A TCL First? '67 Rolls Royce project thread...

7 minute(s) of a 242 minute read

looots of updates this weekend...

we got all the idle stuff finally sorted, everything adjusted properly and in spec on the linkage according to the manual. spent most of the afternoon saturday washing/polishing/waxing and BOY what a difference that made.

ill let the pics do the talking...












getting started on some polishing, the oxidation just came right off.




a before/after on the drivers side doors..







aaannd... all done!





im not sure if the pictures really convey the difference enough, as i was taking them from some new angles, but the car looks 100x better than it did in person.

we ran out of daylight saturday night to really take advantage of how good it was looking, but plans were made for some photos on sunday.



and since TCL has seen the great shots of the road tripping silver cloud going through chicago, we thought we'd share some pics over the hood of the silver shadow and the west coast sunset



and to keep it better organized ill reply with a new post with the sunday shots...

so we ended up going all over the place for some shots sunday. this is looking like it might be the last rain-free weekend for quite a while here so we thought wed make the most of it. probably put ~45 miles driving around today, so i guess some progress.

everything seems well mechanically still *knock on wood*...






















black/white and color version of all the shots from our day out are in the album here...
i have more to edit still but ill add them in there later...



as far as driving impressions go, ive definitely got a few things to say on that front after spending some time on the open road with it and not trying to shake things down or listening for rattles, but just enjoying the car


the super light steering and touchy brakes really make the thing feel easier to control than it actually ends up being. big car, tall tires, soft suspension, etc means it really doesnt corner like a modern car and that caught me off guard a couple times. couple that with the RHD and not knowing where the far edge of the car is and two lane roads with sharp corners were a learning experience!

im also not that nuts on the RHD, its really neat for the looks it gets - more on that later - and the uniqueness factor, but its incredibly impractical. its tough to pull out of street parking, its hard to turn onto streets that join each other at an odd angle, and you really cant see around other cars in traffic to pass.
power output is great, around town and up hills its almost effortless, you just give it 20-30% pedal and it just goes. on the highway it definitely feels like it was geared to go 55mph or so. has plenty of power above that for passing but just doesn't feel/sound as stately going 65+. our exhaust isnt perfect so im sure thats part of it, but the engine/intake noise increases noticeably above 60.
speaking of gearing, the transmission shift points feel like it just wants to get you into top range as quickly as possible. which i guess makes sense - going 35mph you can barely tell its running. starting it up at idle on a busier street with some noise around you and without a tach you kind of have to do a double take to make sure its running. really odd how little noise it makes at idle! this will probably only get more awkward after i get the radio working, we drove around all weekend without any tunes.

as for the looks/attention it gets, that's really something else... people taking pictures with their phones at intersections, old guys in minivans asking what year it was while we were sitting in traffic, and lots of rubber necking... generally just causing a scene. somewhat amusing as i dont think i look like someone who should be driving an RR...
im sure the attention is mostly a regional thing as i doubt many people care much when they see these going down the road in LA or some larger cities, but in the smaller place i live i think its the only chrome bumper shadow on the road.

all in all a very successful weekend, and we had a blast finally doing something nice to the paint and taking advantage of the nice weather, and getting to enjoy some of the hard work thus far.
i added updated shots to the first post, and noticed its been just a couple weeks shy of 2 years since we picked this up