dw1603
Part of things
Posts: 591
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excellent purchase and tbh on a 30yr old piece of commy british leyland tin the to do list is probably as long if not shorter than when it left the forecourt! ;D Exciting stuff, well done Used to work for a Jaguar / Daimler dealer in the early 70's. You should have seen the "to do" list before they got on the forecourt.. Didn't take me long to see the light and get a job with a Datsun dealer. That said, my Dad had an 1800 Landcrab, a 2200 Princess and an Ambasador. None of them caused him any trouble at all.
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*phew* Today has been exciting. After some last minute wrangling the funds were transferred into my bank in time for me to draw them out, we found that the previous info we'd been given about driving an uninsured car with another policy was a lie so instead got 1 day cover from Haven for about £25. This was massively cheaper than hiring a trailer and meant Dad could drive the Princess home... well it actually meant I could drive it home but we didn't know that until we got home. It's picture time! Picking it up was a challenge. In all the excitement we'd remembered petrol but forgotten glass cleaning stuff so it was impossible to see out of the windows. We'd also discovered the wipers are about as much use as cereal packets and one of the four headlights was out... oh, and the dash lights wouldn't turn on... and the exhaust was blowing a lot. But it didn't matter it was mine and we were heading home. On the way back I didn't take any pictures, it was dark and I was enjoying the comfort. The speedometer wasn't working as it ought and I was having to hold a torch to light the dash with my bro following in the Lexus. We thought we were doing about 50mph at most, but apparently at times we topped 70mph (within proper road limits) and the Princess handled it very well. From outside it looks serene, inside it feels very leany in the harder corners. Once home I dealt with the first thing that annoyed me. The Princess badge is zip-tied on and the AA badge is just ugly on this car and I'm not in the AA anyway. So both came off. We also replaced the blown bulb with one of my spares that happily works, but the headlamps need realigning as they're all over the shop at the moment. The trim on the passenger side was relocated properly, but the locating lugs on the driver's side trim have broken off so that needs a bit of repair to be spot on. Took a snap of the car before heading in and planning to leave her alone until daylight hours when I get the soap and water out. The itchy fingers set in though, and we had to find out if I was allowed to drive it since I have insurance current on the Polo with the allowance for me to drive other insured cars and day insurance in Dad's name. We determined to check if I could drive it on the day insurance which runs out about 5:45pm on the 18th Feb. I can! So we were advised to keep all relevant insurance documents with us, just in case and after much giddiness we set off for a drive, my first in this car. First impression are that visibility is atrocious, combined with the rubbish mirrors, the windows that really need cleaning properly in the daytime and a rear window that feels like little more than a skylight, you don't spend much time looking behind yourself. The gearbox is... interesting. Reverse is usually easy to select, but hard to unselect when you're wanting to do a complicated manoeuvre. Steering is heavy if you're not moving, as I'd been warned it would be, compounded by the uncomfortable Ambassador steering wheel mine's been fitted with. When on the move steering is responsive, but in an odd way, the feedback I get due I think to the suspension set up, is like nothing I've driven before. It feels precise but somehow not, I really don't know how to explain it. Brakes are sufficient, I'm pleased with those. Go is sufficient, but setting off from a standing start is leisurely at best, as expected. All this was learned on the way to pick up Mum so she could have a ride in the Princess. We dropped her off with my brother's girlfriend and us lads - me, Dad and bro - went off to Mansfield to do some shopping after a quick downpipe bodge... what a difference that made! The exhaust will be dropped properly when it's light and resealed, but just putting a good splodge of exhaust paste around the seams was enough to improve the lumpy run and really perk her up. First stop was petrol, I was running out and she was nearly empty. We noticed that the front tyres are bigger than the rear tyres. This does make the car sit level, but the Princess shouldn't sit level, it should look slightly nose-down. This might account for some of the oddness in the steering and all of the inaccuracy of the speedo (reads 45mph at 50mph!). I'll swap the wheels around front to back when I get chance to cure this. Parking is not the Princess' forte for she has the turning circle of a moon and is about the size of a moon. It was late, the car park was nearly empty, so I parked badly and took one last pic. When it's light I'll get my cleaning stuff out and get scrubbing. Overall, the car is looking very promising. Need to get the seat sorted out though, I've got a slight case of New Car Neck at the moment. What I can't believe is that it's actually mine, all the way back I was thinking that this couldn't possibly be mine. It doesn't feel modern, or antiquated, it just feels good.
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Last Edit: Feb 18, 2012 21:56:21 GMT by Deleted
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MattW
Part of things
Posts: 841
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I always thought the Princess was a middle sized car, you're making it seem like it's a large one?
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Wow. Princesses are cool, so hang onto it, make it good - I think the values are going to skyrocket next year. SD1s have done it this year - started as a steady creep, now six cylinder cars are hitting £3K
I am interested in how you're getting classic policies as a primary car and indeed, under 25. Is this some new thing?
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Wow, that looks amazing sir...! I bet you cannot wait to give it a thorough inside/out clean this weekend in order to get to know it... That is one of the best bits of getting a new motor, that moment when it is cleaned to the point of perfection ready for it to be sullied by yourself... Keep us posted on everything, I have a feeling this is going to be a great story (well it is so far!!!)
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***GARAGE CURRENTLY EMPTY***
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Feb 18, 2012 11:29:01 GMT
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I always thought the Princess was a middle sized car, you're making it seem like it's a large one? They were large in their day.
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Feb 18, 2012 11:36:45 GMT
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MattW: It's not a midsized car at all. I thought when I first saw it on the previous owner's drive that it was somewhere between Escort and Sierra in size, but it's much nearer to being someone between Volvo 740 and Lexus LS400 in size. It's shorter than big saloons, but very wide. EDITED TO ADD: Nope, I'm wrong, it's a car that seems to change shape and size in my own perception. @richardkc6: I do have the sneaking suspicion I've come in at the bottom of the curve and that I may have paid less for this car than it's currently worth. I'm actually 30, so classic policies are easy enough for me once I get to mid-March when I have my first year of full license. grifterkid: It's raining! That's not helping at all. I'll probably do the inside anyway, I smelled a lot like the inside of the car last night, it was very odd. I'll get some better pictures up soon, I just wish it wasn't raining today. Looks like we're going to have rain all day too, so properly washing it is going to have to wait
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Last Edit: Feb 18, 2012 19:56:45 GMT by Deleted
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Feb 18, 2012 12:28:48 GMT
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Angyl, don't forget where MattW is posting from; I imagine it complies with an American definition of 'midsized' better than a European one I've never, ever considered anything within the BL stable other than Triumphs to be cool (and the ones I like are pre-BL design anyway!), but you appear to have done funny things to my taste in funny old cars. Good work
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...proper medallion man chest wig motoring.
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Feb 18, 2012 13:07:01 GMT
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MattW: It's not a midsized car at all. I thought when I first saw it on the previous owner's drive that it was somewhere between Escort and Sierra in size, but it's much nearer to being someone between Volvo 740 and Lexus LS400 in size. It's shorter than big saloons, but very wide. Looking up some sizings, the Polo is 11'11" long, 5'2" wide and weighs 1609 lbs. The Princess is 14'6" long and 5'7" wide. It weighs in at 2401 lbs. Typical "Midsize" American sedan from today (I pick my wife's daily, Chevy Impala) is 16'8" long, 6'1" wide and weighs 3555 lbs. FYI, for your scale- Ford Escort (mk4): 13'3" long, 5'6" wide, 2094 lbs. Ford Sierra: 14'5" long, 5'7" wide, 2227 lbs. Lexus LS400: 16'4" long, 5'11" wide, 3759 lbs. So, you are pretty much bang-on at Sierra size. Proportionally you're different, you have an 8'9" wheelbase against the Sierra's 8'7" and a few other minor differences. I think it's mostly different to the eyes Now my daily, 19'2" long, 6'8" wide, 5142 lbs. You bought a lightweight, tiny car! Again, nice buy. --Phil
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Feb 18, 2012 13:23:24 GMT
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Careful - Not all (Or even the majority) of fully comp policies include "driving other cars" entitlement anymore. It used to be the case, but over the years it's been steadily dropped. It's also only usually allowed if the policyholder is 25+. Oh, and there is often a strange clause that says the car has to be insured third party by "someone" See, this is the funny thing. Age-wise, never noticed or cared (up to 25 I had "any driver" fleet insurance anyway), but Direct Line told me that I was covered in an uninsured car whilst I was driving it. NOT when I got out - at the moment I got out, the car was uninsured - but if I collected a taxed, MOTd car not in my name and it wasn't insured, it was covered. Ironically the only points I've had were because that fleet insurance DIDN'T have third party, and the mechanic I was driving a car for didn't have proper insurance, so I got done 14 years ago and earned 6 points for the pleasure. Gits.
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Feb 18, 2012 17:15:42 GMT
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ben: I hadn't noticed his location, my bad, his comment makes more sense to me now. I'm not planning on doing much to this one, it's pretty much as I want it already. Phil: *educated* We really do have tiny cars over here, don't we? @richardtk: Insurance stuff is confusing. Unless I get day insurance to get myself over to a RR meet or similar, I think the Princess is off the road for a bit while I fix some issues that have arisen which I will update with fully in just a moment.
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Feb 18, 2012 17:46:12 GMT
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We noticed that the front tyres are bigger than the rear tyres. This does make the car sit level, but the Princess shouldn't sit level, it should look slightly nose-down. This might account for some of the oddness in the steering and all of the inaccuracy of the speedo (reads 50mph at 45mph!). I'll swap the wheels around front to back when I get chance to cure this. Swapping the wheels will make the speedo misread even more, as the wheels will then have smaller rolling radius! It will look much better with them swapped though. I'm getting thoughts of one of these sat low on some rare Japanese wide wheels now..
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will
Posted a lot
Posts: 4,023
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Feb 18, 2012 18:04:06 GMT
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Nice purchase Angyl
Now where's the all cleaned up pics? ;D
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Feb 18, 2012 18:18:17 GMT
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@ Octopaul: I'll sort the wheel thing out properly eventually. It's low on the list of priorities right now. I do need to replace two tyres anyway thanks to some cracking in the rubber probably due to it being a garage and show queen for the past decade or so. will: NOW! sort of. This is a big update so I'll be posting a number of times to cover it all. There's a lot of car to get through. First thing this morning I wanted to get out and get cleaning, but the weather was less than favourable so I've been having to do stuff between rain showers when the sun deigned to appear. So here's the beige bus before I've done anything besides get my head around the fact I've bought myself a big wedge of 70s car. Filthy from all angles really. I did take some all over shots, and some befores and afters of the windscreen but they seem to have disappeared from my camera automagically, so this is all I have. The car was dirty enough to look a different colour when it was cleaned. It proves just how much difference washing a car will make to a sale price because I probably would have paid more had it been clean when I went back for a viewing. Took me a soap bucket and two plain water buckets to get the majority off and she's still not clean enough. But the weather was against me, and it was clean enough for me to do a more thorough inspection. A lot of what I thought were rust blebs aren't, they were large trees seeds of a rust-type colour and a bad respray that looks to have had water contamination when applied, that combined with the dirt made it look far worse than it was. I'll cover this in the next entry.
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Feb 18, 2012 18:25:36 GMT
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Roughly clean, but nowhere near the standard I want, I can get on with a closer inspection. I knew of some flaws already, it's what brought the price down, but there were more to find, obviously. Rear passenger side arch has a bit of something going on. Nothing too serious. Bodge on the front passenger side door. A lot of this looks like bad paint rather than bad metal. More bodging, with a minor rust mark, this being both passenger doors. Slightly more serious bubble on the rear passenger door. Worth pointing out at this point that none of the doors appear to have drain holes, which is something I'll be adding. Rear bumper has some surface rust, most of which washed off. I think a bit of lemon juice or similar will get the rest off and a coat of polish/wax will keep it protected. The bumpers are otherwise straight and bright. Rear passenger side arch. I think this is likely a dent with bad filler, there's no rust evident and it seems nice and solid. Leaving it alone for now. Boot has had a previous repair but is showing a bit of age now. The repair itself is quite ugly so I'd like to rectify that to something nearer Tonybmw standard. ... that's enough for this side.
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will
Posted a lot
Posts: 4,023
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Feb 18, 2012 18:28:43 GMT
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Been dodging the rain showers too today, bit of a bummer though I find you need to make hay while you have the time rather than wait for the sun. Of course nothing will keep you from playing with a new purchase Looks very solid from what the pics show, hope the respray isn't hiding any nastiness. *Missed the last post while typing. Looks ok so far, these things are to be expected.
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Last Edit: Feb 18, 2012 18:32:14 GMT by will
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Feb 18, 2012 18:31:12 GMT
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On to the other side... Driver's side rear arch. This looked like it had rust bubbles when mucky, but now it's clean I can see it's more likely badly applied paint. Rear door has an ugly paint match and some bodgetastic filler going on. I think this door is going to need the most work to fix. Damage to the front door is restricted to the back bottom corner, and (not pictured) the front top corner. Not too serious in either location but it's going to need investigating eventually. Then there's the paint. When it's dry it still looks wet because a lot of the top half of the car has this sort of water bead effect. The last time I saw this was in another build thread where the paint gun had got moisture contamination. Once should flat it back and try again, not just leave it. So here's the worst bits of that. Driver's side front wing. Passenger side front wing and the bonnet (not pictured) There's brush painting evident all over too, including the already disappointing door mirrors. More in a mo!
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Feb 18, 2012 19:00:37 GMT
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The last thing I noticed was the slightly rough paint around the locks, poor masking most likely, when the respray was done. My brother and I then did some jobs in tandem, there's a lot to be getting on with after all. But I'll list them together so it's not confusing to read. The first thing I wanted to inspect properly were those vinyl trims. The vinyl on the C pillars doesn't match that on the B pillars and boot and I suspect that's because it's a later fitting. Texture, colour and thickness of the pillar vinyl is just not as good as the other areas. Driver's side came off lovely and easily. No rust, just a bit of muck where the glue had gone on the edges. I'll clean this fully and repaint, that's a relief. Passenger side is the scary one to look at. At some point the brown painted trim at the top has been repainted in chrome, badly. I popped that off and put them aside in case I want to reapply them. Still no real horrors, just a lot of muck and water. So it was time to peel the vinyl off. It doesn't come off in one big sheet, it's gone brittle and the glue is not all holding it in place, so it comes off more like wallpaper. Mostly good. The bleb of rust at the top corner released a lot of water and muck. It looks far worse than it is here, there's a fair accumulation of dirt and water and surface rust. But again, no real crustiness. To get all the vinyl off, the door seals need popping off their rail. This in turn revealed where the vinyl had been redirected some of the water and a bit more rust. Again, nowhere near as bad as it looks in this picture. All the vinyl removed, I'm left with a panel that has thin paint, dirt, old glue and rust on it. Looks horrible. Especially if you get up close. But a bit of work with some turpentine substitute and it starts to look better. I'll be getting some sandpaper and kurust on all this and then painting it as soon as physically possible. I still want to remove the rear screen, but I'm going to hold off on that for the time being. Emptied out the boot as I know it's been holding a bit of water. The reason for holding water is someone has repaired a couple of places and not put drain holes back in. Another job to remedy with a drill. The boot is quite solid looking for the most part with a couple of small areas of rust and repairs. Overall, I'm happy with this.
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Feb 18, 2012 19:11:49 GMT
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Still going... like I said, big update today. There was a comedy moment when we were shuffling the car about on the drive and it got stuck not in reverse, as we first thought since that's what I'd tried to select, but in fourth. We couldn't disengage it, or engage another gear. Time for the Princess to assume the position. My brother has had the same thing happen with a Metro he owned so he jacked it up with the wheels chocked and me on the footbrake. Some wheel wiggling and wizardry and he managed to get my gears back for me. He tells me the selector box under the car is a bit loose and needs tightening and new bushes but should this happen again it's a simple (if scary on a hill) fix. It's a job to look at. We also found that the thrust bearing in the clutch is mostly likely on its way out, which would explain the slipping clutch on occasion. Nothing surprising in that, really, it's to be expected. Some coffee later, I got chompysnake (that's who he is on here, my brother that is) set to on the exhaust. He's a bit of an exhaust magician and I trust nobody else to sort my exhausts out for me. We knew the 2-into-1 manifold-to-downpipe section was blowing badly. A small bodge last night saw us quieter for the midnight shopping run but today a full strip down and refit was in order. Earlier in this thread I posted a video of the Princess running, but for convenience I've put it here too. Before, as we listened to her at the previous owner's when inspecting. After the aforementioned blow was sealed. Worth noting at this point that there's another blow on the join towards the back of the system that we need to resolve. The videos don't really show it, but the car is running under similar conditions temperature wise and while the hunting is more obvious in the second video, the noise reduction isn't, but it really was a big improvement.
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Feb 18, 2012 19:24:30 GMT
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Thanks for sticking with me, I'm nearly done. I had a lot more before pictures of the interior of the car, but my camera seems to have eaten them. I think a previous owner was a football fan, there was a Leeds United embroidered badge on blu-tacked to the dash board and, when I was nosying around the interior I found this horror. Happily that was only blu-tacked in place too so was easily rectified. I removed the brown Panther brand sun strip but may refit it, I also removed the column of stickers on the side of the windscreen, relocating the BL rosette to the rear screen where it looks tidier. The interior of the car all looked like this. Some vacuuming later and it was improved. The carpet will need replacing, the driver's footwell is worn out, but it looks like it's two large flat pieces so I plan to remove and shampoo the existing one to freshen it up and get the last of the beach sand out and eventually replace it with something suitable further down the line. Difficult to demonstrate, but I tried to get a bit of size comparison with mine and my housemate's car. The Princess looks smaller again, weirdly. The dashboard has ergonomics only the British could design and a little no smoking sign only the early 80s could produce. Not to mention the clocks. They're great, but the black faced clock with black hands wasn't the design team's finest hour. There's one last update to come.
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