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

10 minute(s) of a 242 minute read

called the trans shop to check in this morning.

after my last update i ended up stopping by in early october and there was some carb related tuning to be done to lower the idle speed, and adjust many of the linkages. i also told them not to rush as we werent in a huge hurry to drive the car in the winter.

at any rate, its sounding like theyve been able to drive it quite a bit over the last few weeks and do all of the needed adjustments. i guess its only a test drive or two away from being all set.


ill post more updates when i hear back from them again

11-7-2011

car survived the ~30minute drive from the trans shop this afternoon

idle is super smooth and low, and the trans shifts and takes off great now. two big thumbs up to skagit transmission

tires were a bit low so it hunted a bit on the freeway, but it cruises at 60mph like no ones business!


next up is going to be the exhaust but that wont happen until thanksgiving weekend most likely. and then the oil pan and oil seal work underneath as well shortly after.
it also occured to me (on the cold rainy drive back) that it might not hurt to quickly slap some working blower motors in there as well... so i might do that in the coming months also. heat comes out of the vents when under way with the air forced in there... but the blowers have some bad bearings so its probably time to replace those.


ill keep this updated with pictures as we keep going and tearing stuff apart - nothing much to take pictures of now since it looks the same as it did last time

11-8-2011

there was a knob that looks somewhat like the heater push/pull knobs under the vents, that was located just above my right foot... near the parking brake. moving it around while the car was in motion seemed to direct air blowing either ahead of my feet or toward my shins... but i guess it could always just be blowing outside air and not heated stuff. i assumed it would have been heated if the blower motor worked, but it sounds like thats not the case hah

11-16-2011

ordered a bunch of brake parts this morning...

looks like we're well overdue (go figure) for a replacement of all of the soft lines, and a bleeding.

i went through the troubleshooting steps for the brake system and we have everything associated with the rear accumulator working/bleeding properly, including the calipers from what it looks like.
the front accumulator doesnt build pressure but it looks to be due to no (or very very little) output from the front pump. i cracked the feed line to the front pump last night and saw very little flow there as well so my first hunch is a hose issue - as i checked the filters earlier this summer.
so hopefully we can see some life out of the front accumulator and pump system after a hose swap and a fluid drain/bleeding!
ill also take this time to delete the rest of the front leveling suspension bits as there are some remaining hardlines and valves still lingering even though the car has been updated to the later style suspension.

hoping for more picture updates in a couple weeks

youre right. i remembering looking in there at some guys doing full on transmission rebuilds in their shops in the cloud forum, whereas it seems some of the shadow folks will balk at anything beyond fluid changes.
i dont really know what it would be either... but it is an interesting difference.

i have to say though there are a few guys in the shadow forum keeping the DIY flame burning, and theyve been really useful resources. its possible also that much of the useful conversation happens "behind closed doors" via PM rather than on the shadow forum, as there are a couple of rather grumpy older members on there who appear to not look too kindly on the newer folks...

11-21-2011

going through quite a headache replacing the pan gasket but therell be plenty of good pictures coming in a few days as a result.

also looks like the gasket on the front cover is leaking a bit, along with a likely dribble out of the bottom of the front main. im looking into having that done elsewhere, as i dont really like dealing with that castle nut on the front crank. have some feelers out for quotes on that, but we'll see what they come back with.
going to clean the flametrap and breather as well just to be sure its not crankcase pressure, but judging by the condition of the old oil pan seal, its probably just from old age...

i might get ambitious enough to do it myself if the labor price is totally nuts... with the radiator out it may not be terribly difficult, but it seems things on this car have a way of making themselves tricky.


hopefully we can wrestle the oil pan out of the car tonight (its currently off, but stuck between various subframe and suspension bits).
if i cant get it out ill clean it and reseal where it sits


anyway, photos to come in a day or two of whats been going on so far.

12-16-2011

speaking of which....
heres a fun one i found last night...

12-18-2011

some more shots to tide you guys over... im doing my best to make a mundane soft line swap as interesting as possible

and thought id take a shot of this... to show everyone what sort of mess were trying to sort through here. an overview of the whole hydraulic system




fluid in the tank was clean, as i had seen before, but there was gunk on the bottom of the tank... and it looks like the filters were collapsed - common problem - which i hadnt noticed before. no problem though, weve got new ones.




shot of the old filters...




and all done




the biggest bunch of soft lines at the rear end... just for fun.




and a couple up front... going from the rat trap to the two front calipers - right before the system Ts off into the left and right corners (the blue and purple circuits, in that overview above)




and heres a shot of some of the old stuff getting thrown out.




ive still got a few more lines to replace, but theyre hooked to seized up hard lines in the rear. im gonna check tomorrow if i can have those made locally... if so, ill just break them and get them out so i can take them in to use as templates, and itll be almost wrapped up.
i got my bag of ball bearings in the mail friday, but havent had a chance to install them to block off the front suspension, and i didnt have a chance to rip out the rest of the front suspension stuff since i had to work saturday, but thats the next job when i get back out to the shop.

i think the end is in sight now, especially if i can have new hardlines made up to replace the couple of rusty/seized ones, thatll really make my day

AND, i have a big shiny surprise that should be here in a week or so that we got on ebay this morning.... so stay tuned... ill be really excited to bolt that on once it gets in.

12-30-2011

our grill isnt "right". its in great shape, but isnt proper...

see if you can spot the difference

12-30-2011

im beginning to think it may not be right for any bumper, after comparing a few shadow 1 and shadow 2 grills ive seen in person now... its possible that whoever did the swap to the rubber bumpers decided they wanted to mix things up on the grill too and had it cut down


anyway, itll look great hanging on a wall as the incorrect proportions will be tough to spot when its not on a car