Our classics
BENTLEY SEDANCA
RUN BY Simon Taylor OWNED SINCE October 1996 PREVIOUS REPORT January 2020
Thanks to lockdown, when I took out the Sedanca in April it hadn’t gone anywhere for 19 months. I’d kept the tyres inflated hard and the battery on trickle-charge, and from time to time I’d slip into that womb of leather and walnut. Move ignition to full retard, wind on a little bit of choke, push the big shiny starter button. Hear six cylinders leap into life. Engage first, move gently forward out of garage, into garden, switch off. Quick session with duster and detailer. Start again, engage reverse, move back into garage. That was it. Then I’d pull out the photo albums and mull over memories of past journeys across rural France, and along California’s Pacific Coast from Carmel to Big Sur.
Of course it does a car no good at all going nowhere for a year and a half. After its long slumber a full service was a must, so it was booked in with my friends at Frank Dale & Stepsons at the firm’s smart new gaff in Camberley. But before we got to my gate the front left-hand tyre went flat. The valve had pulled out of the inner tube, evidently the result of lack of use. Worse was to come: on the way, in traditional Rolls-royce parlance, we failed to proceed. The rotor arm had broken – a rare failure that may or may not have had anything to do with the inactivity – so the poor thing finished its trip to the workshop on a truck.
Rotor arm replaced, oil change, oil filter, new plugs, air filter, full electrics check, refresh fuel system with new washers and gaskets (old fuel can do damage sitting for months in the pipes). Then I gritted my teeth and decided to raid the piggy bank for one job I had been putting off for too long.
During the Bentley’s five-year rebuild a decade ago about the only thing we didn’t restore or replace was the steering box, which seemed fine. But over thousands of miles since then it gradually stiffened up, and became very sticky on full lock. Three-point turns had become five-point turns. I knew it would be very expensive, but it had to be done properly by the right man.
Wise Vincent Roma, workshop boss at Frank Dale, reckoned the right man was Steve Maggs.
Steve has been working on pre-war Royces and Bentleys for 30 years, and in his Berkshire premises he has a vast stock of original parts for these cars that he has assembled during that time: cylinder heads to starter solenoids, brake shoes to Autovacs. He rebuilds a lot of gearboxes and back axles, but he’ll do anything that needs careful engineering, such as rebuilding a wiper motor or reviving a Klaxon.
When he dismantled my steering box he found that wear had crushed the bearings in the ball race at the bottom of the column. New balls, please: 48 of them. In the box itself the bronze bushes typically wear eccentrically, hence the sticking on full lock. They were all replaced. The worm and gimbal, the gear itself, wasn’t too worn, so it was relapped and then bedded in on the bench, which required hundreds of turns back and forth. The whole process involved more than 40 hours of painstaking work.
At Frank Dale the team had to strip quite a lot to get the steering box out, including front wing, headlight and running board. When it had all gone back together I set off down the A30, and I felt the difference at once. Derbys have always been renowned for their steering, heavy at parking speeds
but smooth and precise once under way. I’d forgotten how pleasing it feels when it’s right. Steering is the thing you are sampling all the time when you’re on the move, so it really matters. It’s been a costly exercise, but well worthwhile, and I reckon it’ll see me out.
THANKS TO
Δ Steve Maggs: maggsvintage.com Δ Vincent Roma and Giles Crickmay: frankdale.com