1980 Austin Princess mild custom - 1951 Lanchester LD10

Placed an order with Woolies recently for some new door seals.  I was going to order original spec fuzzy ones but at £200ish to do all four that was well beyond what I had to play with. Instead, I ordered some plain vinyl ones which, as it happens, I actually prefer now I've fitted them and at a quarter of the price it was really a no-brainer.  The reason for replacing the door seals was that all the old ones were just coming unravelled and my spares were no better. In places the foam seal was breaking up, split or missing which was less than ideal. They've never let water in, but could be contributing to some of the wind noise so it felt worth doing. I don't imagine I'll ever have to replace them in my ownership.




The first seal I fitted (on the right) has the best join. The other three just refused to make a smart join no matter what angle I tried to cut the seal at which is quite annoying. There's probably a special guillotine type tool that allows you to make the perfect cut. In the future, if it bothers me (which I don't think it will), I can buy another roll and use these seals as a template to cut to length more accurately I suppose.


Here's both of them fitted and you can see what I mean about the corners. I know the theory of what shape to cut them and how, just turns out I couldn't do it in practice.


I also priced up carpetting. To do the whole cabin and the boot I need 6 metres of 42" width carpetting which is coming out at £200-300, again rather more than I want to pay. I really want a coloured carpet too, ideally royal purple, and so far the only supplier I've found of that is in America and has no prices listed.
The next nearest option I've found is the Mulberry colour offered by Woolies but that's not the colour I want. Black... well, going by how limited the UK supply is when it comes to colours, black is probably the route I go.

The other thing that arrived today was the throttle return spring. The old one had an overstretched section, it never stopped the car being driven but now I've fitted the new one it has highlighted how lazy the response was with the old spring.




Today was the first day I took the Rover out for errands instead of the Princess.  This wasn't because I didn't think the Princess was capable, far from it, I just fancied a change and what a change that is! Only 14 years separates these two cars and yet it feels like a much greater distance. The Rover is quicker off the mark and has less wind noise and is a lot easier to get going quickly since there's no need to fanny about with the manual choke. The brakes are better (mainly because everything is new, no doubt) and the handling far more precise but the car runs out of puff much quicker and you have to work through the gears a lot more, it's also not as smooth a ride. The Princess has virtually none of the interior trim rattle the Rover is plagued with and even with the still-blowing exhaust it feels a more comfortable and relaxing place to sit. The controls feel quite archaic in contrast, especially the massive 16" steering wheel and while the steering is a little more vague you can sail around with confidence. Where the Rover will scoot off the mark rapidly, the Princess needs winding up a bit and where the Rover gets buzzier and reaches a sort of power plateau, the Princess just keeps chugging along and doesn't feel to have that same cut-off of power. Gear selection in the Princess isn't as pleasant as that in the Rover but you have to do it less frequently and with the exception of 30 zones where the car wants to be in gear 3.5, the gearing is perfectly fine. Certainly, the Princess never feels in want of a fifth gear while on the motorway the Rover definitely feels like it would benefit from a 6th gear or overdrive.

One very noticable thing piloting both cars is that the Rover is looked over, it blends in even at the ripe old quarter of a century it nearly is. The Princess attracts a lot of attention, traffic is more patient with you and generally you have more room and time to drive which is incredibly welcome since it can be hard work at times to keep up in modern traffic because of just how old fashioned the controls are.

The main difference for me is that the Rover gets boring quite quickly. There's something I can't put my finger on with the Princess that makes it a pleasure to drive, even though it's technically the worst of the two by quite some margin. The Rover feels focused on the driver while the Princess seems focused on the passengers and their comfort, perhaps it's a reflection on the eras the two cars were built, I'm not sure whether or not they could be considered in the same sector since the Princess is really a size up from the Rover. Ideally, I suspect a Rover 600 or possibly even an 800 would be a fairer comparison to the Princess and perhaps a 1500 Allegro would be a fairer comparison to the Rover.

That's just some thoughts on the two at any rate, suffice to say I'm very happy with them both and I'm glad I stuck with them.

err, you mean "progressive rate" its clearly been sports refined



the word you seek is character.

Old land Rovers are the same (mine was a series 2), by every rational measure of a car they are awful, but somehow driving them puts a massive smile on your face.

it would be mad not to take a knotted wheel, deox gel, rattle cane of stone chip to that boot floor on that 4 poster, before you refit the tank?

or does floor need welding?

Keep the faith Mike

At the very least buy a pot of Kurust and paint over the bare/rusty metal. This will stop further rust for a year or two.

Ps,
Bummer on the tank, why do simple jobs always turn into big jobs?

i was literally going to reply before even reading the text that it looks alarmingly like the throat on land rover level sender, 3 legged bayonet fitting

this is a picture of the tank on my 1984 land rover ninety (2.3 petrol) or what the daily mail would incorrectly call "a defender"

That's exactly the jobby. Your picture illustrates it much better, you can see the three tabs that hold the slip ring and sender in place. On mine one of those tabs is barely even visible so as you knock the slip ring around the remains of that tab straightens out and the slip ring and sender all pop out of the hole.

I also found the same ring is fitted to late Maxi tanks. None of the cars that use this part have it as a separately available bit, I'd have to order the part directly from whoever makes the tanks and since I can't find out who that is, I can't do that. Having a brand new one to fit would be perfect. Having a brand new fuel tank would be even better but that's not going to happen.