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Grotty old Bentley Eight - should I?


motorpunk

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I don’t think it’s the actual fixing of it, it’s complicated but it’s not the Hubble space telescope. It’s the prospect of something being broke or breaking as you fix it. It’s not like some crappy old Focus, if you bust something just pop down the scrappers. Everything is ££££. 

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9 minutes ago, sierraman said:

I don’t think it’s the actual fixing of it, it’s complicated but it’s not the Hubble space telescope. It’s the prospect of something being broke or breaking as you fix it. It’s not like some crappy old Focus, if you bust something just pop down the scrappers. Everything is ££££. 

As @xtriple and I found, only if you can’t do at least some of it yourself.  @panhard65 has already said, and proven in the past , they’re pretty straightforward, some would say primitively engineered and with a big set of spanners and bollocks, not that scary. There’s plenty of scrap ones around for parts, and of course a lot of parts are proprietary components bought in from suppliers that would also have sold the same bits to Jaguar,Land Rover, etc- it’s just knowing which ones..

I’ll always remember taking the trim from the side of the boot out to change the electric aerial on mine, the plywood had GM stencilled on the back of it, presumably they’d reused a packing case that a transmission or A/C components had arrived in.

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3 hours ago, NorfolkNWeigh said:

....I did and have since been forgiven* including adultery, bankruptcy and spunking about £15k on running and depreciation on a 1989 Turbo R- paid £21,000 in 1999- sold in 2004 for £8,000. A lot of the bankruptcy ( and adultery) can be laid at the door of that blue moneypit.

So what you're saying is he'll be skint but a clunge magnet.  Can't have it all I suppose.

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1 hour ago, motorpunk said:

Yeah, I checked that too. Another pointer to it having been properly abandoned ages ago.

Or that number never having existed and just made up, not unheard of.

 

1 hour ago, SiC said:

So you are saying that once you buy a Bentley, you'll have all the women running after you?

Or is only a certain age group that are attracted to them?

Cause and effect, I think. The sort of person that has a mid-life crisis and buys a Bentley is also likely to be the sort that thinks he’s got to prove his powers aren’t waning by acting like a tart. I was 35 when I got mine and had always had it in my head I wouldn’t live longer than Elvis did. There was no particular age but a very definite social class of ladies* . Something that surprised me because I’d been driving other people’s nice cars since I was 18 and apart from the occasional ribald comment from tipsy milfs regarding cold leather on bare bums, very little in the way of , as @RobT so eloquently puts it ; clunge, 

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19 hours ago, The Mighty Quinn said:

I've never been a fan of Rolls/Bentley stuff. When you can buy a V8 Merc, BMW or Audi A8 for 1500 quid that will without question be a far better thing to drive I don't see (or perhaps) miss the point. The Turbo R is the only one to consider AFAIAC. At least it goes quite well.

Yes I suppose they are better but that is not the point, if you want better, just buy a Lexus.  

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1 hour ago, The Mighty Quinn said:

 

The difference is, these are cool old cars and old Rolls/Bentleys just aint. Not unless you're rocking a Camargue or a chinese eye Continental. Everything after that is a cross between a Montego Vanden Plas and a Chevrolet Caprice.

Wash your mouth out. 

The Shad and T-series cars are really starting to shrug off the ‘cheap wedding car’ phase that they went through, especially in the right colour combination. A good condition Shad 1 in a nice pale blue or deep burgundy is cooler than deep-frozen penguin bollocks. 

The early SZ-body cars (Spirit, Eight, Mulsanne etc) are in the doldrums a bit at the moment, as evidenced by the OP’s example. A Turbo R however is very cool, mainly because of what it represents and the fact that it negates a lot of the issues with the earlier cars. I will own either an Arnage or a Turbo R, hopefully in the next 5-7years. A Series II R in Balmoral Green would be perfect. 

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I;d quietly get more information about the circumstances/ownership and the mechanical bits.  Far better to try and do something then just decide you'll fail so why bother, it'll extend you knowledge and skills.  Just look at colenotdole's posts on here and see what can be achieved if you put some effort in and try.   Keep the bodywork and interior neat and tidy . Brake hydraulics are not magic, diesels run brake pumps so with, more information, find the pressures needed to operate it.  junk all the complicated bits and use the existing discs/pads and pump/pedal from a (for instance) 4x4 diesel transit van.  You'll probably find several  people willing to assist if you discuss it with them. If you could fit an old Isuzu diesel you'll be a hero with some of my friends

 

 

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I sourced and maintained a 12000 mile Bentley Turbo about 15 years ago for my (then) employer. 

91 on active ride Turbo Rs are magnificent things. 

The non-Turbo ones aren't that good. They use near as dammit the same amount of fuel as a turbo (sometimes more) while being a lot slower and having a fair bit less torque. 

The Eight was always fairly disappointing. 

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Thanks all. This mad idea is a welcome diversion from you know what. I’m supposed to be self-isolating but should be allowed out soon and have a shufty. My thinking is to offer the garage a fixed price for the car but in an MOT’d state. I don’t care if it looks shit, runs rough, or drives bad. I like the idea of rattling around and parking like an addled pensioner, half drunk, and pretending I’m Lord Dogmuck on his way to a shoot. It’s just a bit of fun. 

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I'd not expect to get far with that plan...if it was doable at a sensible price (bearing in mind the comments above about the ridiculous consumables costs) they'd have done it I'd think and sold it on as a running concern.

Unless you're offering them like seven grand or something...at which point you'd surely just be better getting one of the examples at that price which are already MOTed and are only *probably* mostly stuffed.

Mind you, I'd love to be proven wrong!  For all their flaws and the fact that they're on paper not great, there is something just special about a Roller or Bentley.  Though admittedly that one will be late enough to have the crappy later style dash.

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As for binning the Citroën suspension. Don't.

I'll repeat that, just in case you missed it. 

DON'T. 

The rear suspension is remarkably simple, the rear spheres are in the boot and aren't that expensive or difficult to replace, only basic tools required and a bottle of fluid. The spheres will be shot, guaranteed. It takes an hour or so to replace them both. 

Rust and inactivity will have killed this thing already really. 

 

 

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When mine was running properly and without faults, as it was for the last year of ownership (only cost me 2 grand to service it that year!) it was fantastic. No two ways about it, it was a fekkin joy to waft about in with the occassional and liberal use of the turbo to cheer oneself up. It wasn't even that bad on fuel - not that I ever worked out its fuel consumption. Chester absolutely adored it: sat in the back with his fat head hanging out of the window, lines of Basset drool running down the expensive flanks...

Then the head gasket went and filled a cylinder with water which hydro-locked the engine. Head set alone was about £1200 and I was quoted £6500 - £8000 to do it. If, and it was a BIG if, it hadn't done any damage to the engine internals when it locked.

I do still harbour dark thougts about getting another but if I did, it would be another 91 TR (like my first one which, er, blew up in grand style within weeks of owning but that was Balmoral green and lovely) as they are the best compromise between the great handling active ride and the late 'kettel' cars ( the Cosworth built engines ALL do their head gaskets, usually at 80000 miles - ine just clocked over to 81000 when it went) with their utterly ruinous costs.

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I think it’s be an interesting project if you had the time and resources to fit a diesel in it, what type I’m not sure. A 2.5 BMW TD would be a bit weedy to shift it I’d say. Or maybe a 2.8 Cologne or a 3.5 Rover if you went petrol. These things cost though and you need a fair experience in engineering to cook up how to connect the bits together. 

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14 minutes ago, sierraman said:

I think it’s be an interesting project if you had the time and resources to fit a diesel in it, what type I’m not sure. A 2.5 BMW TD would be a bit weedy to shift it I’d say. Or maybe a 2.8 Cologne or a 3.5 Rover if you went petrol. These things cost though and you need a fair experience in engineering to cook up how to connect the bits together. 

If I may say: what's the fucking point!? The whole idea is to waft around in SILENCE not with some dagga-dagga-dagga type hideous noise coming out. If you want a fukking diesel (and who does) get a fukking diesel and leave a decent old heap with the engine it should have. There is a point to these old dollops, it's just that none of us can afford to own one in a 'cost no object' way, which is what they need.

Our fault, not the cars so don't fucking ruin one.

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It’d upset the ten bob millionaires at the Bentley Owners Club though that’s why I’d do it. 

To be fair it’ll get ruined when it inevitably ends up getting raced running a 2.8 in it. Deatons at Staveley has 2 of them in, both bollocksed, spent the autumn of their years being run by someone who couldn’t afford it. 

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21 hours ago, 83C said:

Wash your mouth out. 

The Shad and T-series cars are really starting to shrug off the ‘cheap wedding car’ phase that they went through, especially in the right colour combination. A good condition Shad 1 in a nice pale blue or deep burgundy is cooler than deep-frozen penguin bollocks. 

The early SZ-body cars (Spirit, Eight, Mulsanne etc) are in the doldrums a bit at the moment, as evidenced by the OP’s example. A Turbo R however is very cool, mainly because of what it represents and the fact that it negates a lot of the issues with the earlier cars. I will own either an Arnage or a Turbo R, hopefully in the next 5-7years. A Series II R in Balmoral Green would be perfect. 

All of this, especially the bit about a Shadow 1.

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33 minutes ago, The Mighty Quinn said:

Excellent, it's only taken 30 years.

 

They're still worth about a third of a 6.3 Mercedes. A Shadow 1 is okay I guess but I'm not a fan having driven a couple. They really do drive like an old Yank.

 

There is also this elephant in the room - if you must have a big thirsty rot prone British car, there is something that is so infinitely superior on every level:

 

Screen Shot 2020-03-21 at 15.27.29.png

Horses for courses. The Jag is a proper car to drive, a big saloon car that can hustle along and yet still feel like a gentleman’s club on wheels. It would certainly be my all round saloon car of choice.

The Royce is a car to move from one place to the next in comfort whilst issuing orders over speed and course like the captain of an ocean liner. Don’t expect it to turn, stop, go or ride like a small personal conveyance, because it won’t. If you try and drive it hard it would want to ask the butler to have you thrown out and the gates locked behind you.

Things like the Turbo R are all about the ability to cover vast distances swiftly whilst being completely isolated from the rest of the world. I maintain that one of the great experiences of motoring is to mash the throttle into the carpet on a Turbo R, watch the Flying B mounted half a mile down the bonnet rise several inches into the air whilst the V8 breathes deeply, and then feel it gather pace in a way that no vast land barge should ever feel capable of. From behind the wheel, it is a truly magnificent experience.

The Grosser is a bit different again. It’s Germany’s idea of luxury, all toys, gizmos and excessive amounts of power. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I like the German approach and a 6.3 Grosser would be a fine thing to experience. But running one makes buying a basket case Crewe-built machine look a wise investment, the hydraulic system alone (whilst normally reliable) could bankrupt a dictators economy. But from that era, there really is nothing as refined or as well built, and that’s why they command the prices that they do today. 

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