update involves checking stuff.



That's 13 1/4" from wheel centre to arch lip. It should be 14 1/2" instead so I have to get that pumped up. Happily, Captain Slow (no, not Mr May) gave me a jolly useful list and there's a hydragas pumping place a stone's throw from home. The front suspension sits at about 14", but I'm guessing this will change when I get the rear pumped up properly.

Checked the CV boot that my brother had said was split. I couldn't see the split but Dad had a rummage around and came away with greasy fingers, thus proving there is indeed a split. I can get a replacement for this fairly easily and for not a huge amount so that's on my to do list.

When in traffic today, I pushed the screenwash button and nothing happened. The motor has stopped making any noise when the button is pressed even though there's plenty of screenwash in the bottle, so I think that's conked out or I've blown a fuse, something to check in daylight.

Exhaust clamp is in the post, finally, so that can be fixed soon I hope, the current blow is returning about 20mpg which is shockingly bad even for a Princess. That missing bracket will be replaced too.

I'm considering taking the Princess for a 'health check' so I can find out exactly what's needed for the next MoT in September. I'm still learning so it would be good to have a checklist. Currently, my to do list in time for the MoT is this:

>Driver's side CV boot
>Adjust reverse gear sensor so reverse lights come on reliably
>Adjust headlamps properly
>Pump up suspension
>Little bit of welding to floors
>Stop exhaust blowing
>Investigate why screen wash no longer works
>Investigate play in steering column
>Replace driver's window mechanism

I think the leak is coming from the seam on the top side of the boot as I noticed some sort of grey paste has been applied badly in an area suspiciously close to where I've seen the water in the boot, noticed this when I was rummaging around getting stuff out of the boot after doing a bit of shopping today.

[vulgalour]

Update time again. As a reminder, this is my list of stuff to check from last time and what I've decided:
>Driver's side CV boot - yep, that's buggered. Actually, this is the steering gaiter, not the CV boot, my bad.
>Adjust reverse gear sensor so reverse lights come on reliably
>Adjust headlamps properly
>Pump up suspension - Actually, I probably won't need to do this as it's not far enough off from where it should be so I'm leaving it alone for now.
>Little bit of welding to floors
>Stop exhaust blowing - still waiting on that part arriving.
>Investigate why screen wash no longer works - fixed!
>Investigate play in steering column - gone away, automagically.
>Replace driver's window mechanism

Today has been relatively good so after doing my post and shopping errands I decided to have a poke around the Princess to see what I could see. The first thing I wanted to find out was which of my sealed beam headlights were good and which weren't. I had 4 that came with some brackets I wanted to use on the Polo, one of which already proved to be good and ended up replacing the blown unit on the Princess shortly after buying her. For some reason I never got around to testing the other three. One didn't work at all, and another worked at first but when I turned it to main beam white smoke filled the bowl as the filament dimmed and burnt itself out, it was a very pretty thing to watch.


So that was two in the bin. Happily, this one is still good so I do still have a spare bulb should I need it in the future. Upgrade my lights? Nah, the sealed beams are adequate and I like how they look.


Next, I wanted to find out why that washer jet pump had stopped working. First stop was the fuse box.


All present and correct, so it's not that. Worth noting that I've brought the cover in and I'll be filling in all the letters anew with white paint which is a job I've been putting off for no good reason.


It's quite neat that on the back of the fuse box cover there are clips to hold spare fuses in the likely event that the ones in there fail.


Perplexed, I turned the motor around on the side of the washer bottle and noticed the plug was loose. Pushed it back on properly and hey presto, my washer jets work again. That was easy.


Next was to investigate the boot that had split. The weird play I was getting in the steering column has vanished, I have no idea why, but I don't mind that it has. Underneath the car I spotted this, which is some of the paste and tape we used to attempt to seal the exhaust, blown out from between the clamp and the pipe. The new clamp is due to arrive today (which it hasn't) or tomorrow so I'm still unable to do anything about the exhaust until it arrives.


Steering rack gaiter. Pretty mullered, this was only split part way before but now it's completely gone all the way around.


I've been wondering how best to preserve and/or replace the various stickers in the engine bay. The ones on the head have been painted over badly and the Autosol I have seems to clean the flaky old paint off rather nicely, but the one on the driver's inner wing hasn't fared so well over the years.








Finally, although I didn't get a shot of it, I think I found a repair to the bottom of the driver's side front wing. The edge of the arches look quite solid but there's a 3" by 4" rectangle at the bottom of the trailing edge that has underseal over it which will likely need redoing. Not a massive problem. My housemate asked me when I was going to get everything fixed on the Princess and it made me realise there's really not that much *to* fix as far as I can tell, at least not mechanically. I've not found anything that I wouldn't consider to be expected as part of the annual pre-MoT type service so I'm feeling rather positive about the old girl at the moment.

[e287yba]

One bit of good news from those pics - assuming that the photo is facing towards the front of the car - is that the car's steering rack gaiter has split and not the driveshaft inner gaiter .

 

And the way I clean up mucky washer bottles (and plastic expansion tanks) is to remove all fittings (including the pump) then soak it in a bucket full of washing detergent for as long as you can (days ratherthan overnight, if possible). And I'd put some Milton in the washer fluid in future to keep "the sludge" away .

 

Good work, very impressed !

[vulgalour]

The picture is facing the front, the angle of the drive was actually useful for once as it gave me a lovely clear view. So... does that mean I actually need a steering rack gaiter instead of a CV boot? The steering rack gaiters aren't available from the local shop, but CV boots are. I'm still learning what's what under here, very much a novice with mechanical stuff. [edited to add] Now I look at stuff, I can see it's a steering rack gaiter now, found a pair on eBay for £13 inc. P&P which isn't too bad[end edit]

 

I need to get the engine bay sparkly clean like the interior, should be less work as it's a damned sight cleaner than what I had to contend with on the upholstery!

[eddyramrod]

It might be worth surfing the web a bit for your underbonnet stickers. I'm sure you can get a variety for different models (mostly Fords, probably). Somebody here will know better than I do.

[e287yba]

The picture is facing the front, the angle of the drive was actually useful for once as it gave me a lovely clear view. So... does that mean I actually need a steering rack gaiter instead of a CV boot? The steering rack gaiters aren't available from the local shop, but CV boots are. I'm still learning what's what under here, very much a novice with mechanical stuff. [edited to add] Now I look at stuff, I can see it's a steering rack gaiter now, found a pair on eBay for £13 inc. P&P which isn't too bad[end edit]

 

I need to get the engine bay sparkly clean like the interior, should be less work as it's a damned sight cleaner than what I had to contend with on the upholstery!

 

You're not a novice, believe me . You'd be running the car into the ground rather than trying to bodge exhaust manifold clamp joints with sealant and foil, or working out that the steering rack gaiter as opposed to the driveshaft inner joint gaiter has failed, for example.

 

Spotting the loose connector to the screen washer pump, reattaching and noting it as a future issue is the clincher - that you're in no way a novice - for me .

[vulgalour]

@eddy: good thinking, Batman. You've reminded me about a Triumph sticker set someone was after, so there must be BL stuff out there too.

@e287yba: Thank you I'll still think of myself as a novice, I think in some ways to stop myself being one of those arrogant tossers that insist on diagnosing problems on cars when they don't know their arse from their elbow. That said, I have been of use to other people when they've not known what's wrong with their car and I have, so perhaps I'm not quite as much of a novice as I think I am at times.

Teensy little extra update to add to what I'd already done. I have been painstakingly hand painting the text back on to the fuse box cover with white Humbrol paint and a 4/0 size brush to reasonable effect. I've not done this sort of work since my wrist injury flared up last year, so I'm quite pleased with the result, even though it's not perfect. Rather than give it a second coat, I'm leaving it slightly faded looking so it looks more like the bits that were still visible before the repaint. Normally, I'd've just splodged the paint on and used some fine wet-and-dry paper to take off the excess, leaving the paint in the recess of the stamped letters. Unfortunately I couldn't do that as the numbers weren't stamped deeply or evenly and in some places I had to guess completely at what shape things should be.

This is the before.


And this is the after.





This is another little cosmetic job off my list and a tiny step towards bringing the Princess up to the standard I want her to be. Obviously it's not perfect, but I don't want the car to be perfect, I want her to wear a bit of age but not in a forced patina sort of a way.

[vulgalour]

What I started off doing today was some exploratory demolition of a flower bed which, before I began, looked something like this (photograph taken last year, but it shows what was there well enough). Bear with me, there is a reason for showing off my manly* rock moving skills.


After much grunt work, I'd uncovered a big concrete slab. I'll extend this a bit and reuse the big rocks to build a new retaining wall before more digging and demolition, possibly moving the shed too, so we can plonk a small single garage here. The reason for doing this job first was to get the little cars out of the way a bit.




As you can see, there's still a skinny line of dirt and rocks to remove, but it was getting on and I was just about done from all that lugging.




Next thing was to see if I could get the Princess at least a bit out of the way using this space. I knew I probably couldn't, but it didn't hurt to try.


Once that wall is down and the new wall built to the left, the Princess will just squeeze on there, which means either the Polo or my housemate's Peugeot will both sit on there very happily and it gives me some flat working space at home.




However, I knew it wasn't ideal for my housemate when he got back from work so I thought I'd put the Princess back in her usual spot, but for some reason decided to reverse her in instead of driving her in... which is when I hit the house. You'd think nobody could be that special, but here I am, licking windows.






Turned her around to assess the damage a bit better. Swore at myself a few times, then at the car, then apologised to the car, then realised I was talking to myself...










So, that's the best panel on the car now dented, well done me. When I said I was going to spend my week off working on my cars, this is not what I had in mind. Best of all, it's a bank holiday so I can't go and get any grey primer to sort out that panel until Tuesday. Bumper off tomorrow to inspect the damage properly and see what I can do about the shallow dents I've gained. Shame about the inverted pimple on the bumper corner, up until now that's been a really good bumper and I've probably wrecked it now.

I am not happy with myself, this was a really stupid thing to have done.

 

 

[Skizzer]

Bugger

 

Don't beat yourself up over it though, everyone does stuff like that some time. Hope it's a straightforward fix.

[Danblez]

Ahhhhhhhh shit, try not to worry about it. You are doing such a great job on the car you will easily get that sorted.

 

I dropped a plug socket on my one perfect wing this afternoon and left a massive chip down to the metal. I know how you feel but it is just an accident. Dont beat yourself up!

 

GR9 work on everything else btw

[ruffgeezer]

Bad times on the bruised backend, but if you are talking of a small single garage, I've my set of 2/3 here (£100 if you are a shite'er) you could keep all the good bits and flog the rest if you want, I don't mind I just want my slab emptied!

 

I'm not far from you either

[e287yba]

Oops!

 

That's nothing to what happens when you do the same to a 2 foot bollard with an Ambassador, though, as a friend once did. A concave rear quarter panel - not like your inverted pimple, but a very visible concavity from the rear corner to the bottom of the C-post) was the result of that one, as well as a smashed rear indicator lens (and they were as common as rocking horse poo even back in 1987!). Your bumper did its job .

 

Mind you, my friend also parked the Ambasadorsideways in a 12 foot late flanked by hedgerows at around that time. He also wrote off an MG Metro with it less than 24 hours after passing his test, and the only damage to the Ambassador was the headlight and front indicator pushed bodily back a couple of millimetres... They are tough cars!

 

It was his parents' car, and they weren't too amused .

 

Still, on the sunny side, it's all otherwise looking good and so will your repairs after this little setback .

[eddyramrod]

@eddy: good thinking, Batman.

 

Erm, how did you know?

 

GR9 detail work though, excellent! Wouldn't worry too much about the reversing damage, at least you were facing the right way ready for exit.

 

Oops!

 

That's nothing to what happens when you do the same to a 2 foot bollard with an Ambassador, though,

 

1991: 2 foot iron-girder bollard, Leyland Daf 400 van. Need I say more?

[KruJoe]

Ouch! That must hurt. As the man said...

...everyone does stuff like that some time...

Still, it's horrible when it happens.

It's a long while since I bumped a car, I think the last time was when I reversed at full speed into a bollard in the dark. MOAR BOLLARD WARS! That made a mess of my Suzuki Swift 4WD saloon. A rare thing even then, I drove the length of the country for a boot lid and bumper. Shiteing was tough, pre-interwebz.

Keep up the good work on Princess, she's already prettier than any of my tat will ever be!

 

PS, get that downpipe clamp made up now! I'm sure someone told you a few pages back, before the latest exhaust woes!

I know on Minis (similar set-up?) this item is vital.

 

 

Onwards and upwards.

[Spiny Norman]

Commiserations.

 

I smacked our caravan with mine the day before someone was due to come out to buy it. (the van)

Van was in a field, on a hill. It had just rained and the grass was slippery and as I touched the brakes to pull up behind the van the wheels locked up (at about 5mph) and I had one of those mega-embarassing slow-mo crashes that you can see coming but can do nothing to avoid.

It did no real damage to the car at all, I think it might have cracked one of the spotlights I'd just had fitted but it left a big dent in the caravan.

1979 Princess 1, 1976 Thomson T-line 0

 

The folk still bought it, albeit after chiselling £100 off the price.

[vulgalour]

Thank you for sharing your stories of woe with the crashing into things, that's cheered me up a bit.

 

That bracket picture is super useful! My bracket only had half the metal left and that was the half attached to the exhaust so I'll definitely be knocking a replacement up and now I have a decent guide to go off for what to make. I'm not really using the car at the moment, lack of petrol, lack of funds and waiting for parts to arrive mean that I'm focusing more on getting that new hard standing area tidied up so I can do maintenance at home rather than having to drive to my parents for the flat space there.

 

This is the week I hope to achieve many things, not least getting my exhaust to stop blowing, then fitting the new gaiter... then it's all cosmetic really which just takes a lot of time and not too much money doing it the sensitive restoration sort of a way I'm going. At least I now know better than to reverse onto the driveway in this car.

 

@ruffgeezer: You have PM... or will in just a tick.

[eddyramrod]

At least I now know better than to reverse onto the driveway

 

Anyone who's passed a UK driving test knows better than to not reverse onto their driveway! Sadly, many appear to forget a basic element I've managed to remember for 30-odd years... [/pet hobbyhorse]

 

(I know you can't see the back of your Princess, but IIRC you'd need to be a pretty odd shape to see where the front finishes too.)

[vulgalour]

That's what the rose bush is for, it wiggles when I'm as close to the house as is safe. It's a very Austin sort of a parking sensor. As for reversing onto driveways, normally I would but the angles of this one and the fact that the lane outside is rarely used as it's not classed as a road (unsuitable for motor vehicles signs at the top and bottom of it) it's not such a hardship reversing out. My parent's drive, on the other hand, is much more sensible to reverse on and drive off since they're on a cul-de-sac full of children with no road sense.

[boobydoo]

This whole ka-fuffle seems a complete waste of time to me.

 

BEFORE: RHS Award- winning rockery but no extra room for second car.

 

AFTER: Demolished award winning rockery and still no room for second car. PLUS annoying dent on first car.

 

Que?