Vulgalour's Vehicles - 10/03 Ignition Switch Woe

[vulgalour]

The Ambassador was not a figment, I would one day like to get one and Princess-ify it by swapping lights, bumpers, bonnet, wings and wheels so it has the good looks of the first wedge and the practicality of the later wedge. That front wing I think was repainted erroneously in the dark red of the new panels, either that or it was incredible foresight on the part of the person that did it.

Bit more progress today before it got really bitingly cold, from here on it gets fairly easy. First up got the boot bolted down and put the spare radiator I liberated from the banger car in the boot. Everything seems to line up first try, panel gaps are good and the lock works. The keys and the user manual folder thingy I forgot all arrived in the post today, usefully.


Tightened up the bolts on the rear door this side and found that it needs adjusting quite a bit to get it to sit properly. The doors are attached with six nuts and the only adjustment is in the thickness of the shim and the slotted holes in one of the top shim plates. I'll figure it out, but for now the back door sits too low at the arch edge by a smidge. There's no latch or handle fitted yet but even without them in place I can see it's wrong. Front door, on the other hand, dropped on perfectly. I decided against swapping this door with the slightly worse one on the beige car because it's a lot of work to strip them down and get the lock barrels and glass swapped over, I'll just repair the door on the beige one instead because it's easier.



Got both doors fitted the other side too which still have handles and latches fitted. The rear door bolted up lovely and works perfectly fine with no adjustment required.


Front door has the same issue as the rear door on the other side and sits slightly too low preventing the latch from fully engaging.


I bagged the window holes to finish off today. Thankfully, the previous plastic doors I'd made had kept the weather out of the car completely so these should do the trick until I get the glass back in.

[mach1rob]

silly question but does anyone remember the austin ambasador? or was i dreaming again

Of course you were. I mean, why on earth would ARG have built anything as inherently sensible as a hatchback version equipped only with the tough (if a little crude but that's a good thing) O-series engine and even more comfort than the preceding wedgie things.

It must be time for something from the Shuttleworth Collection :

CLICK HERE.


Apologies, that clip isn't exactly HD but you get the idea.

Why did you do it? Y REG Y???

[vulgalour]

If ever I get an Ambassador it has to be a Y reg and I'll get some 'Shuttleworth Special' graphics made for the end of the coach stripe on the rear quarters in Vanden Plas script.

[JPB]

If ever I get an Ambassador it has to be a Y reg and I'll get some 'Shuttleworth Special' graphics made for the end of the coach stripe on the rear quarters in Vanden Plas script.

[rich.]

If ever I get an Ambassador it has to be a Y reg and I'll get some 'Shuttleworth Special' graphics made for the end of the coach stripe on the rear quarters in Vanden Plas script.

thats a man with ambition

[Mitsuru]

Just seen thin the abandoned thread on retro rides

Ambassador in Selkirk

7

http://retrorides.proboards.com/thread/ ... To=1895714

[vulgalour]

Made an attempt to do work on the car since it's not too windy or cold today and is nice and sunny. Didn't get very far, unfortunately, due a wretched head cold. I tried out the halogen headlights that were liberated from the banger car and unless they provide a better type of light when driving, the light they did put out was decidedly underwhelming compared to the sealed beam units. I'm wondering if I can put a better halogen bulb in as at the moment they're on the gigantic golf ball jobbies which others have said aren't always up to much.

In other news, I decided to take out the boot mat and replace it with the better one from the banger car. The boot mat in this car is good enough for the other Princess and it makes sense to give myself a little upgrade. This also gave me a chance to see if I could find how water is getting into the boot and I think I've found the culprits.

When I bought the car 2 years ago I noticed the boot corners were a little surface rusty but hadn't gone through. I left well alone after giving it all a clean because it didn't look advanced enough to be an issue. Now, unfortunately, there's a hole.

Nothing structural is attached here and I can't do anything about it today. It is a really awkward spot to get to from inside or outside so I expect it won't be that cheap to have put right. This is a common rot area because muck gets thrown up from underneath. I'm going to have to give the other side a good prod too because you can bet that's going the same way now.





The dampness on the boot mat confirmed water is getting in through this bit but it wasn't spreading far enough to be getting anywhere else. Luckily, it had recently rained and while I was poking around in the boot I got dripped on.


I knew about this putty, but I hadn't bothered unpicking it. Looks like there's a leaking seam letting the water in at the back of the boot. I'll clean up the putty and reseal this seam with something better suited to the job. I'm sure they all do that, sir.

The spare wheel well also gets a bit of water in it, but that could be from the other boot leaks. I pumped up the spare as it had gone a bit flat and put the new boot mat in. It looks more presentable in there at least. Also swapped in the better fuel filler neck cover which gave me a chance to check the back of the wing this side, but there's no sign of any corrosion at all, which was reassuring.




Buying a welder is more cost effective at this point so I might do some remedial non-welding work to slow the rust down so I can put the cash aside for that instead of paying someone to do the work for me. I can weld, and while I have got a welder a stick machine is not really ideal for this sort of work. Joy of joys, because of where it is I'm going to have to partially strip the interior again so I don't set the seats on fire.

[JPB]

410s (those spherical jobbies that you described) never were all that much use for anyone who wanted their headlamps to see where they were going! You can actually get a Halogen bulb that fits the same lamp units, the bulb has an H4 envelope with a 410 base and it's known as R12, which uses no more current than the old sealed beams, less if you had the 75 Watt inners to start with, so will work fine and give a great spread of light. The last time I fit R12s to 410 units (in the rectangular Allegro/Toledo lamps on a kitten, ISTR), they cost no more than H4s.

5.75" sealed beams haven't been available new since March 2011 so it's just as well to swap over to Halogens now in any case.

[vulgalour]

Top advice, that man! I hadn't realised they had discontinued sealed beams, I did wonder why it was getting a little more difficult to find them and I'd been hoarding them just in case so I think I've now got something like 8 of them including the ones on the car.

[JPB]

Yeah, I discovered that when I needed fresh outer ones for the Dolly and ended up buying four new units plus suitable halogen bulbs, that said these new bits came to less cash for all four than the one remaining sealed one in the shop would have cost at the time, so converting was a no-brainer, especially in what was then a daily car.
There were (as of last September so this statement may by now be outdated) still some of the more common 7" sealed beams being made but only in very limited quantities and for a large amount of money!