What does £2500 of Rolls Royce look like? Not bad actually..
Discussion
I spotted this on ebay and decided what better time to jump into Rolls Royce ownership than 6 weeks before getting married? Well I'm sure you can all appreciate it didn't take long for me to convince myself it was a brilliant idea... I am very lucky in that my Fiance is always on board with my wacky car buying ideas so I had no worries there.
It is a 1981 Silver Spirit in Ocean blue, it was last MOT'd in 2012 and currently has 61000 miles on the clock, advertised as running and driving but with issues to sort.
A few days later we had hired a recovery truck and made the 500 mile round trip to go and fetch it, it's a big old beast!
The car runs and drives through the gears, the brakes work and the suspension is sitting at the correct height - so all the major bork items are seemingly in good order. It does have an electrical issue, apparently brought on by an attempt at jump starting it, in that the fuse board in the glovebox only gets power to one side. There is no switched live from the ignition, but it is easy to temporarily swap the permanent live over to get the car running.
The bodywork is generally good, the notoriously rusty arches are very good, there are only a couple of rust patches on the car and they are in areas which should be easy for a bodyshop to repair. The battery tray in the boot has totally rotted away, but it looks like an easy flat panel repair job.
P1010541 by Hi, on Flickr
The paintwork is quite flat on the roof, bonnet and tops of the doors - initially I thought this would need repainting but after much elbow grease with some polish I managed to polish out a small patch of the faded bit on the top of the drivers door. I shan't do the rest by hand, as it took ages, so I will do it with a machine polisher.
P1010544 by Hi, on Flickr
P1010539 by Hi, on Flickr
The interior is in very good condition, the leather is all good although the drivers seat is more worn than the rest. The carpets are all good apart from the drivers side which seems to have rotted or been eaten by an animal!
P1010552 by Hi, on Flickr
P1010545_1 by Hi, on Flickr
P1010546 by Hi, on Flickr
P1010547 by Hi, on Flickr
P1010553 by Hi, on Flickr
My plan is to weld up the boot floor panel asap, fault find the electrical issue with the fuse board and then get it MOT'd asap. After that I will continue to clean it up and get the rust spots sorted and then just waft about in it a bit and decide what to do next.
P1010540 by Hi, on Flickr
P1010541 by Hi, on Flickr
So far I have bought a new battery, which arrived today, and I have ordered new number plates as it didn't come with any (due to a previous private plate being removed).
Costs so far:
Purchase £2500
Battery £84
Number plates £16.50
I have already made a start on cleaning it and will add more photos when I have made more progress.
It is a 1981 Silver Spirit in Ocean blue, it was last MOT'd in 2012 and currently has 61000 miles on the clock, advertised as running and driving but with issues to sort.
A few days later we had hired a recovery truck and made the 500 mile round trip to go and fetch it, it's a big old beast!
The car runs and drives through the gears, the brakes work and the suspension is sitting at the correct height - so all the major bork items are seemingly in good order. It does have an electrical issue, apparently brought on by an attempt at jump starting it, in that the fuse board in the glovebox only gets power to one side. There is no switched live from the ignition, but it is easy to temporarily swap the permanent live over to get the car running.
The bodywork is generally good, the notoriously rusty arches are very good, there are only a couple of rust patches on the car and they are in areas which should be easy for a bodyshop to repair. The battery tray in the boot has totally rotted away, but it looks like an easy flat panel repair job.
P1010541 by Hi, on FlickrThe paintwork is quite flat on the roof, bonnet and tops of the doors - initially I thought this would need repainting but after much elbow grease with some polish I managed to polish out a small patch of the faded bit on the top of the drivers door. I shan't do the rest by hand, as it took ages, so I will do it with a machine polisher.
P1010544 by Hi, on FlickrP1010539 by Hi, on FlickrThe interior is in very good condition, the leather is all good although the drivers seat is more worn than the rest. The carpets are all good apart from the drivers side which seems to have rotted or been eaten by an animal!
P1010552 by Hi, on FlickrP1010545_1 by Hi, on FlickrP1010546 by Hi, on FlickrP1010547 by Hi, on FlickrP1010553 by Hi, on FlickrMy plan is to weld up the boot floor panel asap, fault find the electrical issue with the fuse board and then get it MOT'd asap. After that I will continue to clean it up and get the rust spots sorted and then just waft about in it a bit and decide what to do next.
P1010540 by Hi, on FlickrP1010541 by Hi, on FlickrSo far I have bought a new battery, which arrived today, and I have ordered new number plates as it didn't come with any (due to a previous private plate being removed).
Costs so far:
Purchase £2500
Battery £84
Number plates £16.50
I have already made a start on cleaning it and will add more photos when I have made more progress.
Edited by Hi on Tuesday 14th November 19:43
Thanks for the comments and pointers everyone 
The transported hire was around £230 all in, including fuel.
I diligently did the weight calculations before collecting the car and found it was bang on the weight limit, only to find a day after getting home (when a friend pointed it out) that I had totally cocked up my calculations and I think it was in fact about 500kgs overweight which I feel a bit bad about. It was close to midnight when I did the calculations, lesson learnt, I wouldn't do it again that's for sure! The van was totally stable and capable though, it felt perfectly planted and still pulled up very quickly.
Yes it is brilliant having my other half on board with these crazy car plans, I think she just thought I was mad when we first met but now she 'gets it' a bit more.
The transported hire was around £230 all in, including fuel.
I diligently did the weight calculations before collecting the car and found it was bang on the weight limit, only to find a day after getting home (when a friend pointed it out) that I had totally cocked up my calculations and I think it was in fact about 500kgs overweight which I feel a bit bad about. It was close to midnight when I did the calculations, lesson learnt, I wouldn't do it again that's for sure! The van was totally stable and capable though, it felt perfectly planted and still pulled up very quickly.
Yes it is brilliant having my other half on board with these crazy car plans, I think she just thought I was mad when we first met but now she 'gets it' a bit more.
Only a very small update!
That rolls on retrorides looks like an awful lot of work, more then I could take on at the moment! Hats off to the guy for embarking on a project like that!
I'm not too worried about the fuel as firstly it won't be used as a daily (we have loads of other cars to use each day, can't drive them all at once) and secondly, it's not going to be much worse than my current 'fun daily driver' SL55.
Also it only cost me £73 to add it to my classic policy for the remaining 10 months, which isn't bad for a couple in their mid 20's, so that goes some way to countering the fuel costs.
Anyway, the number plates arrived today. I do like these pressed plates, it is the first time I have bought them but have a few friends who have them on their retro cars. I think the raised profile fits in nicely with this age of car.
P1010562 by Hi, on Flickr
P1010563 by Hi, on Flickr
I set about fitting them, which meant cleaning up the goo left from previous stuck on plates. I do plan to remove the plates in the future and paint the plate surround bit, but for now it is very much function over form if I am to get this road worthy asap.
Before:
P1010564 by Hi, on Flickr
After:
P1010565 by Hi, on Flickr
And this little job finished:
P1010570 by Hi, on Flickr
Here's one I did earlier...
P1010572 by Hi, on Flickr
I've got as far as jacking up the rear end and putting it on axle stands ready to start tackling the welding on the boot floor. It looks like quite an easy panel to sort so hopefully won't be a massive job. Sadly I am now pretty busy until next week so unlikely to be more updates until next week.
That rolls on retrorides looks like an awful lot of work, more then I could take on at the moment! Hats off to the guy for embarking on a project like that!
I'm not too worried about the fuel as firstly it won't be used as a daily (we have loads of other cars to use each day, can't drive them all at once) and secondly, it's not going to be much worse than my current 'fun daily driver' SL55.
Also it only cost me £73 to add it to my classic policy for the remaining 10 months, which isn't bad for a couple in their mid 20's, so that goes some way to countering the fuel costs.
Anyway, the number plates arrived today. I do like these pressed plates, it is the first time I have bought them but have a few friends who have them on their retro cars. I think the raised profile fits in nicely with this age of car.
P1010562 by Hi, on FlickrP1010563 by Hi, on FlickrI set about fitting them, which meant cleaning up the goo left from previous stuck on plates. I do plan to remove the plates in the future and paint the plate surround bit, but for now it is very much function over form if I am to get this road worthy asap.
Before:
P1010564 by Hi, on FlickrAfter:
P1010565 by Hi, on FlickrAnd this little job finished:
P1010570 by Hi, on FlickrHere's one I did earlier...
P1010572 by Hi, on FlickrI've got as far as jacking up the rear end and putting it on axle stands ready to start tackling the welding on the boot floor. It looks like quite an easy panel to sort so hopefully won't be a massive job. Sadly I am now pretty busy until next week so unlikely to be more updates until next week.
Edited by Hi on Tuesday 14th November 19:49
uk66fastback said:
Not much MOT history on it which probably means it was on a private plate ... a few advisories on the last one (four years ago) but nothing to worry about really ...
Great project!
Yes it's plate was something like 1HBW - worth more than the car, hence the car came to me without numberplates as it had apparently only been transferred off at the last mot (since which it has been sat).Great project!
Another little update, I managed to blag a couple of hours car time today, but off for a family BBQ now!
Thanks for finding the old reg Chris
The battery tray did actually have two 4" diameter holes in the battery tray as standard, I am not sure why, but you can see where they both were.
Anyway, I set about removing the carpet from the remainder of the 'sunken' boot partition. The carpet was a bit fragile and starting to go rotten, the underlay was a bit wet. Thankfully I have generic replacements for both in the shed when it comes to putting it back together.
P1010573 by Hi, on Flickr
A close up of the affected area:
P1010574 by Hi, on Flickr
From underneath:
P1010576 by Hi, on Flickr
The rot was very much confined to what you can see, the only place it went further then expected was on the bottom left seam in this picture, meaning I had to cut out the central reinforcing section. I don't have a bead roller so I will have to come up with another solution to reinforce the new panel.
P1010579 by Hi, on Flickr
A fair bit of metal removed:
P1010580 by Hi, on Flickr
I then set about removing the lip, there was a fair bit of rust between the two layers of metal:
P1010581 by Hi, on Flickr
I was very pleased to see it clean up so well and leave lots of shiny metal! There's still some cleaning up to do and a little more cutting out required.
P1010582 by Hi, on Flickr
Annoyingly I might not get much done tomorrow, despite having time, as I have run out of cutting discs for my angle grinder and the sheet metal I have in the shed has probably been there a bit too long and is past it's best, so I need a new sheet of that too! Bummer!
Ah well, next week should be more fruitful.
Thanks for finding the old reg Chris
The battery tray did actually have two 4" diameter holes in the battery tray as standard, I am not sure why, but you can see where they both were.
Anyway, I set about removing the carpet from the remainder of the 'sunken' boot partition. The carpet was a bit fragile and starting to go rotten, the underlay was a bit wet. Thankfully I have generic replacements for both in the shed when it comes to putting it back together.
P1010573 by Hi, on FlickrA close up of the affected area:
P1010574 by Hi, on FlickrFrom underneath:
P1010576 by Hi, on FlickrThe rot was very much confined to what you can see, the only place it went further then expected was on the bottom left seam in this picture, meaning I had to cut out the central reinforcing section. I don't have a bead roller so I will have to come up with another solution to reinforce the new panel.
P1010579 by Hi, on FlickrA fair bit of metal removed:
P1010580 by Hi, on FlickrI then set about removing the lip, there was a fair bit of rust between the two layers of metal:
P1010581 by Hi, on FlickrI was very pleased to see it clean up so well and leave lots of shiny metal! There's still some cleaning up to do and a little more cutting out required.
P1010582 by Hi, on FlickrAnnoyingly I might not get much done tomorrow, despite having time, as I have run out of cutting discs for my angle grinder and the sheet metal I have in the shed has probably been there a bit too long and is past it's best, so I need a new sheet of that too! Bummer!
Ah well, next week should be more fruitful.
Edited by Hi on Saturday 27th May 17:48
Edited by Hi on Tuesday 14th November 20:28
Thanks for all the comments, I have read them but haven't had a chance to reply to them yet as we are quite busy what with the upcoming wedding!
Progress has been made, although not as fast as I had hoped.
I made a new panel for the boot floor and welded it in. I didn't take many pictures as I forgot!
Here's the panel I made (actually my future father in law did most of the making of it).
P1010675 by Hi, on Flickr
Here it is tacked in place:
P1010676 by Hi, on Flickr
I forgot to take any more pictures until I was nearly finished... here it is all welded up with seam sealer and a coat of zinc primer:
P1010689 by Hi, on Flickr
EDIT: I haven't finished with this panel, I will be putting in a strengthening bar to replace the previous bead rolled section, plus I will be replacing the battery fixing points.
I also had an auto electrician come out to look at the electrical issues, they found the problem and had it fixed in an hour (£100 including call out charge). Now I don't have to faff around with the fuse board any more thanks goodness, and the dash all works although the fuel and coolant gauges seem a bit lazy.
Unfortunately there is still an issue with it cutting out when I drive it, it will run for a couple of minutes when cold and then splutter and die. It will then fire up straight away and run for 20-30 seconds before spluttering to a death again. I 'think' it is lacking fuel, possibly caused by an electrical issue cutting off the fuel pump. I am hoping to have the auto electrician out again tomorrow to have another look.
Previous total £2600.50
New costs:
£10 - sheet metal
£10 - wiper blades
approx £50 - paint, grinding/sanding discs etc
£100 - auto electrician
Total to date £2770.50
More to follow soon, I had plans for big progress today but due to the running issue it is now on hold...
Progress has been made, although not as fast as I had hoped.
I made a new panel for the boot floor and welded it in. I didn't take many pictures as I forgot!
Here's the panel I made (actually my future father in law did most of the making of it).
P1010675 by Hi, on FlickrHere it is tacked in place:
P1010676 by Hi, on FlickrI forgot to take any more pictures until I was nearly finished... here it is all welded up with seam sealer and a coat of zinc primer:
P1010689 by Hi, on FlickrEDIT: I haven't finished with this panel, I will be putting in a strengthening bar to replace the previous bead rolled section, plus I will be replacing the battery fixing points.
I also had an auto electrician come out to look at the electrical issues, they found the problem and had it fixed in an hour (£100 including call out charge). Now I don't have to faff around with the fuse board any more thanks goodness, and the dash all works although the fuel and coolant gauges seem a bit lazy.
Unfortunately there is still an issue with it cutting out when I drive it, it will run for a couple of minutes when cold and then splutter and die. It will then fire up straight away and run for 20-30 seconds before spluttering to a death again. I 'think' it is lacking fuel, possibly caused by an electrical issue cutting off the fuel pump. I am hoping to have the auto electrician out again tomorrow to have another look.
Previous total £2600.50
New costs:
£10 - sheet metal
£10 - wiper blades
approx £50 - paint, grinding/sanding discs etc
£100 - auto electrician
Total to date £2770.50
More to follow soon, I had plans for big progress today but due to the running issue it is now on hold...
Edited by Hi on Thursday 8th June 02:02
Edited by Hi on Tuesday 14th November 20:05
A long overdue update….
I went through the thread a few weeks ago and updated all the image links to Flickr, due to photobucket holding my images to ransom!
Apologies in advance for the lack of pictures in this update, I do have some ‘before’ pictures of the underside, but I haven’t taken any since I have done some undersealing so I’ll upload them later all together to show the comparison.
I didn’t manage to get the car useable in time for our wedding in July, nor was my wife’s spitfire ready. My best man saved the day by hiring us a Morgan for the weekend which went down very well indeed.
morgan wedding by Hi -, on Flickr
At the last update I had welded up the boot floor and given it a coat of primer but the car still had running issues where it would cut out after driving ½ a mile.
I had the auto electricians out again to fix some more minor niggles, various dashboard stuff which wasn’t working. Almost all of it is working now, the fuel gauge seems a bit dud so I’ll have to remove that and try and fix it.
The cutting out problem seemed to be something to do with the carbs (I had whittled it down to a fuel starve issue), so I bought 2 carb rebuild kits and a friend rebuilt the carbs for me. Carbs seem a total work of wizardry to me, hugely over complicated as far as I can see, I much prefer an injection system! My friend managed to rebuild the carbs although it wasn’t easy due to all sorts of excess gubbins (unknown solenoids etc) on the carbs, however the car still refused to run correctly.
After our very busy summer I bit the bullet and had the car collected by a local specialist who deals with older Rolls, Bentley and Jag cars. He did a whole host of work (at a very reasonable rate) to it including:
Re-setting the carbs, balancing and sorting out linkages etc,
Fixing various fluid leaks and burst pipes (PAS and Suspension fluid)
Remove exhaust manifold (it was leaking), skim and refit with new gasket/bolts.
Top up all fluids etc,
New wiper arms and blades
Supply and replace fuel pump and lines.
I’m sure there were other small items but that was the bulk of it.
I got the car back from the garage and it is now running correctly, it no longer cuts out after ½ a mile!
I then set about tidying up the underside of the car. I removed the spare wheel cage and spare wheel. The cage needs repairing as it is split but is easily re-usable. The spare wheel is very crusty (and the tyre is toast) so I will look out for a replacement, it is only a 15” steel wheel so not anything too special.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that the underside is actually very solid and in very good condition, it looked awful but on closer inspection most of it was an old layer of underseal that was flaking off coupled with a bit of surface rust.
Cue lots of rubbing down, my arms were killing after this! I bought a kit of 5 cans of Wurth underseal (the paintable kind) which came with a useful spray gun attachment to save on finger ache!
It came out really well, hopefully it will offer good protection. (pictures to follow)
Then it was MOT time yesterday! I hadn’t finished the undersealing but was confident it wouldn’t be an issue as I could feel it was all solid. It went straight through the MOT with no issues, just and advisory for surface rust on the underside which will soon be redundant. It felt really nice to drive on the 80 mile round trip for the MOT – although it did feel a tad slow.
20171222_110647 by Hi -, on Flickr
Of course it decided that an MOT was too much for it as promptly blew a hole in the exhaust on the way home, I’m going to try and patch that up in the next couple of days so I can use the car on Christmas day without ruining everyone’s day with exhaust noise!
The current ‘immediate’ jobs list is:
Fix exhaust,
Finish undersealing,
Fix fuel level sender,
Fix interior blower (either a dud motor or no power getting to it).
Then longer term jobs include a full polish of the paintwork and a visit to my friendly bodyshop to sort the rust bubbling on the front wings and below the OS headlight.
Previous total £2770.50
New costs:
Auto electrician (again) £100
Carb rebuild kits £80
Garage bill for various works £770
Underseal £48
New total - £3768.50
I went through the thread a few weeks ago and updated all the image links to Flickr, due to photobucket holding my images to ransom!
Apologies in advance for the lack of pictures in this update, I do have some ‘before’ pictures of the underside, but I haven’t taken any since I have done some undersealing so I’ll upload them later all together to show the comparison.
I didn’t manage to get the car useable in time for our wedding in July, nor was my wife’s spitfire ready. My best man saved the day by hiring us a Morgan for the weekend which went down very well indeed.
morgan wedding by Hi -, on FlickrAt the last update I had welded up the boot floor and given it a coat of primer but the car still had running issues where it would cut out after driving ½ a mile.
I had the auto electricians out again to fix some more minor niggles, various dashboard stuff which wasn’t working. Almost all of it is working now, the fuel gauge seems a bit dud so I’ll have to remove that and try and fix it.
The cutting out problem seemed to be something to do with the carbs (I had whittled it down to a fuel starve issue), so I bought 2 carb rebuild kits and a friend rebuilt the carbs for me. Carbs seem a total work of wizardry to me, hugely over complicated as far as I can see, I much prefer an injection system! My friend managed to rebuild the carbs although it wasn’t easy due to all sorts of excess gubbins (unknown solenoids etc) on the carbs, however the car still refused to run correctly.
After our very busy summer I bit the bullet and had the car collected by a local specialist who deals with older Rolls, Bentley and Jag cars. He did a whole host of work (at a very reasonable rate) to it including:
Re-setting the carbs, balancing and sorting out linkages etc,
Fixing various fluid leaks and burst pipes (PAS and Suspension fluid)
Remove exhaust manifold (it was leaking), skim and refit with new gasket/bolts.
Top up all fluids etc,
New wiper arms and blades
Supply and replace fuel pump and lines.
I’m sure there were other small items but that was the bulk of it.
I got the car back from the garage and it is now running correctly, it no longer cuts out after ½ a mile!
I then set about tidying up the underside of the car. I removed the spare wheel cage and spare wheel. The cage needs repairing as it is split but is easily re-usable. The spare wheel is very crusty (and the tyre is toast) so I will look out for a replacement, it is only a 15” steel wheel so not anything too special.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that the underside is actually very solid and in very good condition, it looked awful but on closer inspection most of it was an old layer of underseal that was flaking off coupled with a bit of surface rust.
Cue lots of rubbing down, my arms were killing after this! I bought a kit of 5 cans of Wurth underseal (the paintable kind) which came with a useful spray gun attachment to save on finger ache!
It came out really well, hopefully it will offer good protection. (pictures to follow)
Then it was MOT time yesterday! I hadn’t finished the undersealing but was confident it wouldn’t be an issue as I could feel it was all solid. It went straight through the MOT with no issues, just and advisory for surface rust on the underside which will soon be redundant. It felt really nice to drive on the 80 mile round trip for the MOT – although it did feel a tad slow.
20171222_110647 by Hi -, on FlickrOf course it decided that an MOT was too much for it as promptly blew a hole in the exhaust on the way home, I’m going to try and patch that up in the next couple of days so I can use the car on Christmas day without ruining everyone’s day with exhaust noise!
The current ‘immediate’ jobs list is:
Fix exhaust,
Finish undersealing,
Fix fuel level sender,
Fix interior blower (either a dud motor or no power getting to it).
Then longer term jobs include a full polish of the paintwork and a visit to my friendly bodyshop to sort the rust bubbling on the front wings and below the OS headlight.
Previous total £2770.50
New costs:
Auto electrician (again) £100
Carb rebuild kits £80
Garage bill for various works £770
Underseal £48
New total - £3768.50
Yes I'm very pleased with it so far, it still feels a bit like a project car as it is full of junk inside (tools, boxes etc) so hopefully once I've cleaned it out later today it will feel less like a project and more like a Rolls Royce!
I have no idea what the garage rate is per hour, I didn't ask! I did say to him when he collected it that I couldn't spend a huge amount on it and asked him to let me know each time the bill increased by £250. He didn't charge me labour for fitting the fuel pump and lines, I am not quite sure why but I am not complaining! It is a very reasonable bill considering that included a 3rd party collecting the car on a truck and delivering it to him and a 3rd part skimming the exhaust manifold.
I bodged up the hole in the exhaust as best I could earlier today, it is very much a temporary fix just because I really want to use it over Christmas if at all possible. The exhaust system looks quite simple (and quite rotten) so it should be easy enough to buy a load of piping and some silencers in the correct sizes and build myself a whole new system.
I have no idea what the garage rate is per hour, I didn't ask! I did say to him when he collected it that I couldn't spend a huge amount on it and asked him to let me know each time the bill increased by £250. He didn't charge me labour for fitting the fuel pump and lines, I am not quite sure why but I am not complaining! It is a very reasonable bill considering that included a 3rd party collecting the car on a truck and delivering it to him and a 3rd part skimming the exhaust manifold.
I bodged up the hole in the exhaust as best I could earlier today, it is very much a temporary fix just because I really want to use it over Christmas if at all possible. The exhaust system looks quite simple (and quite rotten) so it should be easy enough to buy a load of piping and some silencers in the correct sizes and build myself a whole new system.
Not much of an update, but I did manage to use the Rolls over Christmas and even managed to get a couple of nice pictures of it. I must remember to keep the camera on me and not rely on my phone in the dark though as they don't come out very well!
(yes that is antlers and a red nose you can see adorning the car!)
The fun didn't last too long though as just a couple of days after Christmas I was on the way to collect a little fiat which I had bought on a whim....
(I can't wait to get a photo of the fiat and Rolls side by side)
And the rear suspension started leaking fluid, all in the boot and onto the road. I got it back to the specialist chap who worked on it before as he can make up the pipes in his workshop (they have an odd flare on the end of them) and he is currently fixing it. I'm not sure if it is a pipe of just a seal which has burst as I didn't have much of a chance to look at it properly. Hopefully it will be back tomorrow or early next week!
(yes that is antlers and a red nose you can see adorning the car!)
The fun didn't last too long though as just a couple of days after Christmas I was on the way to collect a little fiat which I had bought on a whim....
(I can't wait to get a photo of the fiat and Rolls side by side)
And the rear suspension started leaking fluid, all in the boot and onto the road. I got it back to the specialist chap who worked on it before as he can make up the pipes in his workshop (they have an odd flare on the end of them) and he is currently fixing it. I'm not sure if it is a pipe of just a seal which has burst as I didn't have much of a chance to look at it properly. Hopefully it will be back tomorrow or early next week!
I picked up the Rolls from the garage on friday. The bill was £150 to make up and replace the split pipe.
I've been enjoying driving it again!
This evening I rigged up one of the 2 heater blower motors on a simple switch so it now blows air through the vents.
The 2nd motor is noisy so will most likely need replacing, I think the reason the motors don't turn on in the correct way is doen to the fan resistor - I'll keep an eye out for a replacement.
New costs : £150 (suspension pipe)
New total: £3918.50
I've been enjoying driving it again!
This evening I rigged up one of the 2 heater blower motors on a simple switch so it now blows air through the vents.
The 2nd motor is noisy so will most likely need replacing, I think the reason the motors don't turn on in the correct way is doen to the fan resistor - I'll keep an eye out for a replacement.
New costs : £150 (suspension pipe)
New total: £3918.50
Sadly I didn't have time to go out in the snow in it as we were so busy sorting atuff out with our new house! Gutted as I wanted to see what it was like, that and the fiat 126 but beither got a look in :/
On a side note, a polo bluemotion on summer tyres is absolutely brilliant in the snow, we were able to get places that 4x4's couldn't manage!
On a side note, a polo bluemotion on summer tyres is absolutely brilliant in the snow, we were able to get places that 4x4's couldn't manage!
Not much to update. I've been making sure to use the Rolls every couple of weeks to keep it ticking over.
Remember the very temporary exhaust bodge done around xmas? Well I finally got round to sorting it out by means of taking it to a local garage to see about repairing it. They had it up on the ramp for over an hour with 2 of them working on it. They took the offending pipe off, made a plate section, welded it in and only charged me £40!
Happy days!
I'm off to silverstone classic in it this weekend, it'll be interesting to see what it's like on fuel on a longer run.
I'm not looking to sell it but am open to the idea of moving it on and concentrating on other projects so if anyone fancies an unusual barge at 'cost price' then let me know.
Remember the very temporary exhaust bodge done around xmas? Well I finally got round to sorting it out by means of taking it to a local garage to see about repairing it. They had it up on the ramp for over an hour with 2 of them working on it. They took the offending pipe off, made a plate section, welded it in and only charged me £40!
Happy days!
I'm off to silverstone classic in it this weekend, it'll be interesting to see what it's like on fuel on a longer run.
I'm not looking to sell it but am open to the idea of moving it on and concentrating on other projects so if anyone fancies an unusual barge at 'cost price' then let me know.
philipbrown123 said:
Interesting thread. Just skimmed through it all.
I will keep an eye out for it at silverstone. I will be there from thursday to sunday in a 1988 tvr wedge 350i.
The car won't be on display anywhere sadly, but it will be parked next to my tent in the campsite over the bridge from the circuit!I will keep an eye out for it at silverstone. I will be there from thursday to sunday in a 1988 tvr wedge 350i.
williamp said:
So what are they actually like to drive? Silent, smooth, or have cars csught up these days so the drive is a bit..average?
Very comfy, pretty quiet although mine has a noisy baffle in the exhaust. Pretty smooth too, the twin caliper setup on the brakes takes a bit of getting used to and i expect the gearbox would be silky smooth with an oil change.It is however pretty slow. Plenty of torque but not a whole lot pf power.
I imagine something like a phaeton or an A8 (although I've never been in one!) would be better most of the time, the Rolls has much softer suspension though so is more like being on a boat, which is great! Hilarious at times!
RoverP6B said:
Given how robust these engines are, with forged rods and forged crank, plus a low compression ratio, surely it can't be that difficult to rig up some kind of F/I setup?
I've looked into it and the difficulty (for me) is the fuel injectors, my car has carbs and even the injection models are an old kjet style injection with only 2 or 4 injectors. To do a turbo set up I'd want 1 injector per cylinder as per a modern system. But it is beyond my knowledge and resources to make a custom inlet manifold with injector ports unfortunately.It's a shame as I can to the wiring and use a DTA ecu, i know someone who could map it plus I could make an exhaust and intercooler setup. Just the inlet which is stopping things!
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