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@richardtk, PhilA & Camper Damper: I'll get some pics when I've got the interior back in, looks even better against the black plastic of the centre console in the sunshine. Today, it was a glorious spring day. The birds were singing, the bulbs in the garden were in bloom and the sunshine was beaming down on me. Prime time to get cracking on the Princess, thinks I. Mainly I wanted to get the rear carpet out and investigate the window, I achieved both of these goals. Window mechanism first. Unscrew the two screws holding the door pull/arm rest and then rotate it until the tab/plug lines up on the top bit and pull free. The black trim on the release handle is held on with a single screw and easy to remove too.  Then unscrew the door pin/lock pull (I've got some with little CROWNs lined up on my want list).  Carefully work around the door card to pop it free. I managed not to break any clips! Behind the card is the moisture membrane, but someone has been here before me. Happily, they'd filled the door with waxoyl and it looks far better inside than the outside bodge leads one to believe.  Then, after much fiddling and finger trapping, the mechanism is free. Can you see what I see?  So I'll be on the look out for a new one of these. For now, I can at least use the window sort of and make the car secure when I park up. On to the interior. Behind the rear arm rest the original plastic is still there, in two minds about removing the plastic, it's not pristine or needed.  Was fed up of the stuck seatbelt bolts, but the sunny day must've warmed my brain up because I realised if I make a small incision, I can free the rug without undoing any bolts.  Goals achieved, bonus unlocked: investigate floor. Soundproofing is nice and dry.  No rust here, which is the central tunnel. There's a small bolt (shown blurrily in the foreground) which holds the rear seat base in place but sadly there was no treasure under the seat.  The rust in the rear is all surface, seemingly where the paint has rubbed off the flexible seam sealer. No crustiness, and nothing a stiff brush, kurust and dab of paint can't sort before the carpets go back in. Bonus!    The rear carpet. The dark stripe is the clean bit that's been hidden by the rear seat. Oh how grim it is.  It's okay though, I got another bonus thing. Cleaned the passenger front door card.  Cleaned the passenger rear door card.  Cleaned the driver's rear door card.  Which means all my doorcards are clean! Just the seats and carpets to shampoo, the parcel shelf, dashboard and headlining to go. Smells much nicer inside the car, looks a world better too. Finally, a bit of gearbox wiggling. I'm holding the camera (and sound like a right toff, when did that happen?), my brother is wiggling the stick and Dad is being the gaffer. While the prime suspect is the bushes holding the selector box in place, it's also looking likely that one of the pins has broken/come loose/wandered off. So we're going to drop the selector box and rebuild it with the book as a guide just as soon as I source the relevant parts. This is a clicky video.  |
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Good progress with those silly little fiddly jobs that take age's, some welding needing doing but in all not a basket case  I had a winder mech that was missing teeth on my lancia and l welded it back up and filled the tooth back in worked fine |
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This car just gets better and better, I'm really quite jealous. I liked the Polo (well, what you were doing with it), I like the Princess more as the base car and can't wait to see where you go. Obviously if you follow the "low" ethos, I'd look into whether Princesses use a system like the MG F etc with knuckles that can be shortened, keep the ride quality. And I miss doing this sort of stuff with '70s cars. They're such a pleasure to work on until you hit the rust  |
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rob: it has been suggested to fix that way, but I haven't got access to a welder so it's probably going to cost about the same to just source a spare, probably from my friend in the classic MG garage as he can usually lay his paws on terrible British tat easily. @richardtk: Nope, not lowering, I'm happy with standard height. Really, I'm wanting to get this car as clean and shiny and good looking as a modern car, try and shake off some of the duffer image by actually doing it right. There are plans afoot for the Polo, but it's all a bit hush-hush right now. Rust-wise, I'm still expecting the arches to fall to bits when I start sorting the paint out and I suspect the rear passenger door will need a lot of work/replacing when I get to that one. There's very little rust on the car at all, and what I am finding is little more than surface where paint has rubbed off and very easily rectified without a welder.
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winder mech looks identicle to the defender one doesnt it ! i know you cant see the business side in my pics, but my brain picture is the same as your shot of the gear side.
alternate repair, you could build up a blob of mig weld (copper block behind the rack of teeth) and file the tooth profile back into it afterwards.
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I wouldn't mind betting that that is going to be the cleanest Wedge Princess anywhere in the world... I am envious of your unstoppable enthusiasm... I am loving this thread thoroughly, superb stuff and then some... |
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***GARAGE CURRENTLY EMPTY***
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darrenh: Without a welder, and without access to a welder, getting the mech repaired is impossible. I can live with it in the meantime. grifterkid: I have gone a bit OCD... nicer to come in smelling of cleaning products than ick though. I've just finished scrubbing the carpets and minor fettling. Pictures later, but for now my arms need a rest.
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I really am getting on top of this now. Got another job done today to a better standard than I'd expected. I'll start with the job I did last as I think it's more important to cover first. As you might recall, there were rusty bits on the the inside of the floor pan but it looked solid overall. We investigated the rust with a wire brush and this is what we found. Small hole in the passenger footwell above the jacking point. Only about the diameter of a pencil and invisible from outside due to the jacking point location.  Rear passenger side, right where the sill meets the floorpan. This is structurally pretty good and mostly just pitting. Ideally it will get cut out and replaced with a small patch.  Driver's side in the rear, same spot but slightly worse. Again, the plan is to eventually cut this out and patch it.  From a different angle.  After wire brushing, I vacuumed all the loose stuff out and doused it in Kurust, letting it do its magic overnight. I'll put some fresh paint on tomorrow so it gets no worse in the meantime and have the welding done before the next MoT is due in September. No point showing the driver's side bit, we left that as it was as I can't really improve on it without welding and to poke at it might dislodge the currently-solid fibreglass repair, sometimes it's best to leave things alone. The other job was the carpets. They are quite literally falling apart, which is a shame. The pile is shedding, there's bald spots and holes in the front half and the pile was very, very flat and very dirty.  Eventually, I'm going to get a roll end of suitable carpetting and redo the cabin and boot to match in some nice coppery-brown deep pile carpet, but for now it's all about watching the pennies. Today I had the good fortune to sell a piece of artwork I've had up in the local art gallery, which meant I was a little bit better off so I did the only sensible thing and went to the Co-op spend some money on treats and cleaning products. This bottle of Vanish Oxy-clean cost me about a fiver, and I thought it would be enough for the carpets and the seats.  With the carpets out of the car I could vacuum them again to get any last loose bits out before squirting the Vanish on. Using a stiff nail brush, I gave the carpet a vigorous (but careful) scrubbing to work the cleaner in and bring the pile back, followed with a more gentle massage with a cloth just to make sure everything was worked in properly. Left it to dry and vacuumed again with brought up the pile and sucked any last bits of greb out. The front carpet needs replacing, it's dead. The bits over the wheelarches are threadbare, the driver's footwell is holed and the passenger footwell has a tear in it. But, that horrible stain in the passenger footwell is gone as is the rancid odour.  The rear half came up much better, but it too is suffering from the deterioration that comes with age and use. Where the back carpet has been protected by the rear seat it still looks and feels new and most of the pile that was flat came up fluffy again, apart from the bit that goes over the tunnel which is going threadbare.  I'm not going to try and source a Princess specific set of carpets, I think that will be difficult and pointless. Instead, I'll go to a few carpet places and see what they have available as all the bits I need are flat. In the meantime, I'll refit these once I've put paint on the floor pans over the Kurust and get some mats to keep the cabin tidy. Got my eye on a replacement steering wheel too, just have to see how that goes, I'm not even sure if it'll fit but I know if it doesn't I can always put it on eBay and make some/all of my cash back. Tomorrow I shall scrub the seats and, if I have time, the headlining. I'm not looking forward to cleaning the headlining because I know horrible ganky water will end up running down my arms while I do it. Still, all this scrubbing is keeping me fit, even got asked by the other half if I'd been working out. I'd say that's the best reason to own an old car. |
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jpsmit
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,274
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someone else here got very good results on their headliner using spray carpet spot remover - will be less drippy for sure
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jpsmit: Spray on stuff is the way to go, thanks for the tip off... You'll see why shortly. Right, bored of scrubbing filth now. I am getting there, things are improving. First job today was to spray the Kurusted areas with some paint, which I did and let that dry before moving on to the next task. That second task was the dashboard which I thought was one of the cleaner parts of the car. Was I ever in for a shock! I started with the passenger side for no particular reason. Scrub, scrub, wipe, wipe, leave to dry, much better.  Then look in the bucket.  Two buckets of water like that came off the dashboard, and to think I was touching it. Likewise, another 3 buckets of water the same colour came from the headlining and I've barely done an eighth of that.  Driver's side all clean too. Had to dismantle some of the panel to get in the nooks and crannies, but it all went back together fairly easily.  One annoyance that was once I'd removed the choke pull insert, cleaned off the greb and started to reinstate it, the plastic snapped in half. I do have a solution to this problem because the black and silver paper backing is undamaged, so all is not lost.  I'd scrubbed all the bits of vinyl I could inside and was really just putting off the inevitable. I don't really want to do the headlining, but I have to. So here we go with Vanish Oxy-clean and Stardrops.  Made the water mucky, but didn't seem to do much else. Barry Scott time.  That shifts it! The difference is much more obvious in person than on camera.  This picture is great at showing what's clean and what's not. The odd yellow staining is, I think, nicotine marks. It looks like someone has tried half-heartedly to remove the nicotine stains but just smeared it all along the edge of the roof lining and left it. Takes a lot of work to remove that yellowing, but I am getting there with it slowly.  The sunvisor will need more scrubbing, but I'm going to do everything to this standard and then do it all again. That way I'm not moving dirt on to the clean areas.  A coffee and pork pie break and I could get back on with it. Put the soundproofing back in the front and refitted the carpets.  Then applied some Autoglym vinyl cleaner to all the surfaces that needed it before refitting the centre consoles. Pro tip: if you can't find where the screw is supposed to go, use a knitting needle as a guide to line up the trim with the hole in the body work, makes life much easier.  Same view, with flash engaged, shows things up a bit more. Was getting quite dark by the time I'd done all this.  Finally, the warning 'lights' from the dashboard. Originally, these are a little coloured film that is held in by half-melted pegs on the plastic surround, but they'd all been poked at and come free of their housing. I'll be restoring these back to proper functionality with a bit of suitable glue and plastic kit know how and then slotting them back in the dashboard... just not right now.  I noticed today that the vinyl of the doorcards now feels soft and flexible, like a good quality vinyl should, rather than a weird combination of hard, sticky and shiny. Not to mention the vast improvement in smell in there without having to resort to Magic Trees.
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MonzaPhil
Posted a lot
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought
Posts: 2,456
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Please can you come and clean my car (s).
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This is now a clicky linky!  |
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Traffic Film Remover is top stuff for headlinings. A garage I used to work at took in an old Merc owned by a cigar smoker. A bit of TFR and a nail brush brought it off a treat in no time at all. Yes, it goes go all down your arms so have a good shower afterwards!!
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monza: Not if they're as grebby as this one  georgeb: If I have trouble shifting the nicotine, I'll find some to give it a go. Most of the dirt comes off fairly easily with the Cillit Bang, there's just a lot of it so you have to keep going back and scrubbing it, then wiping it, then scrubbing it again. I've started with the worst (visually at least) corner so I'm hoping it will get easier as I work away from this bit.
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 I like these. I had a 2.2HLS Automatic for a year a while back, it was a great car, metallic brown it was. Got it as a long distance driver as I didn`t want to thrash my Imps! Wish I still had it. ATB.
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@kilty: Sounds like you got yours for precisely the same reason I got mine then. Today's update features a seat. Namely this one that the driver sits in.  It's pretty grebby and has some wear to the bolster and base, as you'd expect of something that's 32 years old.  Plenty of grime build up on the top corner of the vinyl too, not really evident in the picture but just imagine me scraping the grime from the piping with my fingernail after I'd scrubbed the surface with Vanish and Stardrops. Lot of grime.  Now, I'm not going to torment you with a bucket picture this time. The water that came off these seats had quite a unique odour and was black. I don't mean it was a bit dingy, I mean it was black, the same colour as the bucket I've been using throughout. It was like having a bucket tar that was the consistency of water. I tipped it away at the earliest opportunity. The vinyl came up lovely just like the doorcards.  While quite a lot of the pile of the cropped nylon seats is worn away, it did still come up clean. A final vacuum once it's thoroughly dry tomorrow before reinstating the seat in the car will just make sure everything is fresh.  Without flash engaged.  With flash engaged.  I'm probably not going to put the seat back in until I've finished cleaning the headlining, I'd rather not be dripping horrible water on my now clean seat, it's far easier to just keep the bucket under the work area without them in the car. The other job was to sort out those dashboard 'lights', for want of a better description. They're a plastic surround with a coloured filter that has an icon printed on them. Originally BL lined up the pegs on the back of the surround with the cut outs on the filter and melted the pegs flat to secure everything, but someone in the past had poked all the filters loose. Once the filters are dislodged, it's impossible to get them back into their original place and the bulbs behind will dazzle you through the gap between filter and surround, as I found much to my annoyance with the main beam one on the first drive I had of the Princess. So, after a quick test of the compatability of the plastic surround and filter with the glue I have, it was time to do the following. Clean the surround.  File off the pegs completely, we won't be needing those.  Run a small amount of Humbrol's finest Pear Drop fragranced plastic glue around the surface the filter sits on.  Add a weight just to make sure it all bonds properly and you're done. On a couple of filters I had to reapply a little more glue, but once done you get a uniform seal as the two plastics are bonded fully together.  Much better.  Do the rest.  Check for gaps and if satisfied, they're ready to refit.  Now, I just have to make sure they go back in the correct places. |
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Run a small amount of Humbrol's finest Pear Drop fragranced plastic glue around the surface the filter sits on.
Ethyl ethoanate. I thought that was banned from use in so many household things, especially glue, as it has a tendency to make young people who don't know any better try to eat it?
Interior looking good though.
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Only a little update today. Refitted the dash 'lights' using a combination of fiddling with switches to see what lit up and my photographs from the work so far. All present and correct. Also managed to get the heater knobs back on after fighting with them yesterday to no avail.  Didn't particularly feel up to more scrubbing so I turned my attention instead to the engine, which has been hunting at idle since I bought the car. My bonnet rams don't work very well anymore, I've got some replacements on the way, but in the meantime I find a walking cane is very useful as an interim solution.  I've only ever set the timing on my Polo, by ear, and managed to get it close to right but my brother always manages to get it that bit better. Using that experience, I got the Princess to stop hunting by rotating the distributor significantly and then tweaked it a little bit back and forth until the engine ran as smoothly and effortlessly as possible. We did wonder if the car was set up for leaded fuel and didn't have the timing advanced to compensate for running on unleaded, we couldn't think of any other reason someone would deliberately make a car run badly. Upon giving it a good rev to see how it behaved I was pleased to hear the popopapopop of a well tuned Austin engine from the exhaust. Here's a clicky picture video, the camera seems to have picked up the fuel pump noise more than anything though :/  Later I got my brother to pop around and lend his ear to the engine. He tweaked the timing an infinitisemal amount and it ran even easier still, he seems to have the knack for it. We also gave the fast idle screw (I think, Dad did this bit as he knows something about SU carbs, I'm still learning) on the SU carb the tiniest tweak which smoothed things out further. The end result of this was that the smell from the exhaust is much, much leaner, normal in fact rather than smelling like it was putting half the fuel it used straight back out the back. From cold, the engine needs the choke for less time than before, doesn't run on, and seems much smoother through the rev range. Of course, we may well need to adjust things again when the fluids are checked and replenished as necessary and when I've actually been using the car for a bit, but initial signs are good. On the 21st of March I'm off to a local club fish & chips meet which is a good few miles round trip. I'm going to put 24 hour insurance on, a bit of go juice in the tank and we'll see how she does. Oh, and I'll have my RAC info with me too, just in case. |
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Last Edit: Mar 5, 2012 23:08:52 GMT by Deleted
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MiataMark
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,971
Club RR Member Number: 29
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Have you seen Dirk Gently on BBC4? Rockford had his Trans-Am, Magnum a Ferrari, the professionals had Fords. But Dirk's got a Princess....  www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00pl6g8 |
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1990 Mazda MX-52012 BMW 118i (170bhp) - white appliance 2011 Land Rover Freelander 2 TD4 2003 Land Rover Discovery II TD52007 Alfa Romeo 159 Sportwagon JTDm
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I am still amazed at the levels you are going to to clean this old wedge out and I must say, good on you...! There is nothing better than that deep clean feeling!!! The classic tape-deck is just superb, does it work ok or does it need a good going over? There are tons of old tapes in charity shops throughout the land just sitting there waiting to take their place in your Princess... I do love the old Princess' and I am so pleased that this one has found an owner as fastidious as you, I fear it could have so easily gone the other way as it were (these cars are loved and loathed in equal measure)...! Keep up the truly spectacular work, I cannot wait to see more updates... |
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***GARAGE CURRENTLY EMPTY***
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MiataMark: I have not seen Dirk Gently for I do not have a television license. It sounds like the sort of programme only BBC Four would air. grifterkid: Tape deck needs new belts. I'm going to drop it out at some point and give it to my Dad to play with since he knows what he's doing with electronics of this vintage having trained in that field in the past. Tapes in charity shops are easy to find, but good tapes in charity shops prove more difficult. I think I'm going to cheat and use my tape-to-mp3 converter thingy instead.
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Two buckets of water like that came off the dashboard, and to think I was touching it. Likewise, another 3 buckets of water the same colour came from the headlining and I've barely done an eighth of that.
I like these. I had a 2.2HLS Automatic for a year a while back, it was a great car, metallic brown it was. Got it as a long distance driver as I didn`t want to thrash my Imps! Wish I still had it. ATB.
