1980 Austin Princess mild custom - 1951 Lanchester LD10

Had a brief bit of spare time to do some pressure washing on the front of the donor car so that I could see the fixings for the components. Previously, this was mostly just lumps of ancient grease.


The grease will hopefully have helped preserve the fixings and we might stand a chance of undoing things. Hopefully it means components aren't too badly worn either since it suggests someone was at least greasing things regularly, if messily.


The components are very tightly packed in, I'm not expecting disassembly to be much fun because a lot of it looks like it's going to be spanners only due to access.




These two bolts in the front crossmember were totally invisible until I got the scrapers, screwdriver, and pressure washer on them. Seems to have kept the rust at bay, so that's something, and this is one of the few bits I can probably get a socket on.


Later this week/end I'm hoping to start disassembling all of this. I'm not sure what order to approach it in, nor how I'm going to deal with the front springs since I don't think my compressors will fit them. We shall see what happens, it's going to be a learning experience.

Today after work I got the front wheels off. Happily, the wheel nuts came undone quite easily, with one on each wheel being tighter than the rest, presumably these were the ones sat in the mud.


With it up on stands the suspension droops a lot more than expected and gives much better access to the springs so I should be able to get my compressors on there after all.


One thing I hadn't realised is that there is no antiroll bar or links fitted to the donor car. Presumably a previous owner removed them along with a few other things - front apron, both bumpers, driver's seat, gearbox, radiator - that didn't come with the car. With the front wheels off I can see better how everything goes together and have a slightly better idea of how to dismantle things. It will be interesting to get a look inside the brakes and possibly swap some parts over there. On KKV222 one of the front driver's side wheel studs comes out with the wheel nut, which isn't at all ideal, but the studs on the donor behave normally so that should solve a problem we have there that might otherwise have been a bit difficult to resolve.

Front wheels look in reasonable shape too so hopefully they will restore nicely. As I've been cycling parts through the oxalic acid I have learned that three of the four hub caps are probably re-chromable, and the water pump is complete and rebuildable. The former is unlikely to happen for quite some time, I'll just be sure to store the hubcaps better so they don't degrade further. The latter is going to be a little project for me to undertake once the donor remains are disposed of since I don't want to start more projects before completing existing ones if I can at all help it.

I'll continue chipping away at what I can as time permits.

I wasn't sure if that would be safe, I don't know what sort of tension they're under even though they look pretty soft.

Put some rope through the coils & around the chassis for good measure.

Re: chromed things storage- lanolin. Cover everything in it. It'll preserve the remaining chrome nicely.

I've been nibbling away at dismantling as time permits this week and have made a bit of progress.


As you can see, some of the driver's side suspension is now off. Since I'm not sure of the proper process, I've just gone for what appears to make most sense and see where it takes me. First up was grinding what remained of the bolt heads holding down the brake cable plate, this was tricky because the steering column and box are still attached. I normally wouldn't resort to grinding bolt heads off but in this case it was necessary since the heads were closer in shape to pyramids than hexagons. I then unbolted the lever arm suspension damper thingy which, amazingly, just unbolted from the car. Minor disassembly issue in that one of the bolts can't actually be removed without removing the steering box so I guess the steering box went on after the suspension originally.


I wasn't sure how I was going to unbolt the suspension piece from the droplink at first. Turns out it wasn't a problem because the rubber bush was so badly degraded the components simply fell off. I imagine normally there's some resistance with this part. That done attention turned to the lower bolt that holds the hub to the lower arm. I had hoped this would just unbolt since it looked in reasonable shape, however it quickly became apparent the only way it was parting company was with the help of an angle grinder so I did just that. With a jack under the arm and a little help from Pat to put some downward pressure on things as I knocked the stub of the chopped off bolt through, I then released the jack and let the pressure from the spring gently lower it. No need for spring compressors, happily, just a bit of patience as the spring pushed the lower arm out of the way and could then be lifted out safely.


I set aside the rubber bushes that locate the bottom of the hub in the arm just in case I need those in the future for reference or use if they're still okay. I had hoped to then remove the lower arm since it's now only held in with a bolt that goes through the crossmember. Unfortunately, the bolt is completely stuck in the bushing and I can't get it to let go. The nut did come undone really easily. I'm assuming there's a rubber bush inside that's binding everything up, it's not a problem for now.


Once that's out the only thing that looks to be holding this hub on is the through bolt at the bulkhead end that goes through the chassis and the long arm. I made an attempt to undo this on my own but I think this is a two person job so that you can get a decent amount of force on each tool used.


All done, a few pieces liberated One front spring, a lever arm shock absorber thing, droplink, brake cable guide plate, bulkhead wiring harness clamp, a couple of bushes, and one of the radiator stays since I was fed up of it poking me in the head.

Pat and I got the front and rear screens out today and discovered quite a lot of rot.


The rear screen is afflicted with woodworm in the frame. What was rather concerning is that after removing the glass we realised that some of the body was moving independently of the rest of the body even though it should be bolted to the chassis still. We knew we would probably have to break the body down, there's literally no market for it and it needs such extensive repair work to the metal and the wood that one has to accept when a thing is used up. I carefully marked out the cuts I'd make to remove the rear quarters in as whole a section as I could with minimal cutting and made a start, only to have the car begin to dismantle itself part way through the process.


That would explain the bodywork movement. Quite a lot of the rear arch framework is totally rotten and where it isn't rotten, it's riddled with woodworm, and where it isn't riddled with woodworm or rotten it is simply gone. I ended up mostly removing the rear quarters with hand and very little in the way of force, given how fragile the state of things were it's a surprise the car actually made it all the way from Burton to Kent in one piece.




So much for salvaging a frame cut to help repair ours in the future where I've been dealing with the woodworm. With the quarters off the body was still technically bolted to the chassis, you just wouldn't know it from how much it was now wobbling about. Another long discussion was had about what to do with the rest of it. There's no way restoration was viable, the roof had woodworm in the frame and being aluminimium wasn't really desireable amongst the classic modifying community and wasn't even of use as a donor panel. The value in the roof was definitely the outer skin, most of which I'll salvage and store for future use. The wooden frame is little more than firewood. So off it came.


I wasn't at all keen on doing this. I know we're restoring one and I know this one is too far gone to save, it just doesn't make it feel any better chopping up what is a very rare car. The only consolation is that parts saved from this one that might otherwise have been scrapped will go one to help at least one more survive.


I ran out of time and energy to deal with the bolts holding the B pillars to the car, that's 8 bolts that are definitely going to be seized solid and need the heads grinding off, I just didn't have it in me to do it today. The rot has even got into the very sturdy angle iron support that holds the intermediary boot floor. On this car it has all the consistency of melted cheese.


The pile of dirt, rust, and wood dust is growing beneath the car. Every time we do anything on it more falls off and the rot holes grow larger. There's still more to remove like the wiper motor assembly, all of the running gear, and even the battery box. Not having the bulk of the body on the car is going to make removing what's left a lot easier and I think we'll end up chopping off the remains of the steel body from the chassis to aid in clean up and dissassembly.

The frame still looks moderately sound. Would that be salvageable?

US English frame = UK English chassis.