Project Bentley

[JRS]

Sounds Awesome!

If you ever need a bit of help with anything I'm more than happy to copy down some of the pages of the workshop manual for these beasts, or ask some of the older guys for a bit of their know-how .

We have TSD 4700 (the main workshop manual) and the parts list (TSD 6167). We don't have the '89 models electrical manual though (TSD 4848 I think it is), which has caused us some headaches. The electrical manual does seem to be some kind of holy relic - the only copies I've seen for sale have been hardback ones in Australia, and they're bloody expensive!

 

[JRS]

Montague and Co down in Surrey are the people we talk to for bits that we can't repair/need to replace. Very nice people who are always willing to help out us befuddled twonks trying to repair a Bentley on a less than epic budget!

 

[JRS]

snip

Cheers Joshy. I'm sure we'll uncover something that requires us to get in touch!

 

[JRS]

Rear bumper has been mostly sorted and refitted (just needs a few tweaks to its positioning and a little more tidying work). Will have some photos to post in a bit. Already looking a lot better than it did!

A few more paint blemishes have been spotted, those should be sorted in fairly short order. Then we need to sort the leather on the front seats and get the centre console up to take a look at the seat switches. Almost looking forward to that job, given how long we've put it off

 

[JRS]

not like wheeler dealers where its all done in a weekend then ?

Hell no. Think we're at 18 months at the end of May, and counting.

Initially when he bought the car I was in a patch of unemployment so I could help out rather more. These days I'm once again a wage slave, and can't.

Some photos of how the bumper looks right now:







We've got a little more to do to it, but it honestly looks a lot better in the metal than it did. Those endcaps were practically 'S' shaped they were that badly bent!

 

[JRS]

After a bit more work:




Looking better and better all the time.

 

[JRS]

I really, really hate the irish plate

I know, it'd look better with its original 'F' reg plate to be honest.

Good job otherwise though, looking smart

Cheers Jez

 

[JRS]

Couple of things.

1) That rear bumper job - I don't know how complex rear bumpers are on many cars, but I do know how bad this one is. This bad:



(click to make bigger)

The cost of a complete new one? Lots. Lots and lots and lots. Which is why the owner went with fixing what he had, unsurprisingly! It was pretty badly damaged in places, but the fixes are pretty damned good and will do until he wins the Euromillions.

2) We've talked over the idea today of removing the (utterly crap) viscous driven fan off the engine and fitting a Kenlowe in its place. As it stands, the viscous drive drags the fan around way too much at idle - it's like a damned wind tunnel in there if you're trying to work on something with the engine running, and it makes getting it up to temperature quite difficult as it's pretty much overcooling the radiator. I've pushed this idea for a while now (I really hate viscous fans), and we've seen how it might wire in so I'm finally getting the owner on-side with the idea.

 

[JRS]

We've occasionally got the temp gauge to get near to upright. Generally it sits a little way under. Like I say, that viscous drive on the fan is just dragging it way too much (though nowhere near as bad as when we first started working on the car).

 

[JRS]

Right, updates!

1) Viscous fan drive replaced. Certainly quieter than the old one, but no change in engine temperature or the rate at which it gets there. I'm still thinking about an electric fan to replace it entirely.
2) We had a go at removing the centre console to get the (broken) seat memory switches out. Turns out that you can't do it without removing the dashboard instrument fascia. Will have another go next weekend.
3) Bumpers have been back-to-blacked, looking pretty good now. Tyres less so, but that will be sorted soon.

 

[JRS]

Eventually I'll post a 'start-to-finish' look at our current job on this car, but I just wanted to show you this. This is what happens when you decide that the wood on your dashboard and console isn't quite the right colour....

The upper fascia panels for the gauges and the wood in the console have been painted a deep piano black (looks utterly gorgeous), the rest of the wood is getting painted to match. The door cappings are also going to get redone as we aren't quite happy with their current condition. The seat memory switches are currently being repaired by an instrument mech' friend (saves us spending over £1k on a new panel, or ~£300 on an exchange one), and we've replaced the rear electric window inhibit switch.

On the very left of the dashboard you can see the map light/vanity mirror light switch hanging down. The little end piece of wood fascia that this switch attaches to was a complete and utter **** to get out. Bentley, in their boundless, infinite and glorious wisdom, thought it would be a particularly corking idea to make the nut that holds that piece on pretty much completely ******* inaccessible. Eventually a 7mm socket, fingers that were cramping up by the second, and a small amount of vehement cursing did the trick. Couldn't have made it simple and used a wingnut, could they? Bunch of ****s

 

[JRS]

Project Bentley (a few pics)

So, where was I?

Oh yeah. The dashboard was in pieces and the centre console was out of the car.

Little bit has happened since then....

1) The wood came back from the paintshop. More on that in a moment.
2) Our instrument mech friend pitched up at the pub one night with the seat memory switch panel fixed. Over £1k's worth of kit, sorted for rather less. This is what is technically known as an epic win The switch panel was duly fitted back into the console.
3) Topped up the hydraulic oil reservoirs. Well, I say 'topped up'....pretty much filled from bog-empty. The brakes and rear suspension work a bit better now
4) We changed some bulbs, refitted the seat and memory switches (see 2)) and put the centre console back in the car. This would have been so much easier had the seats not been in place. Hey ho.
5) Then today came....well....the following.

First this piece went back in (an utter swine of a job, worse than removing it in the first place):

Then this little lot followed (also a pig of a job, since it needed a few shims to line everything up right):

And in quick succession we ended up with a few more bits attached:

You can tell I'm no bloody photographer, can't you? There's a couple more photos to post when my prehistoric internet connection finally drags in the e-mail that they're attached to. I can't promise that they're any better than the above, but they do have a wide-angle shot of the whole dash. Tried to record the engine sound with the owner's phone as well, but it really doesn't come out very well. Will have to borrow something a bit better and get it uploaded.

Still a fair amount to do, but definitely light at the end of the tunnel now. Bunch of cosmetic stuff, the tracking wants looking at, and the ever-present mysterious twittering sound from behind the dashboard still hasn't been eliminated fully.

Oh, and a lesson in why cheap leather 'refurbs' are never a good idea. This is what the drivers seat looks like right now despite the last owner having paid to have the seat renovated:

Looks even worse IRL. It'll look a lot better than that by the time we're done....

 

[JRS]

Nice, looks very clean and well done

Cheers

Did I totally miss your previous thread or something?

Previous thread is here.

 

[JRS]

Fantastic Keep the posts coming.

Cheers Jez.

Taking the car for a run later on to get the rear end pumped back up and make sure we have enough LHM in the system now.

Thats a great job.

Try Gliptone this time for the leather restoration, its not a cheap nasty paint type, best iv seen.

Cheers for the tip DiamondMark. I'll pass that one on to the owner.

 

[JRS]

Get a contamination test done on the hydraulics if it dosent come right up.

Pumped straight up, ride is back to being as good as it was now as well. Amazing what a Bentley can do when it actually has LHM in the reservoir....

Car drove very well in fact. Taking it up to a restaurant later to give it an extended run up the A444. Really happy with what we've done this week.

Now if we could just have some decent weather when I next do something on it, that'd be great....

 

[JRS]

You should bring this to a Motors meet some time

I'd love to....fancy paying for the petrol?

In all seriousness, a halfway local meet-up wouldn't be expensive at all. And even driving a distance isn't exactly out of sight now that the engine work has been done and it's actually operating properly once up to temperature....God bless muppets who 'repair' vacuum pipes by wrapping them in electrical tape, 'cause no other bugger would bless 'em....

 

[JRS]

Well, looks like I know what I'm doing next weekend now....taking the front seats apart.

Woo.

Actually shouldn't be too difficult, we've already taken the drivers seat halfway apart before to change the seat memory box underneath it. Also gives us the chance to replace all the mismatched screws and missing cup washers....If I ever catch hold of the pack of retards that worked on this car in the past I shall not be held responsible for my actions....

 

[JRS]

So, the seats are in pieces.

You see that innocuous looking orange wire towards the right of the last pic? There's a story there....

When we photographed the dashboard the other day we laid the front seats right back as far as they'd go so we could get the shot. The passenger seat worked perfectly afterwards, but the drivers seat would only rake forwards and backwards with a pause every couple of seconds.

We had visions of damaged gears

So with the seats apart, we went looking for the damaged gear that we were sure was lurking in one of the gearboxes on the seat. These are a fair old pain to remove and take apart, and they're packed with grease which gets everywhere. While we were at it, we noticed that orange wire wasn't actually connected to anything....

D'oh!!!!!

Wire re-connected, seat works perfectly. Nice, easy, cheap fix. Just wish we'd spotted it BEFORE taking one of the gearboxes apart!

 

[JRS]

Nice thread. How long do you think it'll be before you have this project finished?

Not sure really. We're getting close to having the interior finished. Got to go back to the bodywork then, tidying the paint up in places and finishing the rear bumper. And the cruise control doesn't work (bad connection we think).

Drives superbly now. It was good before the last round of work, but it really is something else now that the suspension is back to full LHM capacity. Think it'll be even better when the tracking is done.

 

[JRS]

one step at a time

Absolutely. Could do with a few less moments where we seemingly take a step back (that sodding orange wire being the latest!), but in general we're making some good progress. And at the end of the day, I've seen parts cars and CAT C/D write-offs go for more than my friend paid for this one....

It was very badly treated for a while, so we're undoing more than a few bodges. It's unfortunate (would be easier to fix stuff that hadn't been dicked with and jury rigged), but just one of those things that you have to accept, take a deep breath and do what we do - plough right in with a chunk of engineering knowledge and a lot of enthusiasm