| Author | Message | ||
     Vladimir Ivanovich Kirillov Grand Master Username: soviet Post Number: 430 Registered: 2-2013 |
I was feeling mischievously ambitious the other day when I decided to find out why the passenger side door lock on my Camargue would not operate with the key. I knew solving the problem would involve removing the driver's side door trim. Here you are dealing with priceless parts which rarely become available given the low build rate of only 534 cars ever made of the then "world's most expensive vehicle". It simply is not the type of car you would feel comfortable with dropping off to any repair shop and hoping they do the right thing by you. Perhaps its paranoia of my part but when it needs tyres I will be taking in the wheels but never the car. I don't like people even going near the car and although I live in a remote place in the Aussie outback there is a big very rude sign with an accurate expletive about touching the paint work. When I do any work on this car I put myself into complete relaxation mode by starting with a beverage and as soon as I feel slightly stressed I kick my cat and have a cuppa, returning to my Camargue later. I am quite certain I would be just as crazy if I was working on a Shadow too. I don't have a workshop manual for this car and have only found workshop manuals to be slightly useful in 40 plus years of mechanical work. Tee-one articles are a great help and written in a way that they are simplistic and very useful but my experience of workshop manuals is they are simply written by a different species. So the first thing I do is get a packet of plastic resealable sandwich bags which have a white section on which to write where the particular nut or screw or bolt or clip came from. I also write on the back re-assembly tips if I think it will help. Using this method every part goes back together precisely the same way it came apart which is a good start assuming of course the car was put together correctly when first assembled. Getting a Camargue's door trim off is no easy matter. One has to have a very good look at it from all angles to try to work out how to get it apart. One could of course track down a Rolls Royce Camargue factory trained expert mechanic who knows especially if you have good track record for locating the last remaining unicorns. There are three door panels on a Camargue and it all comes off in a very bizarre fashion. Its a case of removing one panel and putting your hand up inside of the door to feel for any nuts holding studs which hold the next panel on. There are additionally delights like a row of six stainless screws holding the very bottom panel on and one of these screws is much longer than the others so I note which screw that is so that it goes back into the correct hole. It is not an unheard of experience to put too long a screw or bolt into the wrong hole and straight into something nice like a wiring harness or a computer board and then start to go crazy when the car develops an electrical problem which it never had before. Clients love to say "but it never had that problem before you touched it" meaning you must be responsible. I had a farmer boss who had all the mechanical knowledge of a squashed blowfly who used to love to say "its was going okay before it stopped " and he would run all of his machinery into the ground and then simply not understand why so much time had to be spent to get something right again. The man was good at getting horses stuck out of fences but when it came to mechanics he was a totally ignorant nightmare. Once I got all the door trim off I was disappointed to discover that there was no Beretta Pistol fully loaded and wrapped up in plastic inside the door, nor a plastic bag of white powder or a stack of Sterling notes marked Bank of England. There was however a flat washer left loose in the bottom of the door which could have made a noise you don't want to hear when you are driving. No need to laugh about finding a loaded gun inside a door - I once found a fully loaded machine gun clip under the front seat of a 69 Mustang Mach One imported here from California. Additionally, the plywood Crewe used to make the door trims had started to separate in places and now I have a choice of either using epoxy glue to repair that wood or making a new piece out of high quality marine ply. I think if Crewe used marine ply to start with the trim would not be falling apart in places but then again the car is 40 years old. One thing that I discovered was that there are no seals over the door hinges which operate both inside and outside the aluminium frame of the door which would let both road grim and insects into the inside of the door where you have open mechanisms like the window drive chain for the electric window and all the many levers for the dual door handles of a Camargue. That's right jetsetters and legends, the Camargue is a two door coupe with door handles inside for the rear and front seat occupants - how super cool is that ? But what to do with the missing door hinge seals. Dead spiders and winged termites were discovered inside the door - that's never a good look and naturally seeing cobwebs and living in Australia where we do have a selection of spiders that can kill, rot your arm off or give you a nasty bite leading to being quite ill, I always blast any web with insecticide before I put my hand anywhere that I can't see. I am certain that a call to Flying Spares in London for new door hinge seals for a Camargue will result in a Monty Python laugh and if they had them on the shelf in new packets the price would be amazing so I guess I am going to have to fabricate my own but its not easy to see how one can do that when the actual mechanism moves bizarrely inside and outside the actual door frame. When I get slightly stressed doing this type of work I just walk away and calm down. It's not as if I still have a hideous money grabbing boss running around with a stop watch trying to squeeze every last cent out of me like what happens in the trade these days which has now with the complexity of cars caused many a new qualified mechanic to simply flee from the trade and do something easier like truck driving or construction work or brain surgery. If somebody has got some magic solution for the door hinge seals (two) please post your thoughts. This car's original colour was Crown and it has had a full respray in white so my guess was that the door hinge seals were perished and the panel shop where ever the car was repainted simply put the car back together without them unless Camargues never had any such seals which I think would be very strange. Another thing I noticed is the sound deadening on the inside of the outside door skin does not cover more than about a third of the door. The first motoring journalist road test of the car in Sicily when it first came out reported that the Camargue was very quiet right uptil its top speed of 192 kilometres per hour so the absence of more sound deadening is a mystery to me. | ||
| Omar M. Shams Grand Master Username: omar Post Number: 551 Registered: 4-2009 |
Dear Vlad, I would start to look at whatever Mr Camargue designer had at his disposal when was building them in the first place. In his parts bin he would have had Shadow 1 and Shadow II door seals, he would have had Phantom seals, Corniche seals and maybe some left over Cloud seals. Maybe some of these may be a good starting point. It could be that the Camargue seas are standard seals that had been modified. This may save you starting form scratch. Take a look at these seals to see if they look about right. My money is on the Corniche. If you want me to to take my Corniche door apart to take photos for you I will gladly do so, but I think my car will be wildly different as its a 90s car. Take care Omar | ||
| Robert Noel Reddington Grand Master Username: bob_uk Post Number: 889 Registered: 5-2015 |
The sound deadening panel is glue on and to stop the door skin drumming not to excluded outside noise. Although the panel is not meant to exclude outside noise every bit helps | ||
| Paul Yorke Grand Master Username: paul_yorke Post Number: 1483 Registered: 6-2006 |
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| Vladimir Ivanovich Kirillov Grand Master Username: soviet Post Number: 432 Registered: 2-2013 |
Thanks for that Paul. It looks like the black thing is the seal. Unfortunately your up load to the site is a little fuzzy so if you could email it directly to me complexengine@yahoo.com.au I would be most grateful. I paid about $260USD a few years ago for a paper form of the Camargue workshop manual, then they emailed me back saying they only had it on disk and like a mug I accepted that to finally receive a disk that is as useful as a politicans promise, then I rang them and got the run around and finally realised they were a shonky American business gracefully ripping the international public off. Any leads on getting a copy of a Camargue Workshop Manual would be appreciated. Omar, a Camargue door looks quite different from a Corniche door but maybe you are right. Maybe they did use a standard seal but how would you know until you tried to fit one ? | ||
| Geoff Wootton Grand Master Username: dounraey Post Number: 1109 Registered: 5-2012 |
Hi Vladimir They have them on CD at Flying Spares for 15 ukp. http://www.flyingspares.com/shop/rolls-royce-bentley-shadow-t1-t2-corniche-mpw/handbook-workshop-maunal-key-ring/shadow-t-corniche-1-2-parts-list-workshop-manuals/rolls-royce-camargue-workshop-manual-cd-tsd2939cd.html Geoff | ||
| Chris Browne Prolific User Username: chrisb Post Number: 241 Registered: 2-2010 |
Hi Vlad, For information, the factory workshop manual for the Shadow 2 also covers the Camargue. It is a four volume set ref. no. TSD4200. It is also available to download free from the RROCA Technical library. The section you need regarding the Camargue doors is Section S in volume 3. Hope this helps. Kind regards, Chris |
