1980 Austin Princess mild custom - 1951 Lanchester LD10

I'm not, but if anyone out there is hunting for one they know where to find it. Would be much too much work to put bumpers back on now.

It'd be nice to just hoover all the wedge stuff up so I can be certain of parts supply. I'd love to be the sort of rich weirdo that just runs a business restoring wedges, buying all the parts, and not worrying about any sort of profitability.

Good news! I finally found someone supplying valve shims that are suitable for the Princess.

Purely by chance I ended up reading an American forum where they were discussing using Jaguar parts to fix Triumphs and someone mentioned that Stags take the same 5/8" shims as most British cars from the period. That somehow sparked a connection in my brain and I measured the Princess shims which I'd done in metric up until now, and sure enough they're 5/8". Sent a message to Robsport International who I also found by accident coincidentally with the forum post and they confirmed the measurements and have a huge range of sizes available.

Sometimes you just need to know what question to ask and while I had looked at Triumph shims previously, they weren't the correct size because I was looking at the wrong Triumphs.

That means tomorrow, weather permitting, I'm pulling the cambox apart and disabling the Princess so I can measure the shims, work out what size I need, and get an order in. Worst case I need to buy 8 shims and at £2-3 each that's still not terrible. I suspect I actually only need one or two since it was only one I was struggling to get when I last did them and it has quietened down a lot over the last couple of hundred miles.

If it turns out the ones I've ordered are wrong and Robsport don't have the size I need, I'll check out Burton. They had come up in my searches but I couldn't confirm the shim diameter and Robsport got back to me first.

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I've now disabled the Princess. On measuring the valve clearances, six out of the eight were the same, which is good and reinforces what my ears were telling me that it sounded like one or two were off. Turns out two of the clearances were a bit smaller, on valve 2 and 7 (counting left to right, looking at the front of the engine) so those were the ones I need shims for. Did all the number things, several times because I'm terrible with maths, and made use of online valve clearance calculators which honestly took so much stress out of the process for me!

Have ordered two shims, and am hoping that's what I need. If not I re-measure and try again. Made me feel a bit better about the health of the engine too, I've been worried about the rattle but given how clean everything looked inside, and how close the clearances are to one another I think I've perhaps been suffering from an abundance of caution on this one.

Still, it'll be nice to have the car back to sounding less rattly, the O series should be a nice quiet engine really so you can hear the wonderful noises the gearbox makes.

Yesterday the new shims arrived and I got to work on putting the engine back together. I installed both, measured the gaps, and found that what I'm calling #7 actually needed the original shim putting back in to get the gap correct. I've now got 0.30 gap on 7 out of 8 which is great. Unfortunately, #2 is just above tolerance of 0.20 so I need to work out what size shim I need for that, take it all apart, and do it again.

A friend with more engine experience than me did tell me that this is normal. When you replace the shims sometimes the size you think you need isn't actually the right size and you need to try out shims slightly thicker or thinner until you find the right one. Changing one shim can alter the gap on another for reasons I don't actually understand.

I did have a bit of a moment with the job where I was very worried I'd completely fudged it. As I put everything back together I cranked the engine by hand to check for tight spots and be sure I hadn't mucked up the timing somehow and all seemed well. One last hand crank to make sure it was good and it felt okay, I'd got compression where expected, nothing felt like it was binding or amiss so it was time to turn the key.

Quick flick and a listen, all seemed fine.

Second turn of the key to try and start it and something was wrong. There was a hard spot in the rotation, as though something was binding. This was very concerning. I'd not kept an eye on the time either and had gone into too-hungry-to-focus territory without realising it and was about to throw all my toys out the pram... took a step back and left it alone to have some pizza.

Came back with a full tum and refreshed brain and had a think. Tried turning it by hand and I could hear compression where expected, but there was definitely a tight spot. Checked the cambelt hadn't jumped a tooth (it's done that to me before, totally randomly) and it was fine. Distributor seemed okay. So I felt like I probably hadn't smashed all the valves into the shims.

Went through the process in my head of what needed to come apart to investigate. First thing was the camshaft end plate and that reminded me the last time there was a binding issue was when I hadn't put a gasket in there, leading to me smashing all the valves into all the pistons. Eureka moment had because I had made a new gasket since the old one tore on removal (and it's good practice to replace it anyway). Took the end plate off and sure enough, there was a problem. I'd cut the top hole in the gasket just a bit undersized and there was a witness mark where the camshaft end had been rubbing on it. Opened out the hole a bit larger than the witness mark and put the plate back on with the adjusted gasket then turned by hand. No more tight binding! Gave it a few more rotations by hand to be sure and then tried turning the key again.

No start. It was behaving like the plugs were out of order, which was something I did know they weren't since I'd very sensibly labelled everything and could easily check my work. Knew the timing belt was correctly positioned to so that meant it had to be the distributor at fault if it was an ignition issue.

Sure enough, I'd put the distributor in on the wrong timing mark. Pulled it out, repositioned it, and hand crank again just to be extra safe. All systems appeared okay. Turned the key and hey presto it ran! What a relief.

It's a lot quieter, not as quiet as I'd like as I still have that one shim to adjust. I had to tweak the distributor a tiny bit to correct the advance/retard from where it was before (I'd marked it so I knew where it should sit to avoid guessing), and then we were good to go for a test drive. Quick whizz around the block far enough to get it up to temperature and I was pleasantly surprised at how much nicer it drives, much more like its old self.

Now I just need to order another shim and have another go at that noisy one. I don't really want to, unlike a pushrod engine to make any kind of valve adjustment on this one it involves a lot of dismantling and nonsense I can't be doing with so since things are within tolerance it can wait for now and I can get on with something else, like welding the jacking point I have the parts for now.

Ford panther black is always a winner for interesting black metallic.

How about Honda Pirate Black, or Subaru Ebony Mica for interesting blacks??

Paint samples of Nissan Cerise and Peugeot Raven Black have been ordered... more on that in the future.

In the meantime, a set of Rover P6 wheel trims turned up super cheap so I snagged those since I like options. They need a refurb, as most things I get do. However, they are also stainless steel so rust is not a concern, and unlike the big chrome trims they don't obscure the valve stem so I can actually do my tyre pressures without removing my wheel trims now.


I wasn't entirely sure the P6 trims would fit, rear wheel drive trims don't always fit front wheel drive wheels. Happily they do fit. I'd been warned P6 trims can be a bear to fit and these were no different, requiring application of a rubber mallet to get the spring-grips to seat fully. Once on, they don't show any signs of wanting to come off on their own. I do like that these mirror some of the design elements in the rear lights and when the Rover badges are removed from them, the stainless polished, and the painted bits redone I think they'll look a lot better.




I've got some gold BL plughole centre caps I intend to fit in place of the battered Rover centre badges and I think if my steel wheels were a colour - probably copper to match the bits in the engine bay and the coachstripe I'm thinking of having on the car, or hot pink to match the bodywork - they'd look better and make the wheel look bigger. I don't love the P6 trims yet, but I don't hate them either.

Quite an improvement. Would look even better if you could get hold of some stainless rim embellishers as well...