Fast Marina Magazine

Well last night we picked the car up from Martin's place and drove her over to the classic car garage where she is going for the first stage of repairs.
The journey wasn't too eventful but it was made more interesting by not knowing how fast we were going (the speedo decided to not work) and not having an MoT or tax....
She was misfiring and rather a lot of smoke was coming out the back so it looks like I'm going to have lots of fun doing the mechanics and sorting them out, just the sort of project I wanted
It took my dad a little while to get used to driving a car without power steering and with a 4 speed gearbox again. Not to mention that the windscreen wiper switch and indicator switch are on opposite sides to that of my parents' Renault Megane and my dad's work van so he put the windscreen wipers on at the first couple of junctions
She got there alright in the end, when we pulled up outside the garage she cut out but started again first time

These are the jobs for the next few weeks/months/years:
Replace slave cylinder (being done by garage)
Welding to o/s/f jacking point (being done by garage)
Bloody good clean
Fix speedo
Fit new bonnet release cable
Sort out mechanics
Sort out bodywork
Sort out interior (probably the tattiest bit of the car, should clean up alright)

I can almost feel my wallet becoming lighter every second

Good news Josh!

My bleeding wallet has long floated away to wallet heaven :roll:
Moths all gone to!
They used to like sleeping in there but not any more.

The garage just phoned looks like my wallet's going a similar way very very soon

Check the leads going to the fuse box for the speedo that's why mine stopped working, failing that may just need a good clean on the back connectors.

Bonnet release cable is easy to fit, I have a generic one on mine which is slightly longer (and I was too lazy to cut it...) just remember to test it before you close the bonnet because if you haven't tightening it up enough you're buggered

Great to see she was running - albeit roughly! Keep us updated

I will indeed keep you updated.....
As I said in my previous post the garage phoned this afternoon. It looks like she's going to need new piston rings but may end up needing reboring, we wont know for certain until the cylinder head is off.
I wont be able to take it off as we cant drive it back to my house now and we arent able to work on it there so it looks like that's some more money gone on getting the chap there to do it!
The O/S/F jacking point is worse than expected, a large chunk of body filler fell out :roll: and it may end up with needing a new sill, we will have to wait and see.
The N/S/F jacking point also has a hole but it's absolutely tiny and no problem really.
I gave the rest of the bodywork a check over when I went to the garage this afternoon and she's definitley going to need rear arches and there was some work carried out to the front wings in the 80s (same garage that did the rear arches) and that needs redoing. Basically it was a really bad filler job and respraying without masking tape!
I think that's it for now....
Time to scrape together the £50 to have the engine stripped and checked!

might end up cheaper and easier to fit a second hand engine they do come up fairly regularly i'm sure someone will have one lurking in the back of their garage an old mgb will do the trick also

Yeah it might end up that way. He has plenty of scrap MGBs in his yard so engine parts are no problem.
I'm going to try and keep the original one though

Check the leads going to the fuse box for the speedo that's why mine stopped working,

Sam, the speedo is cable driven unless it is the illumination which is not working!! :?

Sometimes the cable just needs a re-securing at the back of the speedo or cable busted.

All the lights are fine on mine Oil light on all the time
I'll investigate the speedo problem when the car is back here and I commence my general refurb and tarting up.

are Marina's "fly by wire" now? lol :roll:

Oil light could just be the pressure switch josh.

8) Hi Josh.
Get yourself one of the factory workshop manuals if you have not already got one. They go into all the fault finding and rectification.
They also have the full wiring diagrams. Good luck son...........Larry

Yeah I will get one the next time I see one at an autojumble! I've got 3 copies of the Haynes one (one for the car, one for the house and one for wherever she will be stored) and an Autodata one.