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

11 minute(s) of a 242 minute read

turns out the fuel pump was being a bit sticky as well, quick fix with some hammer blows had that freed up and its back to running so i could finish the bleed.

anyway, couple shots of the rears in place...





didnt get pics of the new interior parts yet as the car is still on the lift and hard to get in and out of, so ill save the final interior pics until tomorrow or thursday when ive got a chance to get it back on the ground and the new parts installed.

5-26-2013

busy weekend wrapping everything up...

installed the new front carpets and took a few minutes to polish the hubcaps before it hit the road

before

after on the bottom

spent quite a bit of time dialing in the transmission linkage back to where it should have been, and put some miles on it driving around town this weekend. trans is shifting pretty smoothly again, i think about as smoothly as one could hope for the 4spd, and the brakes feel really good. it can actually perform a panic stop now

still a few minor tweaks to make and some more trans fine tuning to do but nothing that cant be done while its still being used.

it should be getting some serious mileage over the next week or so, provided the weather holds up

5-27-2013

There's a few from last fall that I reposted on the first page and they're also buried somewhere in the thread.

Weather unfortunately hasn't been that great, and isn't looking like it'll improve anytime soon, so any more overall pics will have to wait a little bit...
I had wanted to enter it in a local classics show this weekend but the weather sort of scared me off, we ended up just driving it around town a bit to stretch its legs.
Looks like our warm running issues (based on gauge readings anyway, top hose and t stat housing always seemed reasonable) were solved with the addition of the fan shroud. And it really is pleasant to drive now with the new brakes and smoother shifts.

6-4-2013

a wrap up on the weekend (or at the last day i was around for)...

we ended up getting the RR towed home due to an exhaust leak.
the drivers side head is newer - as noted earlier in the thread when i had the valve covers off - and has some emissions ports just above the exhaust manifold. someone at some point sloppily put some freeze plugs in here.
several holes already have plugs securely in them. one popped out at the shop right as we were going to start tuning the car late last year, so we plugged it, and another was already plugged before we got our hands on the car.
late in the weekend another popped out... i mistook it for an exhaust leak so i brought a pile of tools to sort the exhaust clamps and tighten the manifold but sadly didnt bring the tap and plug that we'd used to fix those holes in the past.

at any rate, it ended up (after a very heated and colorful exchange with a really late and extremely toothless tow truck driver ) taking a several hour flat bed ride back to the shop.

a bit of a downer ending to an otherwise succesful weekend, but of all of the things that could have gone wrong, this was a pretty minor one (and one that will take about 10 minutes and $2 to fix).

we also did the math on the mileage, and it ended up working out to about a 12.5mpg average for the weekend.
not bad!

6-9-2013

heres the part that needed a plug... you can see the hastily inserted freeze plug (there appear to have been threads in these holes at some point, but theyve all been pretty smashed up) on the left, and on the right you can see one of the other plugs we put in previously.

7-16-2013

another quick update

looks like sitting for a bit after some use loosened up the cork gasket for the brake reservoir, as its developed a little seeping issue with some brake fluid escaping past the seal where the tank top and bottom meet.
going to order new gaskets for that (if i can ever remember in the morning before albers closes!) and try to double check the tank level again when i have the top off.

probably due to my not tightening and retightening the cork gasket after it was used i think its been loose-ish the whole time but just now got worse from sitting (as a lot of the fluid returns from the system back into the tank when it depressurizes).

8-5-2013

things have been pretty quiet lately with the RR...

i took care of a brake fluid leak that i created by overfilling the reservoir prior to the wedding (theyre serious when they say dont overfill!)
i had misread the instructions as having to fill to the max line while/shortly after running the car, but really the level shouldnt ever cross the max line. as the system depressurizes after sitting the fluid level can rise quite a bit, which is what it did...

anyway, new cork gaskets and dropping the level by 1/3 quart or so fixed all that. ill have to keep an eye on it and drop it a bit more if needed.


it also made it out around town this weekend, and we checked out a local car show. this weekend was also its warmest stop/go driving (~80-85f) and it handled the temps well.

8-8-2013

honestly it seems like a mix.
the two best resources ive found for technical info have been Jim (who did all of the rebuilding on the hydraulic components, and waterpump) and the fellow who ive bought some used parts from, both of those guys maintain a fleet of these things and have likely forgotten more about RRs than ill ever know.
there are some members who dont do a lot of their own work but it seems everyone around here is really handy. not what youd expect on the surface of it, but it does make fixing these things (when youre new to them) a lot easier having that many resources to lean on


now i just need to get it rented out for photoshoots and whatnot
there was a couple near my place last night getting some photos taken in front of an old ice cream truck, which got me thinking....

8-13-2013

a quick cell phone shot from yesterday




and to bring over a little bit of discussion from the RROC forum - the car has had some funny coolant gauge readings when we drive around in stop and go traffic, and especially now since its being used a bit in the warmer (80-85 or so) weather.

i had a chance to take some readings last year with my IR temp gun to see what was actually going on, i believe after our drive around town to take photos last fall, and typically saw somewhere around the thermostat opening temperature when shooting the thermostat housing. this was despite seeing the needle in the upper area of the "normal" part of the temp scale.

well the last couple days of use, and the driving we did to the car show the other weekend, have all been a lot warmer than when i did the testing with the IR gun.
driving home from work yesterday - about 30 minutes at freeway speeds and generally up hill, then about another 10 minutes in heavy traffic - in 85 degree ambients brought the temp gauge to new highs (near the end of the "normal" range, into the lower part of "hot"). so as soon as i pulled in i grabbed the gun and took some readings and much to my surprise:
~185 on the tstat housing, 180 on the radiator top tank, and about 175-180 or so at the back of the passenger side head where the gauge sensor should be.

lot of stress over nothing i suppose - its pretty unnerving watching that needle climb - but thankfully the essentially all-new cooling system is working as its supposed to!
winter project might be taking a closer look at the resistance curve of the sensor thats in there (though i hear the sensors on these early cars are difficult to reach) and maybe looking into a replacement.
it just looks like it has too wide of a range of values for the "normal" operating temp

10-30-2013

rolls has mostly been sitting the last little while as ive been busy with other things, but the girlfriend and i went to a halloween party last weekend in some 60s-ish garb and wanted to enjoy the dry weather weve been having recently so we brought the rolls along for more period correctness



i like how the black and white during nighttime turned out, so we might have to do this again with a more entertaining background later this winter, something more exciting than the shop

car is also due for an oil and filter change before i park it for the rainy season...

not really, but i did confirm that the temp sensor is a real bear to reach - buried on the back side of the head against the firewall part way down the motor... so itd be kind of a challenge to reach and cap off quickly, and im not too keen on just yanking it for testing purposes given how hard it is to reach.

however, it looks to be that the car wont overrun the large middle "normal" middle area, so i may just be assuming a modern sense of accuracy in the gauge that it doesnt really deserve... from what i can tell the temperatures at the thermostat housing appear to track a normally functioning tstat, and arent of concern, and the middle-high end of the white "normal" band on the temp gauge represents a safe operating range based on the temp readings with the IR gun.

i think if we ever start to see it creep far outside the "normal" band it would be cause for concern but at this point as long as its inside middle band of the gauge we're in the clear.
so, no new developments, other than more data points (with far lower ambients) and the gauge showing the same behaviour as before in nearly double the outside temperatures. the readings at the tstat seem to confirm that its safe, and with the readings on the gauge repeatable at 40-50F ambients and 70-80F ambients, im fairly convinced its showing us that 180-185F at the tstat is just on the higher end of the middle part of the gauge