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Blimey Vulg' what a nightmare...!!!
I suppose with petrol being on the move as it were things could have been alot worse so thank goodness the only damage was what we can see above...!!!
That'll teach you for filling the car right up and not just sticking a tenner in at a time (I'm not the only one that does that right?)...!!!
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***GARAGE CURRENTLY EMPTY***
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I had a woman follow me to college once when I had the mini just to tell me it was curse word fuel out every time I went round a corner. Which would account for why it dropped so quick when I filled it up. Still only ever did 25mpg at best, which was terrible as a student but I use it as a marker now which makes lots of non sensible cars much less of a problem to buy now! Doesn't every mini do that? Mine does and all the guys down here seem to have the same issue. Maybe we drive to fast around corners? |
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It's happened, I knew it would eventually, but it happened today: my gear selector has imploded. I think I've destroyed a roll pin or two. Symptom leading up to this was a new and vague vibration/thrum through the steering wheel and gear lever but with no untoward handling or other issues so I had put it down to road surfaces since I couldn't find the cause. Managed to go about 30 miles before in traffic in Sheffield near the Wicker I lost first gear. Battled with the gearbox and got it back but found gear selection was tricky and sometimes impossible, it was fun driving through the middle of Sheffield with no reliable gear selection. Got to the motorway, into fourth and just cruised along with the car happy enough. I thought that if I could just get myself to the RR meet there would be tools and help and knowledge to get me home. Left the motorway and had to stop rather quicker than I'd have liked on the approach to the roundabout when someone came round it rather quick, this seemed to jolt my gear lever in such a way that I had no gear selection at all. Luckily, the chap behind me and the one behind him who were stuck while I was without gears helped push the Princess out the way, checked I was okay and I eventually got first again. Made it a few hundred yards before I had no gears yet again and pulled into a bus stop and called the cavalry to help as I was almost at the RR meet at this point and maybe they had tools or something. By the time they arrived we had a good poke around the car, checked my oil levels and diagnosed that the selector box or a roll pin or something had broken leading to almost impossible gear change. It was decided that we'd convoy to the meet in the hope of more tools and help. Made it to the meet and made a start dismantling the centre console to find that it looks like I have got a ruined roll pin. Tightened what looks like a bodged wood screw and nut affair and tightened up the gear selection enough that I could just about select gears. Ran around taking a few belated photographs before everyone left and then left early so I could limp the 30 or so miles home down the M1. Couldn't hold reverse as the lever kept jumping out of its gate so navigating out of the car park was a feat of forward planning. Made it home with my escort of a Montego and a BMW 5 series without incident and even managed to get snug to the curb on the first attempt to await repairs in the daytime. I'm going to have to remove the selector box and find out just what's broken, but I suspect it's one or more roll pins at fault in the selector box rather than anything at the gearbox end. Sam took a picture while I had my head under the bonnet checking I hadn't spewed all my oil out everywhere since I wasn't sure what exactly had happened at this point.  |
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MaxN
Part of things
Posts: 482
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This has to be one of my favorite threads.
I love the trail,s tribulations and ingenuity throughout....
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At least it sounds easily fixable if a bit of a faff to do.
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I must have been tired yesterday. Just waiting for Dad to get back so I can get a lift to the nuts and bolts shop. The problem turned out not to be a roll pin at all... more later.
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Bush of some kind...?! I had a similar problem on a Rover P6 many moons ago!!!
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***GARAGE CURRENTLY EMPTY***
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After my post last night/early this morning when I was *very* tired and over thinking the problem, I managed to sort things out today. Yesterday at the RR meet I'd already removed the centre consoles and the draught excluder panel over the gear selector inside the car so I didn't have to do any of that. The other thing I'd done was have a look for anything obviously amiss and the only thing that looked out of place was a nut with a flat blade countersunk head screw through it going into the cup for the gear selector lever. I tightened this as much as I could at the time using whatever tools I could scavenge - the first time I've ever gone out without my usual mini in-car tool kit, as it happens - and it was enough to get me home which saved me making use of my AA membership. Today, I could approach the problem with a fresh mind and some daylight. My Dad and I had already consulted the workshop manual and it looked likely that I'd have to remove the selector box and rebuild it with fresh roll pins. A less than ideal situation given that I'm due to be house hunting in a week or two at the top of the country and needed the Princess for that venture. With some trepidation I set to on a job that I expected to take forever and be impossible to supply parts for... First, remove the weird screw-nut arrangement so that the bayonet fitting cap that keeps the return spring part of the gear lever mechanism under tension could be lifted free.  Here the gear lever is removed, the screw-nut refitted loosely to illustrate its location in the right hand side of the cup. The nut slightly ahead of it with the wires attached is the reverse light switch.  This is the item in question. It looks like it was a screw that has had the pointy bit cut off.  With the gear lever removed you can see the groove that the screw should sit into on the half-sphere section. Note also copious grey grease which makes my hands itch so copious hand washing really slowed me down on this job. I doubt I could have done it with gloves on either because it's pretty fiddly stuff.  That was really the root of the problem. Since getting the car the gear selection has been pretty sloppy, with first being so far away from the driver that it wasn't uncommon for me to accidentally punch the passenger in the knee when selecting it. I knew something was wrong but could never pin point it so I think I was just waiting for it to break and that's what has happened. It looks like the screw thread was too short to properly engage with the gear selector rod groove and indeed when I mocked it up the thread barely protruded into the cup that holds the rod. The solution was to either try and source an original part - tricky, because the workshop manual didn't even list this item and I wouldn't know what to ask for - or to recreate the bodge in a better, easier to service way. I took a trip to everyone's favourite motor factor and bought a bolt and some nuts of suitable size and thread and refitted them in place of the modified screw.  I suspect originally there was a different special pin in the casing to do the job of the bolt, the bayonet fit cup won't go over the thread of the bolt so you have to carefully line it all up and put the bolt through which is quite secure, but fiddly. The two nuts act both as spacers and to lock the bolt in place and with it all being stainless steel it should last a good long while. What was surprising is how much the gear change has now tightened up. I didn't tighten the bolt all the way, I just went far enough for it to just nipped it up without excessive force. At first I thought I'd done something wrong because it felt like I only had first and second but a test drive for a couple of miles demonstrated a gear change that was light, easy and close gated. This is a far cry from the pudding stirring affair I've put up with for a year and a half and something I wish I'd done a long time ago! Reverse is a little harder to select but doesn't jump out and the car doesn't stall so readily. More surprising still was the elimination of a very faint wobble/thrum/vibration through the steering wheel and gear lever that I couldn't locate, seemingly a result of this one bolt being tightened up. Cost of repair was about £2 and I didn't have to make use of my AA card. Next job I want to do is get the suspension reset because I think she sits too low at the back or too high at the front or both, probably because there wasn't enough weight in the boot when I got it done the first time. I'm not experiencing any handling or comfort issues as she currently sits, but I'm aware she's not quite right. |
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Yesterday at the RR meet I'd already removed the centre consoles and the draught excluder panel over the gear selector inside the car so I didn't have to do any of that.  Pleased it's fixed mate! I need to visit these pages more often... |
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Sam Skelton
1977 Triumph Stag
1988 Citroen CX22 Croisette x2
1993 SAAB 9000CSE 2.3T
1993 Citroen XM CT SEi
1994 Citroen XM 2.1D
1996 Jaguar XJR
1997 Jaguar Sovereign 3.2LWB
1998 Range Rover Vogue SE
1999 Mercedes-Benz E430 Elegance
1999 Rover 820Si
2000 Citroen Xantia HDi110 Exclusive
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All those men were helping, apparently. I also just noticed my brother's face in the rear window, laughing his head off at the whole thing.
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Last Edit: Aug 6, 2013 20:04:56 GMT by Deleted
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That's his actual brother. Not the person people THINK is his brother (me).
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Sam Skelton
1977 Triumph Stag
1988 Citroen CX22 Croisette x2
1993 SAAB 9000CSE 2.3T
1993 Citroen XM CT SEi
1994 Citroen XM 2.1D
1996 Jaguar XJR
1997 Jaguar Sovereign 3.2LWB
1998 Range Rover Vogue SE
1999 Mercedes-Benz E430 Elegance
1999 Rover 820Si
2000 Citroen Xantia HDi110 Exclusive
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Aaahhh, you have found the famous BL gearstick locating pin trick! Marinas have that as well (roundy-roundy goes the gearstick when they shear!)
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Rover Metro - The TARDIS - brake problems.....Stored
Rover 75 - Barge
MGZTT Cdti 160+ - Winter Hack and Audi botherer...
MGF - The Golden Shot...Stored
Project Minion........
Can you see the theme?
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VW Passat GL5
VW Passat GL saloon
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Looks like the neighbourhood vandal has taken to letting my tyres down now, which is nice of them... yet another thing to check every time I want to go anywhere, oh what fun I'm having living here ¬.¬ Anyway, in happier news, when I got that bolt to sort out the gear selection I also picked up a can of beige paint. Happily, Halfords had Champagne Beige in stock this time, though the Sandalwood Beige (which they were out of this time) is actually a better match for what's on the car. I wasn't going for a superb finish, I just wanted to get rid of the red oxide tidemark which was pretty unsightly and made the car look worse than it actually is. Of all the doors, the driver's front is the worst and the passenger's front is the best. I've almost saved up enough to get the driver's door repaired and I might be able to get away with a thin skim of filler and a little bit of panel manipulation on the good passenger front door. The two rear doors are in pretty much the same shape. The little bobbles in the paint are from the red oxide I brushed on rather than panel damage or rust, this really isn't up to my usual standards but tbh I haven't had the time or funds to do it right just lately.  If I had more funds available and more time I'd obviously be getting the purple done, but cosmetic niceness is a massively low priority. I keep the car clean and healthy, to me that's of much more importance than shiny paint. The beige on the doors is really just to make me feel a bit better about the car and to make her look more loved than she did with red oxide door bottoms.   |
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Another day, another job. Today I wanted to try and find out if it was possible to put the seat base adjuster on the passenger seat so both front seats ended up as comfortable as possible. First up I removed and then skinned the old driver's seat which was saggy and pretty knackered. It was only when I got the cover off after removing 2 rivets, 3 screws and a bajillion trim clips that the state of the foam was revealed which was pretty darned flat. The flat foam combined with a saggy base means the seat is well past its prime. I have salvaged the cover to take a pattern from and the handles and lever that would come off so that I can reuse those if I need to in the future but the rest of the seat is past it so in the bin it goes. I also kept the easy-on plastic sheeting. It's why the top of the seats rustle, I had wondered, but it really does make putting the covers on a lot easier. I'll probably retain them when I retrim the seats or replace them with something like a nylon or satin cover that does the same thing but without the rustling.  Once I'd investigated just how the seat halves went together I could determine that the only way to split the seat halves and get to the adjuster would be to grind out some rivets and replace with fresh. The seats are surprisingly well made but annoyingly aren't particularly modular. I was hoping there'd be an easy RHD to LHD set up hiding inside but there isn't, BL must have gone to the effort of making special LHD seats. Instead, I thought I might be able to just drop the drivers seat in on the passenger side, the bolts and frames are interchangeable but I wasn't sure if the levers would clear the centre console.   The seat back adjuster clears, it's snug but usable, but the one bit I wanted to make use of fouls the centre console and is too close to the tunnel to even work without the console trim being there. Big fat no, which is a shame. Instead I dropped my spare and much better condition passenger seat in and my passengers will just have to put up with regular Princess comfort. I'm hoping to turn the seat I removed from the car into a computer chair, probably bolting it to a wooden frame or something, should be cheaper and more comfortable than buying a modern office chair and much more me. The spare rear seat I've got is going to have the covers removed to take patterns from and the innards ditched because they're no better than my current rear bench. Then I can dismantle the quite straight forward covers, price up fabric and make a start on the interior retrim once I've found materials I actually like. I'm undecided whether or not I'm going with full ivory seats or if I'm just going to replace the brushed nylon facings - which you can still get new by the metre, though I don't know why you would want to - with some HLS quality velour. Certainly just replacing the fabric facings will mean I get a much more factory look than if I replace the vinyl sections with their stamped in mouldings. There are some good vinyl paints on the market now, but I'm not sure I want to go that route with my vinyl. Part of me wants to go all out 70s custom car on the interior and part of me wants to do a sensible grown up renovation in keeping with factory finish but tweaked to my own tastes... I'll probably go for the latter, though there's really not much difference in cost or time involved. In other news, I can get my original radio modernised without compromising its good looks. This makes me very happy as there's only so much BBC 4 and Absolute Radio I can tolerate on even a short journey and having the ability to put my own tunes through the speakers is very appealing, even more so if it doesn't mean butchering the dashboard. I'll also be reinstating the PYE cased Lexus speakers onto the rear parcel shelf in the near future and I'd like to sort out my PYE tape deck, though I suspect I'll have to turn it into some sort of storage box because I can't get it to work properly for very long and I think it's probably dead. |
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120y
Part of things
Posts: 423 
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New member but I just had to add a comment here.
You really are a star taking this car on I have always loved the princess, a friend of mine owned a white 2.2hls for a while that was a great car.
The ambassador was a great car too.
keep up the good work.
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1996 Renault Clio MK1 1.4 RT Auto
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Aaahhh, you have found the famous BL gearstick locating pin trick! Marinas have that as well (roundy-roundy goes the gearstick when they shear!) So did my old series 2a landy box ....... but that went 6 miles up the ridgeway (when you were allowed to drive on it) |
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Aug 20, 2013 20:42:53 GMT
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When is a car not a car? When it's a removal van. Recently, my brother had to move house and for various reasons found himself with little time to do so and no van and no means to obtain a van at such short notice. Therefore we made use of the Princess in place of a van by putting the roof rack on and removing the seats. It really was quite remarkable just what would fit and how well behaved she was even when fully loaded. She'd carry farmhouse solid pine tables and dining chairs.   Dad's Omega was roped in along with Dad's trailer so we could move the white goods. Yes, this was as precarious a load as it looked but judicious use of route planning and ratchet strap meant we were not a danger to anyone.  It was an ill planned affair, so it was well into the night that we were still packing and moving stuff. Dad had to call it quits really early on, he was having a bad day with his back injury and even driving was too much in the end so it was down to me, my brother and his best mate. We plodded on with the Princess and his BMW with the trailer attached. Amazingly, we managed to get this 32" CRT telly in the Princess.  Loaded up all the ungainly bulky stuff into the Princess since it wouldn't go in the BMW.  It was astonishing how much baby and toddler paraphenalia was eaten up by the capacious boot, even with the awkward opening. Truly a worthy machine for the job.  The last load the BMW had to take was a heavy one, we all cursed getting that drinks cabinet out of the house, one of the few things I've managed to cling onto since my whole world went upside down earlier this year and which is lodging with my brother at his new place.  We finally finished at 5am, we were all exhausted but I really hope it was worth the effort. The house my brother and his young family have moved into is really nice, far nicer than the properties they've been forced to live in over the past few years, it's about time they got some good fortune on that score. The Princess performed flawlessy throughout and was surprisingly well composed when loaded to the gunwales. The suspension even feels healthier for the workout. In fact, there were only two mishaps. The first was my front number plate falling off, which fortunately was found just outside my brother's new house and is now screwed back on to the valance. The second mishap was when my bumper touched the very low and virtually invisible brick wall at the side of the new house's driveway but no real harm done. I treated the Princess to a full clean and polish for her endeavours and fitted the replacement rear seat I have. By fluke I also located the rear seat belt mounting points when the rear seat was removed and since I've got some three point belts left over from the Golf, I'm hoping to fit those so my rear seat passengers feel and are safer. Tomorrow, I'm off to get started on a house hunt in the North East which will mean a slog up the motorway in the plush surroundings of my funny old car. Hopefully it will be the first step towards making a fresh start and getting on with my life. |
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Aug 22, 2013 10:19:38 GMT
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It's good to see the bouncy old thing earning its keep!
Cars always 'thank' you for regular use so doing things like this (for what it was originally designed for) will generally be good for the vehicle rather than harmful... Well, within reason of course!!!
Let's see some fresh pictures of this freshly polished beast!
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***GARAGE CURRENTLY EMPTY***
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Aug 22, 2013 19:23:19 GMT
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Well... any fresh pictures will have another 120 miles of travel on because I'm now up in Thornaby after an uneventful trip up here. Nearly caused an accident too, so intently appreciatively (judging by the mile wide grin) staring at the Princess was the local on a roundabout who nearly wiped out the massive white van in front of him. I'm a danger to other road users, all old cars should be banned, &c.
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