www.fastmarinamagazine.com

Well I'm glad to hear the car is still in one piece. I'd never heard about the car in the original sale, but there was an inset piece about the eBay listing threatening to break it in what for me was a rarely bought copy of Classic Car Weekly, a publication that I think regularly bangs on about what things are worth and seems to rejoice at rising values, all of which contributes to things like the Perodua Nippa being hailed as an affordable classic car! I felt quite cross about the Maestro (I had a 1.3 LE in the 90s) and wrote a letter to CCW expressing my feelings, saying the owner was effectively saying "Pay me ten grand, or the car gets it!". My letter did not get published

Well that's my feeling too and good on you for writing even if not published. I cannot see how the car would break for anything like that I think if he broke it would probably raise his original purchase price being realistic.
Dave

I would have thought he would have uploaded a full set of in-focus photographs for his nearly £9000 listing!

What did I do to my Marinas today? Not a lot in short. I lifted the bonnet on REW, sighed then closed it again.

After losing my storage last week, we emptied the barn out last Sunday (was a family affair and took us all day but we did it). PDA now lives on my Nan and Grandad's driveway where it has been for a week and a half untouched after I gave it up as my daily car. VGV and REW are on my front garden as a temporary thing until I can find somewhere to keep them all (again). VGV hasn't been touched for months and same with REW although it has been touched more than VGV recently and the only recent thing I've done to it is I hoovered out the engine bay from rust and old paint yesterday....wow I know.

I hope to get onto them again soon but as it looks at the moment, I won't be able to for months to come then it'll be winter. A real shame but nevermind.

Alex

Visited the Gnoll Park vintage car show today and the weather was great. TDT decided to throw her fan belt away on the M4 and steamed her way into the show! Found a belt in the autojumble luckily.

I popped in to see the J reg on the way home from work. Still there, just.

I think the best thing that happened at the Ilkeston show, that saw my car get scratched, was that before I left an approximately 10 year old girl and her dad really liked my car. He was asking me questions and she kept chipping in, she was quite enthusiastic about it. When I asked her what she thought of the Capri and Escort Mexico next to mine, she said she liked them but they didn't look as old as mine (they were older!) and they looked sporty and she wasn't really into sporty stuff. I finished her sentence by saying "do you like luxury then?" and she said yes. So tongue in cheek I said she really needed a Jaguar as my car's luxury was cheap luxury! Not sure she got what I meant but it didn't diminish her enthusiasm and it was nice to know my Marina HL was favoured over a Capri and performance Escort

I give TDT a well overdue oil and filter change today before taking a trip to the country park. With the overheating issue sorted she runs as good as she looks Well chuffed

Ooh. That's very nearly a door clanger from that lady on the right. I'm hyper paranoid about that kind of thing at the moment.

mickthefitter wrote: ↑Tue Aug 22, 2017 9:44 pm Ooh. That's very nearly a door clanger from that lady on the right. I'm hyper paranoid about that kind of thing at the moment.

yeah, I feel sometimes I should wrap crime scene tape around the car while moving people on saying "nothing to see here"

I've been forced this week to use my Marina for the daily 24 mile round commute to work (while my modern car was being re-sprayed where it had been damaged). I realise this must be normal for a lot of people, to use their classic for work, but usually when I've done that in the past it's just to show someone. This week it was a necessity. And my car acquitted itself well, bearing in mind how badly it had performed most of the time since I bought it. Mostly I treated it the same on the road as I do my modern turbo-diesel Volvo for the commute, apart from not being prepared to take on the black Audis and BMWs. I wasn't up for that kind of combat. But as for the cooking Ford Focuses or Kia C'eeds, my Marina routinely left them shrinking in my rear view mirror at traffic lights. Unfortunately it still smells too much of petrol. I think this is down to damp float chamber gaskets, but I also need to check the colour of the spark plugs in case it is rich. I want to get some new float chamber lids, in the hope that this will relieve the dampness of the gaskets which suggests to me the fuel level is too high, but Burlen seem to specify different lids for different years of Marina and my rebuilt carbs have lost their ID tags thanks to A. Turner. Also on cooler, almost autumnal mornings, my water temperature gauge barely gets out of the blue zone and takes ages to do it, thanks to the super efficient recored radiator, and I can feel some hesitation from the carbs for quite a long time during the warm-up period.

Should be able to re-jet the float lids as it is the needle end which wears not the lid.
the needle end gets a groove worn in it and then either shuts off to late or not shuts off completely.

Yes but if I splash out on the new lid it should come correctly set shouldn't it? The fuel must be high enough to wet the gasket though they aren't overflowing like when dirt gets in the jet. I half expected new float jets to be a part of the rebuild I paid for but a quick look at the leaflet from the rebuild kit Turner used on the carbs doesn't show anything. I'm also a bit wary about those angled spacers that set the angle of the float chamber. The front one is a bit loose even though the bolt is tight.

Are the floats intact ie. not split or cracked as this would let in petrol and they are no longer a float.
I don't think I could set the height on mine as it was set by the needle alone. But been a while since I took the top off.

Plastic floats in HS carbs do no adjust but do in HIF carbs
Dave