1980 Austin Princess mild custom - 1951 Lanchester LD10

Shoot me down in flames and all of that but this has your name written all over it

silverstoneauctions.com/events/2020-auctions/the-may-live-auction/the-may-live-auction/classic-cars/1967-citroen-ami-6

And its begging for a new home

Cor, that Ami is lovely. Lovely colour and just right condition. I already know I can't afford it, Ami's are out of my league.

Good progress, I'd do the rear seat bracket black I think as it would tie in with the seat black.

I don't think so, I think it will just dissappear if black. You wont really be looking down there in reality anyway especially with the front seats in.
Paint it satin black to start, and go over with maroon if you don't like it.

I don't want an Ami that much that I'll feel like I'm missing out. Buyers market or not, I'm not really in a position to buy anyway, house and existing cars come first and I'm being boringly sensible just at the moment. As I've been reminded by the other half, I could go out and spend a couple of grand on an interesting old car OR I could spend a couple of grand on the existing interesting cars that live with us.

You proved that with the Renault. I’m in the same position. I’m constantly tempted with “new” projects, yet still have unfinished/unstarted ones here. I’m being really firm with myself and refusing to commit to anything new unless either something here already goes to make space, or all the wheeled projects are roadworthy.

Well done on the interior. I like it...

Buoyed by the success of the Princes interior, I decided it would be time to replace the O-ring that was suspected as having failed on the BX injector pump. This should be a straightforward job.

The first attempt was to use the guide and information from another forum for removing the pump top plate without removing the pump from the car. This would be the idea if it was the throttle shaft o-ring at fault since I should in theory be able to do that with minimal risk. While this did work, once I'd figured out which combination of tools was needed...


There was something holding the plate on that I couldn't see, possibly just an o-ring since it had that sort of springy-rubbery feel to it. Rather than risk breaking something, I opted to screw the top back on and remove the pump. This is a much more involved proceedure. It also means if other seals are damaged I can deal with them all in one go if just doing the top o-ring wasn't going to cut it and, given that I have a full seal kit, I might as well. Next challenge was jacking the BX up when you can't get it running. Fortunately there was just enough of a dip in the paving slabs where the jacking point is that I could get a jack under if the other half lifted the car as far as he could (which was about 2mm, cars are heavy!) and I could get it on an axle stand. Jacking up the BX is one of the things I hate the most, there just aren't enough strong points on the car's structure to lift it that you can get a jack to when its sat on its bum.


Handbrake off, car in fifth, rotate the front driver's side wheel until the bolt holes in the end pulley line up with the holes in the injection pump mounting plate. Then hope that you've actually got two M10 bolts (I did) and that your tools will fit in the gap (they did, but as you'll learn later this is not always the case with stupid French cars). That done, mark the pump location against the mounting plate to ensure (hopefully) the timing doesn't get buggered up later. Oh, I forgot to mention, make sure that when you remove the cambelt cover that you somehow jam it between the components in the gap and one bit of it snaps off, pinging into the heavens, never to be seen again.


Then disconnect the throttle cable, the other cable the name of which I've forgotten once you mark that to make sure you know where it goes, mark the two screw things on top of the pump for the throttle bracket thingy so you don't mess up that setting, disconnect the four injection lines, the bottom back one of which has separation anxiety and likes to hide behind the other pipes, disconnect the stop solenoid wire, and the battery at some point in these proceedings too, and then try and undo the three bolts holding the pump in place. Go on, have a go, it's great, you'll love it.


You will not love it. A spanner is the only tool that fits and if your hands are too big and/or don't dislocated, you can't actually get a tool on the bottom bolt that you can't see no matter how hard you try without removing the alternator. Great. At one point when trying to remove the alternator it was refusing so steadfastly to come out of its bracket that I thought I was going to have to remove the radiator to get purchase on the alternator... and then it popped out no drama because cars like to cause stress like that.


Then, you simply undo the bolt on the pulley you locked earlier with the two m10 bolts so that you can sImpLy ReMOvE the injector pump. SIMPLY. Grr. Many swears later after finding the ONLY tool I had that would fit in the gap between the car body and the nut I needed to undo was a frigging ring spanner I had it undone. Then I had to fight with that injector pipe that kept reconnecting itself, and then the pump which did not want to be separated from the car until all at once it did. Magnetic screwdriver to the rescue to save the woodruff key that tried to join the cambelt cover fragment from earlier too. I have highlighted the troublesome nut that I needed to remove the alternator for (I seriously have no idea how anyone does this with the alternator in situ) so you'll know what to look for when you do this job.


It's a big old thing this pump, leaves a massive hole in the engine bay when it's out.


Set it on the bench, checked the time and realised this had taken me nearly 3 hours! That's absurd.


I then had a break to regroup and gain a bit of confidence before tackling the next bit. For reference, took a snapshot of how the bracket is set on the top before removing it, this would allow me to get to the throttle spindle.


I'd already marked the pump position before removing it, as instructed in the manual and on fora variously. The o-ring on the throttle spindle was quite loose and discoloured. No particularly obvious signs of wear otherwise so I was moderately hopeful this was the cause of the air ingress given other symptoms presented as documented in recent posts.


I figured out that what was stopping me removing the top plate while it was on the car was the throttle bracket assembly that bolts to the spindle, once you unbolt that, the spindle can be pushed out and the top plate lifted free. I would have found this very difficult to do on the car since I dwasn't entirely sure what I was looking at even with instructions. On the bench it was much easier to work out. Happily got the top plate off and decided not to strip it down further than that since it looked a bit beyond my skill set so I kept myself to the comfort zone. The top plate gasket did look fine but since I had a new one in the kit I'd bought, I decided to fit it. The new seal doesn't seem to fit very well, perhaps there's a knack to it, perhaps it's a rubbish seal, I don't know. I also had trouble finding which of the supplied o-rings was the correct one for the spindle, none of them seemed a better fit than what was already on there being either a shade too large or a shade too small. I was beginning to have misgivings about this job. Undeterred, I started reassembly.


I don't know why but it just felt wrong going back together. I didn't force anything, I was very careful to make sure things went back together the way they came apart, as much as I could tell at any rate. But it just felt... I don't know... off. Gut feeling was that something was perhaps not properly aligned so I gently eased the top plate off again and discovered that the plastic piece that supports all the complicated little springs in the top of the pump had snapped. I will reiterate, and no doubt some readers will ignore, that I used the absolute minimum force here, I hadn't even got the top plate bolts more than a couple of turns in, nothing was tight.


So that's buggered that. I do not have the relevant skill to rebuild this and what should have been simple o-ring replacement has now become a bit of a nightmare. Not really sure how to fix this at this point. The pump was fine apart from sucking air in, presumably through the top o-ring (I guess we'll never know for sure now) and nowit's broken and there's no point putting it back on the car.

Argh how annoying!

I feel your pain, just getting the pump off in the first place looks like no fun at all.

Maybe long term this will work out for the best... Perhaps the o ring replacement would have cured the air leak for now, but it is likely the next weakest point would've given in and then you need to remove the pump again. At least this way once you reassemble everything, that should be it for a while!? I hope so anyway.

In brighter news - the interior on the Austin looks very smart, good work.