Giving the Bentley MkVI some attention
Having waved goodbye to the TR6 project recently, I’ll keep tabs on its rebuild. The car’s new owner Craig regretted selling his previous TR6. I’ll probably also regret selling that TR6 as it is a solid base for a restoration. I passed it on at a minor loss, but that’s fine because there had to be a project cull: the convertible two- door Bentley, the Blower replica, the Miata/ Ford Cobra and the Mini Marcos are enough to be going on with.
While I had my sensible head on, something sank in regarding the convertible Cloud project: I’m not going to keep one of those because it’s a commercial venture. The original Mulliner conversions are worth about US$650,000. The replicas are worth about half that, and it’s going to cost pretty serious money to achieve something to RR quality to sell for top dollar. Once the demonstrator has done its job and got some attention, it will be sold off to a new owner and I’ll start another one.
I don’t really want to own a car worth serious money, and the paint, upholstery and woodwork will have to be perfect so scruffy dogs won’t be welcome to jump up on the seats. Therefore, it looks as though I’ll be keeping the old 1947 Bentley MkVI, which is never going to be worth a great deal – it’s relatively small, not very imposing, and only as comfy as you would expect for a high- quality car designed in 1939. The MkVI is essentially still a pre-war car, apart from the big change from cart springs and a front beam axle to independent coil springs.
As a keeper, the old beast will need more maintenance. It’s been misfiring a bit for some time now, a situation dramatically improved by rebuilding the distributor with a new main bush and new dual points. It now fires up instantly, whether hot or cold. It still misfired at higher rpm, though. Not that you use higher revs much, because you get it rolling and into top gear right away, then just leave it there. The 4¼-litre straight six will pull happily and smoothly from about 15mph in top as it has buckets of torque, but not much power.
There’s no synchro on first, and while the synchro is okay on the other gears, it’s best to take it easy and doubledeclutch with each gear change, in which case the gears slip in with one finger. These Bentleys originally cost as much as a small house, and the engineering was pretty good. The ride doesn’t feel particularly comfortable driving locally, but after a rally map mistake, I once drove 500 miles in a day in this car without even feeling tired, and there are not many cars in which you can do that.
Rob Maynard at RWMandCo recommended new plug leads to cure the misfire, saying that mine were probably 40 years old and would be losing sparks to each other inside the steel tubes that run along the side of the engine. I had already fitted a brutally expensive new distributor cap, so a set of new Magnecor leads was next up. The technology is still old-school: the cap on
the distributor has spikes that pierce the leads, and then you squish the top of the cap back down to keep them in place. With new leads, the engine ran better initially, but then started misfiring again. It was annoying but not disabling, and only at higher revs. On the principle that just because it’s new doesn’t mean it works, I tried another condenser, and gave the points faces a quick clean up with a nail file. Suddenly we were silky on six. This coincided with a spell of decent weather, during which the big slide-back sunroof came into its own.
I haven’t changed the oil often, as the engine uses plenty so there’s quite a turnover. Oddly, it’s now using less, so sticky oil- control rings might have freed off with use. There’s no visible smoke, but the exhaust was apparently a bit whiffy – on previous rally tours, nobody wanted to drive behind me.
The choke is barely needed, so the carbs may be a bit rich, although the plug tips are healthily beige and 14mpg is reassuring. Oil pressure is good for one of these, at about 20psi. The odometer stopped at 67,000 some years back, but this is an early engine built before the design error of the chrome bore top sections which break piston rings and require new pistons and liners at 6070,000 miles. My engine could rumble on for a long time yet.
The broken direction indicator switch on the other Bentley, the future S1 convertible, is a Scintilla clockwork delay switch that self- cancels. The current weird aftermarket indicator system on the MkVI doesn’t cancel at all. That’s risky, and it would be safer to have cancelling indicators. The original indicator switch on the MkVI dashboard now just works the right trafficator, but I poked about under the dash to find that it’s also a big fat self- cancelling delay switch, which can be either repaired, or replaced with a new vacuumoperated delay switch. I should be able to wire that up to operate both the trafficators and the flashing indicators.
The tyres currently on the car are at least 40 years old and are only suitable for pottering around town. They don’t grip very well, but the ancient rubber remains pristine and uncracked. One wonders if the seven-year life of modern tyre compounds has been designed in... [Sorry to get all ‘Elf and Safety, but I really wouldn’t advise driving anywhere on 40 year old rubber – Ed]
However, more rubber issues arose when replacing the wiper ferrules by size failed. The individual wiper arms can be operated manually by pulling a knob back from the dash to disconnect the wiper arms from the rack, offering a 1940s version of intermittent wipers. The correct rubber casting must be compressible, but the universal replacement isn’t. I don’t begrudge paying Flying Spares £6.81 for the correct rubber ferrules, but after the delivery and customs parasites have lined up with their hands out, it gets expensive so it will have to wait until I have put a bigger order together.
“On the principle that just because it’s new doesn’t mean it works, I tried another condenser, and gave the points faces a quick clean up”