1980 Austin Princess - 18/09 - Welding progress

The difficulty is finding metal coat hangers these days. Seems everyone has realised just how rubbish they are for any duty other than as a car aerial.

Lol i just looked out the window and there's 2 cars in my council estate car park with them for aerials

and none are mine for a change ;D

The grit in your jet is most likely from the fuel. I had a bad case of this on one of the Motorbikes and found that the float bowls had small beaches in them!

I'd stick with the OE setup and put a washable K&N or pipercross filter in.

Ahhhhh, the coat-hanger car aerial... As period perfect as a Feu Orange and a Capital Gold sunstrip...!!!

Yeah... I don't think it is. Trawled back through the thread to find this picture to illustrate. To the left of the finger is the jet and the piece of what looked for all the world like road grit that was blocking it. The grit was bigger than the hole it was blocking, so I doubt it came out of the tank. Admittedly, it's not happened since, but if it's happened once I reckon it can happen again.

As VIP says, they're hardly rare.

I have also had grit bigger than the float valve in float chambers in the past.

It could be caused by one or more of a number of reasons.

1. Grit in petrol from petrol station, I spoke to a guy with a garage some years ago and he said that as the storage tanks get old, they rust on the inside and the pumps do pick it up and pump it into cars.

2. Gunge in petrol tank from sealers etc.

3. Breakdown of inside of rubber fuel pipes, due to bio-fuel eating it away.

The pickup filter in the cars petrol tank do break down over time, again biofuel doesn't help.

I fitted an inline filter on the exit from the tank before my electric fuel pump and another one close to the carbs, to trap anything coming off the rubber piping.

No problem since.

yeah... that... sorry, I cannot brain. Anyway, it doesn't matter, it's not happened again and I was probably getting confused or something.

___

With the angry yellow face in a pale blue thing I'm told is the sky, I decided to get out and do something on the Princess in readiness for getting her back on the road next month. First job was a wash which see needed badly, then to try and figure out just why she wasn't happy going up the drive. I put down the reluctance to being low on fuel as a jerry can of fresh petrol saw her perk up no end and run quietly and smoothly.

Brakes feel scarily inadequate after driving the BX for so long and the accelerator pedal feels scarily sensitive for much the same reason, but she still feels as good as she did when laid up. Brakes can't be too bad as I managed to lock them up on the driveway just to check I could and some rolling back and forth and applying of the brakes seems to have tightened things up.

Frustratingly, the wind that kept scything through the drive and whistling around the house meant that I couldn't get anything done with the seats so I've not been able to get the better items I collected from Boycie fitted. Additionally, the mechanical fuel pump that had sealed is now weeping oil from the same joint yet again, so I'm on the hunt for some cork gasket, I'm not prepared to give up on this one yet because the mechanical pump is a much better bit of kit than the electrical and the issue I'm having is likely related to the mating surfaces of the block and the pump.

For the MoT I have the following I know I need to resolve:
> 2 tyres - one needs resealing to the rim again, the other has a perished sidewall
> Outer driver's side headlight alignment - broken adjuster, should be straightforward to fix.

...and that's it. I can't check brake efficiency/balance or emissions beyond using one and smelling the other, I know the car runs quite lean from the fuel consumption side of things and the smell out the back. There's no rust that I can see that looks like it'll fail and all the things that should work, currently do. Once my replacement bonnet arrives I'll get that fitted before going to the MoT station as it'll just make things that bit more presentable and we'll have to suck it and see. As before, there's still a very good chance I'll pass but an equally good chance that something will come up that I cannot find at home. If I do fail I expect it to be on headlight alignment, emissions and brake efficiency with an outside chance of rust I haven't found.

Oh, and the only other thing I'm aware needs doing is the tracking because this wasn't done after the new TREs were fitted just before the last MoT attempt and I didn't have opportunity to do it afterwards.

Perished sidewalls will only fail if they are showing cords. They will attract an advisory but unless they are showing tyre carcass then worryingly in some cases, they should pass.