Practically Classics Forum

If tracking set-up is costing you £15-30 a pop, why not buy a Gunson Trakrite, then you can do it yourself time after time - it will quickly pay for itself and they're very accurate if used correctly. I've got one and swear by it.

Also, when you have stuck components I'd recommend using a proper penetrating oil (or diesel fuel if you have some) rather than WD40, which isn't really very good at the job as that's not what it's for.

All the best!

Luxobarge wrote:why not buy a Gunson Trakrite, then you can do it yourself time after time - it will quickly pay for itself and they're very accurate if used correctly. I've got one and swear by it.

I have one too, I bought it (on recommendation from here) because after 3 attempts, none of the local tyre places had managed to get my steering wheel on straight. It has already paid for itself several times over.

I didn't even know you could get a kit for tracking at home, it had never crossed my mind. Thank you for the info. Since the forum went down recently you've missed a few updates so here's a mega update in several posts to get everything up to speed again.

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New belt fitted, Continental brand.  Marked improvement over the old one and now it's properly adjusted I've got no belt whine at all.

 
I checked the head bolts and found that the one to the right of the distributor was off-torque so brought it up accordingly and the micro-bubbles have stopped.

 
The distributor is definitely weeping oil and the oil is finding its way into the spark plug wells as a result.  It's a simple matter of fitting an O-ring and I think I have one somewhere, just a case of finding it and fitting it.  The thermostat housing decided not to leak at all today for no reason and the only oil leaks are now two tiny spots from somewhere down the back of the engine that I can't find the source of and could, for all I know, be working their way back from the distributor.
 
Can anyone recommend a really good engine degreaser that I can spray on and just watch the crusty oil slide off without dismantling the engine or getting a hosepipe or jetwash out?  Pretty bored of using a toothbrush now and there's some areas I can't get to without taking the engine to bits which I don't really want to do at this point in time.

Beige one went for the early MoT (not due until the 12th of April) and failed, as I expected I would, on rust. That's not a problem because I have the car booked in for some welding on Wednesday to resolve this.

What I didn't expect was to fail on this:
1 - Nearside rear wheel bearing has excessive play
I checked this recently as I've had a noise at the back I couldn't find and the wheel had no play in it but up on the ramp you could wobble it like the wheel was loose. That's annoying as that must have gone very recently.

2 - Nearside rear brake recording little or no effort
3 - Nearside rear parking brake recording little or no effort
I know about this. I've rebuilt the rear drums a couple of times and adjusted the cables, there's new shoes fitted and I've only once managed to get these to work well enough to scrape through a test.

4 - Offside Front constant velocity joint is insecure
That's worrying.

5 - Offside rear (sill) body or chassis has excessive corrosion.
I know about this, I expected this to fail.

6 - (n/s steering rack mounting) Steering retaining device insecure
Like point 4, this is worrying. There's been a niggle on this corner that I've never been able to locate or diagnose, at least now I have something to go on.

7 - Parking brake: efficiency below requirements
9 - Brakes imbalanced across an axle (N/S/R)

Advisory
9 - Nearside rear body has slight corrosion


It's not a bad list, and with the exception of the troublesome rear brakes, nothing I've fixed has since failed. At least the emissions were a pass. I got a verbal advisory on the front brakes which are getting close to being a bit crap but again, I'm aware of this and I do have some spare discs in stock that may help resolve this issue.

Overall, not too shocking. Get myself a couple of wheel bearings, refurb the rear drums again and try and find out what's actually loose on the steering rack/CV joint area and go from there. It is more than I wanted to spend at present, I may have to rethink some of my plans a bit but I'll get her sorted and freshly MoT'd again... I don't really have a choice.

So, after ordering some parts to sort out the beige car and being all set to fix it for the MoT, a friend was tipped off by someone he knew about another Princess in a breaker's yard less than 10 miles away from me. I only went to have a look, but instead I ended up buying it, as you do.

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I got that biggest of all boons to the rare car owner but also the biggest of problems: a potential spares car. A lot of the post-delivery time was spent agonising over what to do with the three Princesses I have and which would be the best course of action. In the end, sanity did prevail and I will only be keeping two cars.

Red Princess - this car is trying my patience. Every time it looks sorted, something else breaks and I've honestly had enough of it, I'll be happy to see it gone. It needs the new owner to inject some fresh enthusiasm into it because it's not a bad car, I just feel like it's fighting me and that to me says it's the right time to part with it.

Beige Princess - turns out I'm not as sentimentally attached to this car as I thought, the prospect of a better condition orange Princess was enough to tempt me to break it to save a car in a more desirable (to me) colour. However, using the primary principle of Better The Devil You Know and some good old fashioned prodding of the other car, a stay of execution has been granted.

Orange Princess - this car is restorable, it genuinely is. Money and time has been spent on it very obviously, but it's just a bit more rotten in places the beige on isn't, the mechanicals are an unknown quantity and I can't really sink into another rescue mission. To save this one is going to take more effort, time and money than putting the beige one right and getting another year's motoring out of it.

That means that the orange car, good and rare though it is, will be broken. A full pictorial report will be arriving shortly to explain just why this decision was reached and what the Orange Slice will bring to the table.

Picture time.  The car arrived on a beavertail truck and the brakes are on-off, when we were pushing it off the truck we though the brakes had stuck on, it was only when we looked underneath that we realised the selector box was hanging loose and wedged in place so there was a bit of jiggling to get it free before we rolled off the truck.
 
This car is a genuine barn find, having been squirreled away by its second owner - who had owned it since 1986 - back in 1995 on his farm.  I'm told the car was a sod to get out of its resting place and then when the yard I bought it from got it back, nobody really wanted to race it and they had no idea what they were going to do with it.  I swapped some pictures of the Queen for the Princess, a fair exchange all round, and we eventually got the car down the drive.
 
First impressions were that the car was good, and restorable.  Resplendant in vermillion with a pristine black velour interior.

 
I also thought the car had a list to the front driver's corner, you'll have to take my word for it that it doesn't.  When we got the car down to the hard standing it sat level and at the correct height, I daresay the suspension on this one is exceptionally good.

 
Driver's door top hinge pin is worn out and the door sags, it won't close properly.

 
Brand new metal sills are present on both sides and appear to have been welded in very well.  Someone has spent some money on this car and it was one of the big reasons that breaking it was initially a difficult decision.

 
The bonnet won't close properly either, but the valance is in reasonable shape with some rust evident but not huge quantities.  The slam panel is in great condition but the bonnet has rust by the driver's side hinge which is not a location I've seen these go on, I suspect it's to do with the plant life and bird detritus in the same area.

 
The engine is all there, an earlier O series it still has the parts I need, including the all-important thermostat housing which saves me £40 immediately.  I'll be removing and rebuilding the head before putting it on the beige car, especially since both cars have done about 75k so wear should be about the same.  The carburettor has already been removed and fitted to the red Princess to see if it will solve the overfuelling issue.

 
The bottle resting on the brake servo is the fuel tank.  Looking under the car you can see a hole in the fuel tank and a fairly hefty bash, I also have to assume the sender/pump is knackered.

 
This picture pretty much sums up this car.

 
More shortly...

There were quite a few tax discs in the car, along with a soggy Haynes manual, a Wolseley Hornet handbook and some other bits and pieces.  12 months tax back in 1994.

 
There were also, ominously, quite a few breakdown stickers.  Green Flag for starters.

 
National Breakdown, I also have two stickers still on their backing in great order for the inside of the screen, not the same design as this, sadly.

 
And just to be sure, a little help from above.

 
Ancient brittle newspaper from the same time the car came off the road.  Again there was newspaper under the carpetting, I'm wondering if it was there to soak up the water in the front footwells or to provide sound deadening because the red Princess had the same stuff.

 
Let's take a look inside, shall we?  I've been aware of black interiors in Princesses, but it seems more common fitment to Ambassadors.  I'm not normally a fan of black interiors in cars, I find them pretty oppressive, but apart from some minor surface mould on the vinyl which comes off without leaving marks, the interior in this one is pristine and I shall be keeping it.

 
Same dash fitted as the one I put in the beige car, but in slightly poorer condition.  The twine is to hold the window up and unfortunately the arm rest is past its best.  Not sure where I'll find another in black.

 
They all do that, Sir.

 
Lack of head restraints isn't unusual, I'll be keeping things this way until I find a replacement black set or dye ones I've got spare.

 

 
Radiomobile radio might be worth something to someone, looks in good order.

 

 
Headlining is great, be suitable for the red car, shame about the head grime though.

 
Boot is great too, but the toolkit is long gone.  Some donor sheet metal for the beige on in here.  Check out the quality inner arch repair, there's the same thing on the other side.

 
More soon...

Looking under the car, you'd think all was well.  It doesn't look as tidy as the red car under here, nor does it look as untidy as the beige car.  You can make out the selector box here too, sitting a tad too low as it's no longer attached to the car.  You can't change gear at all, the clutch pedal feels like its not attached to anything.  Another nail in its coffin really as I don't fancy trying to find out what's wrong here where there's nothing amiss on the beige car.

 
I had some time left to make a start on the strip down.  I was slightly alarmed when one of the seat bolts pulled a chunk of floor out with it where the metal was thin and holed.  There's also holes above the outriggers and there's been two welding patches let into the rear corners of the floor where the beige car will eventually need work.  More reasons for the orange car to be broken, really.

 
In addition to this work, both rear arches are rusted worse than the beige car as is the leading lower edge of the front wings.  Okay, so the rear screen surround is better and it has brand new outer sills, but the boot floor is not much better than the beige car, the rear quarter lower corners need repairs the beige one doesn't and the windscreen seal is perished.  All in all, the orange car needs more work than the beige one to get through an MoT and too much to get it to the same standard as the beige car at this moment in my car ownership.
 
There were some bits of stuff in the car, it being something of a time capsule.

 
Mystery bottle is mysterious.  There's evidence the previous owner was a sheep farmer and church goer and this bottle has some sort of oil in it and a label on the base saying 'Twin lambs'.  Very cryptic, probably medicine or something.

 

 
This made me smile as Mum used to buy this stuff when I was little.  The bottle is spotless so I'm hoping some collector or props place can make use of it, unlike the other stuff I kept this.  Shame it's empty.

 
I've already made my money back in this car on parts I would need to buy and parts I do need to buy and there's more parts than I myself can use on my cars so some stuff will be up for grabs.  Once I've finished stripping it down I'll be able to make a comprehensive list of what's available.  If there's anything in particular that fellow wedge owners need do let me know and hopefully it'll be something I don't need and you can buy from me.
 
I will offer the warning that there's likely not going to be a lot left over when I'm done.  This car has almost everything I need for the two I've got including a good amount of bodywork but do ask anyway, there's a good chance that there's something on here that's not of use to me that I already have a glut of since I've been hoarding parts for a while now.

Today I'm stripping out the rest of the interior to swap it into the beige car and once that's done I can start focusing on glass and panel removal and, finally, mechanical stuff removal.

Looks like you have been busy. Is your driveway overflowing with wedges now or have you found more storage elsewhere?