COLD BUT HAPPY

Working under a car in sub-zero temperatures is a miserable task, but we had a few minor jobs and a continuing mystery to investigate. On with the thermal boiler suit!

We finished the last episode on a minor cliff-hanger – would the cleaning job I’d done on the toeboard sockets magically restore the ability to select Park? The total lack of charge in the battery prevented us finding out, but there was no dodging the issue this time. The Rolls-Royce needed to move, under its own steam, to a new storage area on the premises where it’s currently shacked up. A fresh battery, then, and a turn of the key…

It started nicely, as it almost always does, with the automatic choke keeping the revs up while the engine warms.

But there was no magic return of the transmission’s P position, to our chagrin. As before, the car would only start in Neutral, which must be indicative (it should also start in P, of course), though it would select all other positions, including Reverse, and seemed to drive normally enough. More on that later.

A couple of other issues raised their heads at this point, or rather one did and one didn’t. Last time, we had a terrible flood of Super Unleaded from the overflow pipe thanks to sticky float bowl needles, which I vowed to replace with E10-resistant ones. But these aren't available, so we’re stuck with what we have. No pun intended. However, there was no repeat of the flood from last time, so it seems more regular use is probably all that’s required to keep things moving. And I’m all for that.

GETTING WARM?

The second point is one that’s been an annoyance since we got the car running again. Our friend Stephen put the carburettors and inlet manifold back together after various tasks were carried out and essentially used his best guess to set up the throttle and choke

Car's stance is now right, after much swapping of springs and cones linkages, which are quite complex. The manual demands the use of a spring balance to set the spring tension for the choke flap, for instance. However, Stephen got it close enough for the car to start well, the choke functioning correctly, then turning itself off when you give the accelerator a quick stab once the engine’s warm. The problem is this: the warming up process is taking 15 or 20 minutes at this time of year, and if you try to drive the car before it’s warm, the choke is knocked off and the engine struggles to maintain enough revs to idle or indeed drive properly. Once warm, it’s all wonderful. We haven’t investigated this at all yet and it should simply be a case of working through the setup instructions properly. Until then, we practice patience.

With the car outside we had the rare chance of driving in thick snow, away from any road salt, on the roadways around the storage facility. It was fun creeping along with the eight-track player going, as we were treated to one of the old Duke of Marlborough’s choices – Bobby Short sings Cole Porter. The snow, some of it packed down like a ski piste and some still virgin, clearly wasn’t the car’s preferred surface, but as long as we resisted any sudden throttle openings that might provoke wheelspin, it did well enough. The combination of sunshine, silent snowy landscape and Silver Shadow suspension was about as close as you could get in central Scotland to Santa’s sleigh ride.

RAT TRAP!

Enough time-wasting. We moved the car into its new unit and began our list of jobs to complete. First, we wanted to jack the car up to gain access to the ‘rat trap’, the pedal mechanism » assembly under the driver’s footwell, and the gearbox. I rarely trust the jacking points of 1970s British cars with rust-prone monocoque construction, especially if they’re in the sills, but since this Rolls-Royce does indeed appear to be rot-free, we thought we’d try it. The cover pops off and hinges down, allowing the Silver Shadow’s distinctive bipedal jack to be inserted into a sturdy piece of box-section steel. With no rot evident here, either, Findlay began to wind the jack handle until the slack was taken up and the car shifted slightly.

I was listening for the noises no-one wants to hear – a muffled crunching sound, like sitting on a bag of crisps, or a sudden sharp crack. Fin carried on, slowly raising the sill and we heard nothing. Up and up it went, just as planned, until both offside wheels were clear of the ground. Fin walked round the car, and out of curiosity opened and closed a couple of doors. No change from their normal operation, which was even more impressive. Rolls-Royce seem to have created a stiffer shell than many such cars and this one has retained all its strength.

We popped strong axle stands under front and rear chassis outriggers and lowered the car just enough for them to share the load. First came the tedious job of re-shaping the aluminium rattrap cover (damaged at some point during the car’s journeys on and off trailers when it was first unearthed) and fixing it back in place. The soft metal was easy enough to re-form but a majority of the old screws were burred or corroded or both, so once Fin was happy with the shape, he was only able to hold it in place with a handful of fixings. We’ll get some new ones. It’s vital to have the cover fitted; one glance at the vulnerable array of rods, brackets, hydraulic piping and so forth makes you dread what might happen if a stone struck it.

Selective Memory

Next up, it was time to find out something about the transmission selection, something that we should have started with. But last time out, I was working on the car alone, and jacking up – then crawling under – a heavy old car for the first time is a little safer if there’s someone else present. I dived underneath and removed the split pin and washer that secured the actuating rod onto the gearbox’s operating lever. Would the lever move by hand? Yes, it clicked through all its positions with what felt like an equal effort, so we concluded there wasn’t a mechanical obstruction preventing it from engaging P. The actuator’s lever moved by hand too. Would it do so from the column selector? We turned the ignition on to find out. No, it wouldn’t.

So we were no further forward, but no further back either. A bad connection somewhere is still favourite, and Findlay felt like having another go at the toe-board connectors. But no amount of scrubbing and spraying with contact cleaner produced any change. We tried puzzling out the wiring diagram to follow the green and red (or is that green and orange? Or green and brown?) striped wire from ‘P’ on the selector, right through the toe board connections and down to the multi-pin plug at the transmission, but we soon came across a shortcoming of have a car in storage rather than in your own garage. Light levels dropped with the sun (just after lunch, it seems like in mid-winter Scotland) and we were soon using mobile phone torches. We were getting cold, too, and resorted to some more panel polishing to warm up again. The vast majority of the car is now shiny but a little swirly, so we’re still hoping to find expert assistance with that issue. Expert advice from Flying Spares on the transmission selection fault was really helpful, so I’ll be going back to John Creasy for his views on our next move.