Post by westward on Jul 25, 2018 11:12:42 GMT
Hi all,
I decided to create a thread on the forum as excitingly, tomorrow starts the work on our Austin 1800 that we purchased a couple of months back, due to space restrictions we have been having trouble to get started on the jobs we want to do. We have now finally found a garage (A small one), shes finally in a safe space away from the environment.
We found this Austin 1800S while looking at another project car. The advert had just gone live and it was going for bonkers cheap so we took a risk, went to see it. We bought it on the spot. Guy had owned it for 20+ years, garage stored its whole life, only a small weld patch in the sills. the rest (touch wood) Seems completely solid, but i have seen some of the horror stories of the other projects on this site so i have my doubts! This car had only done about 10 miles in 5 years.
Me and a very good friend have bought the project between us and plan to restore it to her former glory. We plan to do this completely by ourselves as we have brought it as a project to learn and not really to make money.
We hope our luck holds out as we have not really done any welding before but i guess we will have to learn!
the car when it was pulled out the garage! we were so blind walking into this project we didn't even realize it was a "S". there is only 7 left according to Howmanyleft.com
Apparently they were considering calling the "S" the "Austin 1800 Cooper" dont know how truthful that is but its interesting non the less!
The garage it came out of, honestly not sure how it even fit and the amount of spare parts we got is crazy.
We drove it home the day after. We arrived at a petrol station where my friend described driving it having "no power" i tried it myself and he was right, it just wasn't moving no power. We limped it home, changed the plugs, drained the water, changed the oil, some carb cleaner and to my surprise she ran like a dream. I never really fully understood the comments about a car being more reliable the more you drive it but now i do, 10 years doing barely any miles has not done this car well.
Changing oil/water/plugs
We began to strip all the carpet as it was probably the original. It was falling apart and it really did smell.
The boot has a lot of surface rust but nothing that seems to extreme.
We removed the rear seats and carpets and to our surprise everything looks really solid.
Front looks pretty good also, some surface rust in the driver side corner but i believe this is a fairly common spot? hasn't gone through and still looks solid
We finally got a garage to store it away from the elements. We removed all everything external for now in hopes we can get the bumpers looking brand new. Engine will come out on Saturday as there has been a brake/clutch fluid leak in the engine bay leading to a big mess of the paint. The engine is giving a lot of white smoke so we suspect head gasket. We want to take the engine out for our own benefit and to also to take it apart, clean it up and check internals. If anyone has any tricks or tips for removing these engines let me know! We are very new to this and any help would be greatly appreciated. If anyone is interested in this project ill try and keep this post up to date. Please feel free to give me any information and tips.
Cheers all
Brent
I decided to create a thread on the forum as excitingly, tomorrow starts the work on our Austin 1800 that we purchased a couple of months back, due to space restrictions we have been having trouble to get started on the jobs we want to do. We have now finally found a garage (A small one), shes finally in a safe space away from the environment.
We found this Austin 1800S while looking at another project car. The advert had just gone live and it was going for bonkers cheap so we took a risk, went to see it. We bought it on the spot. Guy had owned it for 20+ years, garage stored its whole life, only a small weld patch in the sills. the rest (touch wood) Seems completely solid, but i have seen some of the horror stories of the other projects on this site so i have my doubts! This car had only done about 10 miles in 5 years.
Me and a very good friend have bought the project between us and plan to restore it to her former glory. We plan to do this completely by ourselves as we have brought it as a project to learn and not really to make money.
We hope our luck holds out as we have not really done any welding before but i guess we will have to learn!
the car when it was pulled out the garage! we were so blind walking into this project we didn't even realize it was a "S". there is only 7 left according to Howmanyleft.com
Apparently they were considering calling the "S" the "Austin 1800 Cooper" dont know how truthful that is but its interesting non the less!
The garage it came out of, honestly not sure how it even fit and the amount of spare parts we got is crazy.
We drove it home the day after. We arrived at a petrol station where my friend described driving it having "no power" i tried it myself and he was right, it just wasn't moving no power. We limped it home, changed the plugs, drained the water, changed the oil, some carb cleaner and to my surprise she ran like a dream. I never really fully understood the comments about a car being more reliable the more you drive it but now i do, 10 years doing barely any miles has not done this car well.
Changing oil/water/plugs
We began to strip all the carpet as it was probably the original. It was falling apart and it really did smell.
The boot has a lot of surface rust but nothing that seems to extreme.
We removed the rear seats and carpets and to our surprise everything looks really solid.
Front looks pretty good also, some surface rust in the driver side corner but i believe this is a fairly common spot? hasn't gone through and still looks solid
We finally got a garage to store it away from the elements. We removed all everything external for now in hopes we can get the bumpers looking brand new. Engine will come out on Saturday as there has been a brake/clutch fluid leak in the engine bay leading to a big mess of the paint. The engine is giving a lot of white smoke so we suspect head gasket. We want to take the engine out for our own benefit and to also to take it apart, clean it up and check internals. If anyone has any tricks or tips for removing these engines let me know! We are very new to this and any help would be greatly appreciated. If anyone is interested in this project ill try and keep this post up to date. Please feel free to give me any information and tips.
Cheers all
Brent
