Advice opinions please

[AndrewA]

Secret bulb found and working!
Went out on car rally/charity run yesterday - hot day - car ran great, but fair bit of what I'd call heat soak in the footwells. I guess not particularly surprising as there's a big engine and gearbox down there, but is there a cure - or is there a hidden foot vent I haven't discovered yet?
Thanks
Andrew

[PEU186F]

Hidden foot vent - not that well hidden one hopes. There should be a lever underneath the centre of the dashboard that operates a vent to the footwell from the cold air input to the heater.A little digging might be required.

You’ll get plenty of heat from the engine bay if your heater is still out and you haven’t blocked off the various feeds from it.

Excessive footwell heat is not normal.

[AndrewA]

Excellent - thanks for that - yes I know the control!
But thanks to you I now know what I've not done as it were. Refurb'd heater box now back in car but as doing it single handed, took a guess at how much etc flaps were opening when tightening up cables.
As most driving since then done on cool evenings, have not really noticed heat until yesterday and assumed I'd got it spot on first time!
I'd forgotten I was going back to adjust cables at a later date when another pair of hands were available.
Made classic mistake of ascribing it to a "new" issue - instead of unfinished job.
Doh - as Homer would say
Schoolboy-ish error that should be a simple fix.. with another pair of hands.
Thanks for the idea/nudge in the right direction.
There was a Britannia on the car run as well and had a long chat with a gent who had owned a variety of Bristol cars over the years but had finally settled on a Bentley Turbo R as his run around classic. He was definitely missing his Bristolling days.
Andrew

[AndrewA]

Haven't sorted the heater box yet, but had her on rolling road yesterday mainly because I wanted to get carb and timing set up spot on.
These guys plumbed in a lambda sensor rather than just the pipe up the exhaust and identified and fixed a number of issues - leak from gasket where carb meets inlet manifold - replaced with insulator gasket- slightly bunged up vacuum hose (replaced) - followed by much twiddling of distributor, different metering rods and so on until we reached as good as it was going to get.
Car is now running much sweeter/smoother and has more get up and go and appears to be more economical.
For those that are interested in the numbers, she made 165 bhp at 4,300 revs at 94 mph and 255 ft lbs of torque at 2000 rpm all at the wheels.
Next weeks jobs are to get the heater/ventilation adjustment sorted, lower the seat a touch and change the gearbox oil and filter. I can't see any record of it being done and it's something that often gets overlooked on cars of all ages IMHO.
Am eating up my 5000 miles a year allowance on the insurance quite rapidly - approaching 2,500 miles already so will have to give that some thought before too long...

[AndrewA]

For those that are interested, thought I'd post a brief update. Heater box now properly in and working as it should. No more heat soak btw! Spent some time tracking down water ingress in torrential rain - main culprit was seals where wipers go through scuttle. Now have new but suitably subdued radio/cd in dash and new speakers in the old places - overhead and one on the parcel shelf. It works well enough and I didn't want to start cutting door cards.
Seat now at a height that suits and I got the paintwork detailed - it came up well for a car that was last painted 20 odd years ago.
I'm now on something of a mission to get the handling as good as possible and I admit it is getting a bit obsessive. Re bushing the front end will happen early next year, and I'll replace the shocks at the same time. The power steering box has a small leak and a bit of play so will attend to that and refurbish or replace the pump and hoses at the same time. The axle has a whine only I can hear - might just be bearings but will get that looked at and do the rear shocks and any bushings that need attending to when the axles out. Nearly forgot, car is back on original size tyres which fill up the arches nicely, lighten the steering and give a bit more feel.
Thanks to those on here for all the useful advice so far.
Andrew

[AndrewA]

Well things haven't gone precisely to plan! After the last post I started poking around at the cills - last done 20 years ago. Once uncovered properly they definitely needed attention - not horrendous but in another year or two they would have been. Also took the opportunity to clean up the underside and catch a few other minor issues that would have become problems with time. The leak from the power steering box has turned into a flood so that's now top of the list.
I intend to send the pump and steering box off and get them refurb'd and new lines made up.
The challenge at the mo is removing the steering box which is reluctant to come out.
Having spoken to most power steering specialists, I'm going to go with Kiley Clinton who knew immediately what I was talking about and are normally able to turn things round quickly.
We shall see!

[AndrewA]

For eagle eyed readers / those that are interested..Kiley Clinton seem so far to have done an excellent job and I am now leak free on the steering front. Putting it all back together was a lot quicker and easier than taking it out - just under a couple of hours.
As noted earlier, the cills have been attended to but the aluminium covers were beyond saving so am having new ones made up by a chap who seems to be taking an age. He's doing them to the precise shape and so on of the original ones so hopefully not too much fettling will be required.
Have booked car in at end of June for the rumble at the rear to be investigated - hopefully nothing major but I won't know until it's apart.
That's all for now.
Andrew