1980 Austin Princess - 18/09 - Welding progress

After a somewhat shakey start to the weather today, it cleared up nicely and I managed to get cracking on the back end of the Princess putting right what I did wrong.

First job was to get all the loose and cracked paint off. I did manage to crack a bit more paint knocking the worst of the dents out. There's a lot of dents on this part of the car, it looks like it's hit a fair few things in the past. Most of the dents were large and shallow and so only need a bit of persuasion in the form of leaning on the panel a bit, but the driver's side bumper mount had been pushed in a fair bit so I bashed that out with a hammer. The worst dents will need a puller to rectify properly because it's double skinned areas with no access from the back with the tools I have.

Eventually, I flatted back the incredibly thick paint with 400 grit getting rid of a few sags and some heavy orange peel in the process, and only just cutting back through to the old paint. This panel looks like it's been repainted a few times, the paint was very thick and there were a fair few layers compared to the other side I'd been working on before.


There was a rust stain starting at the bottom of the rear quarter/arch area that had just started to crack. I had a poke and a big chunk of filler fell off to reveal a small repair to a common rot spot. It's actually pretty solid and the filler that's left in the panel is very well stuck so I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to remedy this bit. I'll probably knock as much filler off as will come off and after rust treating the area, blend some new filler in and finish it better than it was.


On the same arch, door side, there was a bleb that I thought was rust coming through but was actually a splot in the paint. Seems to be a common theme with this car for 'rust bubbles' to turn out to actually be globby paint, not that I'm complaining.


After getting that rear quarter flatted back ready for paint, I moved round to the rear panel. Removed the lights and enough of the boot seal to get access before going at it with more 400grit paper. The top of this panel was really rough, like it had got a lot of muck in the paint or the brush used to apply it. There was also some rust staining where the lock sits, but this turned out to be little more than staining in the paint so I'm wondering if the contaminate was iron filings perhaps?


Likewise, over the rear light on the driver's side the paint was rough, and quite thin. It's a lot better now, but will need a top coat blending in.


Apart from the dents, this area isn't actually all that bad at all, it's certainly nice and solid. The more I prod at this car the more it seems she's been given an appalling paint job that hides what is a pretty solid body.


I only got as far as the lower part of the rear quarter and the driver's side half of the rear panel before having to call it quits as the temperature was dropping a bit and I wanted to try and get some paint on. Quite pleased with how it's turned out, I was expecting much worse.


Can't go and buy any grey primer as I'm out of funds so I had to make do with some red. The metal on the Princess starts to go orange a lot faster than the Polo, presumably due to a lack of factory rust-proofing, so I didn't want to leave it to chance too much. Didn't get chance to get any top coat on tonight so I'll tackle that tomorrow when I do a bit more remedial work. For now, it's tidy and at least not exposed metal. Unfortunately my can of red primer is now almost empty, but I do still have a big tin from when I did the work on the Polo, so if I need to I'll get that opened up.


I also discovered the rear lights are completely reversible. I won't be keeping them this way, the panel lines clash too much. I have no idea when this information will come in useful, but there you are.


Tomorrow, providing the weather is fit, I'll try blending in some new top coat and doing more flatting back in preparation for polishing the back end up and then fitting the bumper. Many, many hours to go on this to get it how I want it.

Don't worry about reversing into stuff, I once reversed a Renault Traffic (6 months old at the time) into a concrete loading bay at about 25 miles and hour! Made a massive bang and the steel bumper needed a bit of shapeing with a lump hammer

John

LOL! ^^^^
Nice work Mr Angyl ,Going to be a concours winner at this rate!

More good progress The Devil is in the detail as they say. All the work on the little bits makes for a satisfying end outcome.

The chrome bumper and trims look like they have polished up really well.

I love the fact you are giving a beige 1980s Princess all this attention

As for reversing into a wall at 25 MPH all you need is to not want to be at work and it be a company vehicle

John

Yet more boring paint fettling happened today. The weather has been sunny, then rainy, then fiercely windy and constantly finger-numbingly cold. For that reason, I didn't get to the point I wanted to.

Dad showed me how best to straighten out the bumper bracket, so that's now ready to refit once I've finished more flatting and touching in of paint on the rear end of the Princess. I'm over the worst of the prep work on this part of the car, I think.

I've not started on the petrol flap on this quarter yet, which is why it's a different colour, but I have got the vast majority of the panel now down to 1200grit. There' a few spots where the bodywork is a bit high and the new paint is a bit thin, so I've got to touch those in to really finish off the prep work for this stage, but after that I'll be ready to work down through the paper before getting the G3 on. Happily, the finer the grade you work with, the less time it takes, I'm guessing because you're taking less material off every time you go over it.



One odd thing with the paint are these little low spots. I'm guessing it's something to do with paint mixture and application, but quite often I come across little low spots in the paint. The little dimples do sand out, the paint is thick enough to do that. You can also see another of those lovely paint defects on the arch in this shot which I'll need to blend in. I'm not removing the arch trims just yet, I'll do that at a later date as I see no point in disturbing them just at the moment.


Under the swage line on both sides is some quite ugly ripples in the paint where it looks to have been applied too heavily, and orange peel on this side that's almost as bad as actual orange peel. It's taking a while to cut back through this sensitively.


I'm most pleased with the back panel. It's now smooth where it's visible and barely needs any work to get it up to scratch. Even though much of this is hidden with trim, it will make a world of difference having been polished up properly first.


By the time I was adding the finishing strokes of 1200 grit to this panel, my fingers were turning into icicles and I was a bit grumped off with the whole job. I downed tools before finishing taking that sag out of the paint, and I'm hoping for better weather tomorrow so I can finally get my bumper and lights refitted permanently.




Best thing that happened today was my steering rack gaiters arriving ahead of schedule. I still can't do anything about that until next week because there's Stuff I need to buy that takes precedence over petrol for the car. Happily, it means I now have everything in place to shut up the exhaust and protect the steering rack joint so I can once again start using the car properly.

To finish off what has been a pretty excellent day, my housemate came home with a couple of bottles of Crabbies for me too, excellent post working-on-car drink reward!

Phil: I am the Beiginator, I want your brogues, your flat cap and your tweed jacket with the leather elbow patches. Hah, Arnold meets Last of the Summer Wine, how terrible-awesome would that be as a film?

_____

Today, I spent about 4 hours on the Princess with polishing stuff. I think I'm starting to get the hang of it now. The weather has been pretty good, with a decent amount of light for what I was working on, and not too cold or too warm, which put me in a good mood and allowed me to really get stuck in on this job. After the work I did yesterday, and the lateness I got finished, I'd missed a few areas that needed attention. The back panel got a fresh coat in places where I had to resand from cutting through too much paint, or in some instances not enough. I can't polish this up until the paint has hardened a bit so I made a start putting it back together and I'll come back to this panel in a week or so if I have to. The bumper remained off because I don't think I can fit it myself without scratching the paint and I had no helper today.


After going round the back end and finding the odd bit here and there I'd missed before I got it all uniformly 1200 grit. I then went over it again on the passenger side quarter with 1500grit, attacking the top of the quarter as well because I wasn't happy with how not-quite-shiny it was. This turned out to be useful as it revealed a very faintly imperfect surface that the 1500grit got rid of. I then did the whole panel again with 2000grit. I wanted as smooth a finish as I could get and when I was done it felt and looked spot on. I'm sure people will tell me I have a lot of patience, but to be honest I just sort of zone out when I'm hand sanding if the weather is good and just get stuck into the job.


I have a few paint finishing products from the work I started on the Polo, but it turns out I'm still learning, as I shall go on to explain. After getting the panel smooth and removing all trace of orange peel and the like, I went over the top half of the panel with the Farecla G3, following the directions on the bottle. The end result was okay, but not great.


I could get a dull reflection to appear, I wanted that reflection to be as sharp as possible, which means more work. I gave it a blitz with the polishing machine I was given.


Better, but not great. Another go over by hand with the G3 and the polisher got it closer but I noticed the surface wasn't polishing up evenly.


Maybe some Autoglym Super Resin Polish would help? Nope, still not quite right.


So, I had a think about what I was doing and the results I was getting and applied the G3 directly to the polishing bonnet with a light spray from the water bottle. Set to work on the panel with that which took a bit of time but eventually, and seemingly all at once, the panel was super shiny.


Rather than waste time on my old method, I applied this new method to the bottom half of the quarter and it too came up shiny in a fraction of the time. Seems I'm getting the hang of the polisher too, my fingers don't vibrate off my hands when I use it so much now and I'm starting to figure out how best to get it to do the work for me. The key, above all else, is the perfect amount of dampness to the bonnet and to use as little pressure as possible on the panel. Some of the compound curves on this panel make keeping the polisher perpendicular to the surface difficult, but not impossible. I'll need to double-check this finish tomorrow in stronger light (if we have any) because I think it needs another quick blat to really make it pop.


The most satisfying thing was seeing that the shine on the quarter was better than the shine on the boot.


Best of all, once it's polished up to this standard, those little blemishes and small marks aren't noticeable unless you're about half an inch away from the car. I was a very happy bunny with this result.


I did make a start on the driver's side quarter but the light wasn't in my favour so I put everything away for the night.


I don't think the rest of the car will take me so long now that I've got a better feel for my tools and for the paint on the car. If the weather is good tomorrow and I have a helper, I'll get the other rear quarter sorted and the bumper back on. I feel like today has been a good car day.

Nice work, that looks tidy!

Thanks guys I like when people asked me "which side was it you damaged again?" at the meet, means I did a good job.

It is update time again.

Over the past few days the car has been sworn at a lot. She has suffered our tirade of verbal abuse and come out the other side none the worse for it. I'm sure she heard worse on the production line, and is entirely sympathetic to our plight when it comes to trying to do anything that involves access around the back of the engine. With the exhaust blowing like a good un, I trundled down to the parents' a few days ago to sort out a few things, namely the reverse lights, the steering rack gaiter and the exhaust.

Reverse lights
Delightfully easy job. With the car up on axle stands, I had one person at the back to say if the lights were on or off, and one person at the ignition to turn it off when I put spanner to metal because I found that sparks would fly otherwise and didn't fancy getting zapped. Following the instruction in the book, all that essentially needed doing was to turn the adjuster nut a full 360 degrees to get my reversing lights to be completely reliable. The adjuster is located on the side of the selector box, as illustrated below. Job jobbed.


Steering rack gaiter
The old gaiter on the driver's side had split all the way around. Wheel off, track rod end carefully undone and gaiter slid off after slicing through the cable ties. I got the new gaiter out of the box to find it's probably a universal part rather than a Princess specific. Some swearing was involved getting the gaiter to sit right at the engine end, but eventually it was on, everything slotted back together, the track rod end put back together and all was good.


We then noticed the passenger side gaitor has developed a split, but that's a job for another day. I've got the parts, just no love for the job at the moment so it will wait until I have the love back for it, won't be too long before it's sorted. While I was under the car I noticed the CV boots might need doing sometime within the next 12 months as they're starting to perish but haven't shown signs of splitting. It's on The List.

Exhaust
How we hate this job. We hate this job so much that if it blows again it is not getting fixed at home. One problem is that the downpipes appear to be sprained and the clamp from diff/gearbox to downpipe was snapped. A new bracket made from flattened copper pipe and cursed into place with hammers and other tools was sorted out. However, the usual location for the bracket couldn't be made as the bolt that would hold it is missing. Additionally, the broken bracket that was removed was located where the fabricated bracket has gone. It's not a pretty fix, but it is a good fix, at least until such a time as the correct bracket is available to me... or never, if this fix holds up for a few thousand miles.




The new cast clamp was interesting too. It didn't actually fit unless we used the sleeves from the old clamp, and then it fitted very, very well. 2 brass nuts were almost stripped of their thread and one steel nut rounded slightly when reassembling so shuffling of nuts on the exhaust system was done to get the best ones in the most suitable places.


I had a bit of a moment, there was a "straw that broke the camel's back" incident for me, and I didn't see the job through. The other guys did, finishing at 22:40 and getting the exhaust to seal properly for the first time since the car was bought. I am, and always will be, eternally grateful for their dedication.

The Result
Quiet. I drove the Princess to Rotherham and back today, via the M1. Yes, my tracking is probably off and my wheels aren't balanced as well as they could be. I have no untoward vibrations up to 50mph, but from 50mph to about 60mph there's a wheel out of balance. Above 60mph, heading towards 70mph the car starts to wander a bit. However, after having disturbed the track rod end to do the gaiter, the car does go where I want her to a lot better now at speeds of up to 60mph which is an unexpected improvement.

Noise in the cabin is much reduced, as is exhaust related vibration. Gasses aren't gassing my passengers, which is also good. There does seem to be some extra vibration through the pedals and tunnel, but it's mostly a low level thrum than a banging or unpleasant vibration. Over all, that's an improvement. Performance is much improved too, obviously, I find there's not great acceleration through first and second, but third is where the fun is, and I've not found where the end of fourth is yet.

Drama
There was some. On the way back from the meet, as we were going past a petrol station, I got a whiff of petrol in the cabin. Initially I dismissed it as just the petrol station, but it got stronger so I pulled over quick-sharp. By the time I'd stopped, turned off the engine and popped the bonnet to inspect, a small wisp of smoke was coming off my exhaust manifold. I had a very lucky escape. The new fuel pipe I'd put in from carb to fuel pump had gone soft and porous and was leaking fuel directly on to my exhaust manifold and was, I suspect, on the verge of catching fire. We called the RAC using Dad's membership card and the phone of generous resident of the house I'd pulled up in front of. About 70 minutes later, an RAC van arrived and a man came out to fit a new fuel pipe, complement the car and see us on our way. There was no further drama on the way home, thankfully, but I shall be going to the shop I got the fuel hose from to let him know of the problem, there's a good chance he's completely unaware of the issue and I'd rather he knew before selling too much more of it as it could be defective stock and he deserves to know about that.

In Conclusion
Princess ownership is odd. The car is a proper battle around town, parking is something I avoid wherever possible, reversing even more so. But there's this magical moment when you're on the motorway and the seat is just right, the car becomes easy to drive and you just waft along at whatever speed you fancy. It's bliss when it happens, and it happens every time I go for a trundle down a fast, open road. I hate and love this car in equal measure because when she goes wrong she tries my patience, but when she goes right it's just the most perfect place to be. I don't even mind only being able to get Radio 4 on the wireless while I'm driving.

I shall now be saving up to get my tracking done and my wheels balanced, but not until I've got that other steering rack gaiter fitted. I think that there's only niggles left to sort, general maintenance that's been neglected, and a whole pile of cosmetic pampering.

Oh, and I had forgotten when I wrote this, but a thank you to Sam (Captain Slow) for sorting out my boot badges with some sticky foamy tape stuff at the meet.