Bodywork

From the first picture, you can see the bodywork of the car was in pretty good condition for its age. There were a few dents, but it was overall pretty good, although there were a few rust marks where water had collected. The paint had pretty good gloss. I decided early on that I didn't like the sky blue colour. If I had another chance I'd like it a lot more, now that I've tried to change it to something else. It'd be quicker (and cheaper) to hunt down another car in a nicer colour... actually I was given the option on a red one for free a few months after, but anyway...

The engine bay looked particularly grotty. Here are a couple of shots taken on my birthday, before much hard work with brushes and degreaser. The bulkhead under the brake lines was a nightmare, but only superficial rust, as for the battery tray. The front left side had some wrinkling from certain bumper displacement therapy, usually afforded hurridly to disguise parking incidents, basically by yanking the bumper out again, while leaving the metal uneven. The picture taken at the back shows more reversing damage - you get this with a corner you can't see from the driver's seat and a beautiful, recessed chrome bumper. Every Princess I've seen has had some damage to the rear corners.

The front rail has had paint stripper applied, the paint just puffs and wrinkles up and a wipe around with a rag dipped in thinners gives:

...this. Bare metal, no bog at all, amazing for a car like the Princess. You can see the poor-quality spot welding and the mysterious pressed hole right at the bottom. Take note - do not jack here. In removing the engine from a 'donor car', I used a tow truck bar to lift the body off the engine, the whole valance collapsed. It's not sturdily made. If it looks fragile in the photograph, it is. Presumably the weight here was kept down since the car was already very nose heavy.

Round about now you feel like giving up. These photos were taken after days of hard work, but bear a striking resemblence to the first photos... The battery tray has been rust-killed and dollied-up with stop-putty and spray putty/primer to try and hide the heavy pitting. For some reason not all the engine bay paint would strip completely. The bulkhead was an emulsified mix of oily brake fluid and softened paint/rust, very difficult to work with. There were accessibility hassles around the fixed suspension pipes (displacer units are inside rounded bulkhead extension.) Note - no struts or rusty mounting points; no structural rust, so there is a glimmer of hope...

This shows the front panel at a slightly later stage - some remedial work was necessary where the sport-welded seam was so uneven it looked like it had been bogged. Now it has, so it doesn't look like it has anymore. <sigh> Only the Princess can look so lumpy in the sheet metal. I think the stamping dies at Longbridge weren't just out of the ark, they were used to build the ark...

And here, for comparision, is a shot with the engine in place. Being held in the air is a transmission kickdown cable, with about 15 turns of number 8 wire around it - good old Kiwi trick. Found myself using it the other day, but Yuck, what a mess.

Speaking of a mess, ever tried applying primer with one of those foam applicator thingees? Don't. Glug, glug, splat. The resulting spread was so rough and sticky (it never dries at that thickness) I had to use Tesco Cream Cleanser (now available in NZ) to shift it. Anyway, here's the bonnet being prepared for painting. Ha! It would have looked better with no preparation at all.

So at this point the car is part green, part blue; looks like a bomb but goes pretty well, the body is being prepared for final painting...

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