2009 #2Spring/Summer

Post55The newsletter of The Silver Cloud and Bentley “S” Society2009 #2 Spring/SummerCover: John Matsen’s 1960 Phantom V 5LAT86, one of the 9 Phantom Vs with H.J. Mulliner coachwork.

Reader submissions are encour-aged, but note that high resolution and lots of background above the car are a must. Look for an interest-ing background for cover variety since the cars we feature are gener-ally similar.

Your Society Officers and DirectorsDale Clark presidentpv_5bx98@sbcglobal.net

Tim Myrick vice presidenttimmyrick@sbcglobal.net

Larry Durocher secretaryladuroch@earthlink.net

David Seidman treasurerdcs@evl.com.pl

Tom Wright editortomwright@san.rr.com

Jim Facinelli directorrestore@epix.net

Dick Conard directorrconard@tampabay.rr.com

Frank Russell directorpaddock@intercom.net

Philip Tatarowicz directortatarph@aol.com

From the Editorby Tom Wright

2009 #2 ContentsFrom the Editor 2Cloud ’Round the World by Daniel Walker 3Oil Analysis — How To Avoid Engine Paralysis by Bill Kennedy 5Snapshots 7Centerfold 8Replacing Motor Mounts by Scott Lacher, SC 11Technical Email “Cloud & S Washers“ by Larry Durocher 14

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There’s a song, I’ve Been Every-where written by Geoff Mack in 1959 about Australia and made popular by the singer Lucky Starr. It was Ameri-canized by John Hore and a number one country hit for Hank Snow. You may remember it sung by Johnny Cash from a motel commercial. It turns out that we have in our membership a real life, international version of the imaginary character singing the song. I learned of him as follows... In my first column a year ago, I en-couraged you to drive your cars. Some time later I received an email from Daniel Walker that innocently started, “Well, I drive my car.” Talk about understatement! Dan and his wife Marilynn drove their Cloud around the world! Of course I asked him to tell the story for Post55. It’s a story so big it will take a few articles. After read-ing the first, you’ll be like me -- I can hardly wait! It was somewhat of a struggle to cre-ate a worthy illustration to accompany Daniel’s article. I couldn’t find any mapping software that seemed suitable to portray the trip. I ended up pasting little dots I punched from painter’s tape onto my globe and photographing it from different angles. I got a little instruction from one of my brothers to learn how to extract to globes from the photos and put them together. Speaking of email from members... “I don’t know if this is what you are looking for regarding photos, I am not much of a photographer. Thanks, Tim Stockwell”

The picture that accompanied the above email is this month’s center-fold (or “centercloud” as one reader quipped.) Indeed, it could be said that there are some important technical flaws in this picture. The is not held at the conventional angle relative to the front bumper. The closeness of the photographer to the car has produced an exaggerated perspective. The car is partly hidden by an unimportant piece of foliage. But this picture is abso-lutely FABULOUS!!! The unusual perspective, the closeness of the pho-tographer, and the partial concealment of the car make the car look like some animal – a lion, perhaps – leaping, pouncing from from the underbrush. If the picture had been taken “prop-erly” it would have been as exciting as Melba toast. Tim may or may not take many great pictures, but digital photography can make even an inept photographer like me produce a really nice image. The keys are to take many, many pictures and don’t be afraid to experiment. So be like Tim Stockwell and make a contribution to Post55 even if you’re not sure about it. Write up a meet, a trip, or what you’ve done to your car. We have interesting technical contributions as well. Scott Lacher relates his experiences replacing motor mounts and the first part of a reprint of a fascinating article on oil analysis work in the Silver Ghost Association. If you want to know what’s happen-ing inside your engine, these people have the program for you! Test your oil and learn amazing things. We finish up with three more of Larry Durocher’s technical emails.

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1. Victoria; Vancouver; Edmonton; Saskatoon; Winnipeg; North of Lake Superior; Sault Ste Marie; North Bay; Ottawa; Montreal

2. Shipped car to London, England

3. Loop around south England; Channel tunnel Folkstone to France; Brussels; Amsterdam; Berlin; Warsaw; Brest; Minsk; Moscow

4. Vladimir; Nizhny Novgorod; Kazan; Chelyabinsk; Yekaterinburg; Tyumen; Omsk; Novosibirsk; Kemerovo; Karsnoyarsk; Kansk; Irkutsk; Ulan Ude; Ulaanbaata (Mongolia); Enter China at Erenhot; Hohhot; Datong; Beijing; Dezhou; Xuzhou; Nanjing; Suzhou; Hangzhou; Shanghai

5. Ship to Vancouver Ferry back to Victoria

(Dan said he couldn’t make the annual meet because he and Marilynn were getting ready for and even bigger trip, Alaska and Argentina and back, longer than the round the world trip! He’s on the road now. This trip will be chronicled in Post55 too. Ed)PART 1 - PREPARATION The credit for planting the seed that led to this adventure goes to Peter Lind, who put a great deal of time and effort into attempting to arrange an around the world rally in honour of the 100th anniversary of Rolls Royce Motor Cars. Unfortunately, when it was time to put up the money there was very little interest, bringing a great idea to an end. For some time I kicked myself for not going it alone, as the idea truly in-trigued me. The year before the fiftieth anniversary of the manufacture of my Cloud I, it occurred to me that a trip

around the world would be a fitting an-niversary present for the car, provided it took my wife and I along with it! In July 2006 I plunged into the arrange-ments. My wife Marilynn is a fellow traveller who has been to most countries of the world, while I have been to all of them - surviving a number of war zones and revolutions in the process. She hasn’t much interest in planning, as she says I do what I want anyhow, but once un-der way she is a great adventurer and travel companion. She loved the idea of this trip from the start. The route was to be west to east from Victoria, B.C. across Canada, ship to England, around Britain, across Europe via Holland, Germany, Swit-zerland, Italy, the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, ship to Perth, across Australia, ship to New Zealand and finally by ship back to Vancouver. By early January 2007 most details were finalized. With the assistance of Bestway Tour and Travel in Vancouver, who have helped with some of my most difficult travels, guide/interpreters were arranged where necessary, accommodation arranged in remote areas, border crossing information sorted out and the least dangerous routes chosen

through the Pakistan/Afghanistan frontier areas. Through loads of correspondence many people helped with shipping, insurance, entry documents, visas and a Carnet de Passage. A deposit of a bit under $50,000 would secure this vital document to guarantee I would not sell my car in Iran, Pakistan, India, Australia or New Zealand. Fortunately, I put off paying until the end, as on January 30 Bestway informed me that Iran was no longer issuing visas to Ca-nadians. A high ranking Iranian official had been turned down for a Canadian visa and showed his displeasure by ordering Iranian consular offices to not issue visas to Canadian citizens. It was a blow, watching seven months of effort go down the drain, but I looked to the north. One advantage was that no country en route required a Carnet de Passage! Over several months the revised tour came togeth-er, dragged kicking and screaming into reality thanks to the help of some old travel acquaintances and from some amazing new contacts. Belarus came together quickly once I tracked down Vladimir and Natalia Padalko of Cen-treKurot in Minsk. Natalia, a university English professor, was my guide the last time I was in Belarus and Vladimir is deputy director of the company. Chi Pham of Bestway Tours organized Mongolia through their Mongolian agent Uyanga Dashdavaa, in her usual efficient manner. Green card insurance for Europe proved a challenge. The company that insured the car when it was in Europe in 1994/95 were no longer in busi-ness, and no company on the Inter-net could do the job. Sally Nelson, a friend and fellow traveller in England, burned up the phone lines trying to find someone without success. Finally, through RROC, I reached Phil Dunne of Hagerty Insurance in Silverstone, England. He quickly assured me that they could handle the insurance with no problem. He even invited my wife and I to attend the Silverstone Classic race as their guest, provided I display the car. In an effort to find a guide/interpreter for Russia I wrote to every travel company on the Internet, and received only one response, from MIR. Emails

Cloud ’Round the World

by Daniel Walker

SED445 before departure

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Continued from Page 3to Rolls Royce Russia went unan-swered. MIR were helpful with a lot of information, then quoted a mere $48,118, which would include the guide and chase vehicle with SWAT trained police, as a deterrent to Rus-sian road crime. This was intriguing, but it occurred to me that if the Rus-sian Mafia blocked the road, and my rent-a-SWAT took them on, we would be in the middle! I declined the offer. During this period I had been in con-tact with Andrey Karloff, the Managing Director of the Russian Automobile Society (BOA in Russian). His father is Chairman and was founder the organi-zation under the former USSR. He had already provided a complementary membership, offered a police escort to get through Moscow traffic and the contact numbers of the branches of the Society in each of the cities in which we would spend a night. I asked Andrey if the trip could be arranged through the Society - and he answered emphatically “YES”. He arranged Rus-sian and Belarus car & health insur-ance, invitations that resulted in visas from the Russian Embassy in Costa Rica, hotels and he agreed to join us from the Belarus border to Mongolia. China seemed impossible! Everyone I wrote to, including tourism offices, said driving my own car through the country could not be done. There being no practical way to get around

China, shipping the car from Mongolia or driving the nearly impassable route through Russia to Vladivostok were under consideration when in despera-tion I looked up the web address of the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge, a replay of the famous 1907 race. Philip Young replied right away from England, and in spite of being incred-ibly busy with the details of this major motoring event, provided me with their Chinese contact, CSITS. He cautioned that it was unlikely anyone would take on the incredibly complicated process for only one car, so it was not a sur-prise when a number of emails went unanswered. The director of Rolls Royce in Beijing, Marion Lu, and the General Manager, Jenny Zheng, replied promptly to my request for help. Marion Lu phoned Lifeng Liu, the Managing Director of CSITS (China Sea International Travel Service) and she said yes - we can arrange everything. The arrangements are not easy. It is necessary to import the car, license it for China, get regis-tration and insurance, arrange definite itineraries, hotels, an English speaking guide and a resident Chinese drivers license. I didn’t know until later that they also had to post a large bond to ensure the car was not sold in China This long, complicated procedure would take several months, so we would be in Mongolia before we would know if China would permit entry.

My last hurdle was getting the car out of China - every shipper contacted said it couldn’t be done due to export regulations. I asked Lifeng about this, and she referred me to her friend Sandy Ma, who manages Chinasonic Racing Promotions Co. Ltd., who said “no problem”. It was amazing - every man I talked to in China said, “can’t be done, not possible”, yet these three women with their “can do” attitude made it all happen! Meanwhile, Ron White, the mechanic who looks the car in Victoria while I’m home in Costa Rica, gave it a good going over. The daily dispatches from the Peking to Paris racers men-tioned a lot of damage was done under the cars, low octane gas gave big problems, foreign substances in gas clogged fuel lines and so on. To prevent some of these problems an aluminum skid plate was attached un-der the car (very valuable - it returned thoroughly mangled but no running gear damage), short chains were at-tached to the two front and two rear towing points and a harness built to connect to them so the car would not be pulled out of alignment if extracted from deep mud. A portable battery and a few spare parts were not needed but a marine fuel filter; basic tools, two oil filters, lubricants and a new set of Coker Tires were useful. I investigated satellite and interna-tional cell phones, choosing the later based on purchase price, cost per minute and coverage. Satellite phones are better closer to the equator where there are more satellites to pick up. After considerable investigation we chose Cel-Trek, whose normal size cell phones work in 185 countries, and after two years are still using them. We also purchased a Garmin GSP, primar-ily for the Gobi desert. Marilynn & I flew from Costa Rica to Victoria, BC on May 18, 2007, where we would visit with family, friends and clients while giving me the opportu-nity to work with the mechanics to get the last bugs out of the car. The only cliffhanger was the tires - they arrived on June 15, two days before our June 17 departure, but once they were installed we were ready to roll!!

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Daniel says he and Marilynn didn’t think to take a picture of their departure, but they’re shown here with SED445 while still in Canada – Ed

(To Be Continued Next Issue)

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of judgements from any analysis report, but real specifics about the normal wear rates in Ghost engines are currently unknown, or at least unknown with any degree of certainty. Hence as you partici-pate in the analysis program you get both instant gratification with a report about your car right away and you are also helping the SGA learn more about the cars. That information will serve all members in the future. While we are still in the infantile stages of this project, the SGA oil analysis program has the potential to do more for Ghosts and their caretakers than nearly anything else previously done.

Some Background To really understand what analy-sis results can mean to you, you have to understand how the oil and the engine interact. Crank-case (motor) oil does a whole host of jobs, and what we think of as lubrication is certainly one of them, maybe the most complex. Others include sealing, cooling, protect-ing the engine from corrosion when it is idle, etc. But to look at lubrication alone for the moment, there are two types. The one most easily understood is called hydro-dynamic. That is what most people think of when they think of engine oil being pumped around inside an

Oil Analysis —How To Avoid Engine ParalysisMore of A Slimy, Grimy, StymieBy Bill KennedyCopyright 2008 Bill Kennedy (All rights reserved)

This article follows along the lines of the SGA tech session on crankcase oil given at the 2008 RROC national meet in Williamsburg, and updates the reasoning behind the SGA policy on oil analysis. It is the second in a three part series on engine lubrica-tion. The final article in the series will be on oil filtration. For back-ground, readers may want to look at the Ghost lubrication article that ran in these pages in the 2nd quarter of 2003, ‘The Official Silver Ghost Lubrication Guide’, and the ‘Impor-tant Notice To Ghost Caretakers’ that appeared in the SGA Tourer in the 1st quarter of 2008*.

RROC societies are a good thing. The existence of the Silver Cloud Society has supported the distribution of vast amounts of Cloud/S specific information that would not be possible if there were only a RROC. But sometimes information gets compart-mentalized that should have much wider distribution. An example is the study of oil, where the Silver Ghost Association is doing some very advanced work. I saw Bill Kennedy’s presentation on this work at the National Meet and learned 1) you can get an amazing amount of informa-tion from oil testing; 2) the cheapest way to do the testing is to join the Silver Ghost Association and use their program; and 3) synthetic oil should not be used in our cars (not covered in this article). The following article segment is part 1 of an article that ran in the Silver Ghost Association Tourer. This is only part of the original article and nothing presented in it should be taken out of the context of the entire original article. All of the article will appear in these pages in sequence. Ed

The SGA Oil Analysis program is simple. You take an oil sample from your engine when you change the oil and send it in. Not much to it from the Ghost caretaker’s point of view. And to make it very easy, the SGA Club Stores has the prepaid oil analysis kits for you. Just order them and you will get a bottle in-side a shipping bottle and a form to fill out with your name and contact information, along with some infor-mation about the oil used, miles on it, etc. Complete instructions are included — pretty simple. But why did the SGA technical folks go to all the trouble to get the arrangements made with the lab, get the very low cost (only about $20) analysis rate negotiated, and why do they want all members to participate? There are two rea-

* All of the back issues of the SGA Tourer are available from the SGA club stores. If you don’t have this or other issues you may want to consider ordering it, or the complete set. Technical articles by Bill Kennedy (including ‘The Official Silver Ghost Lubrication Guide’) are also available as a bound set separately. Ad-ditionally, technical inquiries via e-mail to the SGA Technical Director (billkennedy@kennedymetal.com)

sons. First, each member gets a report back on every sample that they send in. You will see the sort of information that will come back to you later in this article. . . in the section about how you interpret the results of analysis. It could certainly be information you would really like to know before some thing going wrong gets really bad. So from this point the cost/benefit ratio is great. The analysis is cheap and the cost of repair or complete overhaul of a Ghost engine isn’t. Second, the SGA tech folks want to know what wear metals and other analysis parameters are when they are within normal ranges. One can make a number

Step One

Put OilSampleIn Here

Put The LittleBottle In TheBig Bottle WithThe Form &Put It In TheMail — AllDone!

Step Two

will generally result in the applicable .pdf document regarding the query being included with the reply.

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Continued from Page 5engine. The oil is forced in be-tween two things and it keeps them apart. If they are apart, they don’t touch, and they therefore can’t wear against each other. That’s sure a big factor, and an important one in engine lubrication.

Hydrodynamic Lubrication Hydrodynamic lubrication may not work exactly as most people visualize, however. The oil pump generated pressure is not the pres-sure that holds the parts apart. . . it only gets the oil to the surfaces to be lubricated. It is the movement of the parts themselves that creates the ‘oil wedge’ that separates the parts. If you think about it, oil pres-sure is only a few PSI, almost never over perhaps 30, even in a late Ghost. Early cars have much lower ‘normal’ oil pres-sure. Yet bearings can be quite satisfactorily loaded to as much as 1500 PSI. Hence it isn’t the oil pressure from the pump that generates the force that keeps the parts apart. . . it is the movement of the parts. The author was quite sur-prised when he attended Rolls-Royce school in London in the 1970’s and they indicated oil pres-sure for Cloud or Shadow engines was quite satisfactory if it was (only) 5 PSI. All the oil pressure does is get the oil to the bearing. It is not what creates the oil wedge that separates the parts. You may remember the picture above from the first article in this series. What you may not have recognized from your first look is that the annular space around the journal is of inconsistent width. That is, he load on the journal makes a smaller space on the side opposite the load. As the journal turns in the bear-ing, oil is dragged around with it, and as the oil is taken toward the higher pressure side, the space is

reduced. This reduction in space greatly increases the unit pres-sure of the oil. It is such an effec-tive mechanism that very heav-ily loaded parts are effectively wedged apart by this oil. The oil sort of ‘pushes back’ because of the rolling action. Engineer types call this hydrodynamic ‘lift’. For wear to occur when hydro-dynamic lubrication is occurring requires particles to be in the oil that can span the gap between the parts. Otherwise the only physical wear that can occur would be from erosion, and that is inconsequen-tial in Ghost engines. Obviously this is really good lubrication. . . so good that it would be desirable to have everything in

the engine lubricated with pressur-ized oil. But a whole lot of things in the engine don’t lend themselves to hydrodynamic lubrication. Pres-surized oil cannot be used in some applications. Indeed, even when the parts that are normally lubri-cated in this fashion are stopped and then first start to turn (as in the engine starting), the very high pressure oil wedge has not yet been created. More about that in a moment. There is a special type of hy-drodynamic lubrication called ‘elasto-hydrodynamic’ that occurs when rolling contact points, like gear teeth or ball or roller bear-ings, actually deform and create what is called a hydrodynamic film.

In these special circumstances, bearing pressures can be in the order of hundreds of thousands of pounds per square inch. This phenomenon utilizes the elastic mode of the materials in a synergy with the oil to isolate and spread loads that, if taken separately, would greatly exceed the strength of the base materials. A more eas-ily understood example is that of a railroad locomotive sitting with its steel wheels on a steel rail. One would at first assume that the area f contact between the wheel and rail would be very small. . . an in infinitesimally small line at the bot-tom of the wheel. If that were true, a locomotive could not develop the traction to pull the loads it does. Through utilization of the elastic

range of steel, a four axle 120 ton locomotive is said to bear on several square inches of steel. Both the wheel and the rail deform. If you think about it, it is the same thing a rubber tire does. Both steel and rub-ber are elastic materials, but to a different extent. This same sort of temporary deflection is present in highly loaded bearings, only with the presence of oil between

the parts. Just as with the bearing materials, some components in the oil undergo a seemingly impos-sible change when under very high pressure. This is called rheological ‘padding’. Basically, the oil be-comes so solid that it effectively ‘pushes back’ against the pressure and keeps the parts separated. The synergy of the deflecting bear-ing materials and their consequen-tial increase of bearing area plus, the padding of the lubricant makes what would seem to be impossible, possible. After the pressure is relieved, both the oil and the bear-ing material revert to their original state, unharmed.

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Continued Next Issue

Hydrodynamic Lubrication

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Snapshots:wherein various member supplied photos are presented, sometimes with a theme. Readers are encour-aged to submit their images to the Post55 editor.

Centerfold (pages 8 & 9): Timothy Stock-well’s 1955 Silver Cloud SWA190 had 47,000 miles as of last November

Thanks for this month’s snapshots to Dennis Eickhoff, San Diego Re-gion Chair (continued on page 10.

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Replacing Motor MountsBy Scott Lacher, SCwith Mike Faircloth, FLEditor’s Note: At the January San Diego Region Meet at Symbolic Mo-tors, my Cloud I was put on a lift and we saw that my from motor mounts had failed. I subsequently replaced them with the help of my friend James and his lift. I mentioned how frustrating this job was on the RROC Cloud and Bentley S forum and these two other Cloud 1 owners posted short articles outlining their experiences. Here are their combined efforts, mostly by Scott, who covered both the front and rear mounts. It seems likely from this anecdotal evidence that our cars need at least the front motor mounts replaced by their fiftieth birthdays. When the front motor mounts break, the engine settles down a bit into the V formed by the mounts. The engine sits there fairly well but is not secured. Then bad things can happen such as the fan destroying the radiator, so all of us would do well to check these parts on our cars. When my friend and I did this repair, unlike Scott, we undid nothing other than the engine skirts and the lower end of the crankcase breather pipe, and, unlike both of them, we did the whole job from underneath the car. We would have done better also removing the front wheels and the inspection covers in the front wheel wells. As it was, my friend hurt his back when we were trying to get the bolt holes to line up, so I can’t say our way was better than Scott’s or Mike’s. We were faster though, completing the job in 2½ hours but with the benefit of a lift and engine jack, which make the job much easier.

Front Motor Mounts (Scott) A caveat: The process I am going to describe might not be the best way or most efficient, but for a job that seems like inserting a whole tomato into a catsup bottle without breaking the skin, I offer the information for whatev-er help or amusement it might provide. And it worked for me. Thinking that replacement was an impossible job to do by myself with a minimum of facilities, I was afraid to take it on. After all, the car would run well enough to get it onto a trailer. After I tinkered with it, it might not be safe to run at all... I was happy to discover among the threads in the RROC web site a discussion about this very job. Learning that it was difficult but not impossible encouraged me to take action. Some of the bolts holding the mounts in place were not visible and required attention by feel, and even being able to see the bolts didn’t mean that they were easily reached (Figs 3 - 6). The only concession to remov-ing peripheral equipment concerned the AC compressor on the right side. One could reach below the generator easily enough. On the left side I dis-connected the power steering hoses (after draining the reservoir) just to the extent of easily reaching the mount lo-cation. I also removed the lower water hose to provide elbow room in front. It’s been noted elsewhere that removing the bolts is fairly easy and that replacing them is not. In order to be able to adjust the position of the engine to align the holes, I passed a cable inserted into a length of heavy garden hose around the oil pan, and hooked it to a turn buckle secured through a hole in the heavy plate

under the power steering cylinder (Fig 2). I wasn’t certain that this would work but the idea was that as my setup required jacking up the front of the car anyway, gravity would permit back-ward motion for the engine, the turn-buckle forward motion, providing the engine be jacked up to take the strain off the mounts. I also removed the bolt securing the rear engine mount after supporting the transmission. In addi-tion I freed the exhaust pipes from the

Mike notes, “No special tools are needed for this replacement… How-ever count on at least one whole day to do this job and get an assistant. I did the mount on the left side of the car by myself and it took about 3-4 hours, and many many trips from the top of the car to underneath. The mounts are held in by 4 bolts (5/16 fine thread) with a ½ inch hex head, and ½ hex nut with lock washer. It will take two ½ inch box open wrenches to get the bolts and nuts out. After loosening the bolts place a jack under the oil pan and lift the engine just enough to take the weight off the mount. Remove the bolts and the old mount will slide out. On the left side you will need to remove the road draft tube to get room to work. The new mount can now be slid into place and the bolts, nuts and lock washers replaced and tightened.”

Fig 1 Perished mount & new one.

Fig 2

Fig 3 Right side from below

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Continued from Page 11manifolds. I began by making certain that the car was safely jacked up and support-ed and then proceeded to remove the bolts holding the old mounts. Raising the engine a fraction of an inch permit-ted sliding the old bits out and the new ones in. This is a great time not to al-low the engine to sink and entrap your fingers. I was startled to find that the old left side mount had nearly sepa-rated and that there was one of four mounting bolts missing. The right side appeared degraded but was at least serviceable. I chose to bolt the new mounts to the chassis first as that was easiest and required no tinkering. For the time being, I didn’t tighten anything down. Employing the turnbuckle and vary-ing the engine height did allow me to

align the holes for securing the engine to the mounts. This requires lots of patience and time. The most devilish location for me was the left hand lower connection. It was extremely awkward. I “glued” the bolt head to a thin but stiffcopper strip with silicone sealant (Fig 7). The copper becomes a flexible and maneuverable handle. I was able to install the bolt from underneath the car where I could see what I was doing. The copper disengages itself in the course of tightening. Once the bolt is through the mated holes another problem must be solved. It seemed impossible to align both a

lock washer and a nut with one finger upside down and begin threading both onto the bolt. Observe the narrow gap ( Fig 8). To make this easier, I super-glued the washer to the nut; they stayed together long enough to make it work. After both front mounts areloosely bolted in place, you have to re-affix the rear mounting bolt behind thetransmission (Fig 9). This requires more negotiating. But you can see clearly up through the bolt hole to tell when everything is aligned. To permit some lateral movement of the engine, I once again used a small turnbuckle (Fig 10). When the all bolts are in place, tighten everything down. I sug-gest snugging down the bolts again after the engine has been run and the new mounts have done whatever initial settling they do. All in all this was a satisfying project to have completed. In the first place it had to be done. Secondly I realize that I now have more patience than I had twenty years ago.Rear Motor Mounts I am making note of the procedure in replacing the two rubber parts in the rear motor mount in a Cloud I not because it is difficult, but because it saves time if you know what to expect; nor does the diagram in the parts book jibe with what’s there.

I jury rigged a simple jack exten-1. sion using plywood blocks, a 1” wooden dowel and a small hy-draulic jack in order to raise the engine slightly to relieve pressure

Fig 4 Right side from above

Fig 5 Left side from below

Fig 6 Left side from above

Fig 7

Fig 8 Left hand lower connection

on the existing mount. (Fig 11) It’s not as hare-brained as it looks, but I did snug the top piece with some webbing attached to the car frame, just in case. Situate the jack un-der the oil pan with a broad section

Fig 9 Shows rear mounting bolt and bracket through which it must be threaded.

Fig 10

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Mike suggests, “I found that it was easier to loosen the bracket from the engine block to get a bit more “wiggle” room when refitting the new mount to the left side. “The mount on the right side is just on the verge of being impossible to do with the engine in the car. The mount is under the generator and the intake/choke manifold. If you have Air Conditioning, this will be in the way also. You can ALMOST see the bolts. Much of this side has to be done by “feel”. This side would be un-doable without an assistant. The power steering hoses have a mounting bracket that holds them in place using one of the motor mount bolts. After loosening and removing the bolts again jack up the engine from under the oil pan just enough to remove the old mount. I had fellow club member Frank Hamad to help me with this and replacing the bolts and nuts on this side with the new mount was still extremely difficult. We changed positions from who was under the car and who was on top several times just because one or the other of us was not making any progress. In the end we did get this side done and of course the last bolt was the biggest problem. The right side took just over 4 hours, but that was with two people working on it.”

of plywood to spread the stress. Reassembly is simpler if the drive shaft height can be adjusted eas-ily.The simplest way to get to all the 2. bits is to remove the horizontal brace with everything still at-tached. First remove the 5/8th inch bolt supporting the mount to the transmission housing (fig. 9). It might or might not fall easily from the assembly.Remove the four ½” bolts holding 3. the cross brace by its four corners

to the car frame. (Fig 12) But keep one bottom bolt loosely attached until you are ready to drop it so that the whole thing doesn’t fall on your face. The assembly should

Fig 11

Fig 12

drop down easily.The two old rubber mounting 4. pieces can now be removed from the assembly. With the unit on a bench, you can easily loosen the four 7/16th inch bolts holding the mounts in alignment (fig.13).Cleaned up and ready to assem-5. ble, the parts look like this. (figs 14 and 6)Position the reassembled mount 6. and cross-brace and start taking up on the 5/8th” bolt. Leave it fairly loose as it is useful in positioning the cross-brace for refitting the ½” bolts. I started with the easy lower ones and saved the upper one by the brake servo for last as there is a limited amount of room there. This part is a little tedious

Fig 13

Fig 14 Fig 15but by tightening or loosening the 5/8th”bolt and adjusting the jack, if necessary, you can align the holes. A nail or a punch will help match them up, as the holes are difficult to see. Snug everything down when you get it all attached.

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Fig 16 Mike’s motor mounts had completely separated. (Mine too, Ed.)

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Technical EmailsBy Larry Durocher

(Past emails are available at the society web site.)

March, 2009

Over the past few years I have met a number of Cloud owners that have some difficulty in removing their hubcaps or have no difficulty since the hubcaps are falling off. This issue was addressed in one of my prior emails (September 2000 – have I really been sending these out for nine years?) but I thought I would add a little information and bring it to the atten-tion of those that have not seen it. An obvious sign of difficulty in remov-ing the hubcap, or using the incorrect tool, are the telltale pry “bulges” on the edges of the hubcap. First, start with the correct tool, use the wide-lipped Tommy Bar that is mounted in clips to the rear of the spare tire. If you use a narrow-edged screwdriver, you are much more likely to permanently “bulge out” the rim where you are prying. To remove a hubcap, when looking at the mounted wheel, imagine the tire stem to be at the 12 o’clock position. Wrap a thin cloth around the tip of the Tommy bar, position the Tommy bar at 1 o’clock and pry the hubcap from the rim. Some-times, it will be difficult to get the Tommy bar into position without interference from

the fender. Jack the car slightly, rotate the wheel, position the Tommy bar at 1 o’clock and then remove the cover. To tighten the hubcap, you must increase the interference fit between the wheel rim bosses and the inner hubcap rim. Turn the hubcap upside down so that you are look-ing at the cylindrical metal rim that holds the hubcap to the wheel rim. The three positions where the lugs interfere with the cylindrical metal rim should be very obvi-ous (abrasion marks). Hold the hubcap so that one of the interference positions is at 12 o’clock, the opposite side of the rim is held firmly against your stomach, and take a heavy ball peen hammer and strike the cylindrical metal rim (on the outside surface) to decrease the diameter of the rim at that position. Repeat at the other two locations. Bob Gery made me aware of a tool that the late Bob Jefferson Sr. had made to make this adjustment easier. The tool slips over the edge of the mounting ring and allows you to easily bend (locally) the in-ner lip inward to increase the interference fit. I have not had a chance to try it but Bob says it works well, see accompanying figures. The scale should give you a good estimate of dimensions. To install the hubcap, insert the tire

stem though the hole and cock the hubcap slightly inward at that position to get it started. Double up a heavy cloth at the center of the hubcap and then use the flat of your hand to strike the center flat sec-tion of the hubcap firmly and hence drive the hubcap onto the rim. By the way, if your car has chromed hubcaps (Cloud/S1, Cloud II/S2) rather than the stainless steel ones used on Cloud III and as replace-ments for the earlier models, the hubcaps are much more difficult to install since the hubcap is much stiffer.

(End of March 2009)

15

Continued on Page 16

May, 2009

I hope your car(s) is on the road and you are enjoying it. The current technical email discusses some (not all) of the commonly used washers (and sources for these washers) that are found on the Cloud and S series. By now, you may have noticed that the washers that are used in conjunction with the various bolts and nuts are not the same dimensions as those found in your local hardware store in the USA or the UK. Most of the Rolls-Royce washers are considerably thicker, have a smaller bolt clearance, and may have a smaller or larger outside diameter. Many of these washers are no longer available and, if available from Crewe, are usually quite expensive (typically $4-$20/each). I always try to recycle my washers but in many cases rusty (of course, I have no rusty ones nor will I ever admit that I had one) wash-ers need to be replaced. When I was restoring my Cloud III, I spent a huge number of hours looking for sources for such washers. The list below is the results of that search.

Cloud & S Washers

In measuring the most commonly used washers on my Cloud II/III for use with 2BA(3/16), 1/4, and 5/16 di-ameter bolts/screws, I have measured the following washer dimensions (ap-proximate). See Table 1 As you can see the ODs are either much smaller or much larger than usual and in most cases the thick-ness is also quite large. it appears that Rolls-Royce did not use any standard (hardware store) washer sizes. These dimensions are also different than commonly used British washers of the time. I have spent a huge number of hours on the internet and, using multiple sources, have found the following washers that I consider close (hard to see the difference by eye) for each. See Table 2

Vendors:

Pacific Fasteners 1*,4http://www.pacificfasteners.com/

J.W. Winco 6http://www.jwwinco.com/

WCL Co. 2,3http://www.wclco.com/

McMaster-Carr 5http://www.mcmaster.com/

There may be others since my re-search is now several years old. Unfortunately, most of the firms * meaning this vendor sells washer #1 in Table 2 and so on.

have minimum orders ranging from 100 to 500 for a given washer. The larger thick washers are fairly expen-sive (not compared to other Rolls-Royce parts); the prices for these washers probably average about $1.00/washer in quantities of 100. In addi-tion, all of these washers will need to be cadmium plated. If possible, I always recycle the orig-inal washers. I bead blast or tumble the washers and then send them to the plater. I always ask for heat treating after plating but some platers do not offer this service.

(End of March 2009)

Table 1

1. 3/16 nominal hole, 0.337 OD, 0.034 thick

2. 3/16 nominal hole, 0.447 OD, 0.053 thick

3. 1/4 nominal hole, 0.561 OD, 0.060 thick

4. 1/4 nominal hole, 0.737 OD, 0.106 thick

5. 5/16 nominal hole, 0.625 OD, 0.130 thick

6. 5/16 nominal hole, 0.865 OD, 0.147 thick

7. 13/32 nominal hole, 0.750 OD, 0.165 thick (body mounts)

Table 2

1. 0.203 hole, 0.343 OD, 0.034 thick

2. 0.188 hole, 0.438 OD, 0.049 thick 3. 0.252 hole, 0.531 OD, 0.062 thick or 0.250 hole, 0.562 OD, 0.065 thick

4. 0.281 hole, 0.750 OD, 0.110 thick

5. 0.343 hole, 0.688 OD, 0.125 thick, largest difference 1/16 on the OD

6. 0.330 hole, 0.905 OD, 0.157 thick

16

July, 2009

(The PDF files referenced below are available on the society web site. Here only the Cloud/S portions are included; these documents are useful if you also own other, more recent Rolls-Royce or Bentley automobiles.. Ed)

The current technical e-mail deals with the engine belts on the Cloud/Bentley “S” series of cars. I have at-tached two PDF files. One shows the belt configurations and part numbers from the Crewe General Spare Parts Information sheets dated 9/30/1971. On a few occasions, I have gotten e-mails asking the path of the belts, the part numbers, etc and the first file should address those issues. I also see NOS belts being sold on EBAY. I would not buy NOS rubber unless the part was no longer available. The second file is from a more mod-ern publication from Bentley Motors and shows the belt configurations and current part numbers for Rolls-Royce and Bentley cars from 1955-2003. This publication has a 2005 publica-tion date; it is possible the part num-bers have changed over the last four years. Regardless, a Crewe dealer should be able to supply the correct belts using the part numbers from either file. Since the later Crewe publication

Continued from Page 15Model Chasis/VIN

Number RangeProduction/Model Year

BeltSystem

S1 B2AN B50HA 1955 1959 1a/b/c Continental BC1AF BC31GN 1955 1959 1a/b/c LWB ALB1 ALB35 1957 1959 1a/b/cS2 B1AA B404CZ 1959 1962 2 Continental BC1AR BC140CZ 1959 1962 2 LWB LBA1 LBB33 1959 1962 2S3 B2AV B40JP 1960 1962 2 Continental BC2XA BCL22 1962 1966 2 LWB BAL2 BCL22 1962 1965 2Silver Cloud I SWA2 SNH262 1955 1959 1a/b/c LWB ALC1 CLC47 1957 1959 1a/b/cSilver Cloud II LCA1 LCD25 1959 1962 2 LWB LCA1 LCD25 1959 1962 2Silver Cloud III SAZ1 SKP423 1962 1965 2 LWB CAL1 CGL29 1962 1965 2

showed the belt configurations and part numbers for Rolls-Royce cars up to 2002 and the Bentley cars up to 2003, I have included those diagrams and part numbers as well since some of our members own modern cars as well.

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