Early 60's Bentley S3, maintainable?

[drooartz]

Not something I'm interested in buying, but as I get older something like this starts to look more interesting and elegant.

1963 Bentley S 3 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 1963 Bentley S 3 at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

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I know that the later Bentleys and Rolls with the Citroen-style hydraulics can be a real nightmare to maintain, but does anyone have experience working on these older cars? Just curious.

 

[JHaydon]

I do (almost) all of my own maintenance on my '54 R-Type. Maintenance is more intense than on a modern car but I'd say not much more than on any other British car of the era -- in some ways, maybe a little less hands-on. RR/B owner-drivers wanted to keep their fingernails clean.

I had to refresh myself on the S3, and I was surprised to see that the Citroen hydraulics were NOT used on this generation. The S3 carried over the Hispano-Suiza mechanical brake servo used on the R-Type (except with the addition of yet another decade of refinement). It is a brilliant design that works exceedingly well when it is properly set up. If it is not properly set up, a poorly-informed owner might dump an otherwise perfect car for less than it is worth. The servo itself should not require any adjustment (annual inspection of the linkage is smart) but I believe the drums are still not self-adjusting.

The S2 and S3 had a V8 where the R-Type and S1 had a straight 6, but they all had solid tappets (requiring periodic valve adjustment) and SU carbs.

The centralised chassis lubrication system was eliminated on the S2, so you'll have to grease the joints occasionally.

The dampers are the old lever type and will require refilling periodically. The S2 and S3 had hydraulic power steering, which was an option on the S(1) and not available on the R-Type.

The automatic transmission is adapted from the GM Hydra-Matic, which is as close to bulletproof as you will ever find. I literally ran mine dry until there was nothing inside but smoke (sorry if I'm repeating myself) and it still got me home. Flushed a couple of times with clean fluid and now you'd swear it was brand-new.

I find the R-Type to be an incredible mix of comfort, sportiness, and driving ease. The S3 was designed to swing the balance more towards comfort and driving ease, away from sportiness. It's still going to be more fun to drive than almost any American car of the era.

 

[waltesefalcon]

Back when I worked for a living we maintained a fairly nice S2 for a fella. It was not at all bad to maintain work wise, really no worse than a Jag of the same vintage. I have no idea what parts ran for it, or how hard they were to source. That was above my pay grade.

 

[NutmegCT]

Drew - your ebay post link reminds me of my 1955 Jaguar Mk VII. Great car, built like a tank, no "electronics" - and a gas guzzling 8 mpg! Similar to this:

If I had work space, I could get interested in something like the Bentley. Here's a possible source for parts:

1955-1965 Rolls-Royce & Bentley Parts - Replacement Parts, Inc.

Parts for 1955-1965 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud I, II, III, Phantom V Coachbuilt Models; Bentley S1, S2, S3, and Continental's. Click to view our inventory.

replacementpartsinc.com

(Remember, here at BCF we tend to be enablers ...)

Tom M.

 

[PAUL161]

One RR intake valve is $124.00! Can't even imagine the cost of a total engine rebuild! Cheaper to buy a nice running vehicle.

 

[JHaydon]

Replacement Parts, Flying Spares, IntroCar, even Moss are good parts sources. The Rolls-Royce Owner's Club and Bentley Driver's Club have worked with RR/B to keep producing a large number of parts which would have been obsolete otherwise.

Paul is absolutely correct, restoring one of these is a money pit that will never ever make a financial profit. But this example is said to run and drive well, which makes me wonder if the price isn't a bit low.

With the "Recent brake service" I am wondering if some of the fiddly bits of reassembly might have been left unfiddled, leaving the owner unhappy and ready to part with it. Instructions for assembling, centering, adjusting, re-centering, etc the front shoes (at least on an R-Type) take up 13 pages. Mechanics who are used to simple self-adjusting American drum brakes are likely to just slap the parts on and call it done. But when they're set up correctly, they are spectacular. Well worth a weekend of messing about to get them right.

As far as the cost of valves... we were selling exhaust valves for the lowly Ford Kent 1600cc pushrod engine for $60 each back when we could get them. Millions of Kent engines produced (and thousands of them raced until the valves burned); thousands of Bentley engines made (and most of them never saw 4000 rpm).

If I weren't in more immediate need of a trailer instead of another car...

 

[BobHaskell]

Another source for parts and service just down the road from us: Albers Motorcars. They've been around since 1963.

 

[JHaydon]

I should remember Albers, I have a stack of receipts from them (from the prior owner). I keep forgetting because almost all of my shopping is either online or local. Albers stocks much more than what they list on their site.

 

[TRMark]

Haven't checked in for awhile, just saw this post. Don't have an S type but this past summer I purchased a 1954 R Type, it has an Empress body by Hooper. The first thing I had to do was get the brake rods set properly so the servo mechanism would activate, not difficult just fiddly. They are different in some ways from a typical 50's car but not impossible. J. Haydon has explained it all very well. I have had a 4 post lift for years which is a great asset. I still drive my TR4 on occasion, but life kinda got in the way of my Lovely and I enjoying the car. Her MS has progressed so getting in and out of the TR was getting increasing difficult and the use of a wheelchair has become necessary when we go anywhere. I bought the Bentley so we could still "arrive" when went out. She can get in and out of it and the electric folding wheelchair fits in the boot. The photo was taken in front of a frequently visited brewery, we usually dress as shown in the picture when using the Bentley. We are having a lot of fun with it. My sons showed up for a visit shortly after I bought it, I think they were checking to see if the old guy was getting soft in the head.

 

[JHaydon]

Hank, your car looks so familiar...
Hooper-bodied Bentley in a Columbo episode

My wife agrees that a Bentley is an excellent mode of transportation for one with mobility or flexibility issues. She is the reason we have an R-Type.

 

[PAUL161]

Very nice, very nice indeed!

 

[DrEntropy]

Some of our clients' cars and Herself's MGB, outside our shop.

 

[drooartz]

(I've been away awhile)

Thanks all for the thoughts and experience. Not likely to go down this route any time soon, but still good to know that it would at least be something that would be doable. I love the look of the later cars, but the Citroen hydraulics make me nervous.

 

[Silverghost]

My personal experience with a Cloud I was that it was exceptionally stiff and drove like a truck. This was an award winning level car so I was rather surprised.