So, an update for those who were interested. The Bentley is all finished:
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The good news:
I think she looks great. I lost the detailing, mainly the hand painted red line down the side of the car in the respray but it's not the end of the world. There's not a single scratch, mark or hint of rust anywhere to be seen now.
When everything is working as it should be it's a genuine joy to drive. It's fast too (relatively) for such a heavy car, I fucking love the purr.
The bad news:
It's been a fucking horrible mission to get here.
Bullshit 1 - gearbox actuator failed, parked outside the neighbour of my bodyshop who runs a window fitting business. It locked up completely in park and the neighbour couldn't get his van to his door to load his stock for the days work. He went nuts at my bodyshop guy, my bodyshop guy went nuts at me, I had to fork out 」800 for it to be towed away to a specialist and the part replaced.
Bullshit 2 - Driving along and a whine starts to come from the engine bay. I'm a mile from home so I go for it, by the time I get home it's a scream. The power steering fluid is empty when I check, fill it up, scream goes away, drive half a mile and it's dropped the lot. Parts unavailable, had to have a new pipe machined, 」350.
Bullshit 3 - 8mpg.
Bullshit 4 - 8mpg. Worth repeating.
Bullshit 5 - This is great, you might enjoy this. I'm driving along and everything's great, then it cuts out on me completely. The steering weighs a thousand tonnes, I wrestle the thing from 60 to zero into a layby outside someone's house and catch my breath, just happy nobody died.
Then the woman who owns the house comes out, I can't park there, she needs to go to the airport in half an hour. I apologised and explained and she's going nuts. Then a woman returns to the car in front of mine and gets in, drives away. Excellent, I can move my car forward to her space and be off this bitches drive.
It's downhill so no pushing required, I just drop the car into neutral and roll down, get close to the car in front and push my foot on the brake. No brakes. The engine dies, the brakes die with it, all pressure lost, I slam my foot on the handbrake pedal, this does nothing (they don't do anything on these cars apparently, never do), and plough right into the back of a tiny shitty little ford fiesta. It literally bounces off my stupidly big car about 3 metres in the air and lands at an odd angle as I think to put the car back into park which brings it to a slamming halt, me nearly putting my head through the windscreen.
Call up roadside assistance, long story short there's a bank of fuses I've never even seen before and here is the ignition fuse:
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It's a bodge job from the past that has finally given up on life so not particularly surprising but still a bitch of a day. Good news was the front of the car was completely unscathed by the impact, and the other guys car was such a piece of old crap I could have shit on the windscreen and he wouldn't have noticed, so I promptly fucked off without saying anything.
All in all this car has given me about two hours worth of pure joy, a month of stress and hell and turned me into the kind of lowlife who flees a road traffic accident, so it's with mixed feelings that today, she went up for sale. Actually, they're not that mixed.