Vulgalour's Vehicles - 10/03 Ignition Switch Woe

[vulgalour]

Today my Dad and I trekked over to Yorkshire to pick up some valuable spare parts. The donor in question was this phase 1 '77 Princess 2200 which originally was brazil metallic, a lovely purplish-brown with a gold fleck to the metallic. Or at least it was lovely once upon a time but had since been repainted lilac-brown with a 4" emulsion brush and the roof was painted a combination of silver, white and olive drab. The whole thing was rotten from nose to tail, there wasn't anything in the way of bodywork I could use at all. The interior was much the same with a dead carpet, worn out seats and a great deal of sun and water damage. The brown dash and centre console were tempting as was the early brown steering wheel but my funds would only stretch so far and, sadly, it wasn't quite that far.


Never mind, the main thing I wanted was a displacer but as it happens it was easier to drop the whole rear axle. Some well placed bolt cutter action saw the axle removed complete with 2 healthy looking spheres, complete hubs and cross tube. This will probably turn out to be something of a boon as it'll mean I can more easily refurbish the axle before refitting it to the car and it gives me some great spares to add to my growing stockpile. It's not an easy thing to lug about on your own, but I managed it with a little trolley and someone to help guide it to a safe place to let the fluid drain out before I can get on with properly stripping this down. Axle looks to be in reasonable condition and the car itself had obvious signs of plenty of mechanical work being done to keep it in good health, sadly the same could not be said to be true for the interior or bodywork.


What I was pleased with, and what ultimately cleared my bank account out, was the wealth of spares I did secure from the car. I would have liked to have taken the front and rear screens, bumpers, tow bar, light units, steering wheel and interior brown plastics but both my funds and the time were limited so I spent an hour or so collecting this little lot.


It's difficult to tell what's there, so here's the rundown:
Towing mirror - fits on the driver's door of the HLS as a temporary solution
Full boot carpetting - not all original, but matches well enough
Rear light lens interior covers - both cars sorted now
Interior sunvisors and catches - ideal for the HLS, if incorrect for the year
Pair of complete sidelight/indicator units - very useful spares
Driver's front door window regulator - no need to weld the dead HLS one now
Phase 2 window winder - replaces the dodgy one on the HL
Handbrake gaiter - replacement for the missing item on the HLS
3 Wheel trims with centre logos - spares and replacements for damaged existing ones
5 chrome rim embellishers - I already have 1 good one and 1 bad one.
Spare wheel cover - that's one for each car now
Gear knob - good thread, should replace the thread-stripped one in the HL
Radio fascia - Hoping to fit to a modern unit for the HL dash
Windscreen stainless steel trims - rare, worth grabbing
Rear screen stainless steel trims - rare, worth grabbing
Parking Aid - it's giffer-tastic!
3 C-pillar interior courtesy light lenses - only need one, but spares are handy.

Should keep me busy for a while at least. I salvaged as much as I could afford to and in all honesty there wasn't much more on the car that would have genuinely been of use to me. I feel comfortable having parted with £140 for all that, and it gave me the opportunity to have a poke around a phase 1. I didn't get any photographs at the yard as I didn't have my camera with me.

[JPB]

Not a bad haul, especially as you got a pair of healthy bottles complete with the beam. I recommend fitting valves to these now, so that they can have the air pressure adjusted and thereby give them a new lease of life before the diaphragms let go which would mean loads more work needed.

As a brief aside; this thread of yours is playing havoc with my already fragile mind! How so? You may (or, more likely, may not) be wondering. Well, last night I had an amazing dream that featured the dark brown Wedge as driven by Stephen Mangan in the BBC's recent interpretation of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and my own Tahiti Blue 1800cc B series example. I won't tell you what rôles these cars played in the dream but sadly, it involved caravans (both Astral Scouts for some reason), the test hill at MIRA and a quiet bloke in a white suit with matching lid.


Previously, before this thread existed, I would only have dreamt about Bedford CAs and GRP-bodied, South American minis.

[TerryG]

That looks like a nice spares stash I get complaints from the other half that the garage is full of doors, bonnets, wings, engines and other stuff which SWMBO can't identify. I just tell her not to go in the garage and she won't have to worry about any of it.
If you keep collecting spares at this rate you will be able to build another car

GRP-bodied, South American minis.

I am a Nigerian General who has a large fortune of $1,000,000 one million US Dollars which I need assistance in getting out of the country. All I need is your bank account details and PIN number.............

[JPB]

Ooh ya wee bee-itch!

[mach1rob]

Now I know where I've seen Terry before!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA3zhzT1wDo

[vulgalour]

I'm avoiding the upgrade for the time being, it's to do with funds more than anything as I'd have to pay someone else to upgrade. Remember, the HL is my daily so while ever the car is off the road I'm grounded, quite literally at the moment, so having to wait even more time to save the money and get someone else to upgrade the spheres isn't really an option. Also, it might not be a sphere failure after all having seen where the braided hose has split on the spare axle which could very easily look like a leaking sphere rather than a leaking pipe... I won't know for certain until the HL is on axle stands.

---

The weather is appalling here today so my plan of spending a few hours stripping down the axle ready for fitting it to the car were thwarted. I got as far as freeing off the union for the hydragas pipes to the rear spheres. Pretty much every other nut has a good inch or so of paint on it so they're a bit stubborn and it's difficult to work on this sort of thing when the sky is trying to drown you. Overall, the axle does look pretty sound with plenty of paint keeping the vast majority of any rust build up at bay. The perishable rubber components are in pretty good health. The stubs of the rebound straps actually help with moving the axle around so I'll leave those attached, that's the actual reason, it has nothing to do with the fact that I can't budge the nuts that hold the rebounds strap brackets on because they're welded on with paint. The spheres are nice and dry and while there is some surface corrosion, it doesn't appear to be anything more than that so I'm hoping they'll clean up well and be servicable.


With the pipes off I can see that one of the braided sections has split. Interestingly, it's split near the sphere so it is possible that the hose on the HL has split too and that's what's caused the loss of fluid and pressure. I'm hoping that is the actual fault and not a blown sphere but obviously I shan't know until I have the HL up in the air again to inspect. Looks like I've got a bonus length of undamaged metal hydragas piping and one servicable braided hose off the replacement axle so far, so that's an okay start. I've also got a set of 8 good chromed wheel nuts that will clean up well, just a shame they're the wrong fitting for the Lotus alloys I have waiting in the wings still. I'll likely clean up and keep all the various unions on these pipes as I can imagine them being a useful part to have in the stash.


Weather got a bit serious so I busied myself cleaning the worst of the muck off the interior parts and sorting out which stuff to put in/on which car to reduce the amount of storage space it was all taking up. The boot carpeting cleaned up remarkably well and is a combination of original and owner pieces. Unusually, the non-original bits of carpet are actually cut to shape very well so should provide useful patterns and still be usable in the cars. Dropped one of the spare courtesy light lenses in the HLS and the majority of the boot carpetting since it'll finish it off well. The tatty but complete carpet trim for the bit between the rear lights has gone in the HL along with the spare wheel cover but I've not fitted them yet, they're both trim items that are tricky to find as nobody seems to keep them. Spare rear light covers went in the HLS too, but I've misplaced the screws to fix them in properly. Disappointingly, the toolkit was missing from the spares car I visited, I had hoped to get another jack ratchet handle and possibly another jack. I have this desire to own four factory Princess jacks because I'm sure it'll serve some practical use at some point.

The only other thing I got fitted were the rim embellishers. I've got 7 embellishers between the two cars and some are very good while some have holes in them. The best four got put on the HL so they take up no space but it did highlight that I should really get different weights fitted to the wheels to make them look their best. I like the embellishers, they smarten up the wheels considerably.


It's a clean, lean(y) wedgy machine.


It really does look comical when you come onto the street, as I mentioned before, jacking the car up to inspect the actual fault resulted in a loss of fluid and a proper lean. It amuses me because of the thought of a Princess on hydraulics, but it also makes me sad because my car is so obviously broken looking.


I'm told the weather is set to get even worse over the next few days so I'll likely not get much done on this axle refurb for a while which is really quite annoying as the longer it takes the longer I'm grounded.

[Topaz]

Had an email advertising the Classic Car Show which included the following


Pre-production Princess to star
The Leyland Princess website, celebrating its 10th birthday, will have one of the stars of the show on its stand when its comes to 70s motoring. It will be showing a pre-production 18-22-series Princess, which site creator Kevin Davis has confirmed was number 15 built, in June 1974 and believes to be the oldest surviving roadworthy Princess.

The pre-production model is particularly fascinating because it was registered in July 1974 as a Wolseley before having its identity changed to a Princess over the years. Along with the other pre-production cars, this car was also a mule to test new or remodelled components.

This car has recently been recommissioned after 30 years by its owner Martin Nancekievel, who has owned the car since 1977, and the story of how he came to own the car is almost as interesting as the car itself.

The pre-production car will be the centrepiece on a stand that will also be showing a selection of models that includes a 1979 Princess 2 2000HL, a 1979 Princess 2 1700HL in Pageant blue, the famous 1980 Princess 2 2000ST in Snapdragon, and a 1983 Austin Ambassador 2.0HL in Cashmere gold.

Book your tickets to come and see LeylandPrincess.co.uk in Hall 12. Quote EM12 when booking.

[vulgalour]

Sadly, I'm not going to be able to get to the NEC for this, but there'll be other opportunities. It's surprising that of all the Princesses that have disappeared, this test mule isn't one of them and it does look superb in the photographs I've see of it. There is at least one other surviving test mule I believe but it's in a much worse condition and not in a roadworthy condition at present, maybe it will get to be one day.

[JPB]

And don't forget Nick Larkin's Wolseley "Wilson" which I'm almost sure is back in service after his comprehensive recommissioning job.

Isn't that car the oldest known surviving ADO71?

[3xpendable]

"Did you hear about the Irishman who made lone to a Princess and burnt his balls on the exhaust pipe?"

Sorry couldn't resist.