Full circle into a Marina again. My 73 Morris Marina Coupe
Discussion
rickygolf83 said:
Great progress, should start a go fund me type thing for us brits to chip in to get you some panels sent over 
You are doing great without them though
Thanks. Would've been a handy thing to have back when I started, but once I'm done with this bodywork I ain't going there again You are doing great without them though
its not perfect, but this is where I'm at currently.
Jhonno said:
To quote David Freiburger.. "Don't Get It Right, Just Get It Running"
Looks good!
I'm trying to live by David's wise words, but it's hard when its got to be "right enough" to pass a WOF inspection (MOT) or it can't be driven on the road Looks good!
They have it so easy over there, can drive anything on the road as long as most of the wheels are still attached.KelvinatorNZ said:
Jhonno said:
To quote David Freiburger.. "Don't Get It Right, Just Get It Running"
Looks good!
I'm trying to live by David's wise words, but it's hard when its got to be "right enough" to pass a WOF inspection (MOT) or it can't be driven on the road Looks good!
They have it so easy over there, can drive anything on the road as long as most of the wheels are still attached.KelvinatorNZ said:
Jhonno said:
To quote David Freiburger.. "Don't Get It Right, Just Get It Running"
Looks good!
I'm trying to live by David's wise words, but it's hard when its got to be "right enough" to pass a WOF inspection (MOT) or it can't be driven on the road Looks good!
They have it so easy over there, can drive anything on the road as long as most of the wheels are still attached.Just quickly, before moving on, a quick update on the rear quarter panel I left in filler last time. After much sanding, this is where it is. It needs some touching up, but I'm much happier with it.
Finally, something other than bodywork. You're sick of reading about it, I'm sick of doing and writing about it. In a change of scenery, I moved to the front suspension to sort out an issue this Marina had.
Say what you will about the Marina suspension, well no not that; it's not been pulled from the Minor, but anyway, it's very simple.
This simplicity works both ways. It's easy to work on and adjust, but it's also simple in how it operates which can cause some compromises in ride comfort and handling.
One way it's delightfully simple is that it uses a pair of torsion bars in the front suspension instead of traditional springs. These operate as a spring by twisting a spring steel rod along its length. As it always wants to try to unwind, it causes a springing effect.
These have one simple benefit for car weirdos like me; they can be adjusted without special tools, on the car (for the most part), and without any legal headaches. This makes the ride height adjustable.
At the back of the torsion bar, which is about half way down the length of the car, is a trim adjuster. This is used to adjust the fine height of the car. These are usually set about half way in their travel, so the ride can be altered higher or lower by a certain amount (usually an inch or two either way). Coarse adjustment is done by moving the arm by one or more splines on the shaft, one spline is one inch in adjustment.
Mine is pretty ugly because it's 50 years old, and covered in thick underseal, but the basics can be seen. The orange arrow is the torsion bar, this is heading off towards the front of the car to meet the lower front suspension arm. The blue arrow is a locking bolt, this will need to be loosened (not removed) to adjust the arm, and the green arrow is the actual adjuster (which presses against a thick steel "bucket" so it doesn't dig into the floor pan). The adjuster works but moving the lever up and down, causing more or less twist in the torsion bar.
So, the issue the Marina had. Well, just look at it
It was very nose-up. As it turns out, according to the workshop manual, it should be 14.6-15" (37-38cm) when measured from the center of the front wheel dust cap to the arch lip.
This is how mine was sitting, up to a full inch too high. I noticed this when I reassembled the front suspension after its rebuild. I was careful not to move the lower arm on the splines, so it wasn't me that threw it out of whack, but the suspension was so high that the top arm was pressed firmly against the droop stop when at rest. This is not good for ride quality.
It's quite a large gap
It's visible in the delivery photos too, even if the tire is a bit flat on the top.
To correct this was quite simple really. Well, mostly. To actually fix the issue I would ideally need to disassemble the suspension and turn the lower arm one spline on the torsion bar to set the adjuster in the middle again, but because I don't want to do that all over again, I wire brushed off the adjuster, loosened the locking bolt and wound the adjuster bolt out. Loosening the bolt lowers the car as it takes tension off the torsion bar.
I started with the RH side due to easier access and lowered it until the bucket on the top of the adjuster bolt was no longer captive, and wound it back in until it was.
It got it about spot on for what I had in mind, about an inch lower than the lowest stock spec.
It looked pretty good, so I moved to the other side.
Unfortunately this adjuster wasn't in the middle of its travel, so it bottomed out about here. A smidge more than half an inch lower than stock.
To be fair, this actually looked really good too, even though it wasn't quite as low. I wound the RH side up to level it out and ended up with this
Compared to what it was, it's a decent difference. Should improve handling too, both by being lower, but also not having the top arm resting on the droop stop anymore.
Pretty good result on the front. I do have a set of one-inch lowering blocks for the rear, but I want to see what it looks like on the ground again before I decide to lower the rear or not. I think I will, but we'll see.
I'm hoping to get through a lot more work over the coming holiday period and have the car ready for a WOF early next year. It's way behind schedule, but it's slowly getting there.
Finally, something other than bodywork. You're sick of reading about it, I'm sick of doing and writing about it. In a change of scenery, I moved to the front suspension to sort out an issue this Marina had.
Say what you will about the Marina suspension, well no not that; it's not been pulled from the Minor, but anyway, it's very simple.
This simplicity works both ways. It's easy to work on and adjust, but it's also simple in how it operates which can cause some compromises in ride comfort and handling.
One way it's delightfully simple is that it uses a pair of torsion bars in the front suspension instead of traditional springs. These operate as a spring by twisting a spring steel rod along its length. As it always wants to try to unwind, it causes a springing effect.
These have one simple benefit for car weirdos like me; they can be adjusted without special tools, on the car (for the most part), and without any legal headaches. This makes the ride height adjustable.
At the back of the torsion bar, which is about half way down the length of the car, is a trim adjuster. This is used to adjust the fine height of the car. These are usually set about half way in their travel, so the ride can be altered higher or lower by a certain amount (usually an inch or two either way). Coarse adjustment is done by moving the arm by one or more splines on the shaft, one spline is one inch in adjustment.
Mine is pretty ugly because it's 50 years old, and covered in thick underseal, but the basics can be seen. The orange arrow is the torsion bar, this is heading off towards the front of the car to meet the lower front suspension arm. The blue arrow is a locking bolt, this will need to be loosened (not removed) to adjust the arm, and the green arrow is the actual adjuster (which presses against a thick steel "bucket" so it doesn't dig into the floor pan). The adjuster works but moving the lever up and down, causing more or less twist in the torsion bar.
So, the issue the Marina had. Well, just look at it
It was very nose-up. As it turns out, according to the workshop manual, it should be 14.6-15" (37-38cm) when measured from the center of the front wheel dust cap to the arch lip.
This is how mine was sitting, up to a full inch too high. I noticed this when I reassembled the front suspension after its rebuild. I was careful not to move the lower arm on the splines, so it wasn't me that threw it out of whack, but the suspension was so high that the top arm was pressed firmly against the droop stop when at rest. This is not good for ride quality.
It's quite a large gap
It's visible in the delivery photos too, even if the tire is a bit flat on the top.
To correct this was quite simple really. Well, mostly. To actually fix the issue I would ideally need to disassemble the suspension and turn the lower arm one spline on the torsion bar to set the adjuster in the middle again, but because I don't want to do that all over again, I wire brushed off the adjuster, loosened the locking bolt and wound the adjuster bolt out. Loosening the bolt lowers the car as it takes tension off the torsion bar.
I started with the RH side due to easier access and lowered it until the bucket on the top of the adjuster bolt was no longer captive, and wound it back in until it was.
It got it about spot on for what I had in mind, about an inch lower than the lowest stock spec.
It looked pretty good, so I moved to the other side.
Unfortunately this adjuster wasn't in the middle of its travel, so it bottomed out about here. A smidge more than half an inch lower than stock.
To be fair, this actually looked really good too, even though it wasn't quite as low. I wound the RH side up to level it out and ended up with this
Compared to what it was, it's a decent difference. Should improve handling too, both by being lower, but also not having the top arm resting on the droop stop anymore.
Pretty good result on the front. I do have a set of one-inch lowering blocks for the rear, but I want to see what it looks like on the ground again before I decide to lower the rear or not. I think I will, but we'll see.
I'm hoping to get through a lot more work over the coming holiday period and have the car ready for a WOF early next year. It's way behind schedule, but it's slowly getting there.
I've been pushing forward with the Marina this week, spending a couple of days after work finishing up some of the bodywork.
I started by finishing the LH rear quarter window frame; sanding out the filler, and then priming and painting the frame.
The colour match in the rattle cans is pretty good really.
This little corner has come a long way since it was a gaping hole
With the frame painted, I test-fitted some spare door seal I had from the TVR, and to my surprise it's a perfect fit, so I will use that. I still need to cut and join the front edge, but otherwise it's a good fit.
I test fitted the window and it and seems to fit well, but I have a lot of work to do to the window before it can be fitted. It spent many years out in a field.
With that success, I moved on to the rear valance. I'm sick of working on this, so smoothed back the filler, primed and painted it. It's still fairly wobbly, but it's solid and hidden under the bumper for the most part. It looks good at 20ft away, anyway.
I undersealed the back of the fuel tank and filler pipe, to hide them. The plate was also refitted; would you be surprised to find the two holes that were previously used, and that I had been working around, aren't spaced correctly and I had to slot the plate holes for it to fit with the new rivnuts in the original holes? I was both surprised and annoyed. I should've just welded them up and drilled new ones. I'll drill two new ones for the inner pair of holes on the plate so I don't have to slot the personalised plate when I put it on the Marina.
Unfortunately the number plate bulb holder broke at some point, so I'm working on a replacement that should be a bit more reliable than the original that grounds by touching the mounting bracket it's on.
With the bodywork at a point I was happy with, I moved on to the last thing I needed to do before I could finally get the car off the stands; sort the rear suspension.
Even though I had sorted the brakes, I hadn't touched the rear suspension at all. I knew one side was missing a bump stop, and everything else was just a bit tired.
I purchased a 1 inch lowering block set to suit a Capri, Escort, Anglia etc, and some escort poly spring pads. The bump stops are a good pair of used UK spec bump stops.
Speaking of bump stops, it's interesting to note the UK ones are shorter than the Aus spec ones, and have a slightly different shape. The shorter ones are better for a lowered car anyway.
I removed the rather random collection of nuts on the bottom of the original U bolts
Which meant everything started to come apart
In hindsight, I would undo and remove the shock from the bottom spring plate, just so there is more movement in it come time to reassemble.
The old spring pads were in good shape. They appear to already be poly, not rubber, so may have been replaced before.
A nice little collection of bits, less the top plate (still stuck on the axle, but can be removed with a couple of taps of a hammer).
The plates appear to be galvanised which would explain why they were in excellent shape under the dirt
I did a test fit with the new blocks, but found reusing the old spring pads wouldn't work because the thicker U bolts would bind on them (the old, thinner bolts had moulded into them).
Speaking of thicker U bolts, one thing you do need to do is open the bolts in all the mounting plates out a bit, as the holes are a tad too small. I opened them out to the 12mm step on my step drill.
A clamp helps squeeze the U bolt together and fit it through the holes as they come a little too spread apart
All fitted together, with the replacement bump stop, new spring pads, U bolts and 1 inch lowering block.
It took a lot of mucking around with the jack and a ratchet strap to get the axle to line up on the spring holes/pins, as the axle wanted to rotate forward and move backwards, and needed to be pulled forward again; this was made harder on this side because of the forward link on the top of the axle.
The other side went a lot quicker and easier since I had worked out the secret formula on the first side. The main reason I was doing this, was because of the missing bump stop, which would be a WOF failure.
Here it is, with the new parts and a bump stop
I did have to go around with the angle grinder afterwards and just nip the ends off the U bolts as they were a bit long for my liking.
I reinstalled the wheels, cleaned the glass, lowered it off the stands and finally got to see how it looked. In the garage, it looked awesome.
The obvious thing to do now was to see what it looked like out in the cold light of day. After a few goes to get the old inertia start to stop kicking back out, it started without too much fuss and settled into a nice idle. The benefits of an electric fuel pump filling the carb bowl without needing to crank over and over.
There are about two years between these two photos, and hours upon hours of work
The lowered front is the obvious difference, but the rear is subtly lower, the whole lower quarter panel ahead of the wheel has been remade, and the complete outer sill has been replaced.
Lowering it has made a huge difference in how it looks, and I love it. I genuinely think it's one of the coolest looking cars I have owned.
I started by finishing the LH rear quarter window frame; sanding out the filler, and then priming and painting the frame.
The colour match in the rattle cans is pretty good really.
This little corner has come a long way since it was a gaping hole
With the frame painted, I test-fitted some spare door seal I had from the TVR, and to my surprise it's a perfect fit, so I will use that. I still need to cut and join the front edge, but otherwise it's a good fit.
I test fitted the window and it and seems to fit well, but I have a lot of work to do to the window before it can be fitted. It spent many years out in a field.
With that success, I moved on to the rear valance. I'm sick of working on this, so smoothed back the filler, primed and painted it. It's still fairly wobbly, but it's solid and hidden under the bumper for the most part. It looks good at 20ft away, anyway.
I undersealed the back of the fuel tank and filler pipe, to hide them. The plate was also refitted; would you be surprised to find the two holes that were previously used, and that I had been working around, aren't spaced correctly and I had to slot the plate holes for it to fit with the new rivnuts in the original holes? I was both surprised and annoyed. I should've just welded them up and drilled new ones. I'll drill two new ones for the inner pair of holes on the plate so I don't have to slot the personalised plate when I put it on the Marina.
Unfortunately the number plate bulb holder broke at some point, so I'm working on a replacement that should be a bit more reliable than the original that grounds by touching the mounting bracket it's on.
With the bodywork at a point I was happy with, I moved on to the last thing I needed to do before I could finally get the car off the stands; sort the rear suspension.
Even though I had sorted the brakes, I hadn't touched the rear suspension at all. I knew one side was missing a bump stop, and everything else was just a bit tired.
I purchased a 1 inch lowering block set to suit a Capri, Escort, Anglia etc, and some escort poly spring pads. The bump stops are a good pair of used UK spec bump stops.
Speaking of bump stops, it's interesting to note the UK ones are shorter than the Aus spec ones, and have a slightly different shape. The shorter ones are better for a lowered car anyway.
I removed the rather random collection of nuts on the bottom of the original U bolts
Which meant everything started to come apart
In hindsight, I would undo and remove the shock from the bottom spring plate, just so there is more movement in it come time to reassemble.
The old spring pads were in good shape. They appear to already be poly, not rubber, so may have been replaced before.
A nice little collection of bits, less the top plate (still stuck on the axle, but can be removed with a couple of taps of a hammer).
The plates appear to be galvanised which would explain why they were in excellent shape under the dirt
I did a test fit with the new blocks, but found reusing the old spring pads wouldn't work because the thicker U bolts would bind on them (the old, thinner bolts had moulded into them).
Speaking of thicker U bolts, one thing you do need to do is open the bolts in all the mounting plates out a bit, as the holes are a tad too small. I opened them out to the 12mm step on my step drill.
A clamp helps squeeze the U bolt together and fit it through the holes as they come a little too spread apart
All fitted together, with the replacement bump stop, new spring pads, U bolts and 1 inch lowering block.
It took a lot of mucking around with the jack and a ratchet strap to get the axle to line up on the spring holes/pins, as the axle wanted to rotate forward and move backwards, and needed to be pulled forward again; this was made harder on this side because of the forward link on the top of the axle.
The other side went a lot quicker and easier since I had worked out the secret formula on the first side. The main reason I was doing this, was because of the missing bump stop, which would be a WOF failure.
Here it is, with the new parts and a bump stop
I did have to go around with the angle grinder afterwards and just nip the ends off the U bolts as they were a bit long for my liking.
I reinstalled the wheels, cleaned the glass, lowered it off the stands and finally got to see how it looked. In the garage, it looked awesome.
The obvious thing to do now was to see what it looked like out in the cold light of day. After a few goes to get the old inertia start to stop kicking back out, it started without too much fuss and settled into a nice idle. The benefits of an electric fuel pump filling the carb bowl without needing to crank over and over.
There are about two years between these two photos, and hours upon hours of work
The lowered front is the obvious difference, but the rear is subtly lower, the whole lower quarter panel ahead of the wheel has been remade, and the complete outer sill has been replaced.
Lowering it has made a huge difference in how it looks, and I love it. I genuinely think it's one of the coolest looking cars I have owned.
Brilliant! That is starting to look good and brings back memories of the constant filling, sanding, priming and spray can-ing with my Dad of my first Mini and my Mum's Hillman Avenger in the 80s. Never far from a tin of Isopon P38...
They are good looking cars in all honesty. Great job in bringing it back to life - I look forward to seeing it in its full yellow splendour.
They are good looking cars in all honesty. Great job in bringing it back to life - I look forward to seeing it in its full yellow splendour.
It was nearing the end of the holiday period, and a little Marina waited patiently for some attention.
Now that the Alto was up and running again, I could focus some time on the Marina and check off another item on the pre-WOF list.
One of the main things I needed to sort, that I had everything for, was to fix the wipers and washers.
I removed the whole wiper system a couple of years ago because it was seized and didn't work. The motor didn't function, one of the wiper boxes was jammed solid and the washers didn't respond to the button.
I started with the washer system. The Aus spec Marina uses a bespoke washer bottle with an integrated pump.
I removed the bottle, removed the pump, and found it full of rust. Trash.
There were a couple of options for a replacement pump, but in my eyes the easiest option was to convert the system to the UK spec bottle and remote pump. It's not as tidy, but easier to get parts for.
I started by scrounging up a good used bottle and cap, some new hose, a new pump and a used mounting plate for the firewall as the bracket is different.
The bracket is spot welded to the mounting plate, so I carefully drilled out the spot welds and removed the bracket. Here I had also prepped it for welding.
I considered using rivnuts to mount the bracket, but it's flat on the back so has no space for the bolt heads once the bottle is fitted. The only option was to weld it to the original mounting plate (or paint the replacement one, drill out the rivets and swap the whole plates over).
I marked it out and cleaned the paint off the weld points
And gave it a quick tickle with the sparky glue. I also welded up the lower hole for the Aus spec bracket as this had been letting water in.
A quick prime and a flick of paint and it didn't stick out so much
A test fit with the new bottle
I pulled out all the old perished washer hose and ran all new 4mm hose. Unfortunately during this one of the washer jets crumbled to bits.
With the bottle and hoses in place, I just needed to adapt and install the pump. The connectors are slightly different, so I had to change the wiring to a pair of female spade terminals, but other than that it just plugged straight into the pump and worked. Dark green was positive, and it grounded through the switch.
I drilled a couple of small holes and used a pair of new self-tappers to mount the pump. Also note the nice new hoses to and from the pump, including a one-way valve inside the bottle.
A quick test with some water in the bottle and we finally had water outside the car, albeit in a stream, not a jet
A quick trip to Supercheap resulted in a pair of generic twin jet washers, which I quickly set about fitting
They looked ok and didn't stand out too much
And they worked a treat. Ignore the spoiler regarding the wipers....
https://youtu.be/PEweJKsfJFA
Next on the list was to sort the wipers. When I originally removed everything I had to remove one of the spindles with the rack as it was seized solid and you normally slide the cable through it to remove it.
A bit of brute force got the cable out without damage.
The wiper system is quite interesting really. Instead of linkages like cars have these days, it was operated by a motor pushing and pulling on a spiral wound cable through some steel tubes. This cable engaged teeth on the wheels in the spindles, which caused them to rotate back and forth, thus moving the wipers.
It's quite simple, with not many places to go wrong.
Except mine had. The motor was dead and one of the spindles was seized solid. I also discovered that one of the steel tubes had been bent to get around a bracket (which it should have passed though) which was causing huge resistance on the cable.
I removed the motor which is done by removing the mounting screw and bracket, removing the wiring and then flipping the motor over.
Unless you can/want to remove the whole cable with the motor, you need to disengage it from the motor. This is done by removing the circlip from the arm, remove the small washer and then the arm comes free. The cable is attached to this arm on a pin.
A quick bench test showed that although dirty, the motor was working correctly. Even the park function worked.
I removed and cleaned the park switch too. It's worn, but still functioning. I have a spare for the future, if needed.
Everything got a thorough clean and then regreased.
I started by grabbing a pair of good working wiper spindles and fitting them to the cowling panel. This wasn't a job I enjoyed, so there are no photos of it. It involves having to hold the spindle up under the dash with one hand, while pushing on the rubber seal, washer and screw on the nut with your other hand. Next was fitting all the steel tubes (including a replacement one between the spindles to replace the bent one) and attaching the gear covers, mostly with one hand due to space. Good fun.
Once all that was in place I greased the cable up, attached it to the motor and threaded it into the tubes, watching as the spindles rotated as it went through. The motor was then refitted to the inner guard, and plugged in.
A quick test showed everything worked correctly, so I installed the original wiper arms and blades. Note the correct side parking position, which was reversed on the later Marina for whatever reason.
For the first time in a couple of years, the Marina had wipers.
To celebrate, I poured some water on the windscreen (since the washers didn't have jets yet) and turned them on
https://youtu.be/K5L0Q3oxFrQ
Hmm, something wasn't quite right. It wiped well (ignoring the ancient rubbers smearing the glass), the wipers had plenty of speed and parked perfectly, but the sweep was.... tiny. It barely cleared the drivers vision.
I tried adjusting the position of the arm up the screen, but by the time I could get enough sweep on the glass, the arm was basically in the middle of my vision.
At best I got this much wipe
I ruminated on it for a bit and came to realisation that I had cocked up. Ages ago, knowing one of my spindles was seized, I bought a couple of second hand replacements. What I had ended up doing, was fitting UK spec spindles, to the AUS spec motor. This had created a mismatch in the gearing, meaning the wipers didn't move as far as they needed to.
I confirmed this by checking my photos taken when I removed the spindles, as to which type were fitted originally
The remedy? I needed to swap the drivers side spindle out for my one remaining good Aus spec spindle with the correct gearing. It means the passengers side doesn't wipe as far as it should, but the drivers side is the one that matters.
Thankfully the drivers side is the easier one to get to. I removed the wiper arm, dismounted the motor and pulled the cable out enough that it disengaged the spindle.
I then removed the back cover so I could remove the tubes from the spindle. It's obvious in this photo, compared to the one above, that the gear on the spindle is bigger and has a different design.
Once removed I put them side by side and you can see the difference here. Aus spec on the left with the smaller gear.
With the Aus spindle installed, how was it?
https://youtu.be/YKvh9MQH-dc
MUCH better. It now cleared right up to the A pillar, from the arm being horizontal.
The Triangle of Doom is horrific though, Hubnut would not be impressed.
The ultimate solution would be to source another Aus spec spindle and replace the passengers side one too, but this will do for now. It will get me through a WOF inspection anyway, well, once the new blades arrive to replace these smeary old things. This is a good-weather car anyway.
One last thing for the week was to sort out the source of jokes from my wife
https://youtu.be/Zzyfcys1aLM?si=lo3PLbRUwQmSkoZ7
I had previously tested the wiring, so knew the issue was the headlight itself and being a sealed beam unit where the whole light is essentially the bulb (not a lens and reflector with the bulb in it) the only option was complete replacement.
This one was an ancient GE unit (ignore the upside down photo...)
I bought a pair of sweet NOS Hella H4 units a couple of years ago and have been waiting to fit them
Date stamped 1996, about a year after this car was last on the road
These are a lens and reflector unit with a replaceable H4 bulb
They were a direct drop-in replacement. The Hella, on the right of this photo, has a slightly whiter shade
My only real issue with them is they don't have the nice pronounced curve in the lens like the old lights (and other new replacements available)
Old
New
I'll use them for now, but will look to replace them again in the future with curved lens units, which is a shame because the Hella ones are really nice quality and really expensive to buy new now. They don't quite look right though with the flat lens.
They do light up really well though
Since I have changed the ride height of the car and levelled it out some, I had to adjust the lights to bring them back to level. This is done with the adjustment screws on the light bowl.
With the grille panel refitted. It somehow changed the face of the car not having curved lenses. It looks surprised.
We're one step closer to a WOF and about three more things crossed off the list. The pre-WOF list is getting pretty small now. I need to reinstall the rear quarter glass, install some carpet, reinstall the seats, install the seatbelts, make a door card and have the exhaust rear section replaced and we should be good to give it a try.
Now that the Alto was up and running again, I could focus some time on the Marina and check off another item on the pre-WOF list.
One of the main things I needed to sort, that I had everything for, was to fix the wipers and washers.
I removed the whole wiper system a couple of years ago because it was seized and didn't work. The motor didn't function, one of the wiper boxes was jammed solid and the washers didn't respond to the button.
I started with the washer system. The Aus spec Marina uses a bespoke washer bottle with an integrated pump.
I removed the bottle, removed the pump, and found it full of rust. Trash.
There were a couple of options for a replacement pump, but in my eyes the easiest option was to convert the system to the UK spec bottle and remote pump. It's not as tidy, but easier to get parts for.
I started by scrounging up a good used bottle and cap, some new hose, a new pump and a used mounting plate for the firewall as the bracket is different.
The bracket is spot welded to the mounting plate, so I carefully drilled out the spot welds and removed the bracket. Here I had also prepped it for welding.
I considered using rivnuts to mount the bracket, but it's flat on the back so has no space for the bolt heads once the bottle is fitted. The only option was to weld it to the original mounting plate (or paint the replacement one, drill out the rivets and swap the whole plates over).
I marked it out and cleaned the paint off the weld points
And gave it a quick tickle with the sparky glue. I also welded up the lower hole for the Aus spec bracket as this had been letting water in.
A quick prime and a flick of paint and it didn't stick out so much
A test fit with the new bottle
I pulled out all the old perished washer hose and ran all new 4mm hose. Unfortunately during this one of the washer jets crumbled to bits.
With the bottle and hoses in place, I just needed to adapt and install the pump. The connectors are slightly different, so I had to change the wiring to a pair of female spade terminals, but other than that it just plugged straight into the pump and worked. Dark green was positive, and it grounded through the switch.
I drilled a couple of small holes and used a pair of new self-tappers to mount the pump. Also note the nice new hoses to and from the pump, including a one-way valve inside the bottle.
A quick test with some water in the bottle and we finally had water outside the car, albeit in a stream, not a jet
A quick trip to Supercheap resulted in a pair of generic twin jet washers, which I quickly set about fitting
They looked ok and didn't stand out too much
And they worked a treat. Ignore the spoiler regarding the wipers....
https://youtu.be/PEweJKsfJFA
Next on the list was to sort the wipers. When I originally removed everything I had to remove one of the spindles with the rack as it was seized solid and you normally slide the cable through it to remove it.
A bit of brute force got the cable out without damage.
The wiper system is quite interesting really. Instead of linkages like cars have these days, it was operated by a motor pushing and pulling on a spiral wound cable through some steel tubes. This cable engaged teeth on the wheels in the spindles, which caused them to rotate back and forth, thus moving the wipers.
It's quite simple, with not many places to go wrong.
Except mine had. The motor was dead and one of the spindles was seized solid. I also discovered that one of the steel tubes had been bent to get around a bracket (which it should have passed though) which was causing huge resistance on the cable.
I removed the motor which is done by removing the mounting screw and bracket, removing the wiring and then flipping the motor over.
Unless you can/want to remove the whole cable with the motor, you need to disengage it from the motor. This is done by removing the circlip from the arm, remove the small washer and then the arm comes free. The cable is attached to this arm on a pin.
A quick bench test showed that although dirty, the motor was working correctly. Even the park function worked.
I removed and cleaned the park switch too. It's worn, but still functioning. I have a spare for the future, if needed.
Everything got a thorough clean and then regreased.
I started by grabbing a pair of good working wiper spindles and fitting them to the cowling panel. This wasn't a job I enjoyed, so there are no photos of it. It involves having to hold the spindle up under the dash with one hand, while pushing on the rubber seal, washer and screw on the nut with your other hand. Next was fitting all the steel tubes (including a replacement one between the spindles to replace the bent one) and attaching the gear covers, mostly with one hand due to space. Good fun.
Once all that was in place I greased the cable up, attached it to the motor and threaded it into the tubes, watching as the spindles rotated as it went through. The motor was then refitted to the inner guard, and plugged in.
A quick test showed everything worked correctly, so I installed the original wiper arms and blades. Note the correct side parking position, which was reversed on the later Marina for whatever reason.
For the first time in a couple of years, the Marina had wipers.
To celebrate, I poured some water on the windscreen (since the washers didn't have jets yet) and turned them on
https://youtu.be/K5L0Q3oxFrQ
Hmm, something wasn't quite right. It wiped well (ignoring the ancient rubbers smearing the glass), the wipers had plenty of speed and parked perfectly, but the sweep was.... tiny. It barely cleared the drivers vision.
I tried adjusting the position of the arm up the screen, but by the time I could get enough sweep on the glass, the arm was basically in the middle of my vision.
At best I got this much wipe
I ruminated on it for a bit and came to realisation that I had cocked up. Ages ago, knowing one of my spindles was seized, I bought a couple of second hand replacements. What I had ended up doing, was fitting UK spec spindles, to the AUS spec motor. This had created a mismatch in the gearing, meaning the wipers didn't move as far as they needed to.
I confirmed this by checking my photos taken when I removed the spindles, as to which type were fitted originally
The remedy? I needed to swap the drivers side spindle out for my one remaining good Aus spec spindle with the correct gearing. It means the passengers side doesn't wipe as far as it should, but the drivers side is the one that matters.
Thankfully the drivers side is the easier one to get to. I removed the wiper arm, dismounted the motor and pulled the cable out enough that it disengaged the spindle.
I then removed the back cover so I could remove the tubes from the spindle. It's obvious in this photo, compared to the one above, that the gear on the spindle is bigger and has a different design.
Once removed I put them side by side and you can see the difference here. Aus spec on the left with the smaller gear.
With the Aus spindle installed, how was it?
https://youtu.be/YKvh9MQH-dc
MUCH better. It now cleared right up to the A pillar, from the arm being horizontal.
The Triangle of Doom is horrific though, Hubnut would not be impressed.
The ultimate solution would be to source another Aus spec spindle and replace the passengers side one too, but this will do for now. It will get me through a WOF inspection anyway, well, once the new blades arrive to replace these smeary old things. This is a good-weather car anyway.
One last thing for the week was to sort out the source of jokes from my wife
https://youtu.be/Zzyfcys1aLM?si=lo3PLbRUwQmSkoZ7
I had previously tested the wiring, so knew the issue was the headlight itself and being a sealed beam unit where the whole light is essentially the bulb (not a lens and reflector with the bulb in it) the only option was complete replacement.
This one was an ancient GE unit (ignore the upside down photo...)
I bought a pair of sweet NOS Hella H4 units a couple of years ago and have been waiting to fit them
Date stamped 1996, about a year after this car was last on the road
These are a lens and reflector unit with a replaceable H4 bulb
They were a direct drop-in replacement. The Hella, on the right of this photo, has a slightly whiter shade
My only real issue with them is they don't have the nice pronounced curve in the lens like the old lights (and other new replacements available)
Old
New
I'll use them for now, but will look to replace them again in the future with curved lens units, which is a shame because the Hella ones are really nice quality and really expensive to buy new now. They don't quite look right though with the flat lens.
They do light up really well though
Since I have changed the ride height of the car and levelled it out some, I had to adjust the lights to bring them back to level. This is done with the adjustment screws on the light bowl.
With the grille panel refitted. It somehow changed the face of the car not having curved lenses. It looks surprised.
We're one step closer to a WOF and about three more things crossed off the list. The pre-WOF list is getting pretty small now. I need to reinstall the rear quarter glass, install some carpet, reinstall the seats, install the seatbelts, make a door card and have the exhaust rear section replaced and we should be good to give it a try.
Om said:
Brilliant! I think it looks good with the new lights and grille on - like its brow is furrowed/a little peeved.
Why did BL fit different wipers and washers for the Aus/NZ market? I would understand if it was LHD, but... Was it a heat/dry thing or just 'because BL'?
All Marinas until late 71 or so had the wipers park on the correct side like mine, and then they were changed to the opposite side parking because the wipers were "lifting off the glass at speed". I guess Aus was a little on the slow side as I haven't seen any with the reversed wiper parking. My UK spec 76 saloon had them reversed.Why did BL fit different wipers and washers for the Aus/NZ market? I would understand if it was LHD, but... Was it a heat/dry thing or just 'because BL'?
https://www.aronline.co.uk/cars/morris/marina/arch...
Progress on the Marina has been slow. I had hoped it would be on the road by now, but that's not happened.
The good news is that any progress, is still good progress, and some headway has been made.
I have really battled with the heater box and dreaded trying to fix it. In reality, getting it into a usable state wasn't that hard. Negative mindsets can be a real pain like that.
According to my records, I removed the intake plenum box way back in October 2021... that's how long it's taken me to get around to sorting it.
The heater/blower system is completely bespoke to the Aus/Nz spec cars and differs greatly from how the UK ones are set up. This was obviously due to the local content requirements of the time, which meant a percentage of the car had to be made locally and not imported.
This car came with the heater box in the boot, so I've never seen it fitted to the car. The plenum box, which is mounted up under the cowl panel behind the dash, was in place but full of dirt and old leaves. Not a good sign.
I removed the grille and then set about removing the screws that hold the plenum box in place. Once removed, the whole box just drops down.
It was pretty well full. Took a lot of vacuuming to clean it out
But the main reason it needed to come out, was to fix this
The metal has ceased being solid and became a crunchy powder.
Here it sat for a couple of years, until almost 2 years to the day later, and I pulled it out to have a better look. This involved lots of cutting and drilling, to remove the spot welds and remove the rusty remnants.
The gaping hole in the side is obvious, but there were also a lot of other areas that needed attention too, in harder-to-reach places
After cutting all this out and cleaning it up as much as I could, I absolutely saturated it in Brunox to treat the rust and seal it off.
Because my car is a poverty spec Deluxe and doesn't have the face-level fresh air vents in the dash, I opted to just completely remove the tube for that function on this side as it was completely rusted out and the idea of refitting the tube was doing my head in.
I started with some good old CAD
Converted it into metal, and tacked it in place
I didn't fully seam weld it, I just didn't see the point when it was not structural
I seam-sealed the area to seal it and used Newtech body filler to smooth over the welds and fill the holes in the top that I couldn't get to with a welder. Newtech is a fibreglass-infused filler and pretty strong, so should do well enough at keeping the air and water inside the box.
Everything got a coating of black zinc on the outside, and the inside was flooded with epoxy primer and then black zinc.
I remembered to refit the heater resistor
Someone had cut the wires for the heater resistor when removing it, so I crimped on a pair of nice new terminals, so now I can unplug the resistor if I need to
With the plenum box done, it was time to test-fit it with the heater box. Before that though, let's travel back to 2021 when I tested and refurbished the heater box
The heater box was already out of the car, so the first thing to do was see if the fan actually worked. I connected 12v and turned it on. Sure enough, it fired into life with no signs of any issues.
I then set about splitting the box by removing all the nuts and bolts around the perimeter. The whole box is moulded fibreglass.
This gave me access to the fan and heater core. I cleaned out years of detritus and pulled it apart further
The heater core looked ok with no obvious signs of leaking
The direction flap is a little less good
The flap is actually made of two layers of metal that sandwich some sort of felt material that creates the edge seal. After cleaning it wasn't too bad, just missing a bit on one edge. Not the end of the world.
I didn't want to just refit the heater core and cross my fingers, so I bodged up some hose and fittings so I could pressure test it.
I filled it with water and pumped it up to 15psi (just above the rad cap pressure)
I can't remember how long I tested it for now, but I think it was a couple of hours and it didn't drop pressure at all. It could spring a leak once it gets hot, but I hope not.
I rust treated and then black zinc painted everything inside the box
I reassembled it, with some new foam on the diverter flap (to seal it when it's closed), and it's been gathering dust since.
Well, today I pulled it all out and put it together. This is the Aus/NZ spec heater assembly
The air enters the top of the plenum via the vent in the cowl ahead of the windscreen. It then enters the plenum box and gets sent to the heater box via the C shape duct on the side (the other hole is the face-level vent outlet for the higher spec cars. This is blocked off on my car.
The air then passes through the heater core (all air does, the heater valve controls if the core is hot or not), through the fan and down to the ducts at the bottom of the box. The circular outlet would be ducted to the windscreen vents while the large cutouts are the "feet" vents. The heater selector only has three settings, Feet/Windscreen, Windscreen or Off.
There should be a heater valve attached to the box too, but mine was missing and the only spare I have I don't trust. They're very expensive heater valves shared with some classic Aussie Fords (hence the cost), so I will likely just have a manual heater tap in the engine bay to turn the heater on and off. For now, I just have the heater bypassed.
The test assembly was a success, so I contorted myself into the car and started refitting it. The plenum went in easy enough, once I turned it around so it faced the correct direction. I used a ratchet strap to hook into the plenum box just to give me something to lift it up from the floor inside the car while standing outside, as the screws to secure it go through from the outside.
The vent grille could then be refitted, with some nice new screws
Next, it was a case of fitting the heater box to the underside of the plenum. This turned out to be a bigger pain in the bum than expected. I fitted it all up, nice and easy, no issues, and then realised I couldn't fit the C-shaped duct in afterwards. So out the heater box came. I fitted the duct to the plenum first and then squeezed the heater box into place.
This took an awful lot of wiggling and jiggling to get into place, from both sides of the car. That was the easy bit though, the hard bit was getting the cable for the diverter flap into place. This is in the drivers foot well, so I squeezed myself into there and hooked it up.
Next, I connected the blower fan wires, connected the battery and hit the switch. Nothing. Hmmm. I tried again, flicking the switch a few times and suddenly it sprung to life. I guess sitting around unused for a couple of decades does that to a switch.
But both speeds work correctly now, so I'm very happy
I still need to buy some ducting to duct it up to the windscreen vents, but for now, it'll do.
Following that success, I felt it was time to fit something else the car hadn't seen for many years. For the first time in my ownership, the car has steering column shrouds
I did have to relocate the ignition switch though. Turns out it's not meant to point down; the previous owner just didn't clock it to the column properly (and disabled the steering lock in the process) when the switch was replaced. It fits perfectly now, and the steering lock even works too. Makes way more sense having the key where it is, it was always hard to see and use when it was facing down.
We're getting much closer to being able to take it for a WOF check. I need to refit the quarter window, which I'm procrastinating because I haven't done it before and I'm sure it'll suck to do, and then fit some door cards, seatbelts and the other seat.
In the meantime, I scuffed up the new sill and gave it a quick shot of paint
Theres a low spot on the rear quarter that I want to address before I put any more paint on that. Might do that this weekend.
The good news is that any progress, is still good progress, and some headway has been made.
I have really battled with the heater box and dreaded trying to fix it. In reality, getting it into a usable state wasn't that hard. Negative mindsets can be a real pain like that.
According to my records, I removed the intake plenum box way back in October 2021... that's how long it's taken me to get around to sorting it.
The heater/blower system is completely bespoke to the Aus/Nz spec cars and differs greatly from how the UK ones are set up. This was obviously due to the local content requirements of the time, which meant a percentage of the car had to be made locally and not imported.
This car came with the heater box in the boot, so I've never seen it fitted to the car. The plenum box, which is mounted up under the cowl panel behind the dash, was in place but full of dirt and old leaves. Not a good sign.
I removed the grille and then set about removing the screws that hold the plenum box in place. Once removed, the whole box just drops down.
It was pretty well full. Took a lot of vacuuming to clean it out
But the main reason it needed to come out, was to fix this
The metal has ceased being solid and became a crunchy powder.
Here it sat for a couple of years, until almost 2 years to the day later, and I pulled it out to have a better look. This involved lots of cutting and drilling, to remove the spot welds and remove the rusty remnants.
The gaping hole in the side is obvious, but there were also a lot of other areas that needed attention too, in harder-to-reach places
After cutting all this out and cleaning it up as much as I could, I absolutely saturated it in Brunox to treat the rust and seal it off.
Because my car is a poverty spec Deluxe and doesn't have the face-level fresh air vents in the dash, I opted to just completely remove the tube for that function on this side as it was completely rusted out and the idea of refitting the tube was doing my head in.
I started with some good old CAD
Converted it into metal, and tacked it in place
I didn't fully seam weld it, I just didn't see the point when it was not structural
I seam-sealed the area to seal it and used Newtech body filler to smooth over the welds and fill the holes in the top that I couldn't get to with a welder. Newtech is a fibreglass-infused filler and pretty strong, so should do well enough at keeping the air and water inside the box.
Everything got a coating of black zinc on the outside, and the inside was flooded with epoxy primer and then black zinc.
I remembered to refit the heater resistor
Someone had cut the wires for the heater resistor when removing it, so I crimped on a pair of nice new terminals, so now I can unplug the resistor if I need to
With the plenum box done, it was time to test-fit it with the heater box. Before that though, let's travel back to 2021 when I tested and refurbished the heater box
The heater box was already out of the car, so the first thing to do was see if the fan actually worked. I connected 12v and turned it on. Sure enough, it fired into life with no signs of any issues.
I then set about splitting the box by removing all the nuts and bolts around the perimeter. The whole box is moulded fibreglass.
This gave me access to the fan and heater core. I cleaned out years of detritus and pulled it apart further
The heater core looked ok with no obvious signs of leaking
The direction flap is a little less good
The flap is actually made of two layers of metal that sandwich some sort of felt material that creates the edge seal. After cleaning it wasn't too bad, just missing a bit on one edge. Not the end of the world.
I didn't want to just refit the heater core and cross my fingers, so I bodged up some hose and fittings so I could pressure test it.
I filled it with water and pumped it up to 15psi (just above the rad cap pressure)
I can't remember how long I tested it for now, but I think it was a couple of hours and it didn't drop pressure at all. It could spring a leak once it gets hot, but I hope not.
I rust treated and then black zinc painted everything inside the box
I reassembled it, with some new foam on the diverter flap (to seal it when it's closed), and it's been gathering dust since.
Well, today I pulled it all out and put it together. This is the Aus/NZ spec heater assembly
The air enters the top of the plenum via the vent in the cowl ahead of the windscreen. It then enters the plenum box and gets sent to the heater box via the C shape duct on the side (the other hole is the face-level vent outlet for the higher spec cars. This is blocked off on my car.
The air then passes through the heater core (all air does, the heater valve controls if the core is hot or not), through the fan and down to the ducts at the bottom of the box. The circular outlet would be ducted to the windscreen vents while the large cutouts are the "feet" vents. The heater selector only has three settings, Feet/Windscreen, Windscreen or Off.
There should be a heater valve attached to the box too, but mine was missing and the only spare I have I don't trust. They're very expensive heater valves shared with some classic Aussie Fords (hence the cost), so I will likely just have a manual heater tap in the engine bay to turn the heater on and off. For now, I just have the heater bypassed.
The test assembly was a success, so I contorted myself into the car and started refitting it. The plenum went in easy enough, once I turned it around so it faced the correct direction. I used a ratchet strap to hook into the plenum box just to give me something to lift it up from the floor inside the car while standing outside, as the screws to secure it go through from the outside.
The vent grille could then be refitted, with some nice new screws
Next, it was a case of fitting the heater box to the underside of the plenum. This turned out to be a bigger pain in the bum than expected. I fitted it all up, nice and easy, no issues, and then realised I couldn't fit the C-shaped duct in afterwards. So out the heater box came. I fitted the duct to the plenum first and then squeezed the heater box into place.
This took an awful lot of wiggling and jiggling to get into place, from both sides of the car. That was the easy bit though, the hard bit was getting the cable for the diverter flap into place. This is in the drivers foot well, so I squeezed myself into there and hooked it up.
Next, I connected the blower fan wires, connected the battery and hit the switch. Nothing. Hmmm. I tried again, flicking the switch a few times and suddenly it sprung to life. I guess sitting around unused for a couple of decades does that to a switch.
But both speeds work correctly now, so I'm very happy
I still need to buy some ducting to duct it up to the windscreen vents, but for now, it'll do.
Following that success, I felt it was time to fit something else the car hadn't seen for many years. For the first time in my ownership, the car has steering column shrouds
I did have to relocate the ignition switch though. Turns out it's not meant to point down; the previous owner just didn't clock it to the column properly (and disabled the steering lock in the process) when the switch was replaced. It fits perfectly now, and the steering lock even works too. Makes way more sense having the key where it is, it was always hard to see and use when it was facing down.
We're getting much closer to being able to take it for a WOF check. I need to refit the quarter window, which I'm procrastinating because I haven't done it before and I'm sure it'll suck to do, and then fit some door cards, seatbelts and the other seat.
In the meantime, I scuffed up the new sill and gave it a quick shot of paint
Theres a low spot on the rear quarter that I want to address before I put any more paint on that. Might do that this weekend.
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