project 1980 Austin Princess

[Squire_Dawson]

Yes the exhaust clamp design is woeful. It was carried over from the inline transmission cars (Austin A30 and Morris Minor) where it actually works without trouble. However, due to the torque reaction of the engine combined with a transverse layout, there is little 'give' so it ends up breaking away again. Be careful not to over-tighten the clamp as it can crack the cast iron manifold. If it happens regularly you will need to check the engine steady bushes.

[plasticvandan]

I used to use a jack under the downpipe to firmly push the flanges together,seal then clamp,never had a leak afterwards.

[vulgalour]

That usually works, but not always.  They're really finicky.

 

On the oil breather front, the thing I thought might be that is an oil catch can which can be removed easily so I'll check it isn't clogged up anyway.  I could get it repainted nicely too since it's got horrible flakey paint on it from previous restoration* work.

[MikeKnight]

Genuinely surprised this has an oil catch can in the system, and a direct-to-sump one too. Nice design.

 

Usually it's just a bit of old hose jammed into the cam cover.

[dollywobbler]

This is good progress.

 

Your garage door mess is just old, fully-choked car hurling dirty water out of the exhaust. They all do that sir. I was at a Rolls-Royce dealer the other day and spotted that one car had blown a right load of filthy muck all over another rather nice car. They must have fallen out.

[Eddie Honda]

so I have two oil filler caps rather than just one.

Ah, I've just noticed now you've drawn my attention to it.

 

ELIMINATE one.

 

[Noel Tidybeard]

Genuinely surprised this has an oil catch can in the system, and a direct-to-sump one too. Nice design.

 

Usually it's just a bit of old hose jammed into the cam cover.

 

iirc bmc/bl engines of this ilk do have the oil catch tank type breater- certainly the a+ in a 1.3 maestro had one

[dieselassist]

congrats on the mot win man...!

[Cavcraft]

Nice one on the MOT, great stuff!

[vulgalour]

While the site settles, I'm holding off updating here for a bit.  You can get the latest over on the blue forum: http://retrorides.proboards.com/thread/171230/austin-princess-rover-414sli-update?page=89

[purplebargeken]

Didn't realise the O ring had a square profile. Weird.

 

https://www.amazon.com/O-Rings-Square-Seals/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A16413611%2Cp_n_feature_ten_browse-bin%3A3549491011

[purplebargeken]

http://www.hitechseals.com/products/O-Rings.asp

 

http://simplybearings.co.uk/shop/p81579/3mm+Section+50mm+Bore+Square+Section+NITRILE+70+Rubber+O-Rings/product_info.html

[For Fiats Sake]

Like for update.

[crapcarcollector]

Vulg, understand you are waiting for settleage to occur, but unnoticed this in my weekly copy of classic car weekly and I seem to recall you looking for people who can service spheres. I have no idea, but saw this, thought of you...

 

http://www.hydragasandhydrolasticservice.com/

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[vulgalour]

CCC: I'm aware of the service.  I really ought to get my displacers re-gassed, there's just been so many other jobs to fix ahead of them.

 

April 2017

 

Fixed the leaking oil cap with PU sealant.  No more fog machine.

 

Replaced the broken speedo cable with a new one.

 

 

Then the PCB in the dash decided it didn't want to work any more.  Fuel gauge, dash illumination and telltale issues, lots of fun, took ages to figure out.  The dash was in and out more times than an inny-outy thing.  Also meant no night driving because I had no idea what speed I was going, no legible GPS speed alternative to make use of and there are speed cameras in the vicinity.  Bit of a nuisance.

 

 

Front seat covers were modified to fit properly, finally.

 

We did some fine tuning to get the car to run nicer and replaced the throttle return spring that I should have replaced five years ago when I bought the car.  Both things made a marked improvement in the driving experience.

 

 

As a treat, the engine bay was given a thorough degrease and polish for the first time in years.  Was looking pretty swish under the bonnet now.

[vulgalour]

Finally got some new door seals, the old ones were falling to bits and my spares not much better.  I couldn't afford the original velour covered ones as they were four times the price of the plain vinyl ones I ordered.  I didn't need the plush velour covered seals anyway, it's not as if this car is that original any more.  Made a huge improvement to general noise when on the move.

 

 

Then, we decided to install the in-tank pump I'd got as part-payment for the Renault.  This would resolve the oil leak from the mechanical pump which I'd had enough of and should, by all accounts, be a very simple job.  So knock the locking ring around, let the fuel drain into a stack of recepticles and wait.

 

Fit the new pump in the old sender housing.  Everything was nice and clean.

 

Then find out the three tabs that should hold the locking ring in place are only two and a bit and the fuel tank now won't seal.  Remove the tank.  You can't buy a tank, repair would be the only solution.

 

Oh well, this lot could be dealt with, a job I was saving for later.

 

Happily, a chap over on Retrorides had a spare Landrover fuel tank in his scrap pile he was saving "just in case" which was the correct ring type so he chopped that out and sent it to me free of charge, for which I am still very grateful.

 

The tank was then sent to a local company to repair and in the meantime the brackets were dunked in white vinegar to clean off the rust and the mechanical pump removed.

 

The original blanking plate was clean, repainted and fitted with some sealant in addition to the bonded rubber gasket in a belt-and-braces approach.

 

The boot floor was also inspected.  This bit of welding I didn't want to do, and could only be done with the tank removed, so had to be done now.

 

[vulgalour]

Fuel tank came back and a lovely job was made.

 

Tank brackets were cleaned up and painted.

 

The fuel tank was stripped and painted.  This took forever because there was some sort of resiny protection on the underside.

 

 

 

It was then smothered in underseal and reinstated under the car.

 

In the meantime, the boot floor repairs had been done and that too was painted and undersealed before the tank was fitted.

 

 

 

[vulgalour]

May 2017

 

While the tank was off (these updates are slightly out of date order because of the condensed nature) the inner rear wings were also repaired.  Part of the outer rear wings were removed ready for repair too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've still got to finish this area, there's a reason I haven't, more on that in a bit...

[vulgalour]

With the tank reinstalled it decided it was going to leak.  No matter what we did with any combination of new and old seal and locking ring, it just wouldn't seal and threatened to damage the new repair in the same way the tank was damaged before.  I had to walk away from it at this point.  Thankfully Mike managed to get the ring to seat properly and in more belt-and-braces applied some fuel resistant putty just in case even though it wasn't leaking after he'd got the ring to stay put.

 

 

With that done I had my first drive ever of the Princess without oil smoke wafting in through the vents.  It was very strange and made me think there was something wrong.  Life was good, the car was behaving well and I even treated it to a sunshade because of that heatwave we had.  It got so hot at one point the sunstrip shrank and fell off the windscreen.  You may notice the Rover has changed a little bit too... more on that elsewhere.

 

I needed to get the Princess and the Rover and me and Mike back from the unit in one go so Mike drove the Princess and I followed in the Rover.  Nearly home and the indicators stopped working, it had burned out the new relay I'd fitted not long ago so when we had time we headed back over to the unit with me driving the Princess following Mike in his car and a bit of this.

 

Turns out the relay I bought was the wrong kind, which we only found out when we got to the unit, so drove all the way back home again because it turned out the tools we needed weren't at the unit after all and waited for the new posh one to turn up.  Easy to fit, indicators working again, yay!  Had a little earth problem initially with the relay clicking constantly that ended up resolving itself and now it only clicks when it should.

 

Right at the end of May I learned my windscreen seal has gone porous.  These are NLA and a non-standard profile.  The club has a pledge drive to get an order made up which I forked out my share of, just waiting on other members paying up so the order can be placed now.

[vulgalour]

June

 

Mike rewired the dash to bypass the PCB.  That sorted everything out but the main beam telltale which stubbornly refuses to work.  A job for another day.  on reinstalling the dash for the umpteenth time it broke.  Again.  So had to have the stupid plywood spacers reglued before it could be refitted.

 

 

Finally got it all back together and working again. The new Sharp head unit with graphic equaliser is lovely except it needs some suppression because the electric fuel pump interferes with it, just like the rubbish aftermarket one did when I first got the car.  Job for another day.

 

The distributor started leaking oil again.  This has only just had an O-ring fitted so I'm calling this Because BL too.

 

Then I went to the shops and THIS happened. >

 

I feared the worst, another displacer failure (and this is the corner I've JUST replaced).  After some investigation it looks like it's just a leak.  I'm yet to resolve this so the car is currently sat on the drive thinking about what its done.

 

You are now up to date.

[STUNO]

Thanks vulgalour, you have been missed !

[michael1703]

I think I'd have taken a break too with your run of luck lately.

 

Lock ring looks a bit like mgb one

[Angrydicky]

Good to see you back! Thanks for the update - this car really is fighting you all the way!

[Asimo]

Splendid seat covers!

[adw1977]

Always great to see an update on this car!

[vulgalour]

@michael1703: the MGB ring is exactly the same.  Doesn't seem to be a part that's available separately even though it's part of the construction on just about every BL fuel tank.

 

@AngryDicky:  Always does and always has.  One day I might win.

 

@Asimo:  all my own work.

 

@Stuno and adw1977:  cheers chaps.

 

 

I missed on little bit of the update which was the leak tracing.  When the front corner dropped, as it had been doing slow enough that I wasn't sure if it was or not, I had thought the displacer had popped.  Unusually, I still had bounce on all four corners, the ride was jiggly and I'd got chronic tyre scrub so I just assumed the worst as you do with Hydragas.  I had been getting a little puff of odourless white-ish smoke when the exhaust started to warm up which I'd dismissed as being down to the large amounts of rain just making stuff damp.  On closer inspection, however...

 

That's Hydragas on the exhaust. Traced it back along the pipe and hidden against the bulkhead side was this peculiar staining.  Very well hidden, hence the use of flash.

 

That goes back to the schrader valve block.  Another Princess owner on the Princess forum has had the exact same leak and the repair was to replace the block/pipe.  I haven't a spare replacement.  I do have some individualisers, they just need some adaptor stalks, so I'm considering pulling all the displacers off and forking out for them to be regassed when I get some adaptor stalks made.  This does, unfortunately, render the Princess unuseable until I've raised a couple of hundred quid to do this, it's not a cheap job.

 

 

Because there's four of everything to do it gets expensive.  From memory, the regas service was £60 per unit plus postage and really you need to do all four at the same time.  The adaptor stalks I need for the individualisers are potentially the same sort of price because they need to deal with such high pressures and the fitting on the Princess displacer is an obsolete rarely stocked size.  I may be able to get rear displacer flexi hoses adapted to do the job or get a different design of individualiser made, it just won't be cheap.  Potentially, I'm looking at £500+ to sort the suspension properly or much, much less to just replace/repair the leaking pipe as a short term fix.  Ideally, I need the suspension system overhauling properly and I do need to invest this money otherwise it will just continue to bite me.

[worldofceri]

Excellent update is excellent!

 

 

Sorry I don't have anything more constructive to add.

[dollywobbler]

Excellent update is excellent!

 

 

Sorry I don't have anything more constructive to add.

What he said. I always enjoy your updates.

[tooSavvy]

What is a FTP..?? A 'failed to post' of course....

 

All gudd gudd 

 

 

TS

[danthecapriman]

Great stuff as always Vulg, good to see you back too.