1980 Austin Princess mild custom - 1951 Lanchester LD10

It sound like it all just bad connections. Clean everything as best you can, a little T cut on the copper contacts on the pcb and some fine sandpaper on any other contact points.
Try to carefully crimp down any spade connector's for a tighter grip.

I actually wonder if the flexible circuit is damaged since the connections are all quite clean. The dashboard construction is really poor, it's a big weak point on these cars and they don't like being disturbed.

Some good news again today on the Princess, feel like I'm on a bit of a roll lately. It's nice working on a car I know so well, I don't have to waste time figuring out how things come apart because I already know. First thing was to do the dashboard. It's a chore, I've had it out of the car so many times now that it's a quick job, I just hate doing it at this point. I got all the bits of my original dash removed from the cluster I was using and transferred them to my original cluster that I'd set aside.


On inspecting the PCB for damage and corrosion I found a little green fuzz on one bulb connector and a small crack in the plastic but not the copper track near another bulb. The thinking was that I'd just rebuild this all, put it in the car and see what happens. Since the PCB is so fragile, if it didn't work I wasn't going to mess about with replacing it and instead we'd look at rewiring the traditional kit car way rather than trying to replace the PCB.




All plugged in and I got a little surprise because the fuel gauge works! This was either because of a fault in the other PCB or pure coincidence with the sender coming unstuck now the car has some miles under its wheels on fresh fuel. Either way I'm really pleased about this, I don't have to source a sender now. What is odd though is that the time clock now stops when you turn the ignition on and I have no idea why on that one, it's not a big deal, just a bit strange.


I then scampered over to the unit to check all systems and do a couple of other jobs. I have found that the oil light isn't illuminating, which is either a fault on this PCB, the bulb, or the sender. My suspicion is the sender as all that side of the engine is currently caked in oil from when the oil cap was leaking (no leaks since I sealed it up) so I'll get it out and cleaned up to see if that comes back to life. It wasn't dark enough to check dial illumination either so I'll check that later tonight and hope that it's working, I know the rheostat switch is working because the other elements on the dash control by it are working fine.

While at the unit I got the Princess on the ramp so I could tighten up the gear change, a simple job of just nipping up the nuts and bolts repair to the selector cup. We now have a reasonable gear change where it doesn't feel like every gear is neutral. I'll have to do this again in a few thousand miles, I'm sure. Access is a little awkward and less than pleasant since I had to have my hands near a hot exhaust. You can just make out the stack of three hex-heads in the middle of the image here, that's what needed tightening up.


With the gear change fixed I could do the steering wheel which I'd put back on wonky and hadn't located the indicator cancelling bit properly. That sorted I went for a drive around the block and did it again because I'd adjusted the wheel too far the other way. It's now straight. The white plastic collar in this picture has to be aligned properly to cancel the indicators, it now is.


The car is running better, but still not quite right. Today it wasn't bogging down but sometimes stood in traffic it would gradually drop revs for some reason, not a problem I've had before. I also noticed setting off from one junction that I left a sizeable cloud of something behind me, but I also know there was a 6 car accident at the same junction a day or two ago so it may have just been sand from cleaning up spilled fluids, it didn't look like a big oil or steam cloud at least.

I have 1970s police car tyres too, apparently. Going around car parks at sub-20mph speeds results in comedy tyre squeal. It does it at no other time.

I've got a few items I want to attend to:

> fan only works with override switch, temperature switch does nothing
> oil light won't illuminate
> clock stops when ignition turned on
> tune is off

I bet it's related to the oil light then.

Right, it's finally dark enough to see what I'm doing so I can check out these lights. I've lost functionality of two dial illumination bulbs and now the indicator telltale. I'm fairly certain this is due to that damage on the PCB so for the time being it's daytime use only for the Princess until a new wiring loom is made to replace the PCB. It also looks like the clock is on the same circuit as these three inoperative bulbs - holders and bulbs are actually fine when used in other locations - so that looks like that's where the problem is for that too.



All this means for now is no night-time driving, everything else that needs to works perfectly fine and if I need to do anything when its dark I'll just use the Rover. What a friggin nuisance though.

With those PCBs - it'd be worth them being removed, scanned and converted to vector artwork for batches of new ones to be made. I bet runs of 100 are affordable in the same way as making new membrane keyboards for Spectrums and the like...

Sadly, I missed out on Pride of Longbridge this year because of how late I was working yesterday (4am finish is late even for me!) so for once, even though the cars were ready, I was not.  Never mind, there's other shows and always next year's event.  That did give me some free time today to see what I could get through on the Princess.  Weirdly, the clock has now started working when the ignition is on, sometimes... when it feels like it, I guess the PCB is moving about a little when the car is being driven and sometimes making a connection.  Annoyingly, the fascia on my radio has decided to just start breaking up today too without any provocation so I'll be on the lookout for another period radio-casette to fill that hole since the ones I've got aren't really ideal for what I want.

Anyway, what did I get up to today on the cars?  Nothing on the Rover, it's getting a bath tomorrow but otherwise it's fine and I've not used it since the Princess was MoT'd.  Bit of a honeymoon period thing here I reckon.  Instead, today was once again all about the Princess.  Finally sorted those front seat covers out so they fit properly, I couldn't get the head restraints out so just unpicked some stitching so the covers would go over them, then tied the covers back together where needed to hold them in place.


Rescued the grommet from the old speedo cable so the hole in the bulkhead is properly plugged now.  It seals well enough with the other grommet pushed up the cable that it doesn't really need extra sealant adding.  I just sliced the old grommet off the cable with a craft knife and popped it in the hole.


After a run into town for some errands and a few bits and bobs which got the engine nicely warm I could crack on with degreasing what I could get to.  I've got the bulk of the grime dealt with now, what's left will really need the engine partially dismantling or removing from the engine bay with the tools I have to hand.  I'm just happy with how it looks for now, I'll be able to see any leaks.  Presently the only oil leak appears to be from the fuel pump, the gear selector input and the sump plug, all of which I have the bits to resolve now, just a case of finding the time and inclination since the leaks are so minor the car isn't marking territory excessively.







Mike was available for a bit and offered to help sort out the timing with the timing light.  There was a bit of marking up done and book instructions followed and the timing was improved but it was still bogging down and popping occasionally, normally when changing up into second gear.  After some head scratching we went back over what had been done before and remembered that the timing pointer has a little spike to the front of the engine bay, which isn't what the book says to use, but is what my car uses.  Following this instead of the back side of the bracket results in perfect timing according to the figures in the book and the info on the timing light and the bogging down and popping is eliminated.  The car is much better to drive and more predictable at junctions now.  Regardless of opinions on this one, much like a few other elements of the car this is just how this one is and that's how you do it on this car, other Princesses are different and no doubt a few are the same, just one of those idiosyncrasies of British Leyland stuff.




With that all sorted and the car behaving quite well I spent some time cleaning up the engine bay.  It looks so much better now than it has in a very long time.  I've got some nooks and crannies still to sort and some paint to fix but overall it's quite satisfying to look at.


I had time to give it a proper wash, even though I only washed it a couple of days ago for the MoT, and it really did need it.  Treated it to some Turtle Wax too, since the trees I'm parked under are being particularly sap-ridden at the moment.  I'm really happy I stuck with this car, feels like having an old friend about the place.

I'd love to be able to catalogue all the shared parts on the Princess, they're surprisingly easy to look after once you've figured out what other more popular vehicles things were used on and almost every item is dirt cheap as a result. It's just gets confusing as you start writing things down because what fits one car won't fit another and there's silly little differences like the oil filler caps and the speedo cable grommet size that make so what fits one car won't necessarily fit another of the same year and spec.

Too many years spent mucking about with vehicle electrics than I like to think about has taught me that weird gremlins that move around are almost always earthing issues. Bulbs that light when they shouldn't, stuff that stops when other stuff is turned on (or off, but supplied from different fuses), all point to earth faults.

Keep at it. You're nearly there.