1980 Austin Princess mild custom - 1951 Lanchester LD10

In readiness for tomorrow's MoT I wanted to just do a few bits and pieces on the car today while I had chance.  Mainly, I wanted to make sure it was clean, particularly the glass, and while we're not talking claybars and snow foam, I did at least want it to look like it hadn't really spent the past few years in and out of a working garage getting steadily covered in rubbish.  As it turns out, this wasn't so foolish as the glass was much dirtier than it initially looked which wouldn't have done my new wiper blades any favours.  I also sprayed some trim spray on the seatbelts so they're not so lazy - I left the furniture polish at home - and T-cutted the whole roof to get some of the really stubborn marks out of the paint.  The roof used to be the best panel on the car, paintwise, but it having a cover on it when it was outside a few years ago has put paid to that.  I had hoped it was just smudge marks but it's actually wrecked the paint, the only original bit left on the outside of the car.  Oh well.  I fitted the sunstrip tint as well, it needs some bubbles pushing out but really does help with that annoying high eye level glare you get driving without any shade across the top of the screen.  Last thing I did was fit the grille badge, a present from Autosh*te.

This side already looked quite good.  It needs more work to be perfect but it's fine when viewed from across a car park.  It'll do.


The other side will need the doors stripping back to bare metal and the front wing replacing/repairing so I didn't do any prep and just blasted some purple on.  It doesn't look great, obviously, but again it's good from a distance and looks better than the mismatched paintscheme it was on this side.  Also sprayed a bit on the rear wing under the filler cap where there was a petrol incident that stripped the paint off.


After all that, there wasn't anything more I could do.  I did trundle about the yard a bit and the brakes are immensely improved after having bled them so I feel more confident with those.  The tune is perhaps a little off, we'll see how she behaves when in use, just doesn't seem quite as she used to.

To wrap things up, I took some snapshots with the Rover, a bit of compare and contrast.  I'll report back tomorrow at some point on the MoT.

Good luck for the mot!

Good Luck

Yes, good luck!

PS, the c pillar needs to be purple!

It's true, she's now MoT'd and has 6 months tax on. Next job is insurance, my current insurer (Tesco) can't insure it because it's too old but I sort of expected that. I'll do a ring around of the usual suspects tomorrow. Big thanks to Scaryoldcortina again for his patience, fairness and dilligence, highly recommended tester!

Mike and I arrived a little early, we'd allowed time for things to go wrong and nothing really did. Annoyingly, the exhaust started blowing again and the oil filler cap decided to leak everywhere. Scary was kind enough to clean up and reseal the cap and spotted a small section of sill rail that needed a tiny bit of weld to secure it. Thanks to the gas analyser he could also get the emissions where they needed to be and the run home the car was much better. Then it was MoT time and it all went far, FAR better than expected.



Single advisory for an exhaust blow. I can very much live with that. I just need to take off the clamp, clean it up and reseal it to fix that. Not all shiny and happy though, on the way back the filler cap decided to start leaking again and it got bad enough that it was actually quite embarrassing while sat in traffic... the speedo packed in... and a few dashbulbs went out. It's niggles though and it was really nice to be in the car again even if it was in the passenger seat. Mike was really happy piloting the car.

Look at the state of this now.


Oh well. She's home, she's got tax and MoT on and tomorrow should be insured. Now I get to enjoy using it again. It's been a long, long wait but absolutely worth it.

Well done dude, congrats!

Not had any luck with Peter Best in the past, or Lancaster for that matter, always seem to be just shy of whatever their age/driving experience/car age criteria they've set but I'll try them again, they're on the list. There's quite a few insurers for me to try.

I have had issues trying to get the Princess insured before, some insurers won't take it on because it's too old, some because it's not old enough and some won't touch me because I'm self-employed and am not a homeowner. It's all rather annoying. I may end up back with Adrian Flux since they'll insure anyone and anything cheaply, or Admiral who have been surprisingly competitive for me in the past even with the Princess.

for info ... I had a chat with Lancaster about some mods I was thinking about, they seemed happy to insure most non-standard stuff.
They maybe an option for you (PM sent as it's not all good news)

Good to see you get a proper win with the Princess.