Practically Classics Forum

sorry to hear of your loss mate..

so sorry to hear your news.
sometimes,i just sit in the garage and look at stuff when times are rough!


take care

kev

Thoughts and condolences at this sad time to you and the rest of your family.

Bugger. Condolences to everyone.

Just a micro-update now that I'm getting back up to speed again. After Mum's untimely death I've managed to get myself back to work, but with the pressures of looking after the house, Dad, myself and my business I'm finding I have little time left for anything else.

I'm in the process of applying for a flat some 100 miles further north than where I live currently which, all being well, I'll be moving in to in a few weeks and which will also give me the opportunity to start working at a classic car restoration garage I may have mentioned in the past.

The beige Princess is due to get some work done this weekend, swapping components to get the red Princess ready to be taken away. Sadly, it seems unlikely that I'll be driving the Princess to her new home, it's just too expensive to get the tax, MoT and other jobs sorted when it's only £140 to get her trailered to her new home where I'll have plenty of tools and space to do the work better.

The goal is, once I'm moved, to use the Xantia as the shop vehicle while the Princess returns to being my sole transport. I'm looking forward to it really, I do miss driving about in my Princess a lot and while the Xantia is a superb machine it's just not the same.

First, though, I need to raise £300 before the end of the month so should anyone want artwork at very reasonable prices now is definitely the time to shout up as it's the only thing I can offer until I've resettled and got my feet under me again.

Totally spontaneously, I decided to get on with sorting out the cars today. Not sure where the motivation came from exactly but I'm glad it appeared, it's been too long since I did anything productive with them. Trundled up to my brother's with the tools in the boot and fired up the beige one. Against all the usual talk, she fired up no bother and eased out of the garage with nothing more serious than a slightly flat tyre.

So far so good. We then jacked her up, got the rear corner off to put it on the red car later and offered up the corner salvaged from the orange slice. Everything was going really well until the last fixing bolt which proved to be a nightmare, it had to be sorted using special Dad Skills that only Dads of a certain age seem to have. All back together we could then swap good tyres for bad so the red could have road legal tyres for the drive to the new owner's abode.

Then my brother decided we should explore the rust that the car had failed on the MoT properly.


I'm not particularly surprised, in all honesty. Hadn't expected a hole on the passenger side though.


My brother reckons he wants to do that welding for me, he's more than welcome to do that. In the meantime, we eventually got the corner back on and obviously lost a bit of fluid. Surprisingly, the rear brake from the orange car is excellent but the original rear brake as fitted to the Princess is practically useless so I'll be swapping the other corner too.



This of course meant that the red Princess is now back on four wheels again too, with no fuss or drama. Next job here is to finish swapping the good tyres on and getting it all refilled with fluids and whatever ready for it's first proper drive.


One surprise was discovering that amongst my spare steels are a pair of Ambassador wheels which while the same size as Princess ones have a different design which means none of the Princess trims actually fit.

good to see movement on your project

vulgalour wrote: it had to be sorted using special Dad Skills that only Dads of a certain age seem to have.

I've got a father-in-law like that. Retired engineer. Did his apprentiship in Vickers. Trouble is, he doesn't like working on cars!

Great to see you cars as I have a bit of a soft spot for the wedges. My Grandad had a beige Princess with tan vinyl roof (S reg?) followed by a burgundy Ambassador (A reg?) from new.

Very fond memories of driving around South Wales on holiday with them.

Sounds like your grandad was well on his way to becoming the Most Winningest Man of Winning Things Ever.

Oh he was Vulg! and he could show us "youngsters" how to party too! Great bloke, Greatly missed!