1980 Austin Princess mild custom - 1951 Lanchester LD10

Sad to read, is there any behavioral tricks/training the rescue centre can to to rectify this?
I must admit I don't trust GS dogs, having been attacked by two in my life, give me a soppy Labrador every time.

The environment of the rescue centre isn't conducive to training him out of the issue and besides, he'd made up his mind I was a problem. It happens sometimes. We don't know his reasons beyond possibly pack heirarchy and jealousy, which can be an issue with GSDs. Because he'd been so friendly with me and basically my shadow, the turn was very unexpected. That unpredictability is what made him dangerous, he's the only dog I've owned that I've felt unsafe in my own home with. He never got as far as attacking me because I managed to get out of the situation but there's no guarantee I could the next time if there was one.

We chalk this one up to experience, and process the grief. We try again in the future. As for labradors, I'm allergic to them for some reason so I can't have one of those, and I've always found girldogs harder to train and live with than boydogs.

With Max we went with what we knew and sadly it didn't work out. That's the gamble you take. The really sad thing is that we'd just started introducing him to people and letting people know we had a dog, including putting his name on seasonal cards (because Pat and I are both soppy gits) and now we're going to have to keep facing the loss every time someone asks about him. It's going to be a tough time for both of us, losing a pet is never easy.

In other news...

Sorry to hear about the dog. It’s amazing how quickly we get invested. Some dogs however, no matter what your intentions or experience, just have a past that renders them unsuitable for life as a pet.

We’ve always had dogs, and have had several German Shepherds over the years, most of them rescues, but they’ve never really been my first choice. Our current hound is the only one that I have chosen as an adult experienced dog owner and had from a pup. She’s a Springer/Cocker spaniel cross. She is simply the most obedient, biddable, trustworthy and devoted companion I have ever had in nearly fifty years of life with dogs.

You know, that's a weird description and also pretty close to the smell it was making, with overtones of carbon and a hint of varnish. Something to do with the ethanol content maybe?

Sad news indeed, but, at least you tried.

Words and pictures time on the latest Princess video. Not bothering for the Griswold Special since that's a tiny video and it won't cost much of your time to give it a watch.

I have been putting this job off because I hate working on engines and there's every chance that what's wrong is going to be difficult and expensive to put right. Alternatively, it might be something simple and I could've fixed it ages ago when the weather was nicer. I chose to drive the Maestro instead of thinking about it too much, but when the Maestro started shedding wheel arches faster than I could weld them back on, I begrudgingly set to on the Princess. Look how happy I am to be doing this wretched job.


We begin by consulting The Book. My manual fell apart years ago and I carefully dismantled it and put it into A4 ringbinder folders so now it's a mostly wipe clean reference.


The manual helps as a guide for what needs to come off and what doesn't. Follow it step-by-step and it takes longer to do the job, instead make your own method up. First thing, pull off the belt cover. The little conical rubber grommet things I had been told years ago were impossible to find when in fact you can use classic Mini heater cable grommets, which are part number CAM5969. They're cheap and plentiful, so if you've got a rattly cam cover on your O-series, that's the thing you need to stop it.


That off, you can then rotate the engine. Don't do as I do, do as I say here, and remove the spark plugs. It makes life a lot easier. However, since I'd lost a good bit of compression in one cylinder it wasn't too difficult. I haven't got anything I can turn the crankshaft pulley with so I do it on the camshaft which, over the ten years I've owned this car and the many times I've had to do this job, has so far not been an issue. Your mileage may vary. What you're aiming to do here is line up the dimple in the camshaft pulley with the hole stamped in the cover bracket. You also want the pointer to line up with the relevant location on the crankshaft pulley, but I didn't film or photograph that. Suffice to say, if you've got the book it tells you how to do it. This sets the engine to the right point to make it safe to pull everything apart. (It's not actually aligned here, but it was when I did the belt).




Then, remove the carburettor. You can remove all the bits separately, but don't, you're wasting your time. Instead undo the four bolts that hold it all to the exhaust manifold because that's easier. The aluminium heat shield on my car is non-standard, the original fibreboard thing fell apart years ago and I was getting proper heat soak issues, so I fabricated this aluminium one which solved the problem very nicely.


If you opt not to remove the dashpot on the carburettor - and I opted not to because I don't want to accidentally bend the needle - then you need to slacken off all four bolts to slide the assembly back on the manifold studs before you can get all of them undone, because the dashpot housing fouls one of the nuts. This is a common theme on this engine and one thing I hate about working on it.




The manual would have you disconnect the exhaust from the manifold. Do not do this. Instead, unbolt the manifold from the head. It's a little more work now but you won't have a blowing exhaust that refuses to seal later if you do it this way. Trust me, I've been there so many times. Mini and Maxi owners will also know this pain. I even have upgraded cast brackets on this car instead of the useless pressed metal ones it originally had and they're such a nightmare to get aligned and sealed nicely that I've vowed to only disturb them in emergency situations, and even then only if there's absolutely no other workaround.


With the manifold unbolted, it offers no obstruction to the head at all. Reinstalling it is a bit fiddly, you have to thread a bolt through the manifold and the manifold gasket at each end (ideally one at a time) to get things lined up with the head, but once you've done that it's pretty plain sailing. Do all the bolts up most of the way before fully tightening, this then allows a bit of wiggle room if you need it for alignment, especially useful since some of the bolts have to be done by feel.


You will now believe you are ready to remove the head. Drain the coolant and undo the bolts in the proper spiral pattern and set them aside for reassembly.


Except for the one that fouls on the distributor casing meaning you have to remove the distributor.


Mark the distributor casing and the cam cover so you've a rough guide for where the timing needs to be set on reassembly, this saves a good bit of time later and the marker pen is easily removed for a nice clean finish afterwards.


Happily, being aluminium, the head weighs almost nothing and it wasn't even a little bit stuck having been done not very long ago.


Then be very confused that there's absolutely no obvious sign of failure anywhere. Even though you've checked the torques a bazillion times, used brand new parts, cleaned things to within an inch of their life, had the head pressure tested and skimmed properly... there's no obvious cause for failure in here.




In fact, the only thing slightly amiss is that the affected corner of the gasket looks ever so slightly shrunken compared to what it should be. Whether that's the actual failure, or a symptom of the engine running with the gasket failed, I'll never know. Suffice to say it's sort of a good thing there's nothing obviously wrong and sort of a bad thing that there's no smoking gun. Oh well, get it cleaned up and reassembled I guess.




I did put a metal rule across the surfaces and look for any obvious deviations on head and block surfaces and found none. I'm aware that's not a perfect solution, nor to engineering tolerances, but it would highlight if there was a bad spot somewhere. Fact is, it all seemed fine. The only issue was some powdery corrosion that wiped off without leaving any visible pitting on the affected end of the head surface and similar powdery corrosion on the head gasket. Not enough to be a concern, and likely due to water leaking past the gasket and getting stuck there since it literally wiped off with a finger. Next, dig out the spare head gaskets (yes, I keep multiple in stock). First one I dug out was a NOS item from a supplier I don't normally use. It had to go in the bin. I don't even remember who the supplier was of this one and I don't think I can blame them since it looked fine from the visible side in the packet, it had rusted on the carboard side of the packaging which must have got damp at some point.




My other gasket was a full set from www.angclassiccarparts.co.uk who I've used many times over the years and who have never let me down. It also gave me a new manifold gasket to use which would be handy since I damaged the old one when I fumbled it with cold-numbed hands.


Fit the nice new gasket which did feel substantially better than the one I removed, and torque everything according to the book.


Refit the spark plugs...


...and the manifold and carburettor assembly...


... coolant caps, pipes, and any other odds and sods.


Then give up for the day because the sun is speeding towards the horizon, it's frickin cold, you can't feel your fingers, and you're desperately in need of a cup of tea. The rest can happen another day (and it did, more on that in the future). Look how happy I am to have been working on an engine. Positively delighted about it.


Ah well, it's done for this update. Next update we'll get the rest on and see about getting it running.

Let's fix the Princess.

Good. Hopefully just a faulty gasket.