project 1980 Austin Princess

[vulgalour]

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

 

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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...

 

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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.

[Spottedlaurel]

This Kadett may (or may not) serve as inspiration:

 

Opel Kadett 1900 by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

[vulgalour]

Those rear lights remind me of arcade machine buttons and I want to press them.

[eddyramrod]

Inspiring work!  I love those mirrors, please do NOT paint them!

[oldford]

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?

BS markings are not checked on the test, makers names are not required as well for the test.

[vulgalour]

*sigh*  I finally find a set of mirrors I really like and look great on the car only to find that there is no single location on the car they'll fit.  They look great on the door but the stem is too short for the mirror to be in the right location to see behind you, even if you turn the mirror on its side.  They look great on the front wings but the only location you can see behind you with them from there the mirror head fouls the bonnet by a considerable margin.  Worst of all, when you hold them where you can see behind you they're a really good mirror and you can see lots in them, there's just no way of putting them on the car in a usable location.  I am very disappointed about this, but at least I still have the black wing mirrors which I guess I'll be sticking with since I like those too and they are good, just not as good as these new ones I got.

[vulgalour]

This has been rattling around in my head all day and I think I have the solution and a very simple solution it is too. The bigger problem is the angle the mirror stem fits to the door, the length of the stem is neither here nor there. That means I have to change the angle of the mirror and the easiest way to do that is to make up a wedge spacer block. Here's a very simple diagram to demonstrate, the door in beige and the spacer in red, before and after.




Ideally, the spacer wants to be made from a solid block of aluminium so it can be polished to match closely the mirror itself and look less obvious. To fix the spacer to the door I drill two holes that line up with the original mirror mounting holes that are equipped with captive nuts. To fix the mirror to the spacer I just put a fixing through the pre-made hole into the spacer. In theory, job done.  Now just to find out where to get relevant blocks of aluminium from.

[Noel Tidybeard]

isnt that how the standard BL mirrors fitted a princess?

[vulgalour]

Yes and no.  I'm fitting the new ones in the standard location, it's just that the standard mirrors are rubbish, these aren't.  The old mirrors don't have a separate plinth, they look like it because of how they're cast, really that should have been my tip off for a solution I just didn't think of it.

[anonymous user]

While you wait for the aluminium there's a lot to be said for knocking some up in hardwood with a bit of aluminium paint

[LC Torana]

Or cut up one of those heavy styrene? cutting boards.

[oldcars]

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.

My 75 has a smiley plate with out the BS marker on it and passed no bother.

[vulgalour]

Today I'm feeling much better and that meant some Princess time again.  Mike was volunteered to hold the doors while I bolted them on, it's a horrible job to try and do solo and I'm grateful for the help.  That was after the sill filler work was finished and given a coat of top colour so I could get the doors on.  Getting the front door aligned was surprisingly easy and it now lines up and shuts much better that it ever has in my ownership.  I got enough primer on both doors to see what I'm working with and some filler work started.  The rear door needs the arch-door gap tweaking at the bottom corner as the repair is ever so slightly wrong and the door-sill gap isn't quite as even as I wanted it, but not bad for a first attempt at this sort of work and satisfactory enough for me to work with it.  The repair is going to need much less filler than I expected it to which is quite rewarding.

 

Rather than cover both doors with filler as was previously done I've just focused on the areas that need it which are much smaller than previous restoration would suggest.  It's nice to see the swage line showing through crisply now for the whole side of this car.  I've done what I can with the lower section of the front door to line it up with the new sill better, it will need some filler as the old patch repairs have warped things because of the way they welded them on.  Other than that, it's not too shabby really.

 

I couldn't hang around to do more filler and paint today.  I'm just happy to have the doors back on the car.  Getting the bodywork straight on this side is going to be fairly easy now, it won't be perfect, it will just be solid and tidy.  Perfection can come later.

 

[Felly Magic]

Hopefully getting this done today helped your mojo. It's a major step getting the doors on. Happy days

[vulgalour]

It did.  I'm getting pretty bored of this car being a case of going in to do a 'quick job' and it ending up being another weldathon.  It's probably 40% mig wire now.  Almost all the metal that's gone in to the repairs has come from that single orange Princess bonnet too so while it was no good as a bonnet it's been an excellent way to sort this entire car out!

[Dippy]

Nice progress, it looks to be coming together nicely now.

[vulgalour]

Today is the day I finally finished all the welding on the passenger side of the car that needs doing.  Feels good to have reached this point even with the filler work and paint ahead of me.  The wing bottom I chopped off was an historic repair which needed to be repaired so I repaired it and put it back where I chopped it off.

 

The rear arch repair was trickier.  I only really have a hammer and a vice for shaping panels and no stretcher/shrinker or fancy tools.  I wanted to do it in one piece if I could and did manage that.  The patch moved as I was tacking it in so it's not as flush as I'd hoped but not far off.  After realigning the rear door the panel gaps aren't too bad and I don't need to reweld the bottom corner for an acceptable fit now.

 

I repaired the inner arch before the outer arch patch went on.  I did take the wheel off to do that repair, access wasn't great otherwise. Before you say it, I know that arch edge looks bad, that's because it's not finished.  I need to fold the whole arch lip under so it clears the tyres I need to put on the Lotus alloys.  The arch return isn't in great condition and I'd rather do this than than spoil a repair panel.

 

Now there's just a lot of patient filling and sanding to do so all of this work is made presentable before the top coat of paint can go on, something I had no time to do today.  I checked the car over to see where the key areas were that I needed to focus on next and with the exception of the rear panel (which is my next target because it's less fiddly and more fun) there's only a few small bits needed on the driver's side of the car.  The driver's front door needs quite a lot of work, the corner is made entirely of gaffa tape and has been for a while, it's also rotted out part of the bottom of the door skin so it'll be a similar repair as that on the rear passenger door I expect.

 

The rear driver's door isn't as bad as I remembered it.  This panel still isn't great, it's done the same thing as the back door on the other side so it'll be a good amount of work to put right.  I'd forgotten that I'd already repaired the sill-arch area and got top coat on before it went outside, I just didn't finish the filling work so I'll revisit that.

 

The rear of the driver's side arch needs a blanking plate for the old bumper hole and a small patch letting in at the bottom of the arch, these are both really easy jobs.  This panel is a bit of a state too, it needs old paint and probably filler taking out of it to sort it all out.

 

 

The bodywork is nearly sorted and I'm really happy about that, it doesn't feel so insurmountable a project as it did earlier in the year.  My brother put a misleading decal on the boot lid as motivation.

[vulgalour]

I've been a busy bee this weekend with the welder and the grinder and playing with sharp bits of metal.  My first duty was to get the car level so that the work I was about to undertake would also be level.  Jacking the car up with a tiny spirit level on the roof is much easier than trying to sort out the suspension right now.

 

Then I got the cake tins and the marker pen out, marked up the back panel for the three light buckets I had yet to install and got busy.  I forgot to take any photographs of progress.  Compared to the first one I installed, these were for the most part quite easy.  There's definitely a knack to it.  This was yesterday when I didn't have a huge amount of time, just enough to do this stage.

 

Today, I had much more time so I'd determined I'd get everything welded in, including the back plates to hold the lights.  If I had enough time I'd make a start on the number plate recess too.  It went remarkably well!  But first, here's the one problem I did encounter.  I knew where I wanted the number plate to sit in the rear valance and had made a good guess for location for what to cut out on the back panel.  What I hadn't banked on was there being a big structural piece behind the outer skin that I have to work with.

 

It's okay though, I can still locate the number plate close to where I wanted it, just a little lower.  Wiring and location for the new number plate light should be quite easy to achieve too, there's good access inside the boot and enough depth to the panel to make that relatively straight forward.  I now have to finish my cardboard template for the piece of metal I need to cut, fold and weld to fill the hole.  Then there's just lots of trim and bumper holes to fill in to smooth it all out properly.  You can imagine I was quite pleased to get to this point tonight.

 

 

In the photographs it looks wonky, I know this will get pointed out.  You'll have to take my word for it that it isn't and that it's the fisheye effect of the lens on my camera which makes the lights look like they're not lined up or pointing the right way.  Because I've used loose bottomed cake tins as my template for the buckets, the back of them has a nice round rolled edge with the light clusters sitting slightly recessed in them and leaving no sharp edges at all in the boot.

 

The BMW outer lights are rotated 90 degrees, this means that both my running/brake lights are in the top half of the light clusters and the reflectors are to the outer corners which seemed more sensible and the large clear reversing lens is less obvious like this.  I'm very excited about getting it all finished off and wired up so I can see the car come to life with its new lights.  There's just a few holes to fill that the original bumper and wiring have left behind and the recess for the number plate to weld to finish off all the MoT required welding now.

[Pillock]

QUAVERS GONNA QUAVE.

 

Lookin' alright that. It did look wonky before, but now I see what the deal is with the slightly smaller inner lights being level with the top, it no longer looks wonks.

[Ghosty]

:GRIN:

 

That looks utterly bonkersly brilliant. (Boso bonnet??)

 

Great work sir - keep it up, you're well on the way now.

[vulgalour]

As already stated on the blue forum, Mr Ghosty, I'm not going to sharknose the bonnet.  I'm not.  Really I'm not.  Not even thought about it.  Mustn't sharknose the bonnet.

[Asimo]

Love the love this wedge is getting!

[fordperv]

vulg that bonnet really needs shark nosing and an awesome splitter adding, I love it

[vulgalour]

If this car's chin gets any longer it'll start getting bookings as a Jimmy Hill impersonator!