Practically Classics Forum

You lucky dog!

Today we drove to Wellingborough and I managed to get lost because I left the A45 too early and I could probably get lost in a paper back. No drama for the 220ish mile round trip and good fuel economy. There is an annoying jiggle in the steering at 65ish now instead of 55ish so I reckon the other TRE is on its way out, it doesn't feel like a lost wheel weight and feels like a really toned down version of what the other TRE was doing. But, the car was perfectly fine for the trip, no silly issues, no break downs, for once!

I was heading over to deliver some Princess seats and to collect 3 boot lids, 5 bumpers and a box of miscellaneous stuff. Of the three bootlids, the Sandglow one is knackered, the Arum White one is reasonable and the metallic green one (the name of this colour I do not know, but it is lovely) is very good so there's too usable spares. Both boot lids that are worth keeping are better condition than the one currently fitted so I will be doing a swap. Of the bumpers, one is excellent, one is reasonable, two need dents knocking out and one is scrap.



Then there was the mystery box.


driver's side headlight trim
2 pairs of brake shoes, one pair look unevenly worn so may not be new.
1 Tex door mirror
2 dipsticks
1 bonnet catch painted Pageant blue
1 set of round dash telltales
1 Princess 2 boot badge
1 Rover speedo cable NAM4330
3 driver's side indicator/sidlight units and lenses
1 passenger side indicator sidelight units
1 passenger side indiciator sidelight unit back
2 pairs of rear light units.

It's a reasonable selection for a tenner is that. It does give me enough spare lenses to build some clear light units for front and rear to see if the idea will work or not.

If you keep going at this rate you are going to corner the market on princess spares!

Amazing to find those Renault wings - I bet there's not many of those in UK - and as a gift well - very generous

You should've changed both TREs at the same time and for what they cost it makes sense to do both sides. This is a job I need to to on my Dolomite so I'll be replacing both sides.

Normally I would have done, but normally I'd expect more than a year's motoring out of brand new TREs. I thought - wrongly as it happens - that one had failed just as one of those things so I just bought a single replacement as the other side had no detectable play in it and wasn't really offering any problems. Typically, now I've done one side the other has decided to fail too.

First Line parts used to be quite good and reliable quality, I've used them with other cars with no ill effect. Thankfully there are still some NOS QH parts out there which have a heftier higher quality feel to them and I hope means I'll get a couple of years out of them.

The weather decided to be tolerable and I had a helper so I made use of it. Annoyingly, to get the rear window drop glass in I had to drill out the new rivets for the quarter light bars and re-rivet but other than it being a bit fiddly they went in okay. Also, the poor condition front window scraper utterly disintegrated. Happily, there were some spare channel felts in the replacement doors which, when put together with the felts from the old doors gives a full set of felts instead of a mish-mash of newspaper, draught excluder tape and tatty felts.


The bonnet crown had been put on with the previous bit of work but here's a picture anyway. Being an '81 it shouldn't really have one, but then it shouldn't have the front doors or seats it has either... it's still very much in the spirit of a Princess and only the most anoraky of anoraks is going to be bothered by these little details.


I didn't put the door cards and furniture back on the passenger side, I want to wait until I've put the glass in the driver's side so everything is properly weather tight first. I was going to get the driver's side glass in but it rained, started just as I got the electric drill out and pretty much put a stop to proceedings.

Jobs to do:
Driver's side glass
Door interior furniture to reinstate
Battery to refit (now charged)
Replacement rear sphere and Hydragas pump up
Handbrake cable to fit (in stock)
Rear brake hose to fit (in stock)
Rear suspension rebound straps to fit (in stock)
Rear brake shoes to fit (in stock)
Radiator leak to plug
Hazard warning switch to wire in (in stock)
Dash to fit - built up as much as it can be off the car, just needs fitting to the dash rails once the hazard switch is wired up
Purchase good part-worn tyres
Locate and fix exhaust blow
Door mirrors to fit (in stock)

The weather is the only thing stopping me making better progress and realistically it will probably prevent me from hitting the end of February MoT target.

You are making good progress
Putting this much in to it, you won't want it to go!

Your metallic green boot lid appears to be Tara Green, lovely girl