project 1980 Austin Princess

[vulgalour]

The only reason this car will see the road again is my bloody mindedness.

[strangeangel]

The only reason this car will see the road again is my bloody mindedness.

 

Then I raise my bottle of Poacher's Choice to your bloody mindedness.

[barrett]

Please don't put flippin caravan lights on it FFS. What about Simca 1000 or 1300 or Fiat 850, as just three off the top of me 'ead suggestions for good looking period ish round lamps?

[vulgalour]

In all honesty, I've really struggled to find other round lamps of requisite size that aren't really expensive.  My budget for the second pair was about £40, I spent £32.  I couldn't even find Simca or Fiat lights online (and yes, I looked other than on eBay) and I haven't been able to get out to autojumbles and the like so it's a case of making use of what I can find.

 

Could've been worse, I could've just screwed a load of Landrover lights onto the back panel that I'd smoothed by gluing a sheet of fibreglass matting on.

[captain_70s]

Please don't put flippin caravan lights on it FFS.

Somebody should have said that to BL when they built the Dolomite...

 

 

They look like they've been nabbed from the ABI Elddis factory ffs.

[MarvinsMom]

to be fair to BL, Michelotti was responsible for them lights on the Dolly,

 

he used EXACTLY the same trick on the Austin Apache, Triumph 2000 and the TR6....

 

Apache

 

Triumph 2000

 

TR6

[vulgalour]

There are so many styling decisions to hate on the TR6.

[MarvinsMom]

of course Michelotti didn't do the TR6, that was Karmann, though Michelotti did design the original TR4.....

[vulgalour]

 

Ordered myself some new mirrors.  I like the black wing mirrors and they're nice to drive by but they've never been first choice, just the nearest to what I wanted that I could find.  I wanted something quite chunky, square and possibly door mounted for the right mirror.  Nothing that stuck out too much or was too curvy and modern and nothing that was too elegant and classic or organic looking.

 

I'll probably repaint them satin black, I suspect they're going to be a bit much in full on plasti-chrome and a repaint should help make them look like older units than they are.  They arrive in a couple of weeks, so in the meantime I'll put the wing mirrors away safe just in case I want to use them in the future.

[bub2006]

Mind you, I'd definitely have 4Q if I as allowed.

4Q2 is what my mate has on his robin bootlid

[scaryoldcortina]

RegTransfers have FU2 (ex Paul Raymond then Billy Smart's Circus) on their site for only* £205k.

[purplebargeken]

Those mirrors are quite interesting.

[michael1703]

I'd lob this in for an mot right now and see how it goes, an mot is a much lower standard than most people imagine.

 

There might be a couple of blebs that you're fretting over that aren't going to stop you getting a ticket

[Timewaster]

^^ I think you might need to fit some rear lights at least.

[trigger]

I saw this posted on my car group tonight and thought of you.

 

 

 

 

 

[vulgalour]

I've not seen that one before, quite a find!  Nice use of Toyota alloys and Morris sidelight/indicators.  Not so certain of that Ford grille or the double rear Princess bumper.  Is that a side exit exhaust poking out under the driver's side front wing?  Properly interesting find at any rate, a Princess hearse is single-digit rare and a modified one has to be unique.

[vulgalour]

Amazingly, my new lights arrived yesterday, much sooner than I was expecting!  The pre-wired 5mm LEDs look to be of decent quality and not afflicted with hair-thin wires, picked clear ultra-bright ones that light up red so they'll blend with the bodywork better and be more visible when lit (in theory).  They weren't the cheapest out there, but neither were they the most expensive at about £6.50 delivered for 50.  Next job will be working out how many and at what spacing they need to be before I fit them to the C pillars

 

The other lights were a very good guess.  I'd worked out the size I wanted so they'd match the way the 2002 ones fit, and the sort of style I wanted.  I didn't want something that looked brand new, everything on this car I want to look like it might have been done when the car was new.  That doesn't mean I'm being super period correct, but it does dictate the 'feel' of things I do.  It's a bit of a nebulous concept really.  So, those lights.  I mocked them into place with some tape just to test fitment and first glance appeal so the angles and depths aren't exactly as they will be.

 

 

 

I'm happy with that.  They look how I want them to and when I've fiddled about with angles and light depth and all the finishing on the light buckets they should look like they belong there too.  I'm looking forward to getting these properly installed and wired up now.  We'll see how far I get with finishing the sill this weekend as to how much I get done on those lights.

 

[plasticvandan]

I get the lights now.top bombing!

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Whilst I admire your originality, my OCD tendencies have kicked in upon spotting the inner rear lamp sitting higher than the outer one. Intentional, or the way the cookie crumbled? Either way, it's not a dig, more an observation.

[vulgalour]

Think less like this.

 

More like this, but with the inners sitting high rather than low.

 

In the mock up the lines are thrown off by a number of factors.  The inner bucket isn't trimmed yet and the outer light sits low in the bucket while the inner light sits high in its bucket because that's the only way they'd stay put with tape.  In person, having them lined up in the style of the older Skyline looks wrong with the line of the boot lid and the line of the valance so I used the boot lid shutline as my reference point for the top edge of both light buckets.

 

Edited to add: The top of both light buckets will sit at the same height, they just look like they don't because of the above.

[dieselassist]

Im with 'terry wogan' on this - the lamps look cranked up this way /... the inner one doesn't look like its sunk in any way into the valance 'ledge' - there also seems to be too much of a gap between the 'inner n outer tail'lamp bowls... I was going to post all these thoughts last night but I had a few cheapish beeers in me, n I thought it was down to my eye being cock-eyed, with the cheaper sudz... ive threated myself to a few more expensive beers tonight, n still see the same - doesn't look that 'symetrical' to me...

 

...still its your car, n your the only one to please who matters, really; I love the 2002 lamps btw; I have a GP mk1 buggy 'project' myself, n want these rear lamps for it, sunk in - its hard to get them in non crazed/frosted condition, these days, tho I haven't chased them that hard via e-bay or whatever n the car is a long way from being built presently....

[DeeJay]

Just thought I'd chuck this in the mix.

 

I'd cut the lip off the boot lid (straighten it across) and have the number plate between the lights.

(On the Princess)

 

.

[Parky]

Yeah but the holes are there now and I am pretty sure Vulgalour doesn't want to weld them back up again!

[vulgalour]

What Parky said  I can always change it in the future if I want to.

 

---

 

Today I got the seam welding finished on the sill, cleaned back and the first bit of filler down. Tomorrow I might finish the filler work, we'll see how the other jobs go.

 

After cleaning up the front passenger door, which appeared to be the best one on the car rust wise, it turned out to be not great. A long thin patch was needed to the underside of the door (the one on the right) to compliment the two larger patches already under there. This bit isn't seen so I'm not too worried about how it looks so long as it's solid. I can always go back and redo it at a later date if I need to.

 

The corner of the inner skin had disappeared, leaving the outer unscathed, so rather than put a rust trap back I just welded the inner skin to the outer, letting the outer skin folded edge keep the strength required for this bit of the door.

 

The outer skin just needed one small patch where it had blown. A little bit of panel dressing is required before I fill this to smooth it out. Not a bad job though really.

 

I did take off the paint on the door - and there was a LOT, this car has been resprayed at least three times before I got it - I hit a big patch of filler on the top corner. Underneath the massive patch of filler that ran for the half the length of the door from the swage line to the window was just a shallow dent and two scores that match the damage on the front wing this side that was similarly treated. Easy enough to put right with a small quantity of filler this time. Difficult damage to photograph, it's that insignificant.

 

That means the sill and the front passenger door are now ready for a little filler work and paint, two jobs that have needed doing the whole four years I've owned the car. Fun fact, when they did one of the repaints of the car they didn't remove the front door or even clean off the dirt that was there and just painted over the top of it!

 

Tomorrow I'm aiming to repair the back door and the front wing bottom, do a good amount of filler work and possibly even lay down some paint on the panels so they can all go back on the car. That will then be this side finished bar the small amount of work needed on the rear arch.

[vulgalour]

Another day, another bout of rot busting.  I thought it'd be neat to just take the paint off the rear passenger door and get the rotten corner welded up.  I mean, how difficult can that be?  It's not like those microblisters in the paint can be hiding any horrors like OHMYGOD EVERYTHING IS FILLER DUST.

 

Get real tired of this routine.  Not fantastically surprised that there's way too much filler in this door where there's some more gouges in the panel.  I know there's nothing on the rear wing this side as that's already been taken back to bare metal so at least I can leave that alone.  The filler in the bottom of this door was dug out a couple of years ago too and given a liberal dose of red oxide which served well to keep things pretty much in stasis.  With the door off the car it was far easier to clean it up and see what I was dealing with.  No worse than expected on the outside really.

 

After a couple of hours (no really, it was pretty tough going on this panel compared to the others, loads of filler and paint to fight through) I had the outside of the door back to bare metal so I could finally see what I'm dealing with.  You can hopefully see the black lines where I marked the gouges with a marker pen since they weren't showing up on the camera.

 

Part of the reason the door bottom had rotted out is a previous repair.  I'm guessing this bit of metal shoved in between the door frame and outer skin and welded along the bottom edge  was to give a platform for filler.  Caused more problems than it solved this.

 

This corner on the inside was no worse than when I cleaned all the filler out a couple of years ago and red oxided it.  If nothing else, the theory of red oxide being great for protecting metal has certainly been proven with these doors.

 

With everything cleaned back I could see there was a lot of the inner door frame I needed to replace.  It's not holed yet but I'd rather just deal with now so I don't have to pull the door off again.

 

Better view of the door cleaned up.

 

After some time I'd worked out what shapes I needed, what needed cutting out and set to on repairing the door.  I got Mike to help as I needed to fit the door to the car to check the bottom edge was correct so that I could fold the new outer skin repair over it.  The welding went moderately well, the welder seems much happier lately for some reason, and the flapwheel did its magic to make things look good pre-filler.

 

The only hiccup with the whole process was that I'd overestimated the amount of metal I needed to fold over so I need to trim it down before finishing off, I'll also tidy up the welds for the inner frame pieces I've let in.

 

I ran out of time to get the metal work on the door finished today.  Trial fit suggests it's going to sit better than it did before, the bottom edge and corner look to line up better with what's on the car now so I'm cautiously optimistic this will look quite tidy when it's got the filler required and a top coat of colour on it all.

[ShiteRider]

Good progress vulg . Maybe imagining things, but didn't you find some mint back doors that came from a place that converted prinnys into hearses way back when?

[vulgalour]

Yeah, that was a while ago.  I was too poor and too slow to grab any, they sold REALLY fast which is why I'm repairing the ones I've got, speaking of...

 

---

 

Decided to make use of my free time at the unit again today rather than the garden as the garden is pretty soggy and not good to be digging in.  I put the last few spots of filler needed on the sill so I can paint it when I've done the final sanding before the doors go on.  I also took that surface rust off the C pillar and gave it a quick and messy squirt of satin black.  I'll repaint this fully when the rear window comes out, for now it's just better protected against the elements.

 

I'd already pulled the tatty vinyl trim off the B pillar which doesn't now match anything on the car.  After cleaning that all back it was given a good amount of primer and top coat and is now satin black to match the window frames and C pillar properly.  The paint mellows quite a bit when dry, it looks nearly gloss before it's fully gone off.

 

I also finished a couple of tiny bits of welding needed on the rear door bottom and then trimmed and folded the door skin over.  Every tutorial and blog I'd read about door skin folding made it look like an easy job so either it's not or I was making work for myself because I found it quite a lot of work to fold and bash it to a tidy finish.  Still, it's done and given some seam sealer.  The repair to the lower edge tidied up surprisingly well, I knew I'd done it fairly tidily but not as tidy as it ended up being so I'm pretty pleased with that.  I've not used any filler since this won't be seen and I'd rather avoid filler in any areas I can that don't need it so I just gave it some seam sealer over the weld line and will chuck a load of cavity wax inside to protect it all.  I've also drilled the drain holes required in the door.

 

 

Then I had to call it quits which was quite annoying since I'm very close to refitting the doors and tweaking panel gaps now before paint.  I had an appalling night's sleep and I seem to have got some sort of bug which put the brakes on pretty much everything.  I'll take it easy and see how the rest of the week goes, I may just have overdone it a bit lately.

[vulgalour]

An update a day... I should probably have condensed this all into a single weekend post or something. Never mind! It's all good stuff, it's nice to be making progress on the Princess again after so long of being unable to. I finally decided what I'm doing about the Lotus alloys finish after trying out a few ideas that didn't work. Rather than polish them completely or get them powdercoated, I'm going to paint them gloss black (possibly metallic) except for the lip on the central dish and the outer rim which helps make the wheels look bigger and appeals to me more than the factory Lotus scheme on these.


Surprisingly, the plates I ordered from www.a1showplates.com arrived today too, slightly personalised to go with the rest of the car and look a bit more finished. They're in a modern font rather than something absolutely period correct, just because of what was available and the fact I'm happy with them. Nice quality plates, very fast service and about the same price as getting plain generic ones locally even with the delivery put on top. I'm very happy with these and I can see why A1 have so many positive reviews out there.


You can also see the mirrors I ordered, these also came very, very quickly. They're better quality than I was expecting and a little larger too. I'm glad of that, the extra size makes them the size I wanted and means I should be able to actually see stuff in them. The stems are metal rather than plastic with the head being chromed plastic. Depending how these look on the car will depend whether or not I paint them satin black. It's quite a large chunk of chrome, satin black would be much more forgiving of their size, we'll see how they look fitted. One nice thing is that the cowling on them recesses the mirror so far back that they should stay really clear when driving through the rain, something the original door mirrors weren't very good at doing.


When whatever this bug is I've got goes I can see about doing some more on the car. At the moment I'm stuck at home feeling very sorry for myself and working at half-speed on commissions. Being ill is really annoying.

[Rod/b]

What's the score with MOTs and plates these days? Do they have to have the BS and makers marks for the test or is that just for VOSA / old bill purposes?

[vulgalour]

Well... that didn't take long to pop up as a question did it?

 

I don't believe it matters on a car this old.  The plates have the correct font size and spacing and are age appropriate for the vehicle they're fitted to, a BS marker is neither here nor there with this one.  The 1994 Corsa we've got doesn't have BS markers on its rear plate and went through it's last MoT without any issue at all.