'51 Lanchester LD10, '80 Austin Princess, '88 Austin Maestro

With the Lanchester jumping the queue and eating up my meagre funds, the Princess has been sat patiently waiting for me to have the means to get the tools to finish the brakes. Or pay someone else to do it for me. Anyway, I'd forgotten to disconnect the battery and realised the car hadn't been started in quite some time so decided to see what the state of things were. Normally when the car is sat idle for any amount of time, things get damp and grumpy.

Happily, it fired up willingly, all the electrical things work that should and while it is a little damp inside because it's been raining all day, getting in and out of the car a couple of times soon had it all dried out. Nice little motivation booster for when I've finished the emergency repairs on the Lanchester that at least and I'm feeling a bit better about getting back on the Princess once I'm able. I'm also pleased to report I found some NOS rear axle tube mounts so I can replace that delaminated one and resolve another issue while I'm doing the brakes.

Tomorrow, all being well, Pat and I are taking the Maestro over to Torque Moto for the coffee morning meet that Furious Driving has organised. It'll be the first show/meet for the Maestro since I bought it, and the first show/meet Pat and I have been to since before the pandemic began. I've no idea what's going to turn up or how busy it will be, I just hope it's a nice morning out for us. We very much need it.

Today I spent a bit more time on the Lanchester, namely getting the next round of wood treatment done now the supplies have arrived. First was an injection of woodworm killer in any of the holes I could find, followed by a third and final coat of it over all the wood that I could get to in both inner arches. Once that had dried out, it was time to drill some small holes into the frame as per the instructions on the wood hardener, and inject a bunch of that into all the affected areas of woodworm and rot, followed by a liberal brushing of all the exposed wood with the same. That then had to be left to cure for a couple of hours, leaving me no time to do the wood epoxy filler to get the surface stable again. The badly affected rear arch feels like it has had some flex removed, not much, but enough that it's noticeable when shutting the door so perhaps that's been compromised for quite a while without showing any signs of it.

Since nothing else could be done on the frame I decided to rebuild the boot interior. There was no reason not to at this point and it would be good to get stuff out of the house and back on the car. Reinstalled all the lower boot floor hardware and the petrol tank access panels (less the rubber sheet since I'm still waiting for my order to be delivered) and then sorted through the fixings the intermediary boot floor was held down with when the car arrived. After working out what bolts should be used and what shouldn't I had it all back in properly. I also made sure to fit new anti-rattle wool strips to replace the old and missing ones. The rear arch interior trims and padding were also reinstalled, neither of which are in the first flush of youth, but both of which are good enough to go again for what we're doing here.


All that done, the new grommets for the wiring installed, the new wiring for the high level lights routed, I could finally put the rubber mat back in and call this area as done as it needs to be.


This job wasn't supposed to be a priority, it was supposed to be tackled after all the wiring was completed and the car was able to move under its own power. I am glad it's done, it's been involved and taught me a lot about how things go together on this car. It's also made every job ahead of me look a lot smaller and easier because, like when the interior was cleaned up, I now have something nice to look at it to motivate me to go further.

The goal now is to focus on the jobs that will allow me to get the car back in one piece. That means the rear outer wing repairs have been shoved down the list a good way as non vital. Instead I'll be doing the wood epoxy filler work on the frame, removing the seized bolt remains, welding the sill ends and floor corners, and reinstalling the interior that's missing. There's also a bunch of smaller jobs that are easier to do with the floor removed, like replacing the main battery cable, securing the wiring loom to the chassis rail, and replacing the brake light switch.

If I can keep chipping away at this every weekend at this rate, it should be up and together pretty quickly.

The, uh.. glass on it looks okay?

Spent a bit of time on the Lanchester again today, trying to wrap up the back end as much as I can really. As always there will be videos on this in the future at some point covering it in more detail, for now here's a snapshot of the day's events.

Namely, I was taking the aluminium liner from the scrap boot lid and repurposing it into splash guards to replace the rotten steel originals. I could definitely have repaired the steel ones but for less effort I could also just remake them in something that will hopefully be more rot resistant. There's also something satisfying about using bits of another Lanchester to fix our Lanchester.

On the driver's side I also had a go at using the JB Weld Quickwood epoxy and didn't enjoy it at all. I'll be doing a bit of research to find either a better product, or find out what I did wrong. It just wasn't at all satisfying to work with, apply, shape, or smell. It probably does a really good job at filling the voids and all that, it just wasn't any fun to use. This side went nicely other than that, a few fresh holes in the repaired body work and the new splash guard was in. I used some 1.5mm rubber sheet to isolate the splash guard from the body work to hopefully reduce chances of dissimilar corrosion and hopefully prevent water getting trapped between layers of metal.


Remade both sides using the original splash guard remains as a template, that means there's a cut out for the filler neck on the passenger side. Cut the rubber sheet here with an extension to cover the fuel filler neck hole which I will cut another hole in when the tank is ready to go in, that way I won't cut the hole in the wrong place. Originally there was only a square of rubber sheet for the filler neck hole and none between the splash guard and body, so it's very similar to factory.


I left the fixing tabs/brackets the screw into the underside of the rear wings over-long. I wasn't sure exactly what length they should be and erred on the side of caution, this way I can bend, drill and fit once the rear wings are repaired and ready to go back on the car. I did add a rubber u-channel to the outer edge of the splash guards to hopefully help seal them against the inner wings a bit better and reduce any rattling or other noises the two parts might make if they make contact while driving.


One of those jobs that's worth doing while I have everything apart rather than saving it for later and having to dismantle things just to fit these. It does seem that the order of construction is that these go on before the boot interior so it would have been better to do it before I refitted the boot floor, but never mind, it's done now.

As a little billy bonus, here's a short video walkaround from Flower Farm today. Was a great run out for the Maestro, about sixty miles all in and the car feels better for it. First time it's been able to stretch its legs for a while.