Princess 2 - 14/12 Lotus ON

[Vulgalour]

A little job done today. Remember that Austin Morris J van badge I got? Turns out the profile of it is rubbish for the rear end but near perfect for the front grille. I set about modifying it to fit the grille rather than having it sat on a shelf in the house. First job is to wrap some lengths of wire around the original fixing pins which are much too short to go through the Princess grille. I didn't want to chop the grille about as it's in pretty good condition and I was happy enough with a dry fit that the badge would look at home sat on top of the grille rather than recessed into it. If I get another grille, this may change.


Then mixed up some milliput to fix the wires to the badge. This was also quite useful to create a step in the milliput that helps locate the badge snugly on the grille bars. The other advantage to milliput is that while it's quite strong and sticks to things well, it can be chipped off at a later date if I want to salvage the badge for any reason.


Finally, to decide on the location for the badge. First attempt I thought it sat a little high.


Moved it down a bar and now it sits just right. I'm pleased with this, in part because it has the barest hint of Marina about it. It will be easy to revert to stock if I want to at a later date. A straight front bumper and moving the number plate will help out further.


In other news, the Lotus alloys look like they're going on the car once I have the new tyres in my possession as it'll be cheaper to get them put on the car than the steels due to the fact they'll require no refurbishment to get new tyres to fit and seal properly. Happy days.

[Vulgalour]

Went to the very local Renishaw Hall Classic Car & Bike show a mere 3 miles from home the other day and had a thoroughly good day out in the Princess. As has been the case since MoT she's been flawless for all she doesn't look like she should be. I was delighted at how many smiles she put on peoples faces, people who remember owning one, working on them or being forced to have one back in the day. On the whole, they were cars remembered with affection for being surprisingly good and extremely comfortable in spite of the shortcomings. Top Gear was mentioned several times too, but that's hardly surprising really.

Some snaps were obviously got, the first two by Tone_depear from Motoscat.








If it's any consolation to the people parked next to me, I made their cars look far better than if they'd been parked next to each other.


Obviously, all this faultless running meant something was well overdue to go wrong and today something did.


At first I thought it was a blown head gasket or something because it had the look of white smoke and at first I couldn't smell anything from it. I knew I wasn't burning oil partly from the colour, but again from the lack of smell. After a while, I got a stronger smell of petrol coming through and it became clearer that the car seemed to be overfuelling somehow. Stuck my head under the bonnet to try and find the culprit and had a look at the carb again which I think is at fault somehow.

Driver's side is usually quite dry, today was no exception.


Passenger side tends to look like it's sweating a bit. Most of the dampness is around the pin for the float bowl and when it's wiped clean no more fluid appears. The other strange thing is that whatever it is leaking only smells partially of fuel and tends to have a yellowish stain to it. My best guess from the smell is that it's a mix of the ATF in the squelch pot and a small quantity of fuel, but I'm not sure how that could be happening if that is the case.


Turned the car off and had a think and a good poke around and then tried turning it on to see if there was any sudden emergence of problems at start up. Strangely, there was no leaking fluid and no smoke at all out of the exhaust and she ran clean and normally. I wasn't aware that the IT fix worked on cars. I'm guessing that it means I have to strip the carb down and rebuild it properly but it's such an intermittent fault I'm not really sure what's causing it.

[Vulgalour]

No picture updates, but after trekking out to the Oil Can Café earlier today I found I was getting a strange thrum through the pedal and occasional stutter at motorway speeds. By the time I'd reached the café, stopping for a check over of the car and finding nothing amiss, I noticed the rear driver's wheel nuts were quite warm. Turns out I seem to have a dragging brake rather than a bearing problem.

On the way back I got stuck in traffic caused by an incident on the M1, it had closed two lanes of the motorway. I didn't try and see what had happened as I'd rather not know but I did thank the traffic officers at the incident as I drove past because those men and women do an excellent job keeping the rest of us safe when things do go wrong, and it's the least I as a car driver can do to acknowledge their hard work. It was dismaying seeing so many people ignoring the info boards and not making use of the space I left in plenty of time for them to merge in front of me so when they tried to merge at the last possible minute I just blocked them out. While in the traffic the cabin did get quite toasty but the engine stayed a healthy half-gauge temperature and I didn't have need to put the heaters on to cool her down. In fact, the only problem had to be how sore my legs were after being stuck in crawling traffic for a good hour or so, one of the disadvantages of a car with power-nothing I suppose.

Anyway, once I got back I determined to finally sort out the rear brakes since I have the parts, the instructions and the tools. It all went very smoothly with help and advice from my elders in the art of stripping and rebuilding brake drums. Okay, so Dad nearly put a screwdriver through his hand and a rattle-preventer spring nearly took my eye out at one point, but other than that it was plain sailing.

Handbrake operation and the brakes themselves feel much better and less fuzzy than before so I'm looking forward to getting the other drum done tomorrow and later bleeding the brake system to bring them up to spec. Also managed to go 100 miles on £20 which comes out at roughly 30mpg for combined driving, which I think is much more respectable than the fuel economy I had been getting. Don't worry, I shan't be driving the Princess until I've done the other rear drum, the last thing I want is seriously imbalanced brakes!

[Vulgalour]

2nd July 2013
Time for an overdue Princess update, I think. What with my bandwidth getting exceeded on Photobucket, and then my PC imploding on itself, it's not the easiest thing to sort out. However, I'm borrowing a PC to make this and other posts and have my bandwidth back so we'll see how we go.

Unfortunately, I can't show you the door bottoms after stripping them back and digging out lots of filler as those pictures are stuck in my PC for the time being, but I can show you what it looks like after I've painted them with red oxide of the non-porous variety.


Surprisingly, the majority of the wobbles and bubbles in the paint was down to excessive application of filler and fibreglass, with the exception of the trailing corner of the driver's door, there's a lot of good metal and some good repairs to all four doors. Certainly, they don't need replacing they just need unpicking, cleaning and rebuilding. I'm off to a local fabricator to get a quote on these repairs who is willing to do the work fairly cheaply because I've done most of the prep and don't need him to paint it all when repaired as I can do that myself.

I did get one job done though. Since getting the car, the window regulator in the driver's door has had a couple of stripped teeth and didn't work properly. I finally had enough of it and had a stick welder to hand, this one in fact.


It's actually quite a good welder, but I think the best description I've heard is that "it's like trying to spoon hot butter into a badger's arse". After I'd built up enough good weld to have the rough shape of the teeth I started with masking tape templates to find out what needed building up more or not at all. Someone with more experience could have probably done this much faster, but I was on the whole enjoying the process.


Eventually, I had the rough shape and I used the masking tape on the unused part of the teeth to get a good template, transferred it to my welded patch and used the cutting disc to slot the valleys for the teeth.


Then it was a case of carefully reprofiling all the teeth until it worked again. Now the window goes up and down properly, I think one tooth is slightly wrongly profiled but not by enough to cause any hindrance to the regulator operation. The passenger window has started to show symptoms of stripping a tooth as well so I'll likely have to do that side eventually too.

Biggest problem with updating the blog on the Princess is that nothing is really going wrong to need fixing. I've got rid of handling issues with the suspension being sorted out, the brakes now work properly including the handbrake which is very good indeed. It's like having a totally different car to the one I picked up all those months ago and I've just been enjoying using her every day.

Annoyingly, I did get a parking ticket and while I did try to contest unfortunately the law means I was in the wrong without knowing it, so that's me £35 down on that one which I could do without.



There are some minor issues, it is an old car after all. My fuel guage, since getting the tank up to half full recently, decided that occasionally it should tell me I have no fuel and then be fine again. I'm guessing this is an earth or sender issue but I keep track of how much fuel has been put in and how many miles I should have so I'm not worrying too much. Twice, I've flicked the headlight switch and only had sidelights, but a dab of the brake pedal makes the switch work again. This is probably another earth problem but I can't replicate the fault to be able to reliably trace the issue. Back of the gearbox appears to be leaking a little bit of oil, it looks like the rubber grommet/bush that the lower selector rod goes into has worn. It's a difficult one to trace because everything is just covered in oil under there but I'm not losing a significant quantity to worry about it.

In good news, the clutch release bearing has gone quiet, and while the clutch is heavy it's not worryingly so. At the same time the CRB went quiet, so did the engine and she runs and sounds a lot smoother and quieter. The gearbox makes a healthy and pleasing Austin whine, the exhaust doesn't blow and the engine has that faint sort of chuffling noise that a healthy O series is blessed with. Overall, Princess ownership is a happy, happy thing. Just wish I had more money/better weather to get the cosmetics sorted to match the mechanical side of things.

Finally, the BX has gone due to terminal rot (sad times) and I've replaced it with a 29 year old soft top VW, because that's sensible...


5th July 2013
Bodyshops are sometimes quite frustrating with older cars. Since my brother and I had dropped his Rover off at one place - who ended up dicking him around and not doing the work - we visited a few other businesses to see if anyone would take the Princess doors on. The general opinion was that it wasn't worth it and they wouldn't touch it with a curse word stick which did take me by surprise a bit and I was all ready to go back to the DIY plan.

However, we went to see if the guy I'm buying the Golf from was about to organise some extra details for collection day and happened to get talking to the other businesses as said chap was out. One of the bodyshops works with one of the fabricators and after discussing what was needed and showing what I'd dug out of the doors and what needed repairing I finally got someone willing to do the work.

At first, they were unsure I'd be happy with the quote, I think a lot of people still think Princesses are 1990s money and owners don't want to spend the money on them. It was agreed that while only about the bottom 2" of the doors was damaged by rust, the bottom 6" were damaged by previous rust repairs and panel warp so that's what would need replacing. The fabricator on site was willing to make some door bottom skins for the bodyshop to use and they'll rebuild the inner frames and repair the skins on all four doors at £50 a door which I thought was quite reasonable.

I'll have to do the paint and finishing work, but that's good because I'd prefer to see the repair naked so I know what's been done properly. Each door will need to be removed from the car, stripped down and delivered to the bodyshop but that gives me the opportunity to sort things like the worn hinge pin on the driver's door and to get nice fresh paint on each door before they go back on the car.

Additionally, the work I'd already done on the front end was to my favour and the bodyshop guy said he could repair the damage on my front wing and make it look presentable for £120, all in and in primer ready for paint. Bearing in mind a replacement metal wing is usually £150 before fitting and paint I thought that was also very reasonable and was very happy. I didn't get a quote for the front valance, but he thinks it will be able to be straightened out a bit better and I'm guessing that'll be another £120-200 since it does need a fair bit of work to get right.

So £320 for all four doors and the damaged wing, plus paint and materials at about another £50 or so (painting the whole panel, rather than just the repairs) should see things shipshape and add value and extra life to the old girl. Just got to get sorting this Golf out the way first and then I can start sinking money into the Princess properly again.

[Vulgalour]

21st July 2013

I was asked why there haven't been any updates on my build thread and the simple fact of the matter is that there's been nothing to update with. In fact, the only incident I've had to report is that during the very hot weather the dash pot on the carb had got hotter than the engine and I was experiencing some vapour lock when setting off from car parks. To counteract this, I just need to park the car in the shade when the temperature is 30C or above. Now the weather has dropped to 25C and below I'm not getting any issues at all.

It seems unfair not to offer a visual update though, so I went for a bit of a jolly to see if I could find new things to put the Princess in front of and photograph. This is Staveley Hall, one time home to the Frecheville family but now just Council admin offices which is quite sad. I shan't bore you with a history lesson, but Staveley does have some interesting bits and pieces for those that might care to look, particularly Staveley Hall, the adjacent parish church and the Chantry on the High Street.


I'm just going to pretend this is my house for now.


The aforementioned church. Back in the '40s (if memory serves, might be a bit earlier) there was a big old greenhouse on this bit of lawn joined to the side of the hall. That's long gone now.




This is probably my favourite of the set.


Then I went to Poolsbrook Park which was created from waste land connected to the local collieries in the past few years. I've never been to this park for some reason, but it's really rather nice.


In it's day, the Princess was comparable in size to a Cortina, so it seems about right that it's comparable now to a Mondeo.




Didn't half get some funny looks though. I have a new annoying question from people that don't know what the car is: "Why'd you call your car 'Princess', what is it?", this is usually asked by the under-30 age group. Also, it is not an Ambassador, cretins.

31st July 2013
Recently I found that the Princess no longer does a measly 18mpg round town. I thought this was something I was just going to have to tolerate but no, recently I achieved:

26.1mpg

I'd say that's quite an improvement! Measured from full tank to full tank rather than previous miles and petrol consumed estimates.  I wasn't going all out for fuel saving with my driving or any of that, so I suspect with the tweaks to my own driving style and the regular maintenance and use of the car is to blame for this change. It's the only news I have, and it's not very exciting, but she's just become one of those cars of late.

1st August 2013

Hot weather + full tank of fuel + slight incline of the drive =




Bumhats. It's okay, I didn't want that paint anyway, or the underseal... Not gone back to bare metal thankfully but I've had to park the car on the flat at least until I use up some petrol as it's overflowing out of the filler neck when it gets really warm. But hey, I know the petrol tank doesn't leak if the fuel has expanded enough to come out the filler neck. I also know that if I'm going to keep it brimmed I have to be careful where I park on a hot day! So pleased I found out about this before the car got repainted fully.

[Vulgalour]

5-6th August 2013 (I was *very* tired when I made this post)

It's happened, I knew it would eventually, but it happened today: my gear selector has imploded. I think I've destroyed a roll pin or two.

Symptom leading up to this was a new and vague vibration/thrum through the steering wheel and gear lever but with no untoward handling or other issues so I had put it down to road surfaces since I couldn't find the cause. Managed to go about 30 miles before in traffic in Sheffield near the Wicker I lost first gear. Battled with the gearbox and got it back but found gear selection was tricky and sometimes impossible, it was fun driving through the middle of Sheffield with no reliable gear selection.

Got to the motorway, into fourth and just cruised along with the car happy enough. I thought that if I could just get myself to the RR meet there would be tools and help and knowledge to get me home. Left the motorway and had to stop rather quicker than I'd have liked on the approach to the roundabout when someone came round it rather quick, this seemed to jolt my gear lever in such a way that I had no gear selection at all. Luckily, the chap behind me and the one behind him who were stuck while I was without gears helped push the Princess out the way, checked I was okay and I eventually got first again.

Made it a few hundred yards before I had no gears yet again and pulled into a bus stop and called the cavalry to help as I was almost at the RR meet at this point and maybe they had tools or something. By the time they arrived we had a good poke around the car, checked my oil levels and diagnosed that the selector box or a roll pin or something had broken leading to almost impossible gear change. It was decided that we'd convoy to the meet in the hope of more tools and help.

Made it to the meet and made a start dismantling the centre console to find that it looks like I have got a ruined roll pin. Tightened what looks like a bodged wood screw and nut affair and tightened up the gear selection enough that I could just about select gears. Ran around taking a few belated photographs before everyone left and then left early so I could limp the 30 or so miles home down the M1. Couldn't hold reverse as the lever kept jumping out of its gate so navigating out of the car park was a feat of forward planning.

Made it home with my escort of a Montego and a BMW 5 series without incident and even managed to get snug to the curb on the first attempt to await repairs in the daytime. I'm going to have to remove the selector box and find out just what's broken, but I suspect it's one or more roll pins at fault in the selector box rather than anything at the gearbox end.

Sam took a picture while I had my head under the bonnet checking I hadn't spewed all my oil out everywhere since I wasn't sure what exactly had happened at this point.


6th August 2013 (this post made after a lovely, lovely sleep)

After my post last night/early this morning when I was *very* tired and over thinking the problem, I managed to sort things out today.

Yesterday at the RR meet I'd already removed the centre consoles and the draught excluder panel over the gear selector inside the car so I didn't have to do any of that. The other thing I'd done was have a look for anything obviously amiss and the only thing that looked out of place was a nut with a flat blade countersunk head screw through it going into the cup for the gear selector lever. I tightened this as much as I could at the time using whatever tools I could scavenge - the first time I've ever gone out without my usual mini in-car tool kit, as it happens - and it was enough to get me home which saved me making use of my AA membership.

Today, I could approach the problem with a fresh mind and some daylight. My Dad and I had already consulted the workshop manual and it looked likely that I'd have to remove the selector box and rebuild it with fresh roll pins. A less than ideal situation given that I'm due to be house hunting in a week or two at the top of the country and needed the Princess for that venture. With some trepidation I set to on a job that I expected to take forever and be impossible to supply parts for...

First, remove the weird screw-nut arrangement so that the bayonet fitting cap that keeps the return spring part of the gear lever mechanism under tension could be lifted free.


Here the gear lever is removed, the screw-nut refitted loosely to illustrate its location in the right hand side of the cup.  The nut slightly ahead of it with the wires attached is the reverse light switch.


This is the item in question. It looks like it was a screw that has had the pointy bit cut off.


With the gear lever removed you can see the groove that the screw should sit into on the half-sphere section.  Note also copious grey grease which makes my hands itch so copious hand washing really slowed me down on this job.  I doubt I could have done it with gloves on either because it's pretty fiddly stuff.



That was really the root of the problem. Since getting the car the gear selection has been pretty sloppy, with first being so far away from the driver that it wasn't uncommon for me to accidentally punch the passenger in the knee when selecting it. I knew something was wrong but could never pin point it so I think I was just waiting for it to break and that's what has happened. It looks like the screw thread was too short to properly engage with the gear selector rod groove and indeed when I mocked it up the thread barely protruded into the cup that holds the rod.

The solution was to either try and source an original part - tricky, because the workshop manual didn't even list this item and I wouldn't know what to ask for - or to recreate the bodge in a better, easier to service way. I took a trip to everyone's favourite motor factor and bought a bolt and some nuts of suitable size and thread and refitted them in place of the modified screw.


I suspect originally there was a different special pin in the casing to do the job of the bolt, the bayonet fit cup won't go over the thread of the bolt so you have to carefully line it all up and put the bolt through which is quite secure, but fiddly. The two nuts act both as spacers and to lock the bolt in place and with it all being stainless steel it should last a good long while.

What was surprising is how much the gear change has now tightened up. I didn't tighten the bolt all the way, I just went far enough for it to just nipped it up without excessive force. At first I thought I'd done something wrong because it felt like I only had first and second but a test drive for a couple of miles demonstrated a gear change that was light, easy and close gated. This is a far cry from the pudding stirring affair I've put up with for a year and a half and something I wish I'd done a long time ago! Reverse is a little harder to select but doesn't jump out and the car doesn't stall so readily.

More surprising still was the elimination of a very faint wobble/thrum/vibration through the steering wheel and gear lever that I couldn't locate, seemingly a result of this one bolt being tightened up. Cost of repair was about £2 and I didn't have to make use of my AA card.

Next job I want to do is get the suspension reset because I think she sits too low at the back or too high at the front or both, probably because there wasn't enough weight in the boot when I got it done the first time. I'm not experiencing any handling or comfort issues as she currently sits, but I'm aware she's not quite right.

[Vulgalour]

7th August 2013
Looks like the neighbourhood vandal has taken to letting my tyres down now, which is nice of them... yet another thing to check every time I want to go anywhere, oh what fun I'm having living here ¬.¬

Anyway, in happier news, when I got that bolt to sort out the gear selection I also picked up a can of beige paint. Happily, Halfords had Champagne Beige in stock this time, though the Sandalwood Beige (which they were out of this time) is actually a better match for what's on the car. I wasn't going for a superb finish, I just wanted to get rid of the red oxide tidemark which was pretty unsightly and made the car look worse than it actually is.

Of all the doors, the driver's front is the worst and the passenger's front is the best. I've almost saved up enough to get the driver's door repaired and I might be able to get away with a thin skim of filler and a little bit of panel manipulation on the good passenger front door. The two rear doors are in pretty much the same shape. The little bobbles in the paint are from the red oxide I brushed on rather than panel damage or rust, this really isn't up to my usual standards but tbh I haven't had the time or funds to do it right just lately.


If I had more funds available and more time I'd obviously be getting the purple done, but cosmetic niceness is a massively low priority. I keep the car clean and healthy, to me that's of much more importance than shiny paint. The beige on the doors is really just to make me feel a bit better about the car and to make her look more loved than she did with red oxide door bottoms.

[Vulgalour]

Another day, another job. Today I wanted to try and find out if it was possible to put the seat base adjuster on the passenger seat so both front seats ended up as comfortable as possible.

First up I removed and then skinned the old driver's seat which was saggy and pretty knackered. It was only when I got the cover off after removing 2 rivets, 3 screws and a bajillion trim clips that the state of the foam was revealed which was pretty darned flat. The flat foam combined with a saggy base means the seat is well past its prime. I have salvaged the cover to take a pattern from and the handles and lever that would come off so that I can reuse those if I need to in the future but the rest of the seat is past it so in the bin it goes.

I also kept the easy-on plastic sheeting. It's why the top of the seats rustle, I had wondered, but it really does make putting the covers on a lot easier. I'll probably retain them when I retrim the seats or replace them with something like a nylon or satin cover that does the same thing but without the rustling.



Once I'd investigated just how the seat halves went together I could determine that the only way to split the seat halves and get to the adjuster would be to grind out some rivets and replace with fresh. The seats are surprisingly well made but annoyingly aren't particularly modular. I was hoping there'd be an easy RHD to LHD set up hiding inside but there isn't, BL must have gone to the effort of making special LHD seats. Instead, I thought I might be able to just drop the drivers seat in on the passenger side, the bolts and frames are interchangeable but I wasn't sure if the levers would clear the centre console.




The seat back adjuster clears, it's snug but usable, but the one bit I wanted to make use of fouls the centre console and is too close to the tunnel to even work without the console trim being there. Big fat no, which is a shame. Instead I dropped my spare and much better condition passenger seat in and my passengers will just have to put up with regular Princess comfort.

I'm hoping to turn the seat I removed from the car into a computer chair, probably bolting it to a wooden frame or something, should be cheaper and more comfortable than buying a modern office chair and much more me. The spare rear seat I've got is going to have the covers removed to take patterns from and the innards ditched because they're no better than my current rear bench. Then I can dismantle the quite straight forward covers, price up fabric and make a start on the interior retrim once I've found materials I actually like. I'm undecided whether or not I'm going with full ivory seats or if I'm just going to replace the brushed nylon facings - which you can still get new by the metre, though I don't know why you would want to - with some HLS quality velour. Certainly just replacing the fabric facings will mean I get a much more factory look than if I replace the vinyl sections with their stamped in mouldings. There are some good vinyl paints on the market now, but I'm not sure I want to go that route with my vinyl. Part of me wants to go all out 70s custom car on the interior and part of me wants to do a sensible grown up renovation in keeping with factory finish but tweaked to my own tastes... I'll probably go for the latter, though there's really not much difference in cost or time involved.

In other news, I can get my original radio modernised without compromising its good looks. This makes me very happy as there's only so much BBC 4 and Absolute Radio I can tolerate on even a short journey and having the ability to put my own tunes through the speakers is very appealing, even more so if it doesn't mean butchering the dashboard. I'll also be reinstating the PYE cased Lexus speakers onto the rear parcel shelf in the near future and I'd like to sort out my PYE tape deck, though I suspect I'll have to turn it into some sort of storage box because I can't get it to work properly for very long and I think it's probably dead.

[Vulgalour]

When is a car not a car? When it's a removal van. Recently, my brother had to move house and for various reasons found himself with little time to do so and no van and no means to obtain a van at such short notice. Therefore we made use of the Princess in place of a van by putting the roof rack on and removing the seats. It really was quite remarkable just what would fit and how well behaved she was even when fully loaded.

She'd carry farmhouse solid pine tables and dining chairs.




Dad's Omega was roped in along with Dad's trailer so we could move the white goods. Yes, this was as precarious a load as it looked but judicious use of route planning and ratchet strap meant we were not a danger to anyone.


It was an ill planned affair, so it was well into the night that we were still packing and moving stuff. Dad had to call it quits really early on, he was having a bad day with his back injury and even driving was too much in the end so it was down to me, my brother and his best mate. We plodded on with the Princess and his BMW with the trailer attached. Amazingly, we managed to get this 32" CRT telly in the Princess.


Loaded up all the ungainly bulky stuff into the Princess since it wouldn't go in the BMW.


It was astonishing how much baby and toddler paraphenalia was eaten up by the capacious boot, even with the awkward opening. Truly a worthy machine for the job.


The last load the BMW had to take was a heavy one, we all cursed getting that drinks cabinet out of the house, one of the few things I've managed to cling onto since my whole world went upside down earlier this year and which is lodging with my brother at his new place.


We finally finished at 5am, we were all exhausted but I really hope it was worth the effort. The house my brother and his young family have moved into is really nice, far nicer than the properties they've been forced to live in over the past few years, it's about time they got some good fortune on that score. The Princess performed flawlessy throughout and was surprisingly well composed when loaded to the gunwales. The suspension even feels healthier for the workout.

In fact, there were only two mishaps. The first was my front number plate falling off, which fortunately was found just outside my brother's new house and is now screwed back on to the valance. The second mishap was when my bumper touched the very low and virtually invisible brick wall at the side of the new house's driveway but no real harm done.

I treated the Princess to a full clean and polish for her endeavours and fitted the replacement rear seat I have. By fluke I also located the rear seat belt mounting points when the rear seat was removed and since I've got some three point belts left over from the Golf, I'm hoping to fit those so my rear seat passengers feel and are safer. Tomorrow, I'm off to get started on a house hunt in the North East which will mean a slog up the motorway in the plush surroundings of my funny old car. Hopefully it will be the first step towards making a fresh start and getting on with my life.

[Vulgalour]

Here we go, it's update time. Today being Sunday means I get a day off, whether I like it or not. That started with an excellent trip to Goats on the Roof which is a lovely restaurant specialising in rare breeds and has, sometimes, goats on the roof. Today it did not have goats on the roof because they were being lazy and spending time on the floor. We also didn't get special breed related noms because they were having a day of it what with the card machine not working and the generator having packed up... they're in the middle of nowhere really, it's a beautiful location. However, we did enjoy delicious home made brownies and a mug of coffee and the scenery alone made it worth the trek. Here's a picture of one of their resident Bagot goats. You can find them here: http://www.goatsontheroof.co.uk



So that has nothing to do with the Princess really, but I like to share little things like that I find out on my trips even if this particular trip was done in Mike's Honda with the recently fitted Centra alloys. Here's a picture of that too.


Princess pictures? Yeah, sure, here we go then. I mentioned previously I didn't have any shots of what I took out of the door bottoms to find out how rotten they were so let's start with that. Winding the clock back a bit too, but there was a bit more filler and fibreglass than I'd expected hiding in them. I decided to go in a bit heavy handed, if I'm honest, and just crack on with the flap wheel. I very quickly disappeared in a cloud of filler.


The driver's door did have some corrosion as expected, but nowhere near as severe as anticipated.


In fact, much of the additional rust was being helped by the panel being stuffed with fibreglass resin and trapping moisture. Took a while to dig it all out but the metal is actually pretty sound.


I buzzed along the bottom of both doors and over the arch curve just to get rid of the filler. The rust itself was so minimal that it was barely worth mentioning.


Evidence of brazing in the rear driver's side door which has got to be a fairly ancient repair.


There was also evidence of previous repairs to all of the doors that were neat enough but excessively filled. With some care these can all be saved fairly easily.


As you know already, I ran the car around for a while with some ugly red oxide over the bare metal until I got a can of beige that didn't match properly to tidy things up. But the above is from back in June when I dug all the rot causing stuff out in readiness for repairs I've not yet got around to undertaking. So on to today's undertakings now I have a moment to sit and write about them.

The spare interior I snaffled at Brooklands was nice and while the fabric had less sun damage and wear it did have some storage damage, unfortunately. I hadn't got around to sorting this out until this afternoon, but was fortunate enough to find a bobbin of thread in a nearly perfect shade of brown so I could effect a temporary bit of stitching on the worst bits of the fabric. I'm going to be retrimming anyway, but there's no harm in spending a couple of minutes just to make things look presentable and prevent the seats from getting any worse.

The worst bit was a tear on the passenger seat base. A quick bit of Dr Frankenstein style stitching saw it at least all brown instead of peeling back to reveal the white fabric that protects the scrim foam layer.



Likewise on the seat back there's some little holes and a little more stitching saw them cosmetically neater. The driver's seat had the same damage and had already been treated to the same temporary solution. For some reason this picture came out very yellow.


Driver's side headlight surround was fixed before I made the 120 mile trek up here with a zip tie we had in the kitchen drawer of Stuff. Looks far neater and less crashy.


I was also asked about the purple paint and how it was holding up. It does need more work, but for an unfinished panel it's holding up remarkably well. Bear in mind I washed this panel 7 days and 120 miles ago, and the car has been parked outside. In person it looks cleaner and smoother than the beige paint. There's no bloom or fade and when it's been washed and polished normally it comes up like new again and stays clean longer than whatever the rest of the car is repainted in.




To sign off this update, here's a picture of the car in front of another old semi-detached house because these are the pictures I like to take. Actually, one more thing; the purple wing mirrors are great and I like them, they're better in most circumstances than the original door mirrors, but I wish they sat higher. With that in mind I've bought a new pair (as in actually new, which is rare for me) of wing mirrors on stalks that I really hope work. They're a bit of a gamble and they might look appalling but equally they could be one of the best decisions I've made so far.