Sold 1981 Austin Princess - [expletives removed]

[320touring]

you can get white gaffa tape, and if not I know where to get my hands on some for about £3 for a massive roll.

I was mainly meaning it would be less effort than the painting I've done recently..

 

in hindsight, the post could have done with a

[MikeKnight]

Then realise that you're actually still pretty ill 

 

Yeah.. sorry.. I'll try not to cough in your face next time I visit you.

 

I am the plague bearer. 

[vulgalour]

In the bid to get things moving here I investigated the leak on the radiator.  Solder/braze has cracked around the top hose.  This is repairable.

 

But since I've got a not-leaking radiator from the orange car, I'll use this instead.  It's easier in this instance.

 

Nothing terribly exciting I suppose, but it's progress.

[vulgalour]

After unbolting the power steering pump (but not disconnecting it) I got the radiator out today ready to swap in the one from the orange car only to have two of the fixings on the orange car radiator break off due to corrosion rendering it useless as a swap-in.  Back to plan A of getting the red car's original radiator repaired, just got to wait on the blow torch I need for that job to become available.  Repair should be a little easier to effect with the radiator out of the car I suppose and there's no alarming crustiness underneath the radiator that I could see so that's good too.

 

Nothing has been done about putting the good sphere on the back corner, I haven't had the assistance to do the job, nor the time, nor the headspace.  It'll get done, I just don't know when at the moment.  No pictures or anything, that's as much car as I want to do today, feeling decidedly out of sorts.

[vulgalour]

Well that was an exercise in futility.  Crack on the header tank soldered, radiator pre-tested off the car, radiator plumbed up, filled up and began to burp the system... and then it started leaking from the same place again.  I have another radiator that needs a re-core ideally but at least has all the fixings and doesn't leak but I cba to fit it today.

[HMC]

Ugh infuriating, but having read over the whole thread again, amazed at the progress youve made and the obstacles overcome that would have defeated most (me included!)

[vulgalour]

Yeah, I do keep trying to remind myself how far I've come with this one to try and give myself that boost to get the last few things done but just at the moment I have next to no enthusiasm for fixing cars, which is a shame because I'm sure this is going to be a lovely old thing when it's got these last few things sorted, the engine sounds particularly nice when it's running since having rebuild the head.

[Honey Badger]

What about some good quality epoxy repair putty, a nice fat fillet over that should help strengthen it, you might have a little less space to fix the hose but it might last a good while/forever of it's done right. It would certainly be stronger than soldering it. If you get the right high temperature type.

 

 

De-grease, abrade, de-grease is the normal way to prep for application, making sure you don't rub any grease into the fresh metal when you rub it back to get a good key.

 

Your doing a fine job on this and the beige one, you have certainly tackled jobs I'd never consider doing in adiy setting and your not far from getting this one sorted.

[the judge]

Looking through last few pages,you need a good rest Vulg.

[vulgalour]

I've swapped the sphere I nicked for the beige car back onto this one now, which is where it came from in the first place.  With it on four wheels it's a bit easier to work on.

 

 

After the car had been last fettled with nothing had been done, but it started up no bother and the headlights worked (though nothing else electrical other than the ignition appeared to).  I fully expected it to fire up no bother today, which it did, but as the day progressed we dropped a cylinder and then two cylinders.  The car will fire and run reliably on two cylinders but won't pick up four.

 

Static timing and ignition timing is good and as per the book.

Plugs are in good health and gapped correctly.

Plug leads are delivering a healthy spark to each plug as they ought.

Fuel is reaching the cylinders with no overflow or starvation issues and no visible air bubbles.

Battery and alternator are in good health, as is the alternator belt.

Tried two distributor caps with the same result from both.

Tried two sets of plug leads with the same result from both.

No oil to water contamination.

No untoward knocks or other noises.

 

After much scratching of heads we think it might be a failing condensor or a damaged distributor cap as the problem gets worse the hotter the engine becomes.  The two cylinders that are dropping are not always the same two and it doesn't appear to make a difference which plugs and leads are attached to which cylinder.

 

 

Does anyone have a different notion as to what this might be for us to check?  When it does run on four cylinders it runs really rather nicely.

[purplebargeken]

Coil on the way out?

[oman5]

definitely sounds ignition related. cracked dizzy cap or shorting rotor arm maybe?

[vulgalour]

The Princess is running on FOUR cylinders now.  That is the optimum number of cylinders for this car.  After ordering a new condenser and rotor arm which won't arrive until tomorrow, we pulled the distributor and swapped it with the one from the Orange car.  This highlighted that the condenser was indeed knackered and the bearings had gone in the red car's distributor.

 

I'm not cancelling my order, a spare condenser and rotor arm is still a useful thing to have.

 

That meant that this could happen.

 

Marvel at the fact it is now facing the opposite direction and it got there all by itself.  To try and solve the mystery of the sticking clutch we decided to bleed it... which was the opposite of nice.

 

New clutch fluid in and the clutch works much, much better though the gear lever may need a little adjustment as it now feels a little sloppier than even a Princess gear lever ought to.  We'd also flushed the water through which was brown and manky and full of horribleness but is now lovely and clean.  Engine bay shows the signs of where we've been.

 

The fuel gauge, temperature gauge and ammeter now work.  Speedometer works.  Clock still doesn't.

 

The jobs that we know are left to do are quite minimal now:

Suspension pump

Brake bleed - handbrake quite good, as is the foot-brake amazingly

Earth chasing to resolve lights issue

Throttle cable to replace, existing one now sticking

Exhaust blow to resolve, might just be a dry joint

Swap good tyres on

Mixture to adjust as running very rich

Power steering pipe leak to resolve

Rebound straps to reattach/check/replace

Check starter motor which has become lazy, possible earth issue

Renew thermostat and overflow bottle caps

[vulgalour]

Look, working dials!  The glare is standard Princess fitment.

 

Also...

 

 

 

A very lovely chap came out with a dalek and sorted the suspension out and relieved me of some hydragas pipes.  He also managed to get the carb to run a bit leaner and the engine to idle a little better and diagnosed the timing being just a gnats off hence the occasional lazy firing.  A quick tweak and we'll have the car running absolutely superbly.

 

Fitted a driver's door mirror but not a passenger one as I haven't all the bits to do it.  Doesn't actually need a passenger mirror for the MoT as the car predates the requirement.  Looks so much better now and rides much nicer too.  Hopefully it won't sink.

 

Few more items off the list which is now as follows:

Brake bleed - able to do this now I can get a jack under the car.

Earth chasing to resolve lights issue

Throttle cable to replace, existing one now sticking

Exhaust blow to resolve

Swap good tyres on

Power steering pipe leak to resolve

Rebound straps to reattach/check/replace

Renew thermostat and overflow bottle caps

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Superb perseverance there Vulg, 14.8/10! Loving the action shot as well!!! Defo calendar standard that with the scaffolding and bits of wheels etc lying about. Love it!

[320touring]

Epic work!

 

nice one- this'll be a treat for whoever manages to get you to part with it:)

[Spiny Norman]

Your Princess fettling threads have been one of the most consistently ace things on here over the last year or two VA, great to see this one finally move of its own accord.

[purplebargeken]

Whooooohooooo! Enough said.

[Shep Shepherd]

Jolly well done! :-D

[privatewire]

Genuinely amazing, I am in awe, that is all.

[Parky]

Great work - when are you going to break out the coachpainters enamel then!

[Sigmund Fraud]

Brilliant work ! When is it going for its MoT, then ?

[phil_lihp]

I'm looking forward to seeing reports of this hitting the road, having the suspension pumped up makes a considerable difference to it, looks a lot closer to an MOT now!

[vulgalour]

There are a number of items on this car I regard as Not My Problem, the paint is one of them. Can't put a date on when it's going for the MoT, I've made that mistake before with this car, but it'll hopefully be soon.  Certainly, with the exception of the suspected earth problem, all the items remaining are easy and quick to resolve and a lot easier to do now that I can actually get underneath the car properly.

[Angrydicky]

Excellent work. Old BMC/BL cars look so sad and unloved when they need pumping up.

 

The paint doesn't matter, we drove the Maestro around for several months mostly in primer! The most important thing is that it's solid and reliable. Getting it shiny can wait.

[Parky]

Yeah but it is so close to being tip top a bit of shine might make it happier!

[vulgalour]

If the new owner wants to repaint it, he's welcome to do so.  The cost and time involved is such that it isn't at all sensible for me to do it and presently nothing is going wrong because of a bit of patina, nor is it likely to do so.  Ideally, it should be kept just as it is with all the mechanical stuff brought up to the best it can be and bombing around putting another few thousand miles under its tyres before anyone even thinks of putting some shinyshiny on it.  It looks just about perfect currently, right down to its wonky number plates and pitted bumpers.

[rml2345]

Superb wedge fettling skills Mr. Galour, properly impressive determination to succeed in the face of BL adversity.

I doff my virtual cap.

[philibusmo]

Right, it’s been almost a week since I got back home from this kerfuffle and I’ve just about had time to get over the whole ordeal. So without further ado here is the tale of how I ended up in Donnington Services in a broken down BL product with no tax or MOT:

 

It was a drizzly Sunday morning and the air was heavy with anticipation (and my hangover) as I stood in Lichfield station awaiting the 11:02 Cross Country service to Somewhere or Other. Two hours down the line, and via Birmingham New Street, was Chesterfield – home to a train station, multiple speed humps and two and a half Austin Princesses.

 

The train rocked up at the station and I was greeted by everyone’s favourite person who has ever made a hard top for a Golf Convertible out of fiberglass and wob; Chompy_Snake! He had a familiar beige Princess in his corrugated tin garage with a Vulgalour and a MikeKnight fossicking around it and filling it with spares and parts because it needed to be removed before the garage was demolished on top of it. The garden below has a massive spring or leaky mine shaft under it which has meant that the shed and garage is to be knocked down so drainage can be improved. It seems quite likely that the 30 or so cats roaming about the area all pee in the same spot though.

With the beige Princess half full of parts the front sphere made a noise like an old man fart and sunk. Bad times.

Still, shortly after it was plonked on a beaver tail, filled to the gunnels with spares and carted off with only a couple of fecking mahoosive thunderstorms in between and was heading off into the distance, leaving space on the drive and in the garage for the main event. The red one! After a slightly nerve wracking drive across the estate to get it from Vulgalour and Chompy_Snake’s Dad’s house to here with no brakes work could commence.

 

Check it out. 1992 council estate chic…

The list of jobs described for this car to get it going and usable was not a big one; bleed the brakes, change the thermostat cap and attach an earth behind the dashboard for the lights to get kicked back into life. EASY PEASY LEMON SQUEEZY.

 

Problem number one: the front callipers have three bleed nipples each (I guess one is actually classed as a nubbin) and all of them were ceased. Still with a trusty blow torch and a hex head socket they were soon loosened off and ready for some pumping action. Except they didn’t pump – there was just a whistle from the master cylinder area and nothing else. At least this was easily fixed. Popping out all the bleed nipples entirely and then pumping the pedal ejected some slime that was once probably brake fluid, then with this removed and the nipples back in the callipers the fronts bled nice and easily.

Next problem was the thermostat cap. I had ordered one online the previous Saturday but the company who I will not name but sounds like “Bed Line Car Ports†had failed to dispatch it until Friday which was much too late. It had been decided that before the beige one left I would nab the good one off that and then send it on in the post when I arrived home, so I did and this plan would have worked  very well had the cap on the beige one not also been completely kippered. It was decided to do a recy of the local motor factors for one the next morning while buying fuel filters but in case we couldn’t find one we sealed up the pooched one with Tiger Seal. Then the door mirror fell off of its own accord.

 

This could wait as there was more important things to be getting on with, such as the electrics. Some of the lights worked, others didn’t. The right hand indicator was superb, couldn’t fault it. The hazards and headlamps were a bit more hit and miss and the left hand indicators were notable for not flashing at all and just illuminating. All dash illumination was non-existent which was a nuisance as there was a strong likelihood I would have to do at least part of the journey home in the dark. The indicator was traced quite quickly to a duff bulb and a dodgy switch. The dash illumination and the intermittent headlamps required a little more work with a multimeter to trace. This process started at 9 in the evening. This process then ended at half 5 in the morning after we had traced wiring literally all around the car until we found that the switches were a bit furred up and the rear cigarette lighter was broken. Normally the latter wouldn’t be a problem, but this particular car seems to have almost all the electrics routed through the rear cigarette lighter. Some excellent BL thinking right there.

 

I then went to sleep on the back seat which was surprisingly comfortable once I had managed to jam the seat squab so it didn’t fall into the foot wells every time I got on it.

The next morning, a battery clamp was made from a piece of wood that was getting in the way and it was rolled onto the drive and started. This went very well in deed, right up until the point that it started to get a bit hot and the electric fan wasn’t cutting in. Oddly there didn’t seem to be much water circulation either as most of the pipes and the radiator was pretty much stone cold. Spiffing. With no hose pipe to flush it out where it was the decision was made to take it back the fathers’ household to make use of the squirty water pipe.

 

After it had cooled a little we set off in convoy back across the estate. This was a vastly more pleasant experience with working brakes and I was feeling confident right up until about 50 meters from our destination the radiator literally exploded and all the water fell out. I didn’t see this but luckily Chompy_Snake leading in Saxo did see the Niagara Falls esque deluge of water from the front of the Princess and managed to shout at me to turn it off before any damage was done.

 

This was not a moment I will remember fondly, stood in a drive looking at an utterly ruined radiator (once we had managed to remove the fucking thing) with the lower rail hanging completely off and fins all over the floor. When the half orange Princess was checked there was no radiator under the bonnet, but there was one sat innocently next to it being overtaken by brambles. While the fins weren’t in exactly stellar condition a quick check showed that it didn’t leak so we started to put it in place when a lump of solder fell off the inlet neck revealing a medium sized crack. It turned out that this was the one that had originally been taken off the red Princess to be substituted for the supposedly better unit on the half-Princess due to the crack. Things were looking bleak, but with a wire brush on a drill the affected area was cleaned up and repaired with new solder and a blow torch while it poured down with rain and we considered where the blockage in the cooling system might be.

 

When the rain had eased we trooped back outside to find the blockage and luckily it was found almost immediately in the inlet for the water pump which was completely blocked with scale, slime, smashed squirrels and other general detritus. With it unblocked, flushed through repeatedly and the new radiator in place and plumbed in we filled it back up with water and tried it out. It worked! The cooling system did exactly as was expected of it and circulated cool water around the block. The only minor issues were the temperature sender for the cooling fan being duff but bridging the terminals to have it constantly on worked as a temporary fix and a very small weep of water from a seal on the rad.

 

Pleased with how successful this had been it was decided that a good check to make would be on the alternator so the multimeter was wanged across the battery terminals to find that it was charging, but only by about 0.1 of a volt. Sustaining the battery but if I should want to use any electrical equipment such as lights or wipers then I wouldn’t be getting very far at all. The alternator was taken from the half Princess to swap and then we blasted back while there was still charge in the battery to resolve this latest problem.

 

After swapping the alternators we were in a slightly worse position as this one produced no charge at all. It was by now very late evening as we had spent an hour or so eating and then lobbing some wonder weld into the radiator and running the car up to temperature for a while to cure the small leak and completely seal the newly soldered section.

At this point the night of many alternator rebuilds commenced where it was fond that the one originally on the car was made partly of corrosion and partly of oil from the power steering and the spare was made entirely from corrosion except for the voltage regulator which looked remarkably sound. The original looked a better bet so we spent many hours cleaning it out, removing rust and generally breaking it further. Then on a very brief outing the Saxo crapped its MAP sensor which put it out of action for the time being.

 

By four in the morning, after having taken the alternator apart for what seemed the millionth time and by this point seeing almost spotless internals and the best of the components from both combined into one we had succeeded in only making matters worse as it was now producing only 0.7 volts. We gave up and after having looked on t’internet to see what likely alternatives may be found in a scrap yard (pretty much nothing) I settled down in the super comfy bed that is the back seat for a few hours kip.

 

The next morning I tried one more combination of parts to no avail and then called the father to get a lift to the local scrap yards in his rather marvellous Lexus to scour for an alternator. He had done some internet research of his own and had found a list of cars which fit the same alternator – this included many old Fords which was encouraging. Chompy_Snake was still in bed as the previous night of leaning over for hours on end fitting and removing the alternator had broken him.

 

The first scrappy of the day had a Mk2 Fiesta, Mk3 Escort and a Mk3 Capri all in stock but each one had its engine removed so was useless to us. There was a Range Rover classic languishing in the corner next to two Skylines which had an alternator with the right fittings but condition wise it looked like it had spent 10 years in the sea so we hardly trusted this alternator either.

 

We gave up on this yard and tried another who immediately told us they didn’t have anything old enough to have that alternator but did advise on a little auto electrical shop down in the town that had been there for donkeys years. It seemed like a fairly good shot to get one so we sped down there to find a place that didn’t seem to have changed since about 1980 and the combined age of the three employees was just over 700. Low and behold they had an alternator for a Mk1 Fiesta sat on the shelf and ready to bolt on for £54 which stung a little but was a small price to pay for not ending up stranded on the hard shoulder in the pissing rain with no electricity.

 

Once back it was fitted, tested and found to be pumping out a healthy voltage. Then we noticed one of the rear tyres was not looking safe to use as a swing from a tree so the Lexus was sent off again with £10 to swap a good Euromaster on a leaky rim onto the good rim of the kippered tyre. While this was in action, a now awake Chompy_Snake and I bled the rear brakes which went very well up until the last push of the pedal. I had forgotten to check the fluid level for a short while so the master cylinder sucked in air and air locked one rear corner. Some more furious pumping and other strong innuendo had this fixed after a short while, just in time for the sorted wheel to arrive back.

 

It had been a long trek to get to this point but there, sat in the garage was one fully working Princess. Gingerly we set off for some fuel and it went well. The timing was a little too advanced and was causing an occasional back fire when letting off the accelerator, the speedo wasn’t working and the tracking was out but it was working surprisingly well. On our return I set the timing a little better and found the speedo cable wasn’t quite seated fully, we then set the tracking by eye which made it a damn sight better. Once the Princess was loaded up we set off, in convoy to the motorway to make sure all was well before I started my 400 mile journey home to Devon and my pre-booked MOT.

 

This drive was better again and while it was hardy silent as a fish due to the blowing exhaust and comedy panel gaps, the Princess was pulling like a great and feeling well up for the journey.

 

I set off, feeling confident. After a short while in the average speed camera road works I decided that the timing was still a little too advanced and pulled off in Tibshelf services to retard it slightly before heading off once more, the engine feeling a little better. At Trowell services I pulled off again, the timing still feeling too advanced. Once again it made an improvement so I carried on.

Then shit went down. Just before Donnington services the temperature suddenly started creeping up. I head off towards the services, the temp getting higher and higher, managing to swing into a parking space and kill then engine before it hit the red on the temperature gauge. On opening the bonnet it became obvious why it was so hot as it was merrily firing all the water that was in the cooling system out of the overflow on the expansion bottle. Bother.

On letting it cool down I did some further investigation and the mass of bubbles in the expansion tank with the engine on indicated a head gasket failure pretty much straight away. Tightening the head bolts made it worse if anything and I didn’t have a spark plug wrench to try and get the remaining wonder weld to work its magic. I was stuck, having managed only a pitiable 34 miles and the AA didn’t want to know due to the lack of tax – which I had already expected.

 

The thought did cross my mind to take off the new alternator and then abandon it to be turned into bean tins as there was a train station not too far away. However the amount of work that had gone into this car and the surprisingly solid state of the bodywork deserved better so this thread was posted on Autoshite in the vague hope that I might get rescued:

http://autoshite.com/topic/17788-dead-austin-princess-in-donnington-services-help/

 

Amazingly, within an hour Pillock arrived like a knight in a shiny modern Peugeot. We ummed and arred for a while considering the best way to get it to the safety of his empty lock up and laughed when a lad in a mk4 Golf appeared and broke down next to me – stuck rear brakes after over adjustment of the handbrake. I lent him a 10mm spanner to free them off and he left just before us, but not before showing off his front splitter which had also fallen off earlier that day.

It was decided between the two of us that the best way to get the Princess to safety was to fill it up with water and then head off into the night, stopping at every lay by to top it back up. This went much better than expected, despite it taking about 2 hours and about 15 litres of water to drive what would normally have taken about 15 minutes. Here it was safe and I settled down in the back again for another night.

 

I spotted a spider sat on the head lining above me as I nodded off but he didn’t look too big with his legs folded in.

 

The next morning I awoke to the alarm on my phone shouting at me to pack up my stuff and await my lift to the station from Pillock on his way to work. It turned out that when uncurled and sat on a web the spider was rather larger than I had anticipated and I no longer felt so comfortable about being in an enclosed space with it any more:

(Looks much smaller in the picture than in real life)

I finished my weekend at Loughborough station waiting for the train back to Tiverton, via Derby. While it hadn’t been a resounding success, it had the potential at many points to end in a much worse way than it did. I spent a good section of the journey back looking through Autoshite on my phone and a plan was hatched to get the Princess back to Devon.

 

Red5 was going to Weston Super Mare to pick up some wheels and could tow a trailer behind his Frontera with a Princess on it. It wasn’t a massive diversion at either end to pick up the Princess or drop it off, so this worked out very well. Sadly it wouldn’t start so he had to hand winch it onto the trailer – turns out that somehow the king lead had become just slightly disconnected from the coil, so an easy fix to get going again.

 

This part of the adventure is well documented in his ‘Thunderbirds are Go’ thread which can be found here:

http://autoshite.com/topic/17802-thunderbirds-are-go-now-with-bad-storyboarding/?hl=thunderbirds

 

It made it, safe and sound. I will detail the next installment tomorrow…

 

I would like at this point to say a MAHOOSIVE thank you to Red5 for pulling it 300 odd miles, Pillock for coming to the rescue in the moment that all looked lost and especially to Chompy_Snake for putting up with me, feeding me, letting me use your tools and garage and helping me fix this hopeless old crock from 3 days despite it not even being your car. All three of you are the best possible people and I will make sure your achievements in chod bothering are properly recognised. There will be further thanks in part 2 - which will be shorter and 40% less boring.

[mouseflakes]

I'm still trying to get used to posts from Philibubnose that don't feature welding.