Not much more 
Though it'd be nice if the cruise control would keep working for longer than a few days at a time!
Though it'd be nice if the cruise control would keep working for longer than a few days at a time!Project Bentley
- Thread starter JRS
- Start date
£1140.
The latest amount spent on this car. And it only went in with an oil leak!
In all seriousness, it was a bit worse than that. We had an engine oil leak, a hydraulic oil leak, a misfire and a few other little faults. Most of them are now sorted, but one major fault has cropped up - the engine will not run right. It's acting as if either a) the timing is very over-advanced or b) the plug wires are attached in the wrong order. And since the distributor cap has just been replaced....At any rate, I've emailed the garage with the firing order and a link to an online technical library which has PDFs of the R-R/Bentley technical documents. Hopefully it won't take too much fathoming out.
The latest amount spent on this car. And it only went in with an oil leak!
In all seriousness, it was a bit worse than that. We had an engine oil leak, a hydraulic oil leak, a misfire and a few other little faults. Most of them are now sorted, but one major fault has cropped up - the engine will not run right. It's acting as if either a) the timing is very over-advanced or b) the plug wires are attached in the wrong order. And since the distributor cap has just been replaced....At any rate, I've emailed the garage with the firing order and a link to an online technical library which has PDFs of the R-R/Bentley technical documents. Hopefully it won't take too much fathoming out.
The chap who's working on the car has done some investigating this afternoon. Definitely got HT lead issues. Hey ho!
A full set, guaranteed for 10 years, is a little over £140 from Flying Spares. Which isn't that bad, IMO.
Quick update from Gaz over text message this morning - "The leads on the car are carbon cores and number 2 wasn't working at all. Number 3 was out and I don't know which other one was miss placed".
At least it's an easy fix.
At least it's an easy fix.
Popped to the garage this morning with Gary. She's running a hell of a lot better - the timing is still a little off, but she at least revs up without shaking herself into a million pieces and the tappety sound on cylinder A3 has gone.
The numbers at this stage are, frankly, boggling.
The really awful thing is that half of this recent spell of work seems to be undoing a bodge that was put in to take account of a bodge that was done to get around a bodge that would have been a lot easier to do properly in the first ******* place. I'm under no illusions - working on these cars is hard, some parts are impossible to find, others merely eye-wateringly expensive, and you know you're not going to win when the official wiring diagrams are labelled "theoretical". But damn it all, at least when I lash something up (headlights, cruise control wiring, few other bits) I put something in that is made of higher-quality material or a better design or easier to maintain than stock. After all, "meh, that'll do" was seemingly the prevailing attitude of the people that built the bloody thing in the first place - I don't need to compound their apathy!
***edit***
Oh, while we were at the garage earlier we got a lesson in how these cars can get you in a few thousand other ways. The chap also has a rather lovely looking R-R Silver Shadow I in the dock, with a rather unlovely looking brake problem. The rear brakes are entirely (and I mean entirely) shot, and it looks like once again someone was there before and bodged up a previous repair. It now needs new discs (many, many £££s), new pads (also staggeringly expensive), the callipers need taking piece-small to sort out and clean up, some of the pipework needs re-doing....
It's a good thing that these cars drive incredibly well when they're on song, otherwise they wouldn't even be worth the price of a pint!
The really awful thing is that half of this recent spell of work seems to be undoing a bodge that was put in to take account of a bodge that was done to get around a bodge that would have been a lot easier to do properly in the first ******* place. I'm under no illusions - working on these cars is hard, some parts are impossible to find, others merely eye-wateringly expensive, and you know you're not going to win when the official wiring diagrams are labelled "theoretical". But damn it all, at least when I lash something up (headlights, cruise control wiring, few other bits) I put something in that is made of higher-quality material or a better design or easier to maintain than stock. After all, "meh, that'll do" was seemingly the prevailing attitude of the people that built the bloody thing in the first place - I don't need to compound their apathy!
***edit***
Oh, while we were at the garage earlier we got a lesson in how these cars can get you in a few thousand other ways. The chap also has a rather lovely looking R-R Silver Shadow I in the dock, with a rather unlovely looking brake problem. The rear brakes are entirely (and I mean entirely) shot, and it looks like once again someone was there before and bodged up a previous repair. It now needs new discs (many, many £££s), new pads (also staggeringly expensive), the callipers need taking piece-small to sort out and clean up, some of the pipework needs re-doing....
It's a good thing that these cars drive incredibly well when they're on song, otherwise they wouldn't even be worth the price of a pint!
Last edited:
And she's home.
Timing is still a little off by the feel of things - there's a vibration through much of the rev range that's a bit of a concern. But she's got very adequate power
Gary and I went in convoy to a petrol station this morning - the Bentley was seriously down to the smell of an oily rag, and the Vectra needed a drink as well. I took the lead in the Bentley on the way home with Gary trying to follow in the Vectra, and we quickly found out that 2.5 tonnes of British beef on fresh tall-profile Avons can outcorner a GSi Vauxhall on older low-profile rubber. I kept the transmission held down to second gear while accelerating, these things don't half build speed once you wind them past 3000rpm 
Cruise control is now working again - was the sensor in the side of the gearbox, as suspected. Got fresh oil in the engine. If we can just get the timing sorted, everything will be perfect.
Timing is still a little off by the feel of things - there's a vibration through much of the rev range that's a bit of a concern. But she's got very adequate power
Gary and I went in convoy to a petrol station this morning - the Bentley was seriously down to the smell of an oily rag, and the Vectra needed a drink as well. I took the lead in the Bentley on the way home with Gary trying to follow in the Vectra, and we quickly found out that 2.5 tonnes of British beef on fresh tall-profile Avons can outcorner a GSi Vauxhall on older low-profile rubber. I kept the transmission held down to second gear while accelerating, these things don't half build speed once you wind them past 3000rpm Cruise control is now working again - was the sensor in the side of the gearbox, as suspected. Got fresh oil in the engine. If we can just get the timing sorted, everything will be perfect.
For that Shadow 1? £90 for the main pads, £50 for the parking brake pads from Flying Spares. Only they're on back order, so if you need them straight away you're stuffed
It doesn't sound like a lot of money, but by the time you've gotten the rear brakes to the point at which you could actually change the pads (i.e dismantled the bloody callipers, cleaned everything up, replaced the rear discs at £200 each, un-****ed the brake pipework) you've spent the kind of sums involved in funding a small nuclear war.
Something I never knew about these cars came up the other week when Gary and I were looking for info on something else. Like most (all?) fuel-injected cars the pump at the tank sends more fuel to the engine than it will use, so the excess is returned to the tank. Often this fuel is heated by the pump and the temperatures in the engine bay. So R-R/Bentley cars use the air conditioning refrigerant to cool the fuel before it's sent back to the tank.
And then you're left scratching your head wondering why the AC is so bloody unreliable....
And then you're left scratching your head wondering why the AC is so bloody unreliable....
We-e-e-e-ell nuts.
I don't think the ignition timing is dead-on perfect on the engine. But I'm fairly sure it's close - because the old girl fires off the line like the proverbial excrement off the garden implement used to move the aforementioned excrement around
I forgot to say with the latest work update that a rubber donut in the propshaft had torn itself to bits (apparently the ****s at Crewe were too cheap to put proper UJs in anything that wasn't turbocharged *sigh*) and had to be replaced. That's been sorted....but I'm now wondering if the vibration I'm feeling is partly to do with the driveline, and either the prop is out of balance or something else is not quite aligned. Because the worst of the vibration is when moving off from a halt - in Park, rev'ing it up is pretty much as smooth as it should be. In Drive, moving off from a standstill there's a fairly wicked vibration.
R-R/Bentley technical documents are currently my bed time reading
I don't think the ignition timing is dead-on perfect on the engine. But I'm fairly sure it's close - because the old girl fires off the line like the proverbial excrement off the garden implement used to move the aforementioned excrement around
I forgot to say with the latest work update that a rubber donut in the propshaft had torn itself to bits (apparently the ****s at Crewe were too cheap to put proper UJs in anything that wasn't turbocharged *sigh*) and had to be replaced. That's been sorted....but I'm now wondering if the vibration I'm feeling is partly to do with the driveline, and either the prop is out of balance or something else is not quite aligned. Because the worst of the vibration is when moving off from a halt - in Park, rev'ing it up is pretty much as smooth as it should be. In Drive, moving off from a standstill there's a fairly wicked vibration.
R-R/Bentley technical documents are currently my bed time reading
Well the guibo is good enough for BMWs
Yeah, I know why they fitted them. I just wish that they'd considered using something stronger given the torque output of the engine! The turbocharged models had UJs, so clearly the factory knew that the rubber couplings have limits to their robustness.
Don't believe it's ever had any work.
The garage has the Bentley again. The guy is going to go through it this week.
Firing it up this morning, cold and damp out and it caught and ran straight away. Settled into idling at 800rpm. So the timing can't be a long way out. But it's gone back to running mega rich, and the idle speed goes up to ~1200rpm as soon as it's warmed up a bit. On the plus side - all the hydraulics are mahoosively improved, the cruise control actually works every time you go to use it, the heater tap is behaving itself and when you put your boot into the carpet you go straight to warp factor 9
Firing it up this morning, cold and damp out and it caught and ran straight away. Settled into idling at 800rpm. So the timing can't be a long way out. But it's gone back to running mega rich, and the idle speed goes up to ~1200rpm as soon as it's warmed up a bit. On the plus side - all the hydraulics are mahoosively improved, the cruise control actually works every time you go to use it, the heater tap is behaving itself and when you put your boot into the carpet you go straight to warp factor 9
So, where to begin?
That garage basically left the car in a barely-driveable condition. Oh, the oil leaks were fixed perfectly. And the cruise control wiring. And the hydraulic leak. And the one prop donut that tore itself up was replaced. But it was still misfiring and running poorly. So it went to another garage, who rebuilt the distributor (it was knackered) and repaired the fuel injection (it was bodged-up from years ago apparently).
And it's still missing.
So, here's where I enter the fray. Armed with nothing more than a pair of rubber gloves, I get the engine running and then start taking HT leads off-and-on one at a time. And cylinder A3 (drivers side, third from the front of the car) was dead. So I replace that HT lead - car runs better, but not perfect. I popped to Halfords to grab some of those light-up testers that you put between the HT lead and plug - get spark everywhere now, but it looked weak on some of the passenger side bank. Lead B1 came apart as soon as I even looked at it, so that was immediately replaced. B2 is now new as well. Waiting on B3 and B4 to arrive, will fit at the weekend.
The car is now definitely going. Gary has had enough - it's great when it works and we've had some good times doing it up together, but as soon as you involve a garage they either **** it up or charge you eye-watering money for something that we could do in a morning if we actually had somewhere to work. And more often than not they **** it up. So, it's back to modern cars - a Merc CLS is looking favourite right now, as Gary's wife likes the idea of one.
That garage basically left the car in a barely-driveable condition. Oh, the oil leaks were fixed perfectly. And the cruise control wiring. And the hydraulic leak. And the one prop donut that tore itself up was replaced. But it was still misfiring and running poorly. So it went to another garage, who rebuilt the distributor (it was knackered) and repaired the fuel injection (it was bodged-up from years ago apparently).
And it's still missing.
So, here's where I enter the fray. Armed with nothing more than a pair of rubber gloves, I get the engine running and then start taking HT leads off-and-on one at a time. And cylinder A3 (drivers side, third from the front of the car) was dead. So I replace that HT lead - car runs better, but not perfect. I popped to Halfords to grab some of those light-up testers that you put between the HT lead and plug - get spark everywhere now, but it looked weak on some of the passenger side bank. Lead B1 came apart as soon as I even looked at it, so that was immediately replaced. B2 is now new as well. Waiting on B3 and B4 to arrive, will fit at the weekend.
The car is now definitely going. Gary has had enough - it's great when it works and we've had some good times doing it up together, but as soon as you involve a garage they either **** it up or charge you eye-watering money for something that we could do in a morning if we actually had somewhere to work. And more often than not they **** it up. So, it's back to modern cars - a Merc CLS is looking favourite right now, as Gary's wife likes the idea of one.
Sad way to end the thread, but at least you guys gave it a good shot!
The way I look at it, we saved this one from being scrapped. I'm calling that a win.
Have you not considered just setting yourself up as a Bentley specialist?
Genuinely, Gary and I did actually consider advertising that we would change out the suspension spheres for people - can do a car in a couple of hours!
Yeah, a CLS wouldn't be a project - the Landy Series IIa that my pa bought a few months ago as a winter hack on the other hand....
If you can hang fire a few days that'd be great. I've got a couple of last things to do to the car before it goes - for my own satisfaction I want to cure the misfire by myself and offer up final proof that I'm waaaaaaaaaay better at this than professional garages
Changed the ignition coil out today - misfire getting better, slowly but surely. Got two HT leads arriving Monday to replace the last of the old ones. If that doesn't cure it entirely then I'm definitely throwing in the towel.
Riiiiiiiight then.
Got spark on all 8 cylinders. Had test lights on them, definitely sparking. But if I pull the HT lead off A3 cylinder the engine note doesn't change at all. So attention now turns to the injector on that cylinder - just got to work out how to get it out of the manifold!
Got spark on all 8 cylinders. Had test lights on them, definitely sparking. But if I pull the HT lead off A3 cylinder the engine note doesn't change at all. So attention now turns to the injector on that cylinder - just got to work out how to get it out of the manifold!