I have been tearing into the RR I first posted about
a week ago in SoL. This novice has now been fully
indoctrinated into the school of SU carbs, Lucas
electronics, and stubborn oils systems. Since I
received numerous replies about the PMC, I thought
I would recap my experiences so far...
I picked up the car three weeks ago, and decided that
a complete shakedown was in order. It just so happened
that the very same weekend, my daughter wanted to go
to Kansas to visit friends. This provided a chance to
do a 4-5 hour road trip. Being the brave soul that I
am,(and was unaware of at the time) I set out loaded
with teenager luggage, and family in tow.
Now my first experience was that you can not drive a
Rolls Royce on the highway without every other driver
on the road trying to pass you so that they can slam
on their brakes and gawk at the Spirit of Ecstacy
and the grill. The only exception to this rule seemed
to be Mercedes drivers who try very painfully to ignore
you while watching your every move.
My second experience is that you can not pull into a
gas station without causing everyone to ignore you.
This actually was a nice departure from pulling into
a station with my Delorean which causes everyone and
their kin to come up and gum flap about Back to the Future,
or Cocaine, or bad business ethics...
My third experience is that English cars are not real
happy about new owners giving them a shakedown cruise.
About halfway to our destination, around the Colorado
Kansas border in a small town called Burlington (which
it turns out is famous for their turn of the century
Carousel) my right side float bowl developed a stuck
needle and blew out the main gasket. Luckily I did
bring my tools (I may be new to British cars, but
not collectors cars ! :-) I managed to tear into the
engine removing tons o' hoses, and found the offending
float bowl. A quick trip to a local Auto-parts store
confirmed my fear that NOBODY in eastern Colorado
carries SU float bowl rebuild kits (actually I didn't
even ask). I did manage to walk away with an exhaust
system gasket with approximately the same i.d. as the
float bowl. After some tedious trimming with my Swiss
Army Knife Scissors, while humming the theme to MacGiver,
we had a suitable gasket. While reassembling
the float bowl, I noticed that we were gathering as
large a crowd as the Merry-go-round! Got her fixed and we
returned to our journey.
After arriving at our destination, we discover that the
rear door lock solenoids have stuck in the closed position
and locked my teens in the car (some would say this is proof
of a higher being watching over us :-) Luckily I was able to
extract them, and return home sans daughter! Once home
all that was involved was pulling the doors apart, removing
the solenoids, performing some simple cleaning and
lubricating, and the locks once again worked fine. No need
to buy the pair of $200.00 solenoids that the Rolls Royce
supplier said were necessary for the fix... for now.
I realized from the drive that a complete tune up was the next
weekends order of business. Luckily that went without a hitch
until of course the oil change... After gingerly running the
Lbc (Large british car?) or BBC (Big British Car?? Whatever!)
up my ramps, and praying that a 6750 lb car wouldn't crush
them, I got to work. That didn't last long as I discovered
that Rolls uses a special drain plug tool. Down I go the
the Auto parts store, where I leave with a hunk of bar stock
and a sick feeling in my stomach since they did not stock any
Rolls Royce filters (didn't even list them)
After machining down the proper head on the stock, I return
to the Queen Mary and pull the drain plug. As she was draining
down, I called the local Rolls Royce dealer (yes Denver has one!)
and asked about filters. I went down and bought the $70.00
air filter and the $30.00 oil filter (OUCH!) and went home.
I Pulled the filter canister off which was not an easy feat
since it is nestled right above the point where the two exhaust
pipes converge just ahead of the first of many mufflers. From
this point the job was basically a no-brainer, just reassemble,
add 9 quarts of 20W-50, and the Roller fired right up... and blew
out the left side float bowl gasket. At least I knew how
to deal with that one !
Next weekend we explore the non-functioning power antenna,
the dead cruise control, and the self leveling hydraulics,
or maybe I'll just go camping and forget cars for awhile :-)
Later.
--
scocur@auto-trol.com
Scott W. Currier
Auto-trol Technology Corporation
Denver, Colorado
|