1961 Bentley S2 Restoration Project
Maintenance
My wife warned me, "The Bentley takes a lot of maintenance." She's right! It is not remotely like owning today's cars. For example, my other car's oil change interval is 10,000 miles, compared to the S2's 2,500-mile interval. And that is just the beginning.
Schedule, Parts, and Lubricants
I carefully studied the instructions in the official Handbook of the Bentley S2 (Third Edition), which corresponds to my C-series chassis built sometime between November 1960 and March 1961. I also reviewed the instructions on maintenance intervals in the official Workshop Manual of the S1 and S2. I found it hard to absorb the information laid out as a chapter in a book, so I compiled it all in a spreadsheet. Now I can see it as a chart like many car manufacturers provide now for newer models.
I quickly discovered that none of the recommended lubricants listed in the handbook are manufactured anymore, so I did some amateur research online and discovered that great strides forward have been made in lubricants. However, one must be cautious because the new formulae have additives that may not be backward compatible. Keeping that in mind, I did my best to choose lubricants that are.
Additional criteria are that my chosen lubricant must be widely available in the USA. I am well aware that Castrol created Castrol Classic Oils just for my kind of car, but distribution of its products does not seem to reach to these united colonies except by parcel post, for which I will not pay. In effect, I've chosen Valvoline products, first because the specifications appear to be compatible and also because they are widely available and the company is reputable. I've put some notes and links to some good references in my spreadsheet. Here's the link to my Google Sheet.
If you have any comments or corrections to the information in my spreadsheet, I would love to hear from you. Please send me a comment on my Contact Page.
Maintenance Intervals
I copied verbatim the maintenance intervals as given in the owners handbook and Workshop Manual. Then I created a schedule for our Bentley, laid out as a chart that is easy to read.
Lubricants
I listed the originally recommended lubricants as given in the owners handbook, which are not made anymore. I added my choices from what is actually manufactured and available today in the USA.
Renewal Parts
I put links to vendors, so I know where to obtain filters and other renewal parts. I discovered it isn't easy to get parts on this side of the Atlantic. My father-in-law's files hold Flying Spares invoices from years back, and I've discovered today they are one of the few parts suppliers for classic Bentleys, or at least they are the most user friendly. Albers is also frequently mentioned by enthusiasts who have posted videos on YouTube.
Coming Soon
I plan to post pictures of my maintenance work here, just for fun. Others have done a superb job of posting How-To videos, and I can't compete. But I may post some lessons learned as a new owner of a classic Bentley.