What makes you grin? Antidote to grumpy thread

[Rustybullethole]

Do love a sleeper

[Pieman]

Went to Coventry Blaze's game against Sheffield this evening and it was the best I have ever seen Blaze play - their surprise 5-3 win at Cardiff last night inspired them I think as they attacked all the way against the Steelers tonight and really wanted to win.  Steelers to their credit fought back (with a very loud travelling support) and equalised twice as well as showing their usual hard tactics (Blaze don't call them "Dirty Steelers" for nothing!) with a good fight after the second equaliser!  Game went to overtime where Blaze hit a deserving winner.

Ice hockey - always a much better experience than football in my opinion!

[comfortablynumb]

ANYTHING is better than football.

Id rather poke pins in my eyes 

[dome]

5 hours ago, comfortablynumb said:

ANYTHING is better than football.

Id rather poke pins in my eyes 

And on a similar note...

 

[Dyslexic Viking]

Stuff from the 70s needs to come back. And I want a big mustache, long hair and aviator glasses and all this now..

 

[myglaren]

 

[vulgalour]

On 06/02/2025 at 14:51, vulgalour said:

Here's one for @Angrydicky and any other Princess owners on here.

That there is hook end wiper arms.  As standard, the Princess uses this stupid side-peg arrangement and they're a nightmare to get wipers for and have been the whole time I've owned this car.  I saw a pair of wiper arms on eBay listed as 18" Trico arms, no idea what they were originally off, and took a chance on them.  They're the same length as the original Princess ones with the main difference being the crank of the arm sets them a bit higher up the screen.  Shockingly they're exactly the same tapered spline fitting and while they are a little bit fiddly to get a wiper blade fitted to since the bonnet prevents you from lifting the arms very far off the screen, they do accept standard hook type wiper blades.  They also take the same 20" blades as the Princess has as standard, wiping area is almost exactly the same.

13 years I've been struggling to source and keep fitted those awful wobbly side-peg wipers and now the struggle has ended.  I don't care that you can see the wipers either, they never truly hid under the bonnet anyway

Deployed the wipers in anger today and OMG it's so much better.  They just work, like a normal car.  No more screeching up the screen and then a wobbly duddaduddadudda on the way back and the fear that at any moment a wiper might just randomly detach itself (they never actually did, they just always looked to be on the verge of it).  Both speeds and even flick wipe (no intermittent, sadly, the Princess was never so blessed) perform way better.  The wiper speed itself seems better too, they used to slow down a lot and now it seems like the wiper motor itself just isn't having to work as hard.

[adw1977]

On 10/02/2025 at 16:14, vulgalour said:

no intermittent, sadly, the Princess was never so blessed

The last Princesses did get intermittent wipe "delay wipe" on HL and HLS models.

EDIT: I thought "delay wipe" meant intermittent, but apparently not!

[vulgalour]

I wonder what else used the stalks, maybe it's an upgrade I could do if I could find the relevant stalk and wiring.  I've never actually seen a Princess with intermittent wipe, only the single flick wipe, and had been under the impression it wasn't actually a factory option but rather something you could do by robbing the stalks and whatnot off another BL product like a Mini or an Ital.

[wuvvum]

I don't think Minis got intermittent wipers either until very late on in production.

[Metal Guru]

16 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

I don't think Minis got intermittent wipers either until very late on in production.

Unless you count not working half the time as “intermittent”.

[adw1977]

I'm assuming that "delay wipe" in the brochure means intermittent.

The stalk is shown in this picture of a HLS:

When the Ital was launched, the Ital HLS had intermittent wipe and appears to have the same stalk:

[vulgalour]

That's the stalk mine has and the 'delay wipe' isn't an intermittent, you pull the stalk down and you get a single wipe a moment after you pull the stalk, that's your delay wipe.  The stalk doesn't hold down either, it's one of those switches that disengages as soon as you let go of it.  If you keep the stalk held down you don't get more wipes.  Sometimes it's useful, most times it's just annoying.  I miss having the variable speed intermittent stalk on one of the Maestros I had.

[cort1977]

Surely it wouldn't be too hard to add a relay or something? 

Intermittent Windscreen Wiper Controller | Variable Speed, 12V | Quasar 8093 | Quasar UK

 

[adw1977]

44 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

That's the stalk mine has and the 'delay wipe' isn't an intermittent, you pull the stalk down and you get a single wipe a moment after you pull the stalk, that's your delay wipe.  The stalk doesn't hold down either, it's one of those switches that disengages as soon as you let go of it.  If you keep the stalk held down you don't get more wipes.  

Ah, right.  I wonder how that was supposed to be any more useful that the flick wipe on the L?

[hairnet]

I am a fuckiñg tard

 

Heres hoping -  ive not used this lot since they moved in 20 years ago

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, cort1977 said:

Surely it wouldn't be too hard to add a relay or something? 

Intermittent Windscreen Wiper Controller | Variable Speed, 12V | Quasar 8093 | Quasar UK

 

My thoughts too, and I fitted a ?Linwood one to various cars I had in the 80's, worked well. I suspect @vulgalour would prefer to have a direct replacement if one, and the wiring, are available.

Can't fault Quasar, they recently went to much effort to sort an issue when one of their suppliers changed the design of a timer board.

[vulgalour]

Well I've bookmarked that for future reference, nice to know there's an option of some sort out there.

[Landy Mann]

My defender features the same stalk, although mine latches down to give an intermittent wipe, so something must be possible.

[CGSB]

On 01/02/2025 at 01:16, New POD said:

Taken this morning. 

Where is this?

[vulgalour]

46 minutes ago, Landy Mann said:

My defender features the same stalk, although mine latches down to give an intermittent wipe, so something must be possible.

That sounds like the upgrade that I'd be after.  Interestingly, even though I've had a 1981 HLS Princess that one had the same single wipe function so presumably it came out some time after that and before the Ambassador was released in 1982.  I was curious so did a quick eBay part hunt and I think maybe the Defender uses a modified version of the Princess (and other BL) stalk to incorporate something like that controller @cort1977 shared.

Remove that rubber boot and it's really similar to the stalk used on earlier vehicles.

The quality of the plastic on the end of the stalk looks nowhere near as nice as the one in the Princess but you can probably mix and match parts to get what you want.  If it is just a case of swapping a stalk, that'd be a really easy upgrade.  The biggest issue I can potentially see is the base of the Defender stalk might not fit inside the steering column shroud on the Princess.  That said, it's a cheap enough part I might buy one out of curiosity just to see what happens when you plug a Defender stalk in to the Princess wiring.

[Bmwdumptruck]

Surely there will be some electronic jiggery pokery in an ecu that actually works the intermittent function, the switch just directs power to the system for it to tell the wipers what to do?  Just fitting a switch I’d think is unlikely to make anything work any different.  

[vulgalour]

hahaha, ecu.

[vulgalour]

Okay but I see what you mean.  Sorry.  There's no ECU on the Princess anywhere but there should be on a Defender I'd imagine, even a very basic one.  However, for an intermittent function I imagine you could incorporate some sort of basic electronics into the switch base for a basic timed single speed intermittent function, even a little relay or something that operates on a bimetallic switch.

[Bmwdumptruck]

Yes I guess it wouldn’t be an ecu as we know it now, but there will be a box of tricks that makes it work. In that era I’d guess a seperate ‘relaybox’ of some sort, unless it’s in the wiper motor itself.  

[Mr Pastry]

3 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

Okay but I see what you mean.  Sorry.  There's no ECU on the Princess anywhere but there should be on a Defender I'd imagine, even a very basic one.  However, for an intermittent function I imagine you could incorporate some sort of basic electronics into the switch base for a basic timed single speed intermittent function, even a little relay or something that operates on a bimetallic switch.

It will have a wiper delay relay, operated by the extra position on the switch. 

[Bmwdumptruck]

That makes it sound more likely that it could be retro fitted then. 

[Tayne]

I've just checked a 1987 Autocar test of the 110 County V8, still on carbs but the plushest LR, and it mentions "2 speed plus flick wipe". 

[Spiny Norman]

Couldn't figure out where to put this so here's as good a place as any.

This may tickle/annoy certain people on here but I just watched a recent episode of Wheel Dealers where they got an Audi RS6 Avant to do up and they had the front bumper off it. Twice. 😛

[Landy Mann]

Hahaha ecu.... There is a wiper relay, the cool kids replace it with a VW type 99 relay for programmable intermittent wipe. I suspect you'll find that the original factory storks feel ok, but the modern one feels cheap and nasty. 

 

I'll see if i can dig out the wiring diagram