Princess progress again, folks. First thing to illustrate is how much lower than the number plate the sump is. I'm really happy with how much lower the car looks on the front than it really is and the number plate location is a big part of that visual trickery. Rust is just some surface where the paint was thin from an unfinished job and outdoor storage, I'll be rectifying that soon.
Found the central ashtray in the garage today and got that back in place.
Tried out the various bits and bobs to see what would work. For one brief, brilliant moment, everything did! Apart from the horn and two of the dash binnacle illumination. The main beam telltale is almost invisible, the lens is a really dark blue.
I wanted to see what the lights looked like properly at night and was impressed at just how huge they look on the back end. I should be pretty hard to miss. They're like rocket boosters, which pleases me.
Apart from the aim being off, the new halogens up front are pretty good too with a noticeable difference between dip and main beam.
I replaced the side repeater that wasn't working, the one I removed just sort of fell apart so it's no wonder it wasn't working. The new one went in really easily, one of the quicker jobs on the car.
Dug out the mk1 screen wash bottle from the spares stash and was going to use the matching pump I had but the connectors were wrong, so I used a brand new pump Mike gave me last year which is a proper match. The pump needs fastening down but I now have working washer jets again. That's an MoT job off the list!
Removed the mechanical fuel pump to reseal it and found all but about 5mm of the bottom of the spacer block was actually sealing really well. The spacer block isn't deformed or cracked and bonded so well to the pump itself you can't remove it without more force than I was willing to put in since it's working fine that side. I tried fitting a thick paper gasket to stem the oil leak from this that has plagued me since fitting the mechanical pump, the only failure of this alteration really since it's perfectly fine as a pump at all speeds. Time will tell on this one.
Splashed some purple on the front wing to try out the full length two-tone. I do like it, the car looks really long in profile and it takes a lot of that visual weight out of the nose end of the car. For now, this is what I'll go with. Finding the best line over the arch flare was tricky.
Finally, I swapped the old boot lid on in favour of the green one that didn't fit so well. Stripping the paint was proving really difficult because it's ludicrously thick and barely anything touches it apart from the most recent respray I did some time ago. I decided to try out the alignment and had it fairly close I thought so went to just shut the boot to, but not on the latch, when it shut on the latch. Now it won't open. I've managed to shut tools, the manual and spares in the boot too. The lock works on the key but won't release so I'm not really sure how I'm going to fix this problem without damaging the boot lid. I've tried various prying, leaning, hitting, wiggling and easing of the boot lid to no avail. I'm not sure I'm small enough to fit through the cross-brace holes behind the back seat to get into the boot to release it from inside, it's not a job I'm looking forward to.
I believe I've found the cause of the electrical gremlin too. After having everything working, the horn stopped working properly, then the indicators gave up, then the rear heated screen switch wouldn't illuminate. Fuses are fine, what wiring I can see without dismantling the dashboard is also okay. The Princess did this when I bought it five years ago, in almost exactly the same way (I don't recall it blowing fuse #5 back then), and it was down to dirty switches and connections in the dashboard panel itself so I'll take the dashboard out and give everything a clean and check over. Hopefully that's all it really is.
MoT list update:
> connect fog lights
> connect number plate lights
> stick number plates on -
DONE
> make hazard switch work
> make the indicator lights work -
DONE
> pump up the suspension -
DONE
> fit the new tyres
> fit a new washer jet pump -
DONE
> tune the carb.
> find the loose steering component
P.S. the suspension stayed up! I was quite nervous going into the unit given this car's habit of consuming displacers, so that was a big relief.Princess progress again, folks. First thing to illustrate is how much lower than the number plate the sump is. I'm really happy with how much lower the car looks on the front than it really is and the number plate location is a big part of that visual trickery. Rust is just some surface where the paint was thin from an unfinished job and outdoor storage, I'll be rectifying that soon.