Land Rover Defender restoration at Robison Service

Here at Robison Service, winter time is restoration time for many of our clients and their cars.  We take projects in the fall with the hope that we'l scoot them out the door - finished - by the time spring weather arrives, a few months from now.

Here's a glimpse into some of our activities in the Land Rover world

This is an engine from a 1994 Defender that's undergoing a frame-off restoration.  After ensuring the core was good, and no rebuild was needed, we've stripped this motor to the long block and removed all the discolored and salt spotted aluminum.

We bead blasted everything, and finished the aluminum in a clear ceramic that looks like fresh aluminum, but it won't fade or discolor.  We finished all the black in semi-gloss powder, and changed the gaskets, hoses, and ancillary parts . . .

We did the same thing on the axles, stripping them to the casings, which were cleaned and powder coated.  Land Rover left a lot of this metal bare when the vehicles were new, but we finish it all.

Here's Joe Brick, assembling away . . .

This Defender got a new cross member and we remade the tubular rear bumper.  The old parts were totally destroyed by rust

Here's the frame-off restoration that I mentioned above.  We've just installed the drivetrain, and built up the axles and hubs.  A set of wheels and it's ready to roll!

This Series truck is here for wiring repairs, and eradication of rodents . . . .

Here we are mocking up a new set of jump seats for a Nantucket beach Defender . . ..

Here are the newly built brakes and hubs.  The actual hub was bare metal originally, and we finished it in flat black ceramic for looks and corrosion resistance

Here's a rebuilt and refinished swivel . . .

We've had a lot of trouble with steel fuel lines rotting away.  These stainless lines are a bear to bend and fit, but they'll never rot!

Here's Joe working on a wiring harness - something that's a lot easier to do when there's no truck in your way

How do we keep track of what's tight and what's loose?  We mark all the fasteners with paint once they are torqued.  Then an inspector can look under the car and pick out unpainted bolts.

We use high heat ceramic to finish the brake drums, and black paint and u-joints for the driveshafts

Here's a resealed and prepped engine, seen from below

A recent arrival . . . .

 Swapping a rear main seal in a V8 is a lot easier when the motor is on a stand . . .

Paul has a pair of rusty battery covers, ready to blast and powder coat.  We'll be able to save them.

Meanwhile, we fit the sound deadening panels and rubber for the floor . . . . 

And so goes another week at Robison Service

Are you thinking of a Land Rover restoration project?  Give John a call, 413-785-1665.

Visit our regular website at www.robisonservice.com

Visit us for real at 347 Page Boulevard, Springfield, Massachusetts

So you want to buy a car . . .

We’ve all heard expressions like, “pretty low miles on that car, if you believe the odometer.”  How do you know if an odometer reading is true?  My first and best advice is to look at the whole context of car, environment, and deal.

One owner cars offered by franchised dealers of the same make are usually the safest deals, and they often come with certified warranty, but they are also often more expensive.   Late model used cars at reputable used car lots are also often safe, because of the source.

You see, many 2-3-4 years old cars find their way into the used car marketplace simply because their original lease ran out, or the original buyer defaulted on his payments.  Those cars often have nothing whatsoever wrong with them; they just aged out of their former homes.

One problem to look for in lease cars is neglect, or substandard service.  When someone knows they are only renting the use of a car for a set period they don’t tend to care for it as if they’d own it forever.  Lessee cheapness and neglect often comes back to bite unsuspecting second owners, and it often happens much later in the car’s life when they have no recourse.

Older used cars are even more of a problem, because they tend to be sold off when they have problems the former owner doesn’t want to fix.  In my experience, very few people trade in a 10-year-old car because “they just want a new one.”  They may say something like that, but underlying the words is usually a mechanic’s warning that the car needs a few grand in work soon, and they decide to bail.  Such cars are often patched up and resold, leaving the new owner with a pile of unexpected repairs.  I suggest you examine any used car that’s more than three years old very carefully for that reason.

The best older cars come from sellers whose circumstances may have suddenly changed.  A guy who just got a promotion and won a company car may be a great fellow to get a 7-year-old BMW from.  Estate sales can be good too.  Repos are often cheap, but also often neglected, damaged or both.

The more owners a car has had, the more suspicious you should be.  There is little incentive for an owner to alter the odometer while he owns a car.  The incentive appears when it comes time to sell, and the more times a car has been sold, the greater the chance someone engaged in deception.

Cars that were leased are more likely to have incorrect odometers.  The reason: many leases had stiff penalties for driving cars more than 10 or 12 thousand miles a year.  Some motorists – realizing they will owe thousands in mileage penalties at lease turn in – will pay hundreds to roll the odometer back instead.

Odometer fraud used to be a crime of professionals.  Crooked car dealers would buy high mileage vehicles at one auction, shave forty or fifty thousand miles off their odometers, and resell them for a substantial gain at another auction a few hundred miles away.  Integration of auction databases and better record keeping largely put an end to that practice.

Today those crooked dealers are more likely exporting the cars they “clock” or set back because other countries seldom check odometer records back here in the US.  Their activity props up auction prices on high mile luxury cars, but that support comes at the expense of the ultimate retail buyers, distant though they may be.

Today’s lease car odometer fraud is much more likely to be an individual crime, which makes it much harder to detect.  When a person leases a brand new car, and turns it in three years later with 32,000 miles there is no way to tell if it once had 60,000 instead.  Or is there?

There’s no title history to follow, but many cars have service histories if only you can find them.  Services like CARFAX are doing a better and better job of collecting records from state inspection stations, repair shops, and other business that record mileages on cars they see.  Discrepancies in their reports can tip you off to an odometer problem, but you have to be careful because a casual reading at state inspection is more likely to be erroneous than a sworn odometer statement when a car is sold.  A car that had 30,000 miles in one inspection, 80,000 at the next, and 40,000 today could well be a case of observation error, and not fraud.

The best situation is to buy cars from sellers who are up front, and who have full service records for the life of the vehicle.  That way you are assured of both the odometer reading and the quality of care the car received.  Unfortunately, that situation is not all that common in the car world.

Given that reality, I strongly encourage anyone buying an expensive used car – classic or otherwise – to have it inspected by a professional.  Look for wear in the seats and on the body (or evidence of recent fixing-up) that might suggest high mileage.  Look at tires, belts, batteries and other components to see if they are original, matching, and correct.  There are a thousand little clues that an expert may spot that suggest one car is good and another should be avoided.

Finding a qualified inspector presents its own challenges, since there is no good system for certifying expertise in any particular make or model.  The best cure for that is still to establish a reputation with a shop you can trust, and buy local – restrict your search to cars the shop you trust can check out. 

In the end, that is your best assurance.  A local shop that does all your work – and does it right - has a strong incentive to be vigilant when inspecting a car on your behalf.  After all, if the car has big problems after you buy it – and they did not predict the trouble – you will likely hold them responsible and they may lose your business.  A distant inspector knows he’ll never see you again, and has no tie to you beyond the inspection fee you paid.  With no disrespect to distant inspectors intended, who do you think will be more careful?

John Elder Robison is the founder of J E Robison Service in Springfield, MA.  They are independent specialists in fine European automobiles and they’ve been known to dabble in other makes from time to time.  Find them online at www.robisonservice.com

The Making of a Rolls-Royce, circa 1972

While sifting through records on a snowy afternoon I found this paper trail for a 1972 Rolls Royce.

It begins with the order for the car, which was initiated by Rolls-Royce of America.  They ordered this two-tone green long wheelbase sedan "for stock," meaning there was no customer for it when the order was placed.

As was the case with most "for stock: cars, no options were specified.  Rolls-Royce was unique at that time in that they sold their cars fully equipped, at one price.  They did not have a base model car and pile on options like Cadillac or Lincoln.  When a customer ordered a Rolls-Royce (as opposed to buying from stock) he might request things like cocktail glasses and decanters built into a door panel, or custom coloring to match a favorite piece of clothing.  Other than that, they were built the way Rolls-Royce designed them, which still varied quite a bit from car to car as the manufacturer substituted wood veneers, headliners, switches, etc.  There was no such thing as a "production line Rolls."  Every motorcar was unique, even if nothing special was specified on the order.

I've looked at cars that went down the production line right after each other and seen subtle differences in what should be two identical cars.  One will have a vinyl headliner, while another car has wool - little changes like that set the cars apart from each other.  These long wheelbase cars were "more full" of little differences and eccentricities than their standard brothers.  The dash of a standard Rolls was framed in steel, but these long cars were custom so the dash frame was cut by hand from wood.  That extra hand work alone ensured these cars would be unique.

The door panels, window trim, and rear carpets were also special. Interior sets on these cars tended to be made up in a different area of the factory from the short wheelbase cars.  The interior parts would be produced in batches, and the long wheelbase ones were always different.

Rolls-Royce Motors accepted the order for this car May 15, 1972.  The car was given the chassis number LRA-14159, and was identified as the 133rd long wheelbase car to be ordered that year.  Long wheelbase Shadows are fairly rare, with only 2,780 examples built between 1969 and 1976.   For comparison, in that same time period Roll-Royce produced some 17,000 standard wheelbase sedans.

Rolls Royce was always a small volume carmaker.  That year they would build 2,473 cars, of which 629 were bound for the United States.  Perhaps 75 of them were long wheelbase sedans.  That made these cars about as rare as convertibles, and they are actually rarer today as fewer sedans survive whereas almost all convertibles have been preserved.

Most Rolls Royce dealers sold cars from the catalog, as opposed to selling them off a lot like ordinary cars.  This particular car was purchased by a Connecticut businessman in early September, shortly before it was completed.  This Telex shows the status of several cars, and identifies 14159 as "no longer available for sale."

Back then cars were typically secured with a 5-10% down payment with the balance to be paid when the car arrived.  Few Rolls-Royce dealers offered financing, so the deals were almost all cash.   Leasing of luxury cars was still quite a long way into the future.

A few days later the car was invoiced out by the factory.  You'll note the invoice was in British pounds, which at the time were each worth 2.45 US dollars.  At the September 1972 exchange rate, Rolls Royce America paid the parent company $17,762 for the car.

This next paper shows that the car was consigned to Claridge Holt, Ltd for shipping to America.  They put it in a container and loaded the car on a Seatrain container ship bound for the Port of Newark.  The car left for America in late October.

Those of you who are interested in ships will note this car probably rode to America aboard Seatrain Euroliner, a nearly new (launched 1971) high speed gas turbine container ship.  Euroliner was one of the first large purpose-built container ships.  She carried almost 900 full sized containers at full capacity, and was just under 800 feet in length.  Her two turbines drove her at 26 knots - a brisk pace now or then.  In fact, for many years, Euroliner held the cross-Atlantic speed record for a freighter at 31+ knots.

For purposes of comparison, the cruise speed of Euroliner was the same as the cruise speed of Queen Mary 2 today.

At the time, these ships were  acclaimed as revolutionary but they always operated at a loss.  Modern large container ships have roughly three times the capacity, and somewhat less horsepower and a lower cruise speed from a single diesel engine.  Air freight has taken the place of fast ocean freight, and bulk capacity has replaced speed as a top design goal.

When it arrived there was some slight damage . . . oil spots on a fender and damage beside the trunk. That was fixed in New Jersey.

Shipping and preparation took a bit more than a month.  On November 27, Rolls-Royce of America shipped the car to their dealer, Hoffman Motors of Hartford, CT; invoicing them for $23,255.  Looking close, you'll see that the payment terms are "sight draft."  This was a common method of paying for vehicles in the pre-Internet era.  A sight draft looked like a check, but it was only cashable once the maker had notified the bank that certain conditions had been met.

In this case, the draft would have been cashable once the car and certificate of origin were delivered intact to Hoffman.  The sight draft number is shown on the invoice, and it was probably deposited a few days after the invoice was written.  Today, carmakers simply charge the bank accounts of their dealers through the Federal Reserve clearing system but that provision didn't exist in 1972.

The car had a suggested list price of $28,715, but Rolls-Royce did not believe in windows stickers.  This was the retail price sheet for the car, which was kept in the vehicle's file at the dealership and possibly given to the buyer:

Hoffman's Rolls-Royce operation is long gone, though they remain in business at the same location in East Hartford with a Porsche-Audi dealership.

In any case, no window sticker was needed as the car was (like most others of its kind) presold.  This vehicle was destined for Matthew Saczawa of Wethersfield, CT.  He received the vehicle in early 1973, and registered the car at his winter home in Boca Raton, FL.

Looking at the timetable you can see that 8 months passed between acceptance of the order and delivery of the car to its new owner.  Where most car companies changed model years in September, Rolls-Royce often continued their model years till the following spring!

That was a result of the long time it took them to build the cars.  They accepted orders for the current model year right into summer, which meant the last of the 72's were not delivered till the spring of '73, under the best of circumstances.

Mr. Saczawa - the car's first owner - owned the Atlantic Machine Tool Works in Newington, CT.  He was 52 years old when he bought this car.  He kept the car for 25 years, only selling it in 1997 because he was too infirm to drive.  During that time, the car covered 36,000 miles.  That seems like a low number but these cars are often driven sparingly, especially when they are bought by older people who tend to keep them as pets.

The second owner kept the car on Cape Cod for 12 years, at which time it was purchased by the present owner.  Here's the car as it appears today, still remarkably clean and original:

Reading through this trail, I am reminded that we are not just owners of these vehicles; we are caretakers - keepers for whomever will follow us.  Ordinary cars are driven for 15 years and scrapped.  Nicer cars - Mercedes, BMW, or Jaguar - have longer lives but they are still finite.  Rolls-Royce cars, in contrast, are seldom ever scrapped.  More than 70% of all Rolls-Royce motorcars ever built are still roadworthy today.  That's a remarkable thing, but you can see why looking at this example.

The Silver Shadow series was the most maintenance intensive Rolls ever made.  At the same time, it is one of the least valuable in the used car market because it is the most common.  The result is that many of these fine cars are neglected and abused, and quite a few will be broken up for parts.

I hope the surviving examples get better care as they become rarer, because they are really quite nice to drive.  One day, we'll look back and wonder where all the Shadows went.  When that happens, I've no doubt this one will be a survivor.


John Elder Robison

John is the owner of J E Robison Service, Rolls-Royce and Bentley service specialists in Springfield, Massachusetts.  John is a technical consultant for the Rolls Royce Owner's Club on Silver Shadow and other modern cars.  He's been around Rolls-Royce motorcars since the vehicle in this story was new.

Should you warm up your engine before you drive?

Should you warm up your car's engine?

Warmup is part of the ritual of driving any antique, and wise owners follow it faithfully.  Few question the wisdom of bringing an old engine up to temperature before putting it under load.  Yet many of those same people hope into modern cars and zoom out of the driveway without a moment’s preparation.  Is that wise?

Most carmakers say warmup is unnecessary, but they are under pressure from government agencies to keep fuel economy up, and warmup burns gas.  And they are in the business of selling parts . . . cars that don’t break don’t make them any money.  So I don’t know if I’d follow their advice blindly, in this area and some others . . .

When I think about the problems people have with high-end cars, oil leaks and head gasket failures are high on the list for any brand.  When we disassembly engines for oil leakage we often find gaskets cracked, which means they were not strong enough to hold against the applied fluid pressure.

It’s easy to assume they didn’t hold because they just weren’t good enough, but that’s not always the only explanation.  In fact, when an engine is cold the metal parts have contracted so the fit between two pieces of engine is fractionally looser than five minutes after start, when everything is warm

As the engine parts heat and expand, the bolts tend to expand less, so they become more tightly clamped.  Why?  Because the engines in modern cars are aluminum or some other lightweight alloy, and the bolts are almost always steel.  Steels expands less.

At the same time, when an engine is cold, the oil is thick.  Thicker oil = higher oil pressure as the pump works harder to force it through the passages of the motor.  An engine that has 15 pounds pressure at 800 rpm hot might have 50 pounds when cold, and pressure could soar to 100psi or more if the motor is raced.

Looser clearances between big engine parts + higher oil pressures in warm-up = much greater chance of blowout failures in the engine’s oil system

At the same time, stepping on the gas with a cold motor means high combustion chamber pressures.  Mix that with those loose clamping forces on the cold head gasket and you have a formula for head gasket blowout.

Manufacturers can say what they will . . . the logic and engineering sense of the points above will stand.  They may have engineered in enough strength to protect against the failures I describe, but then again, maybe they didn’t.  After all, if they did, we’d never see those failures in the shop!

The simple takeaway – five minutes of warm-up will keep your motor alive longer, with fewer leaks and less risk of failure.  And when you do drive . . . go light on the throttle until everything is up to temperature!

Happy New Year

John Elder Robison

Some Words for the Ones We Leave Behind

With all the talk of Christmas, and the holiday weekend, precious little is said about the machines we leave behind.  What about the cars that languish in our service department, partially eviscerated, sick, or wounded?  What about the ones that are cured, waiting for their owners to return?  What about the others, the ones who slumber in storage, waiting for spring?

I thought we might take a moment to reflect on those machines in this time of commercial frenzy

Some say every car contains within it the seeds of its own destruction.  That was certainly true in the case of this 2002 BMW, which went home yesterday, leaving these gnawed and eaten bits behind.

Then there's the Lexus, yearning for service, sitting hood agape.

In the next bay a Porsche hangs on the lift, bereft of engine and interior, as we search out and fix the devastation wrought by rampaging rodent invaders.

A Jaguar XKE hangs next to it, with the body stripped for paint repair and the engine removed for overhaul.   It will be transformed for spring, but that's still some months away . . . .

In the Land Rover shop an engine sits dismantled as Paul assembles a chassis for one of out winter Defender restorations.  This one will head for Nantucket, and a life on the beach.

 A Rolls Royce convertible sits quietly, waiting for its seats to return from the upholstery shop.  As the TV ads used to say, "A car without seats is like a day without sunshine," and I believe that is still true.

Over in the engine shop a Jaguar motor awaits repair.  Meanwhile, it sits safe, among more of its kind, Jags and Rovers and a couple Rolls Royces.

A few cars sit outside excited, waiting for owners to drive them home:

 This Rover's owner is headed here on the train, at this very moment.  By the time you read this, they'll be headed for home.

This one's going west, to the Hudson River country of New York.  The journey will be easier, with the new stereo we fitted.

There are many more the pictures don't show . . . The Willys waiting on its door latches, and the Three Black Bentleys.  They come from different cities but they've become fast friends and can often be seen pushing lesser cars out of the way when the gas guy comes round.

There's the Lincoln, and the Cadillac, and the Triumph out front.  There's the Harley, and the Jeep, and the ancient Ferrari.  The six Rolls-Royce sedans and the Mercedes 600.  The old 6.3 and the nice 3.5.  All waiting.

While you are out celebrating, raise a glass to the cars left behind.  Be considerate when you return, and remember machines may have feelings too.

Woof

To Maintain or Not to Maintain, that is the question . . .

“All I’ve done is change the oil, and do whatever service my local garage told me about."  That’s what the owner of a ten-year-old 150,000 mile Lexus told me yesterday.   So what should I do now?

We looked at the receipts and she was right.  A bunch of oil changes, a few sets of tires, a few sets of brakes, and a battery had taken her all that distance.  It hadn’t been very expensive, especially compared to what the dealer wanted when they quoted the recommended services.

Now the car had an engine misfire.  That had caused catalytic converter failure, and a check engine light.  The owner knew the car wouldn’t pass inspection that way, and the corner garage didn’t do work like that.  So . . . the car ended up at our shop.

What does a responsible shop owner do, when someone like that comes in?  It’s like when the CPA has a new client walk in the door and say “I haven’t filed any tax returns since 2003, and now I’ve got this letter.  What do you suggest?”  What indeed.

I have seen some very high mileage Lexus cars in my day.  We had one fellow put 420,000 miles on a 1999 LS400 without a single major failure.  But he did his maintenance.  This car was a bit different.  It was fifty thousand miles past the timing belt change interval, and a hundred thousand past the transmission service date . . . . this car was living on borrowed time.

As I explained to the owner, it costs less than $1,600 to change a timing belt, water pump, and all the stuff in front of the engine.  If the belt breaks the bill is going to be at least $5,000, maybe considerably more.   It’s an all or nothing thing.   Every day you drive without belt breakage, you win.  The day it breaks, you lose big.  No belt lasts forever. 

She decided to change the belt.

We moved on to the other items on the service schedule.  Spark plugs were next.  Why?  Because the car had an intermittent skip.  Ignition failure is the most common cause of misfire faults.  What happens is that the plugs get old.  As they age, it takes more and more voltage to fire them.  That extra voltage puts stress on the wires, connectors and coils, and eventually something fails.  For that reason, whenever you have an ignition miss, step one is spark plug replacement. 

You may still need other parts but you certainly need new plugs if the old ones have been in the car 150,000 miles.

She decided to change the plugs

Now we get to the “other” fluids – brake fluid, transmission fluid, rear axle lube, coolant and power steering fluid.  Some people say, “I went this long without changing them, best leave it alone so I don’t stir things up and cause a problem.”  While many people use that line as a rationalization for doing nothing, it ensures the eventual failure of the system.   Lubricants, like belts and plugs, have a finite lifespan.

Brake fluid absorbs water, and it will rust your brake system from the inside.  Coolant becomes acidic, and dissolves your radiator and engine from within.  Transmission, steering, and axle lubes all pick up tiny metal particles.  Left in the old oil, they will grind away at the bearings till something fails.  At the same time, oil gradually loses its film strength, which is what keeps the gears from galling against each other under load.  

She decided to change the fluids.

In the end, after going through the list line by line, we agreed to do all the deferred service on the car.  It cost a hefty sum, to be sure, but it’s still less than she would have spent had she done it all on time, because some of the things we are doing would have been done several times already.

Which begs the question . . . .

Was the original maintenance schedule too conservative?  If so, she saved quite a bit of money with little or no consequence.  Or will she pay a higher price down the road, as the un-maintained parts and systems fail before their time?

I wish I knew.  I’m sure some carmakers are conservative and others are not.  I’m also sure some drivers are hard on their cars, while others are gentle.

In the past five years I have lost count of the engines I have changed in Mercedes, BMW and other cars because the owners failed to change the oil. I used to ask how they could be so dumb, but after the tenth or twentieth car came in the door I knew the answer.  Cars don’t talk back.  So when money is tight, the car gets neglected.  Most live, but some die.

When I point that fact out, the owners get mad at me.  Fine, I tell them.  I’m not the one making loan payments on two tons of scrap iron because I failed to protect my investment.  That’s the thing about being autistic.   When people act dumb, and machinery suffers, I may take the side of the car and not the human.  Vets feel the same about people who abuse cats and dogs.

The lesson to take away from all this:  You can probably push the maintenance schedules a bit if you drive gently.  But when you do, you take a big risk.  Deferring a $1,000 service won’t be so smart, if it costs you a $7,500 engine.   Carmakers make maintenance schedules for a reason.

Most of the time, when we suggest altering a factory schedule, it is to do something more often, not less.  The carmaker, after all, wants a schedule that keeps the car alive long enough to give them happy owners and a good reputation, but not so long that the car never wears out.  We, as repair people, expect to care for things and have them last almost forever.

So I guess you pick your philosophy, and with it, your repair shop.