Tales of a Diesel Rolls Royce.

[Geoff Kingston]

Yesterday we put an alternator on my Rolls Royce Silver Shadow LWB, nothing special about that except that it was a Chevrolet unit because the poor old thing is fitted with a 5.7 Litre GM Diesel engine.
When it clatters into life and fills the air around it with smoke I remember what it was like following trucks in the early 60's, after a while things clear and it is no worse than a lot of modern diesels except for the noise.
The early Shadows don't handle well and this one is no exception but after a while I got the measure of it and it covers ground quite well.
The LWB Silver Shadows are rare, the odd thing is that I suspect if mine was still standard it would have been scrapped years ago, when converted it was given a full back to metal respray and a new roof covering. Years later it still looks good and is still structurally sound, I have a series 2 car with a good engine if someone after me wanted to put it back closer to original but for now the look on peoples faces when it passes or pulls into a filling station is priceless, even better on start up.
I often wondered what a diesel V8 Bristol conversion would be like and I am glad I never found out. but the old Shadow does 28-30mpg so I might get to a few more shows this year.
The other odd thing about it is that a previous owner had the auto box rebuilt and I have never come across any car of that period that changes gear as well either up or down.
The other feature of this GM engine is that with a stronger block the hot rodder's convert them to petrol units delivering up to 400+ BHP, if that ever happens it will be time to put it in a Bristol.