1980 Austin Princess mild custom - 1951 Lanchester LD10

Reminds me of a time when I bought an Alfa 146 ti from someone on the book of faces. I pointed out a very wet and oily engine block and she went to great pains to tell me it didn't leak any oil and that I could see this by looking under the car. I pointed out..1) there is no oil in the engine so I'm not surprised I can't see any leaking on to the floor, and 2) This isn't even where you live so again, not surprised!

Two litres of Castrols finest later and I'd bought it! By Jove she was right- it hardly had a chance to drop it on the floor the rate it burnt it....
Loved the car though!

Troubles. Ah yes, many pages of those here. I've been away for a week which was a super short notice thing and while I was away, Mike got on and sorted out the dashboard wiring for me. With the PCB removed, it was much easier to see that one track is actually completely broken through, there's several other places where there's damage too where the PCB just seems to have gone brittle. That was one of the things causing the issues with the dashboard. He isn't proud of this wiring, it was a case of using what was about and really just to get it working again. I'm that fed up with this dashboard a custom one is going to be built when I've got all the parts together for it. I have a plan...




The other issue is the construction of the dashboard. BL really did these on the cheap and it's infuriating because each time you remove the dashboard you run the risk of it breaking quite badly. This time, the plywood spacer blocks that are stapled onto the dash insert and which are in turn fixed to the surround by screws going in from the back, decided to delaminate when attempting to put the dashboard back into the car.




I soaked the blocks in as much glue as they'd take, let it all set and then rebuilt the dash very carefully for the umpteenth time. The new radio-cassette went in. Princess dashboards have a non-standard sized hole and no provision for a DIN cage. Instead you have to use these fiddly little brackets and the radio never fits properly, it's another reason for me wanting to build a custom dashboard from scratch. The other problem with this head unit is that I'm getting electrical interference. I had the same interference issue early in my ownership of the car and it was down to the aftermarket electric fuel pump so I suspect I'm now getting it from the in-tank electric fuel pump so it's just a case of figuring out how to suppress that. This is a bit annoying because the head unit works well but the interference is too invasive to actually be able to listen to the radio or tapes (yes I still listen to tapes).


Anyway, it's in. The only item I can't tell is working or not is the main beam telltale which is always difficult to see, even at night, and the right hand instrument dial. The clock and speedo now light up as they should and all the other dash illumination appears to work, I just need to wait until much later tonight when it's dark to be absolutely certain it's all good.


On checking around the car today I noticed oil at the head-to-block join and was worried it could be something serious. Thankfully it was just the distributor O-ring leaking again, the one I've only just replaced, so that will need looking at yet again.


I'd love a completely flush blank digital panel that came to life when the ignition was turned on as you get in the Lexus LS400, or even a selection of chunky 80s LCD displays as you get in Corvettes of the era. What I end up doing will likely be decidedly analogue. For now, as long as the bits of the dash that need to work do work, it can stay as it is.

Could you adapt a Maestro talking dash?

It's weird having a fully functional collection. Today I decided to do something about that. I need to replace the front wing on the Rover with the one I've repainted and since it's too hot for me to do my job since all I'm doing is sticking to and/or sweating on any art I try and work on (which is less than ideal) I decided somewhat foolishly to work outside in the baking heat instead. Because manual labour is just what you want to do when it's in the low 30s. Happily, front wings on R8 Rovers are a bolt-on affair. Unhappily, there's a lot to actually undo in order to get them off. I'm working on the passenger side, all of these steps work the same on the driver's side.

There are 2 bolts on the A pillar, one on the sill/bottom of the A pillar, 3 on the wing rail, one on the inner wing and several screws to remove. Let's do the A pillar ones first, you need the door open for that so you can just get a socket into the gap. Yellow circles show where the bolts are as it's not always clear from a static picture.




The one on the sill/lower A pillar can be got to without having the door open, it's hidden just behind the mudflap. Looks like this is an original wing too since this lower bolt still has factory underseal over it so it's not done too badly to last as long as it has.


Wing rail bolts are really easy to get to as long as you've remembered to open the bonnet. You shouldn't need that instruction really, if you do then put the tools away and have a quiet word with yourself.


Behind the headlight there's a screw that holds the indicator in place. It's a little fiddly to get to and you can't remove the headlight to help because you need the indicator out to get to the screws that hold the headlight in.


Top left screw goes into the headlight through the wing while the bottom left and right screws go into the under-headlight trim through the wing. These all need removing. Not also the small black peg above the top screw; this locates the headlight unit, DO NOT BREAK THIS. You'll also want to unplug the indicator unit as it doesn't pull through the wing.


With that lot undone, remove the headlight unit by unbolting the two very visible bolts on the slam panel and loosening but not removing the nut that goes under the bracket. Be careful removing the headlight, don't break the black locating peg off. Not shown here is the grille since that differs between cars, on mine it's held in place with two screws that go into the brackets on the headlight. Facelift grilles are attached to the bumper and don't need removing for this job.


You now have access to the bumper bolts which live under the headlights. You can either unbolt the crash cans from the chassis or loosen the bolts that hold the bumper brackets to the crash cans. I did the latter. You can then slide the bumper forwards off the locating pegs on the wings allowing you to get to the last bolt holding the wing on.


That last bolt is well hidden, you can't get to it without removing the bumper or the undertray. Because the screws holding the bumper to the undertray are normally stuck and rusty (and mine is no exception here), if you're just replacing the wing this is the best way to do it. Access is a little poor for this bolt with the arch liner getting in the way of decent ratchet swing, but there's plenty of space for hands so you shouldn't have too much grief.


In the case of bumper removal, there's several screws and a couple of bolts holding the undertray to the bumper, easily accessible from underneath the car without needing to jack it up. The circles show where screws are stuck and the heads just chewing up on mine, I'll have to get creative removing those without damaging the plastic parts. Picture shot from above looking down into the back of the bumper.




If you have mudflaps fitted, unscrew them from the wing if you can so they're not trapping the arch liner. If not (or if your mudflaps are as ruined as mine and just fall off) you should be able to wiggle the wing a little and then lift it free of the car. You'll find a dirt trap that will benefit from a clear out at the bottom of the sill/A pillar section.


Don't forget to unplug the side repeater too. Once you've done that the wing lifts free quite easily, ready to be replaced.


Leaving your car looking something like this.


Some time ago I came back to find the front of my car misaligned and was certain it had been reversed into. I now know it has after seeing that one of the bumper brackets is damaged. The crash cans are in very good condition, I wonder if they might have been replaced at some point.


It was too hot to do anything else so I've left it at that for now. Princess is behaving itself lately so I at least have transport while I get the new wing fitted and the front bumper repainted once I free it from the undertray. I might go back and get that new wing on later tonight if it cools down or tomorrow if it doesn't.

New wing now fitted, no point putting the rest on until I've repainted the bumper which I shan't be doing today as I've run out of time and energy. Paint is still can-fresh on the wing so I've got to put some effort in to get that all polished and nice again which I'll do when the front end is reassembled. I didn't want to polish the wing off the car as they're quite flexible and seemed prone to deforming a little too easily. Refitting was easier than removal and because of when the car was built, no effort was required to get everything aligned.


My only concern is that the red on the wing looks a lot brighter than the red on the door so I might have painted it in the wrong Flame Red. Not that it matters too much, the car already has about four different shades of Flame Red on it.

As for the Princess PCB replacement you are correct in your assumption, darrenh. The lighting is actually quite a bit better now too, no doubt because all the electricity can get where it should. New dash design is coming along, I've been comparing scribblings with practical application. The big clock is going to make way for a small digital clock like the Rover has and the two factory dials will be moved so they sit visible through the steering wheel. Heater controls and toggle switches will remain factory and the radio location won't change for reasons of practicality. I'm undecided on whether or not to install a more compact telltale block above the dials or to reuse the factory filters which are quite smart. The whole dash will likely be converted to LED illumination for the sake of reliability and potentially to improve the illumination of the factory dials. Need to try a few more layout ideas before I'm happy committing to actually building a prototype but it shouldn't be hugely expensive to sort out.

Hoping to be able to use the standard rheostat for that. Speaking of, I reckon I'm finally decided on the layout for the dash. Most of the old stuff is perfectly serviceable to reuse, it just needs fitting a little better than the factory managed. The biggest change really is ditching the massive analogue clock for a smaller digital one, the rest of it is just shuffling the telltales around a bit. Switch bank, heater controls and radio will all remain in their factory locations and I'll keep the mechanical tachometer since it's pretty accurate compared to the SatNav GPS and those automated speed alert signs that are installed locally.



I just have to figure out the best way to build the new insert, what materials to use and to see if I can improve on how the factory trim pieces are fitted so they're a bit sturdier. I don't really want to change the trims out, they do look right in the car and anything more modern is going to look really out of place which will bug me a lot.

You can't dim standard LEDs with a reheostat. You need the right kind of LEDs and a control circuit. It's not impossible to do, but it's an awful lot of mucking about compared to standard filament bulbs.

whilst agree with the voltmeter vs ammeter thing, modern ammeter running of a shunt is absolutely fine.

LED's are very directional so you may find they do not light the instruments well. I had many issues converting mine, some I had to wire in 2 leds and make sure they pointed 'just so' to get the correct illumination. In rthe end I replaced them with high output 'flat' led's to sort it.