Advice opinions please

[Green411]

Agree completely with David C about shift quality. I had a shift kit in the TH350 in my old V8 Ford Popular hot rod years ago. It was a solid shift at any rpm - great when drag racing but it deffo wouldn't suit a Bristol. If I do actually end up putting a GM 200-4R in my 411 I'll need an uprated one (to take the torque) but want it with a stock feeling shift - all the trans companies I've looked at build them for hot rodders & bracket racers, so they advertise much firmer shifts.

[Geoff Kingston]

My 411/3 sold some years ago did not have any half throttle kickdown response but when I decided to fit an Edelbrock Performer Carb and Manual choke set to the car and adjust all the linkages as the installation instructions suggested all was well and I had full and part throttle kickdown no expensive mods and I remember reading years ago that Bristol had set up the linkages on their cars of this period to exclude the half or part throttle kick down both of which operate on my 603.
This video which I have just come across may offer some insight into the issue or not as I got distracted when viewing it but but decided to post the link anyway as we may all learn something.
Geoff.

https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/th...-down-linkage/

[AndrewA]

The article highlights the problem I had on mine when it came back from having the selector fitted.
My gearbox is wider than original and Martin Barnes got round this (when he did the conversion nearly 23 years ago) by engineering in a bit of flop (not slop!) into the rods and linkages and extended a few others. The garage tightened everything up before they gave me the car back and removed the flop hence no kickdown. It took me about two hours of looking and thinking but once I'd understood what he'd done and why it was a five minute job to put a bit more slack into the system.
I did seriously consider the Lokar solution - you apparently do need to use their gas/accelerator pedal as well - or so I've read - but then local mechanic pointed out that what I've got works perfectly well so why not stick with that - at least until current setup fails - so I am!

[David C]

Here is a picture to illustrate the difference Andrew refers to. The gearbox tunnel was originally pretty much symmetrical. The hole for the linkage at the top of the red area has had to move outward about 2 inches to get a clean vertical drop down the side of the transmission.
Modification to the tunnel and re-engineering the linkages is about the most time consuming part of upgrade to overdrive.

Many thanks to Geoff for the helpful link on how to adjust the kickdown.

[David C]

With any luck the picture is attached this time...http://www.bristolcars.info/forums/a...1&d=1697129123

[AndrewA]

Happy Christmas to all readers! The preparation of car for daughters wedding took on a rather manic aspect and I got quite obsessive including getting hubcaps rechromed but it did look stunning and 25 year old daughter did the driving duties without mishap. After various people "having a go" at driving it in the days following the wedding the new shifter became somewhat difficult to get out of Park. In an effort to remedy it myself I managed to break it. A new shifter mechanism turned up very quickly from https://dantesparts.com/ and all is well again.
Fuel smell from the rear is cured - renewed all breather hoses etc, but the problem was a through bulkhead fitting that was leaking slightly.
Also took the opportunity to get the side trim redone...it was held on by a mixture of double sided tape, and clips and over the years it was pulling away in places...mainly where it had been caught by cleaning cloths and so on. I got the local bodyshop to redo it using the correct clips... I gather it was a bit of a performance but it looks excellent.
Have got New Years Day run planned and after that it's going in to get the only remaining bushes on the car that haven't been renewed done. They're the ones on what I'd call the sort of anti tramp bar at the rear.
Hopefully do some serious touring in 2024.
Cheers
Andrew

[Sam410]

Looks great, very smart!

[AndrewA]

Took the opportunity to have remaining niggles dealt with!
When anti tramp bar removed to do bushes, we noticed the mountings on the diff cover weren't great so they've been remade and all is much better at the rear. Also dealt with annoying slight resonance when moving away which turned out to be the gearbox mounting - replacement was a Chrysler Valiant one!
Traced annoying fuel smell at front to incorrectly seated air cleaner and that's now sorted and took the time to double check chassis etc to ensure no incipient corrosion anywhere.
Not content with that, reset the tappets which hadn't been done since heads done a year or so ago and as we were on a roll decided to see what was going on inside the rear suspension units!
Bearings not great on one side and and even less great on the other so they were replaced. After reading extensively on here and SLJ's technical notes and suggestions decided to fill with semi liquid grease and added a grease nipple and a vent so one can fill them without pressure build up.
Needless to say car drives and rides incredibly well now and am looking forward to the serious touring mentioned below!

[AndrewA]

Car just back from France - first time it's been abroad for a long while. Behaved itself impeccably and overall achieved 28.1 MPG which I was delighted with - helped no doubt by Autoroutes and RN's - very little stop start/city driving.
Off to Germany in a few weeks to do Romantic Road and Black Forest.

[David C]

That's great to hear! Really good fuel consumption. I don't imagine you did the whole trip at 56MPH either.

[AndrewA]

That's true but wasn't particularly caning it either and was conscious of seeing how well I could do on MPG front!