Love-hate relationship some of the time. After five years ownership I reckon we can call this one a keeper though.

Pimp my Wedge

Any plans for it ?

Mostly just keep it, enjoy it and improve it really. It's taken an awful lot of work to get it this far and now it's just a case of sorting out the niggles, the paintwork and generally keeping it in reasonable health.

Ungrateful old wench went and popped a displacer today. It's not so obvious from the front.


It's VERY obvious from the side.


That's the fourth one in five years. Failure rate isn't normally that bad, I've just had really rotten luck with them.

The one on Top Gear had similar issues.

The one on Top Gear was faked and they ruined a perfectly serviceable car for those five minutes of fame. Don't talk to me about Top Gear, for this and so many other reasons.

Totally agree with you there Angyl. That was a really nice Princess that they rigged up to fail and wrecked. I don't think I have watched a single episode of TG since. Bring back William Woollard and Chris Goffey.

Well in happier news I found the schrader valve block is leaking... it's not super happy news but it does mean it might not be displacer failure and that's ALWAYS good news! Just got to figure out the best repair route.

Which might be thwarted a bit as it seems I'm going to be adopting another Austin this month.

That's where I put this thread!

We've had some ups and downs since I last checked in here. This car has kept me from getting to the local club meet too by living up to its name. The suspected popped displacer did indeed end up being a leaking schrader block... then a perforated pipe... and that sort of escalated and now the car has no suspension pipes fitted. It's okay though, we got the new individualiser blocks fitted front and rear, the Churchill hydrolastic pump sorted, and the car pumped up.





Still need to find out just what's causing the dashboard problems. We suspect a dead bulb or a bad joint somewhere, it's a bit annoying at night.


First test run on sorting the suspension out was a big shop, which the Princess did with its usual competence when I've given it enough attention after it's had a bit of a mechanical strop.


Then...

Wasn't best pleased about that having waited so long to get the suspension fixed and now have the rear end sat on the bumpstops again. Investigation revealed one of the nearly 40 year old rear hoses had burst.




That was super annoying because they're NLA and so custom ones were the only real option. Extra annoying was that if I'd thought on I could have saved myself some cash by getting custom hoses made in the first place and only 2 individualiser blocks. Knowing what I know now, deleting the suspension connecting pipes and individualising the displacers costs about £100 all in, which isn't too bad for custom engineered pieces.


Happily, the suspension has stayed where it was put after this. The car wasn't done with me yet because on trying to take a test-drive video, the clutch hydraulics decided to play up.
https://youtu.be/2WpHFqJOvFk

It was initially cured by bleeding it, but then I found the clutch had worn out and it was almost impossible to find gears. Changing the clutch is a job I've been putting off since I bought the car in February 2012. Fortunately, almost every car I've ever owned has needed a clutch so I'm pretty good at driving cars that are difficult in this regard, a womble to the unit wasn't therefore too bad and there was more fluid-sprung cars to keep the Princess company.


Changing the clutch requires you to drop the coolant, oil, and entire engine and gearbox assembly. It is a long, tedious job. We started the job on the 10th of January. In the process of the clutch change, I decided to also tidy up the engine bay, including degreasing and respraying. That meant removing the coolant rail that runs under the radiator which, typically, had holed and was generally in such poor condition on the hidden side it could not be repaired. The only thing holding the coolant in had literally been the rust of the pipe against the metal bracket it clamps to, once disturbed the seal was broken and all the coolant fell out. My replacement pipe was just as bad once I started cleaning it up.


Anyway, that issue set aside I'd spent quite a while transforming this...


.... into this..


... and then this!