Fast Marina Magazine

Afternoon all
I’d like to fit a set of lowering blocks to a Marina saloon, so that the stance of the car is levelled. Please can anyone reading this who has lowering blocks fitted to their cars, give me some help with which blocks you’ve got, where you bought them, and whether they came with longer U bolts?
Thanks guys!
Baz

Grayston Engineering used to list 1.5” lowering blocks for the Marina, but deleted them about ten years ago. Someone on here may still have a set in their parts stash.

However - if no joy there, then the Grayston Engineering lowering kits listed for the Mk1 & Mk2 Ford Escort will fit. There is a small modification needed, in that the Escort U bolts are made of slightly fatter diameter steel, so you need to drill out the Marina bottom spring plates to match.

The Escort kits available are 1”, 1.5” & 2”.

MarinaCoupe wrote: Fri Mar 19, 2021 5:01 pm Grayston Engineering used to list 1.5” lowering blocks for the Marina, but deleted them about ten years ago. Someone on here may still have a set in their parts stash.

However - if no joy there, then the Grayston Engineering lowering kits listed for the Mk1 & Mk2 Ford Escort will fit. There is a small modification needed, in that the Escort U bolts are made of slightly fatter diameter steel, so you need to drill out the Marina bottom spring plates to match.

The Escort kits available are 1”, 1.5” & 2”.

Excellent Chris, thank you. Do you have these fitted to your Coupe? And if so, which size?

You also have to modify the bottom of the block as the Marina ‘pin’ is a bigger diameter than the Escort one. Fairly easy to do as it’s only soft ally.

Another on using Escort U bolts here although I found a set of Marina blocks, I think they were abiyr . Not much point paying too much attention to what everyone else is using as it depends on how knackered your springs are! I think mine are 1.5" but with fairly stiff springs.

As MATT said about your springs if there not knackered you could do what I did with mine when I put new ones on , instead of re using the lowering blocks I had them altered so it sits by just over an inch .I had them done by JONES SPRINGS in the midlands .they did while I waited they can also alter multi leaf springs as well as standard ones . There address is JONES SPRINGS DARLASTON WEDNESBURY phone no 0121568 7575 it might be worth giving them call to see what they say . the thing is it depends how far away you live from DARLASTON .

I have used quite a few lowering blocks over the years, and I had them made locally. They also made the longer U bolts for me.
At some point I decided to try just having the springs reset to give the same effect, so this was done to two sets of springs, also 2".
This led to two problems.
The first was that the springs stopped behaving like springs, as they could now go inverted on full compression and lost their ability to work properly.
The second was that some rear shock absorbers were a bit longer than others when fully compressed, and the suspension bottomed out on the shock absorbers, actually snapping two off their mounts.
With lowering blocks the shock absorbers remain at exactly the same extension as standard, only the axle is raised.

I have seen blocks made from 2" square section steel, with open ends, a bolt in the top and a hole in the bottom.
The blocks cannot migrate in any direction as they are effectively pinned top and bottom, plus the U bolts locate the sides.
Cheap fix...

This estate has 2" lowering blocks fitted..

I had to fit lowering blocks to my Coupe as when I fitted new springs ( bought off ebay) rear of car was far to high. I used Escort ones had to alter hole in centre of block and drill out spring plate from 3/8 inch to 10 mm. have now got to make up some blocks to go between top shock absorber and body on full rebound shock is to short but i have Gaz coil overs fitted with soft springs as helper these are wound right off so auxiliary spring is doing nothing at normal ride height
Dave