Project Bentley

JRS · 3 Nov 2010 at 22:59

Cheers mate. We're certainly listening to the advice.

Just an exercise in cruddy timing. That driveway has a Jaguar making an expensive noise, a Granada that has quite serious issues about brakes (I'll drive it because I'm good

.....most people wouldn't), and the Bentley.....well. It works. Aside from two doors being without cappings and cards it's got no problems. The owner and I have said together that we want it to be a daily driver this winter....looks like it'll have to be if the Jag really is acting up and we can't get the Vectra moving for a while.

JRS · 4 Nov 2010 at 13:19

Vectra is getting picked up today by a specialist, so that's one less car to worry about for the moment. Our tame mechanic is coming to look at the Jag later on. And we'll hopefully have the interior of the Bentley back together by the end of the weekend.

JRS · 6 Nov 2010 at 13:17

And the interior is....well, pretty much done.

Front passenger door:

A shot of both doors together, rear one still to be done and looking a complete mess:

Back door:

Nice new keyring:

Took the car for a run - noticeably quieter and more refined inside now at speed, you can cruise at a figure somewhere north of the national speed limit (

) and have a conversation without having to go much above a whisper.

DM · 6 Nov 2010 at 13:44

Good job looking very well now

Jez · 6 Nov 2010 at 13:55

Very nice indeed :cool:

JRS · 20 Nov 2010 at 11:55

Another update from the fleet.

The Bentley - a completely trouble-free trip of 161 miles was the highlight of the week for the car. 18 mpg achieved as well. Utterly fantastic.

The Jaguar - still broken, getting towed on Wednesday to our tame mechanic.

The Granada - also still broken, will be going before Christmas.

The new Vectra - new 'box, torque converter and transmission cooler fitted, all paperwork sorted re: ownership, so we gave it a run this morning. It's got a bit of speed to it, as a few other road users found out. One was particularly incensed that we got out of a junction ahead of him, and decided a spot of undertaking was in order. Ah well

Not a bad car for total expenditure of less than 3 grand. Roomy, comfortable, quiet and posessing enough power to keep out of its own way.

DM · 20 Nov 2010 at 12:38

18 mpg was good going, drive well for an old bus dont they

JRS · 20 Nov 2010 at 13:50

Really is driving very well now. Engine still isn't perfectly set-up, but given the age and given that Bosch K-Jet fuel injection was never a particularly epic piece of design work in the first place I don't think we're doing badly with it at all.

DM · 20 Nov 2010 at 14:18

How is the wind noise round the mirrors and front of the door frame, thats what used to drive me mad on my old one

Thats my old one from many moons ago when it was for sale.

Gibbo · 20 Nov 2010 at 14:30

Very impressive m8, it looks like new.

Any pictures of the actual car and engine? What Bentley is it?

JRS · 20 Nov 2010 at 18:41

DiamondMark - wind noise is reduced by the insulation we put in, but not eliminated. As you know, she's a big ol' girl and punches a big ol' hole in the air

Gibbo said:
Very impressive m8, it looks like new.

Any pictures of the actual car and engine? What Bentley is it?

There are full body shots in this post here. The car is a 1989 Bentley Mulsanne S - 6¾ litre R-R/Bentley V8. Just a ruddy great heap of brute force, ignorance, and comfort

JRS · 12 Dec 2010 at 12:07

A new modification.

Since getting it home for the first time, the Bentley has had trouble maintaining tyre pressure. A bit irritating in summer, utterly intolerable in the winter. We weren't certain if the leak was down to the tyres or the wheels, so to take both out of the equation we've had inner tubes fitted.

It's made a hell of a difference to several things. Firstly, the tyres actually hold pressure now. Mission accomplished. Second, the ride quality and road noise are better now. And thirdly, you don't have to be ******* He-Man to turn the steering wheel at low speeds any more

DM · 12 Dec 2010 at 12:43

Hold on stop the bus , you were having trouble turning the wheel with the engine running at low speed?

JRS · 12 Dec 2010 at 15:16

DiamondMark said:
Hold on stop the bus , you were having trouble turning the wheel with the engine running at low speed?

High or low engine speed, it was road speed that caused the trouble. I could rev it up to a little over 1500rpm (when the engine is certainly well into its stride) and try and turn the car around and it still took some serious effort. Now, it doesn't.

DM · 12 Dec 2010 at 15:19

JRS said:
High or low engine speed, it was road speed that caused the trouble. I could rev it up to a little over 1500rpm (when the engine is certainly well into its stride) and try and turn the car around and it still took some serious effort. Now, it doesn't.

Somethings not right there then, they had SUPER light steering at any speed.

JRS · 12 Dec 2010 at 15:26

DiamondMark said:
Somethings not right there then, they had SUPER light steering at any speed.

Oh, it always was light once you were up past 25mph. The front end has already seen work, so the steering rack is good and the geometry is spot-on. And now the tyres are sorted I don't have to knot my muscles and crank on the wheel to get it to swing into Gary's driveway

DM · 12 Dec 2010 at 15:31

JRS said:
Oh, it always was light once you were up past 25mph. The front end has already seen work, so the steering rack is good and the geometry is spot-on. And now the tyres are sorted I don't have to knot my muscles and crank on the wheel to get it to swing into Gary's driveway

Im talking about 1 finger light standing still, are you sure the pump is circulating the fluid round properly?

JRS · 12 Dec 2010 at 15:41

DiamondMark said:
Im talking about 1 finger light standing still, are you sure the pump is circulating the fluid round properly?

Pretty sure. As I say, with the tyres now tubed-up the steering is feather-weight. Before, at low road speeds you had to haul on the wheel like you were trying to swing the Starship Enterprise around the streets of Monaco. The steering itself definitely wasn't the problem (I'd harboured a suspicion that it was the problem since we'd had to replace part of the front suspension early on in Gary's ownership of the car), or this wouldn't have cured it!

JRS · 18 Feb 2011 at 16:45

Figured it was time for an update:

1) The Jaguar is back home at last. Latest generation tensioners, new chains, slides, the whole shebang. Expensive job, but could have been worse if we'd had to take it to a Jag main dealer. As it was, we know a decent tame mechanic.
2) The Bentley is having its wheels refurb'ed. They'd been done by the previous owner - badly, like pretty much everything else that they'd ever had done to it :rolleyes:

Gary is attempting to send some photos for the 'before' shot for me to post, I'll make sure I get some 'after' shots while they're still clean after the car comes back!
3) The Vectra's new gearbox is operating normally.

JRS · 4 Apr 2011 at 23:23

Project Bentley - another year, another pile of work

The last time I posted about the car, the wheels were about to get refurbished. And they were in dire need of it to be honest. They'd been done sometime before Gary bought the car, and like a lot of stuff on that car they were done badly.

Before (click for them in Giganto-Vision™):

Even leaving aside the fact that the wheels weren't sparkling clean when those photos were taken, the camera doesn't show just how bad they really were. One wheel in particular (front left) was showing signs of serious grot. Add to that the fact we'd had to fit tubes to the tyres to stop them going down (you have to figure the wheels were porous), and you quickly reach the conclusion that it's time to sort the wheels.

We also took this moment to change something about the look of the car. I've always said that whitewalls belong on Cadillacs and R-Rs, not Bentleys. And as matters stand now, the whitewalls are no more. Gary isn't sure about not having them, I'm certain that if it was my car there would never be any whitewalls on the tyres ever again. The difference between our opinions is that I'm right, but I'd like to hear other thoughts.

Anyway - photos from after:

As you can see on some of those photos above, there's a bit of nastiness in the wheelarches. ~21 year old car, built in Crewe, it's pretty much to be expected. The paint isn't looking too clever in a few places now either - we've made it look a lot better than it did without having to spend a small fortune, but it's time that some money was spent. I'm setting aside some time now to strip off all the bits and trim that we can so that the body-'n'-fender shop has less to do to paint it. The target now is to have the body and everything else on the outside done by August. Got a couple more jobs to do inside (oh, there's a story there - another day. It's a mildly amusing tale, involving muppets who can't read the spec of dashboard bulbs

), and then....well. Shouldn't be a great deal to do then except drive the old girl.