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

9 minute(s) of a 242 minute read

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

Compliments of ValveCoverGasket @ fourtitude.com

10-26-2010

dont recall seeing one of these on here before... a rolls royce project thread!

a buddy and i picked this up locally from a fellow who saved it from the original owner's cousin's barn. car is from england, moved over to chicago sometime in the 70s from what we can tell (bumpers and mirrors were updated to then-current model parts). lived in portland for a majority of its life until it sat in a garage/storage for 15 years or so. then was moved over to idaho to the cousin's barn after the original owner passed away... has just 66k kms on it, and it shows 

anyway, runs fine but doesnt move. so the trans is coming out for a rebuild. since its a RHD 67 its one of the last years they used the rolls royce 4spd auto (LHD 67s already had the GM turbo 400 trans)... so were dealing with a pretty rare tranny (~3000-4000 built from what i can tell)... still working on tracking down a local shop to go through it. luckily it shares lots of parts with late 40s and 50s GM hydramatics (the jetaway i beleive...) so were on the hunt for an antique GM trans guy.


anyhow, onto the pictures!




 

 
















ill come back with some more pictures in a while once weve got the trans back in and all that... could be a bit as were balancing this with a few other projects, but everyone is excited to see it on the road. its amazing how many non-car people get excited about cars when you mention a rolls royce 

plan is to get the trans back in, refinish the wood (lacquer is peeling in a few of the top bits from the sun, otherwise its all solid), clean up the engine bay a little bit and redo some of the black paint under the hood, then see where were at money/frustration wise and whether or not we want to sell it or store it somewhere.

 




10-07-12 updated photos, finally spending some time out of the shop! 



 










black/white and color version of all the shots from our day out are in the album here... 


some more pics from my roommates film pics that he scanned in 
















really dug the depth of field and colors in his shots

we had considered doing that... and i think the possibility still exists if we run into too much trouble with the 4spd, but the issue would be all of the linkage parts, shift column, gear indicator, etc as we have a RHD car, we'd need all of the later RHD GM400 linkage parts, as well as the column, gear indicator, etc

so it would be a matter of tracking down those parts from the UK... doable certainly, but if we have what we need to make a runner out of the trans its got, i think that would be easier and more original.
if we had a LHD car with the 4spd it would be much easier to get our hands on the appropriate swap parts, but still some leg work tracking down all the little bits and pieces.

aside from the rediculous brake/suspension hydro system (maybe ill post a screen shot of the pressure line routing later tonight ) everything seems pretty straight forward. lots of large bolts, surdy aluminum components, etc
electrically the harnesses (on these early cars anyway) are sort of a joke, its like cloth wrapped copper with real **** connectors. ours has been partially redone though and so far everything appears to work.

were pretty handy with wiring though so repairs shouldnt be a problem, and electrically theyre really no more complicated than your average 90s car with power accessories (has power mirrors, and power front seats, electronic shifter, etc). seems its more a battle against ****ty british wiring/connectors than it being complex

doors all close like a bank vault, the leather is amazing (though the color is slightly worn in some of the inner seams on the drivers seat). the wood work is insane and where it still remains - mostly on the vertical surfaces - the factory lacquer is incredibly rich.  
rear leg room is awesome and this is a short wheel base example, and the seats are really comfortable. though to be honest ive spent more time under the car than in it
carpets are really plush. im really interested to see how quiet it ends up being on the road.

in addition to the front suspension being swapped out there are a number of new looking brake soft lines throughout the car. whoever took out the front leveling suspensionstill left in all of the old hydro valves and lines that used to run to it, so thatll be removed as part of the engine cleanup i think...

ill be sure to bug those guys when it comes time to start replacing other things. ive got an email in to crewe cutters already for some of the misc. stuff were missing under the hood, so well see what he comes back to me with on price/availability.

the trans appears to be a cadillac hydramatic copy... so weve found a local antique gm trans guy who comes highly recommended.

and i think for what we paid for it we can still break even when it comes time to sell

thats what i figured. i noticed fatsco sells all the rebuild soft parts, along side their antique gm stuff, and the trans guy has done a couple of these and seemed well versed in the various versions of GM licensed transmissions that RR used over the years

were currently thinking the internal seals let go from sitting too long. itll go into gear fine but wont move more than a couple inches after some serious reving...
PO was driving the car around a bit on the weekends (he claims to have put ~1000miles on it in the couple years or so that he owned it) then it slowly started to "fail to proceed" one afternoon as rolls would say, and he ended up limping it home.

ive heard the silver clouds are a bear to work on because of the x-frame... coworkers dad used to have one and i guess they did some maintenance to theirs and it was a pain to get to things under the car.

glad to see theres some RR folks on here, im sure ill be coming back asking some questions as we stumble through this