Technical Days / Technical Help
Vintage Technical Day - Sunday 21st March, 2010.
For many years, I have been planning to attend the Vintage Technical Day that the Eastern Region of The Bentley Drivers Club organised at William Medcalf’s workshops in North London. Somehow in previous years I have managed to get myself double booked and therefore missed the day. I was determined this year would be different. As soon as the date was announced I booked tickets and made sure it was in the diary. I am very pleased I did.
It was a nice morning for vintage motoring and we knew we where heading in the right direction as we followed a 3 Litre down the A10 to the Medcalf garage in Enfield. On arrival we were given a warm welcome and a cup of coffee and cake. As more and more people arrived, the workshop space started to fill with talk of all things Bentley. By the time we were ready to sit down for the technical bit, over 80 members had arrived from all corners of the globe. Several from across Europe, a couple from America but the distance prize had to go to a gentleman from New Zealand!
Using a Klaxon to round everyone up William Medcalf led us into one of the workshops and started the technical talk. William started by looking at a pair of Slopers he had on a stand. Taking one apart and explaining each component, the inner workings and the importance of setting up the carburetion correctly. . William then spoke with great knowledge and experience about the rear axel and differential. He was aided by the actual parts and he used several props throughout. This certainly helped your correspondent understand the inner workings of his 3 Litre. The whole talk was illustrated by various components to show what can go wrong and indeed how these cars will “run” with some very none genuine parts ! We then moved to the front of the engine to look at the front turret, cross shaft and bevel gears. Again William had the various parts to hand and gave a full explanation of their role in the heart of the engine.
It was soon lunch time and a time to reflect on all we had learnt during the morning session. A fabulous lunch was provided by Gill Medcalf and the ladies of the Eastern Region and time was spent looking at all the cars currently residing in the Medcalf Workshop. I counted nearly a dozen. This included a Le Mans team car, a replica TT car, a number of other 3 litres including that increasing rarity, a 3 Litre Saloon. Following lunch we gathered round to talk about the various ongoing projects. Attention was drawn to the rebuilding of the Barnato Hassan Brooklands single seater and all the research that was going into it to making it just right. This included research into the contempary Brooklands regulations to ensure the size of the silencer and exhaust are correct. We looked at a 3 litre “ single seater “ project and William’s own 100mph short chassis Super Sports that he will use for his honeymoon – on the Peking to Paris rally !
The afternoon technical session started with Malcolm Tearle speaking about his own rebuilding experience and sharing his advice on various modifications and tools that he had made along the way. William then took to the floor again and looked at hubs, kingpins, magneto timing, cone and plate clutches and gave an excellent demonstration of how to set up the brakes and adjust the compensator. He had made a wooden mock-up of the Bentley braking system and demonstrated how the brakes work and the role of the compensator.
The day finished with a light hearted quiz, advice on tools and parts to take when travelling and a round up of little tricks and modifications that can be made. Throughout the day William spoke with great knowledge and experience and made us all feel very welcome. Everyone was on good form with members top tips and light hearted banter (and snoring) coming from the floor. We enjoyed an excellent day and one that I would highly recommend to any vintage Bentley owner or enthusiast. Just don’t leave it as long as I did before attending. See you at next years?
Robert Rhodes
Gallery
Click on the images below to enlarge
Over twenty five years ago Jimmy Medcalf started running Vintage Bentley technical days once a year for BDC members to openly share their knowledge. In 2003, the family tradition was carried forward when William became involved. To date we have held four annual technical days in our workshops. Each year more and more members enjoy the open and friendly seminars and the opportunity to speak with like minded members.
In addition to the annual Technical Days, William is always on hand to answer your technical queries.
Click on the following links to read what other people have written about our technical days.
