Upgrading headlamps on a vintage Rolls Royce or Bentley

Have you ever wished for better headlamps on your Corniche, Shadow, or Cloud III?  I sure have.  Those old round headlamps were marginal when the cars were new, and now that both of us have gotten older, they really don’t make it for serious night driving.

The US government finally agreed with that point of view.  Today’s cars have headlights that are at least four times as bright as cars of the seventies, with some ever better than that.  And that comparison is new to new.  Comparing a brand new car’s headlamps to the deteriorated bulbs and wiring of a 1967 automobile makes a much more stark comparison.  Some of the vehicles that come to our shop have such poor lighting I’m amazed the cars weren’t wrecked before getting to our shop!

At Robison Service, our objective is to get as close as possible to modern lighting performance, while remaining true to the car’s vintage look.  In my opinion, that rules out all HID conversions; there was no such thing as gas-discharge car lighting in the seventies.

The simplest conversion is installation of halogen sealed beams in place of the original units.  That’s an improvement, but not enough for me.  Next up the ladder is the fitment of H4 aftermarket headlamps; the most common ones come from Hella and Cibie.  Those are better, but sill not the best we can do.

What we have settled on are a pair of H1 halogen bulbs with Hella bi-focal low beam lenses complimented by a pair of H1 bulbs in Hella parabolic high beams.  These lamps have an external appearance that’s almost indistinguishable from stock, and the brightest and most efficient optics of any lamp in this size class.

We run the lows alone for low beam, and the lows plus the highs for main beam.  This combination gives better up-close visibility and greater range on high beam, and far better all round performance on low beam.

These lenses are the easiest part of the conversion.  They are direct replacements for the sealed beams.  You remove the single screw the holds the headlight cover and lift it away. Three Phillips screws hold each headlamp retaining ring; the screws are loosened and the rings twisted slightly counterclockwise and then pulled clear.  At that point the headlamps drop out, held only by their wires.  Changing that over is what takes all the time.

If you do as we do – fitting H1 lamps – you don’t have any choice about changing wiring because all the headlamp connections are different.  However, plug compatibility is not the only reason for the change.  The other is voltage, or rather, an adequate supply of it. 

Headlamps are rated to deliver a certain amount of light at exactly 12 volts.  If the voltage at the headlamps drops to 11 volts, light output drops to 75% of rating.  If, on the other hand, voltage at the headlamps is 13 volts, the headlamps will deliver 30% more than rated output.  As you see, a small change in voltage makes a big difference in light.

The only tradeoff is bulb life, but that’s not generally a limiting factor on vintage motorcars.  Even at 13 volts, a typical H! bulb will last 200 hours or so, which equates to many years of driving the way most of these cars are used.

For people who drive in parades we fit what Europeans call city lamps.  These are smaller bulbs that light the reflectors of the headlamps without throwing much light on the road.  They make the vehicle visible but using them will not wear out the main beam bulbs.

Modern alternators deliver a solid 14 volts, even under load.  There’s always some loss through the wiring, but we do whatever is necessary to ensure strong voltage at the lights, for maximum brilliance.  We aim for 12.5-13 volts; enough for brightness but not so much as to reduce bulb life unacceptably.

Most of the time, we fit relays beside the radiator, with a heavy cable from them to the alternator.  That takes the load off the switches and wiring, and ensures strong voltage supply.  In addition, we replace the sockets and connectors out at the lamps with high power components that have less resistance.

Taken together, these changes will multiply the light output of your old car many times over.  Night driving will be transformed. 

The photo above shows a new light next to the original outboard high beam

And if that’s not enough . . . we can still get brand new replacements for the old style rectangular driving lamps from the 1970s .  A pair of those under the front bumper will extend your reach even farther.

When Rodents Come Chewing

Here's a fine 1953 Jaguar XK120 Fixed Head Coupe . . . there's just one little problem . . .

Have you ever had mice eat holes in the upholstery of your car?  Have you ever opened the hood to find rodents have devoured the padding, and possibly the wires too?  Have you perhaps started a car only to have the dash go up in smoke because vermin ate the insulation off the wiring?

Here at Robison Service, we have seen all that and more.

Did you know that comprehensive auto insurance covers rodent damage, in almost every case? 

Here’s an example of what can happen when you store your pride and joy in a cat-free, rodentacious environment:

At first glance, there wasn’t much sign this1953 Jaguar 120 had a problem at all.  Then the owner saw the hole.  Something had chewed a quarter-sized hole through the headliner, just forward of the rear window.

  

When we took a closer look, we saw a smaller hole on the other side.  Apparently, they burrowed all the way across and started eating their way out the other side.

And that was just the beginning . . .

There are little black streaks all over the outside of the car. Those streaks are arranged in paths, marking the lines where rodents ran back and forth while devouring the car.  The paths make their way into the trunk, and under the hood, where brown grains of mouse poop are littered.

To fix that, we will strip out the interior, and then wash the metal with mild bleach and disinfectant.  Same thing for the outside, after which we use a clay bar to smooth the paint, and glaze and wax.

There is no good way to get mouse urine out of carpets, and the smell will linger forever, so we change the rugs as a set.  The other reason for changing rugs as a set is of course color match.  On a show-grade car that is especially critical.

It’s important not to forget the pads or liners under the rugs when replacing trim.  We’ve learned that the hard way, when we change the parts on top, but odor lingers from the pads below.  That’s why we strip these cars down to metal right at the beginning.

One of the big worries for any insurance appraiser is electrical damage.  Rodents eat the insulation off wires.  That leads to strange malfunctions and even electrical fires.  Luckily this car does not seem to have any of those problems.

This is not just a cosmetic issue - mice are carriers of many diseases, and we now approach these cleanups from that perspective.  The most threatening health issue with mice is their ability to spread Salmonella bacteria in their droppings. This is a common cause of food poisoning. Other transmittable organisms are tapeworms, rat-bite fever, infectious jaundice/leptospirosis/ Weil’s Disease, plague, Hantavirus, and possibly poliomyelitis (polio). Given these potentially life threatening diseases, mice should not be tolerated in the tight confines of your car.

The next time mice chew your wiring, think of Robison Service.  We’re rodent damage remediation experts.

In the image above you see rodent droppings all round the wiring, but by great good fortune, the little beasties left the tasty braided harnesses alone.  This owner is lucky.  So is his insurer.

Woof

Broke People and Broken Cars

It’s a bad combination, from the perspective of the service manager. 

Our business has changed quite a lot since the economy collapsed in 2008.  One of the biggest ways we see that is in the condition of many middle aged cars – there’s a lot more neglect today. 

The idea of taking care of the whole car has gone out the window for many people, replaced with occasional oil changes at the quick lube.  We see customers less often, and when they do come in, problems have often piled up to a distressing degree.

What seems to happen is this: Motorists feel pressure to save money, so they take their cars to quick lube places, where an oil change is just an oil change.  No one looks the car over carefully, which means there’s no bad news.  There’s no service manager saying, “by the way, your brakes are wearing out and the transmission has a leak.”  Ignorance is bliss, until something fails and the motorist undergoes what we call Pedestrian Conversion, by the side of the road. 

That’s when we get the call; as they are walking where they used to drive.

When the car is towed in we find a fluid leak that we’d have picked up during a routine service.  It emptied the transmission, and the car now needs a $3,500 gearbox replacement.  A belt that we’d have seen cracking comes apart, and another car is towed in with $2,500 of overheating damage.

The worst are the cars that got the wrong oil at the quick lube place, and the cars that didn’t get an oil change at all.  We see sludge-filled engines and repair bills that run eight thousand dollars, maybe even more.  All that for skimping on service.

For some people these are trainable moments that demonstrate the value of preventative maintenance.  Others feel they had no alternative; a viewpoint I find hard to accept.

When you’re a service manager and a car comes in for service, what do you do in this environment?  The way I see it, specialists like me have a duty as experts.  That means we look every car over, and report any incipient problems.  Many times, those incipient problems total up to quite a lot of money.

We’re asked to change the oil and look the vehicle over for obvious problems, and the “obvious” list is long.

We report what we see to the customers, and some are thankful.  These are not usually the people whose cars arrived on a tow truck.  Others are upset.  “I don’t want to hear all this stuff,” or, “you guys are too expensive!”  Either way, their vehicle’s problems are dismissed.

Sometimes I try and push the standards.  If Audi says the brake pads should be changed when 4 millimeters of material remains, I may wait till they are down to 3 millimeters before making the call.  There’s only so much I can do.  Worn brakes will need fixing, sooner or later.  Oil leaks turn from nuisance to hazard, sometimes without warning.  It’s irresponsible not to inform people of these hazards, but so many are not receptive to the news.

Frankly, I wish cars had absolute maintenance standards like airplanes.  Airlines are not allowed to fly, unless the manufacturer’s service checklist is checked off and signed.  That would take the pressure off service managers, as bearers of bad news.  Of course, the penalty for failure in an airplane is greater, but it may not seem that way to a stranded motorist.

This environment makes me appreciate new cars - where the service schedules are generally followed, and failures are covered by warranty; and antiques, which are labors of love for their owners.

Jaguar timing chain tensioner failures

Timing chain tensioners are probably the biggest vulnerabilities 1997-2004 Jaguar V8 engines.  The tensioners get old, and the plastic face that touches the chain gets brittle and breaks.  When that happens the chain flops around excessively, until it fails.

There is no warning of this impending failure from outside.  The only way to know if your guides and tensioners are good, is to remove the cam covers and inspect them.  Inspection – if they are good – is a three-hour job.  Replacement of the upper tensioners – if needed – is a day’s work.  Replacement of the lower chain guides is a much bigger job, most often two days of work.

All those costs pale when compared to the bill for repair, if the chain breaks.  That will often run $8-10,000.

The lesson to be drawn from this:  Check your tensioners, and deal with them before they fail.  New tensioners are a few hundred dollars, plus the labor to put them in.  It's a small price to pay for security.

Robison Service takes Jaguar service from all over the northeast.  We've been catering to British car lovers for over 20 years.  Visit us online at www.robisonservice.com

John 

Some thoughts on the trades

This weekend I finished another excellent book about our economy, and how we might recover from recession.  One of the suggestions was that we should become better educated, as a society.  To bolster that point, the author talked about college graduation rates, and the limited prospects for non-college-graduates who end up with low paying service jobs.

Where are the trades, in that writer’s mind?

I can just hear the answer now . . . Trades?  What are trades?

All too often, writers divide the world of work into “educated and professional” labor performed by college graduates, and “minimum wage service work” performed by the unwashed masses; those of us who did not make it out of college or perhaps even out of high school.

That depiction does a great disservice to our young people as they contemplate their future career paths.  For the trades still offer tremendous opportunity, and they are overlooked more and more today.

So what are the trades, you ask?  Trades are specialized jobs that are taught by doing.  People who work in the trades use both their hands and their minds to reason through problems and produce tangible results.  In years past you learned a trade by being an apprentice.  Today, you might learn a trade at a trade school, or academy.  And some apprentice programs still exist. 

Examples of trades are:

• Carpenter, cabinetmaker, or framer
• Auto, truck, or airplane mechanic or technician
• Computer service technician
• Medical equipment service technician
• Plumber
• Electrician
• Heavy equipment operator

All of those jobs require substantial skill that is developed through both study and practice, and all have different levels.  One starts out at low wages as an apprentice, while masters make as much as most people in “professional” jobs.

The next step up from being a master is to own a small business that employs other tradesmen. Examples are my auto service company, or a local electrical contractor.  Owners of successful trade business can make as much or more money than even high-level professionals, like doctors or lawyers.

Yet the path to success in a trade does not generally pass through a college and it is often overlooked.

There are three hundred million people here in America.  It’s tradesmen who construct the places where we live.  Tradesmen bring us the electric power, and the plumbing.   Tradesmen fix our cars and trucks, and they restore that old jalopy we took on our first date.  They build those custom cabinets you always dreamed of in the study.  They bring town water to your cabin when the well ran dry.  The beauty of the trades is that they are not going anywhere.  No one is outsourcing those jobs to India or China.  

It’s true that the trades change.  The job of fixing cars has changed tremendously over the past twenty years, as has the job of wiring a house or even installing plumbing.  But everything changes.  We all have to learn and adapt.  Tradesmen may have a greater challenge, learning to adapt both hands and minds, but we do it and prosper.  

In some cases, fewer workers are needed in a given area.  Construction trades are a good example of that today.  With the housing collapse, we have a surplus of tradesmen who know how to work new construction.  Yet we still have jobs in other trades, like auto repair, and we even have jobs for carpenters, plumbers and electricians in repair and maintenance. 

I find working on things I can pick up and handle very satisfying.  I know many other tradesmen feel the same.  I like to fix something, see it work, and know it’s a job well done.  That sense of personal connection and satisfaction is missing in all too many jobs today.

Tradesmen of all kinds are what keep our world running.  When the lights go out, you don't call an investment banker.

So why are the trades overlooked and dismissed?  Maybe it’s time for a second glance . . .

Getting a collector car ready for winter storage

It’s late November, time for collector cars to be put in storage all over New England.  These are some thoughts from my 25 years doing this job here at Robison Service . . . 

We start by opening the hood and having a look at the fluids.   There are differing opinions on oil, but my preference is to change dirty oil in the fall, rather than leaving it to rot the engine all winter.

I feel the same way about other fluids.  If they are dirty, I suggest they be changed.

We use test strips to check antifreeze for pH balance and freeze protection.  If the coolant fails or even looks marginal, we change it.

We check the battery and cables.  If the car is going to sit in storage, and it predates the computer era, I suggest disconnecting the battery.  If the car has computers that need to be kept alive, I suggest fitting a trickle charger and a timer to make sure it keeps the battery up without boiling it away.

Some people are concerned about rust in the combustion chambers.  If you have this worry, get a couple cans of marine engine winterizer spray.  Disconnect the ignition, and crank the engine over while spraying the winterizer into the intake.  That will coat the inside of the motor with oil and it will last a year or more, until it’s started again.

Of course, if you do this, the car must be pushed or towed into its storage spot.

Next we inflate the tires.  My big concern is that tires develop flat spots when the car sits still on its tires for months at a time.  You can minimize that by inflating to the maximum pressure shown on the sidewall.  You can eliminate flat spots by storing your car on blocks, so the wheels are actually slightly off the ground.

Most classic cars have steel fuel tanks that are vented to the air.  When temps rise and fall moisture can condense on the inside surfaces of the tank just as it forms a mist on the exterior metal surfaces.   That “fog” ends up in the gas and causes all sorts of trouble.

You can minimize that problem by keeping your car filled with fuel.  You can also minimize the problem by protecting your car from dramatic temperature swings wherever it is stored.

The next area of concern is the fuel itself.  Gasoline degrades as it sits in storage, and today’s pump fuels start out marginal for use in older cars.  For that reason, I suggest you fill your car with premium fuel, and add fuel stabilizer to slow its deterioration. 

If you are near an airport, and they will sell you fuel in gas cans, your car will run better on Avgas 100.  However, it is costly and not every airport will dispense the stuff into containers.  It’s illegal for road use in the USA despite its functional superiority.

I like to put cars up on the left and spray penetrating oil into all the linkages and moving parts. That reduces the chance things will freeze up or rust over the winter.

Finally, we get to the interior.  I have had enough trouble with rodents that I now leave mouse baits on the floor in hopes that will reduce or eliminate infestations.  I also leave an air freshener inside, and choose a dry location for storage.

Some people like to store cars under a cover; others prefer to leave them open.  I like covers because they protect you from scratches if cats jump on the cars or things brush against them.

If you do this work yourself, plan on spending a few hours putting the car to rest.  If you pay someone to do it for you, expect a bill for several hundred dollars of labor plus fuel, coolant, or other fluids

Whatever you choose, I wish you luck this winter season.

And remember . . . an apple a day will keep anyone away, if thrown hard enough.

How long do tires last?

How long do tires last? 

If you have a collectible car, the tires may look new, yet be falling apart inside.  The culprit is dry rot, which destroys tires from within.  Dry rot causes the rubber to break down, become weak, and eventually fail.  Usually without warning.

Dry rot is the visible manifestation of the natural process of rubber breaking down.  It’s accelerated by a number of factors including:

• Ozone exposure;
• Exposure to bright sun and heat;
• UV exposure;
• Use of certain tire dressings and chemicals;
• Underinflation.  

Dry rot is a bigger problem in the south because it’s hotter and the sun is brighter.  It’s a problem at high altitude because the sun is more intense and there is more UV exposure.

Some people say tires need to be replaced every five years in the tropics.  Others say tires should be replaced every ten years, wherever they are.  Then there are those who say you don’t need to do anything unless you can see dry rot attacking the tires.  I think that last opinion is probably closest to the truth, because I see cars that are stored indoors all the time, and the tires look perfect after ten years, but other cars that are parked outside in the sun every day show dry rot damage in three years.

That leads to a question – how do you know the age of a tire?

Tires that were made after January 1, 2000 have a code stamped on the inner sidewall that begins with DOT and ends with four digits molded into the tire.  The four digits indicate the week (1-52) and the year (00 for 2000) that the tire was made.

Here’s an example

This tire was made in week 43 of 2002.