1980 Austin Princess mild custom - 1951 Lanchester LD10

Looks like you might end up in our catchment area mwwwuuha ha ha. Being comparably aloof I'm in 12 o clock to 3 o clock quadrant of your ten mile radius. Up top of North Downs.

real nice areas to look though, majority of it area of outstanding natural beauty

Before stripping the carb down I wanted to replace the choke cable, the one on the car is badly frayed and deformed at the carb end and I knew it wasn't going to go back in the tiny little hole again. Trouble is, finding a Princess specific choke cable is something I've never managed to do, so after discovering a few bits are shared with the good old Mini, I took a chance and bought what looked like the same cable for one of those since it was very cheap and not too risky a gamble.

Here's how you do it. First, you need to purchase a classic Mini choke cable OR a generic one. I bought a 60" cable because I wasn't sure how long it needed to be but I knew that would be more than enough, there are generic ones available that are shorter. I also got the one Minimine stock because the handle is as close to identical as you're likely to get to the one that was in the Princess originally. First job is to undo the tiny nut on the choke cable mechanism at the curburettor. I used a screwdriver socket drive with a relevant tiny socket on for this since that's easier to get in with than a ratchet.
20180526-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

Then, pull the choke cable through from the inside of the car, leaving the outer sheath in place. This is important as the outer sheath isn't interchangable with the Mini/generic cable and generally they aren't damaged anyway. You may find it easier to disconnect one half of the column shroud for rethreading the cable, you may be okay doing it with it in place. I elected to remove the shroud as it's only two screws, one being next to the choke pull and the other at the bottom of the shroud at about 7 o'clock position as you look at the steering column from the steering wheel end.
20180526-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

This is the mess that is my old cable. That's never going to go back in its place and having already been trimmed in the past, there isn't enough cable left to trim it shorter to get back to anything good again.
20180526-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

This is the outer sheath of the Mini cable, designed this way so it can be screwed to the dash panel. This doesn't easily go into the Princess so it's best just to bin this bit, you don't need it (unless you have another car that does, of course).
20180526-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

Here are the cable inners side by side. The shinier one is the new one. They have a slightly different shape towards the choke pull end but they are otherwise identical. The new cable is ever so slightly thicker too. This is why I suspected this would work.
20180526-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

Then, you thread the new cable from the column shroud end. I found this easier with the shroud unscrewed from the column so I could line the cable up easier. Rethreading it is really easy providing your sheath is in good condition and requires no effort at all, which is nice. Once rethreaded, reattach the column shroud then rethread the cable through the weird nut in the choke mechanism and adjust accordingly. The only problem with the 60" cable is that it's much too long and does need trimming down. I haven't got a suitable tool to do this at the moment that will cut the cable without crushing and fraying the end so for now the excess is threaded out of the way down the back of the engine and I'll deal with it later. A 50-55" cable would be a better fit.
20180526-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

Then time to test. Pull out the cable and see if it locks properly... and it does!
20180526-07 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

Unlock the cable and push it back in to make sure it does so smoothly and the light goes out... and it does!
20180526-08 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

Operation is much smoother and now I know I can safely disconnect throttle and choke cable to rebuild the carb without fear of the cables fraying and being impossible to reinstall. Less than a tenner to sort and the choke pull looks nicer inside the car since the insert in the old one had broken and come out. It's nice when a job goes smoothly like that.

I've tried that and never had anything other than a spade shaped end to the cable that then frayed soon after. I'm going to get a bicycle brake cable/bowden cable cutter since they're not massively expensive and are bound to be useful in the future too. Combined with a bit of solder wicked in where I want to cut it that should do the trick nicely.

In other news, I had a moment of inspiration today when thinking about what to use to retrim the faded parcel shelf and remembered the leather I salvaged from a broken sofa we threw out recently. The back panel was just the right size to do the job and had the added benefit of nice straight seams to add some visual interest rather than being a single flat piece. Works really well in the car and the grain isn't too far off the factory vinyl so it looks right at home. It should hold up a bit better against UV than the velvet did. I didn't cut the speaker holes in the leather as I can do that easily at a later date and the rear speakers aren't wired in yet. I don't even have a radio in the car at the moment, tunes are low priority for me.
20180526-09 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

I also put the waist trim back on the boot lid since it wanted to play ball this time.
20180526-10 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

More so I don't forget than anything else, I'm making a little note here. I was idly considering how best to make the spats/fender skirts and since I essentially need to start with a large dish I realised that satellite dishes are both large and steel, normally. They're also incredibly cheap.

Making spats out of satellite dishes is no more insane than light buckets made from cake tins, unless there's a better way of getting a large steel dish cheaply.

roof off a scrapyard car?

A wok was my first thought but they don't go big enough for what I want, at least not the ones I could find. There might be a gigantic catering size one that would do the trick that I don't know about. I also have no idea where the nearest Asian supermarket would be up here, suspect that'll be easier down south after I move tbh.

Car roof would be an option if I knew of one domed enough and I can't really think of anything that would suit. Also, I've never had any luck getting panel cuts from scrapyards always met with not being allowed to use my own tools and them not wanting to do it for me, even if I offer to pay. Seems it's not worth their time.

2CV rear wings I did consider, they might be big enough, but they're a bit pricey to be chopping up.

Spats/skirts from another car were also considered but choice in the UK is limited, and choice in the US, while very good and cheap, is expensive to import and I couldn't find anything that was a good size and shape match for what I'm starting with.

I can't think of a better large shallow dish shape than a satellite dish. You can remove the powder coating if you're prepared to spend a few hours on it.

I'll measure the arch to be certain, but I reckon I need something satellite dish shaped that's at least 60cm across to give me enough material to work with and trim down. If I had an english wheel I'd just crack on with some flat sheet, it'd be a good learning exercise. I'll give anything a go now, really, it's amazing what you can teach yourself to do with a bit of time.

Most large satellite dishes seem to be either steel, or an unnamed material. Even the smaller perforated types are steel. I imagine its for reasons of cost, an aluminium dish might be lighter but it's going to be more expensive to produce at that sort of size, and they do seem to be an item people want cheap.

I've not been able to find a proper old fashioned scrappy for a very long time. The last one I went to was when I was trying to find displacers and salvaged a rear axle from a Princess they had in that was terminally dead. They probably would do me a roof cut, they were really helpful, but I can't remember the name of the yard or even where it was beyond it being seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

Maybe it'll be better down south. I'm not in a rush at any rate, I've got all the other welding and fabrication to do in the meantime. Who knows, when I move I might find we have a neighbour that knows how to make stuff, or has panel fabrication tools they'll let me borrow... yeah... that's not going to happen. It'll sort one way or another.

Measured the arch today, I need something at least 75cm across but only 35-40cm deep so, technically, I could probably get away with just one dish, chopped in half and hammered to shape where needed. I've also been looking at how folks make skirts/spats and they don't seem too complicated to make and secure to the car in a way that's completely reversible. I'll see about getting a dish in the future and mocking it up against the car, I might not like it when I try it.

That's exactly what I did, early on. I dampened the cardboard so I could mould it a bit easier and it just didn't look right with a shallow dish because where it met the arch flare didn't flow. I think that's why they don't work on the Custom Car one from way back when (which is why I was trying the idea out in the first place). I don't want the face of the arch to be that flat, I actually want it fairly domed/dished because it flows better. Then the bottom edge follows the line of the door-to-sill shut with a little massaging so it flows into the rear wing nicely by wrapping under just a bit. Fortunately there's no real need for a bead edge or flare lip since that wouldn't match anything on the car, so a basic return lip should be fine leaving it smooth on the outside.

In theory, I reckon a dish about what you get from a satellite dish can be flattened where needed at the top and squished in a little bit front and back so it flows from that arch flare to the CROWN of the dish. It should clear the wheel nicely too without giving me too much of a headache for return edges. I'll probably surface mount it, bubble skirt fashion, rather than inserting it into the arch hole itself. This should help with flow and be a bit easier to fit.

The nearest I can find that describes what I'm trying to describe is the iRocco Audi TT, but not exactly that since I'm not doing full circles. It's just the closest for an idea of the sort of shape I need to produce.