Bringing the Imperial Home
A handsome, gold, '67 Imperial, that Jay Leno had featured on his Youtube channel had caught my eye. After some searching I found a magnificent low mileage, and exceptionally well optioned, Imperial Crown Coupe for sale in Germany. I negotiated a price, and bought it.
On Friday 13th December 2019, my son and I started the day with an early rise and a drive with my brother to Canberra’s Kingston railway station. It was exciting to be on the train, exciting to be out for the day, and exciting to be picking up a big new car that I had tracked as it was shipped around the globe from Germany to Australia.
It was hot and the air was full of noise and smells of people selling all kinds of food at Blacktown station and the town centre.There were lots of people from all sorts of cultures, talking in various languages, lots of specialty restaurants and fast food shops. We walked a few kms to Top Secret Imports.
At Blacktown the owner of the import business was delighted to see us and show us the car. He was busy with paperwork and had a huge warehouse full of cars, most of which looked like relatively cheap Asian imports. We spotted a Rolls-Royce stretch limo (my son said it was a mid to late 90s Silver Spirit or Silver Spur) and a black Corvette Stingray. Max the Imperial looked very big, as expected. We got photos standing in front of it and generally marvelled at its size and presence. I got in to start it, but the big moment didn’t happen because the engine wouldn’t turn over. The car had a flat battery.
The mechanic next door, Steve from Steve’s Automotive Repair Services, fitted a new battery and got it started. Steve had already done some work on the car earlier, fixing the power steering hoses while it was at Top Secret Imports. I have the invoice in the history file. We drove off, very excited about the big new car. But it was then that the fun really began…
Driving back to Canberra we only got a few kms down the M7 when the engine started making a very loud banging sound. I wondered if a conrod had broken, and we had to pull over.
Looking under the bonnet everything looked okay at first. Then watching it run I noticed the sound was coming from half way along the right hand cylinder bank. One spark plug was very loose. The core had literally been blown out of the plug. We managed to get back to Steve’s Automotive, and he replaced the plug for us, no charge.
The engine seemed to be running okay, so off we went again. Driving the engine carefully. It was pinging like mad on acceleration, so I gave it plenty of revs, holding gears with the column shift, and accelerating gently. It was just able to keep up with the traffic, but hills were a challenge. The pinging was bad, I was worried I was destroying the engine, and I probably was. Not too far down the road a similar loud banging noise started again. Lifting the bonnet revealed the same issue: another spark plug was being blown apart by the engine.
We limped on, with not many options, and at 110km/hr on the highway the pinging was mostly okay, or perhaps drowned out by the banging of the damaged plug, and muffled by the sound insulation in the big luxury interior. The engine was also running hot, but staying just over the okay range on the gauge, and stable, so we watched the temp, listened to the banging, and pushed on. We stopped at the Servo near the highway at Sutton Forest and added some good fuel and several small cans of octane booster – everything the servo had on the shelf. It seemed to make perhaps a very small difference to the pinging, but it was hard to tell. Around Mittagong another plug started to let go.
We pushed on with 6 cylinders working hard, and two making increasing noise. At Goulburn it seemed like pushing on was not an option, temp was creeping up, and the damaged plugs were getting worse. We pulled in and parked in the KFC car park near the middle of town. Once the engine cooled a little I was able to take out two spark plugs with my fingers. One was completely broken, the other had its metal core blown out. It was 8pm on a Friday. People were starting to go out for a meal in the nearby pubs and restaurants and fast food shops. The atmosphere was “thank goodness the week is over, let’s have a drink”. We googled up mechanics in Goulburn, and called a few. None were answering. It was 8pm on a Friday.
We drove to the servo on the south side of Goulburn and added some more cans of Octane booster. By this time the car sounded a bit like a Harley. Two plugs were completely out and the exhaust was just firing right out of the plug holes, one on each side near the centre of each bank. It sounded like a big V2 engine, not that different to a very loud Harley. We still seemed to have plenty of power, and perhaps the engine was running a little smoother than it might have been with the extra octane booster.
Fuel economy was terrible. At least we were replacing the bad fuel, but would we get back to Canberra on a single tank, going like this? Bunnings was still open. It was about 8:30pm now , and Bunnings would still be open until 9pm. This gave me an idea. Bunnings might sell tools, and perhaps even spark plugs! We drove very loudly over to Bunnings with many people staring. The tool shop had a kit for lawn-mower repair, and that gave me another idea. Perhaps we could find some lawn mower spark plugs that would fit.
I bought some tools, pulled out a plug, and I was rushing now, because Bunnings would be closing soon. I got the plug out, took it back inside Bunnings and compared the shape and depth of the tip to all the lawn mower plugs they had for sale. I found one that looked the same depth (at least it wouldn’t hit the pistons) and bought a few. Out in the Bunnings car park I installed the two plugs into the cylinders that needed them, and straight away it was humming on all eight cylinders! We drove home to Canberra in smooth luxury... okay with a bit of pinging still going on, but that was hardly noticeable in the quiet interior. Back in Canberra and with another tank of 98 octane fuel the engine was settling down nicely.
I decided to call the big Imperial Maximus, given its large road-presence. The 440 now ran smoothly and pushed the car forward with plenty of vigour, but the experience with the spark plugs made me wonder if any damage had been done internally, and decided to have it tested at a dyno. The dyno operator proudly informed as to the accuracy of his dyno, and Maximus made almost exactly its factory specified output of 350hp.
