Fast Marina Magazine

Hi, I want to give the car a quick go over, oil filter, gearbox oil, diff oil, sparkplugs, air filter, cap, arm, points, condenser. Is there anything else I should change? What oils do I need and how much? How many £ will that lot set me back? Are most bits easy to get hold of?

Most parts will be available, worth trying your local motor factors if they have been around a while!
Some still have even hard to find parts!
Also Ebay parts pop up all the time.
I use Castrol Classic oils which are sensible prices and delivered to your door when purchased on line.
should not be big money compared to modern car servicing

Thanks. Any idea on grades of oil for the box, diff and motor?

EP80 for Box and diff and GTX 20W50 for Motor!
I think it tells you all the information in the Marina Handbook! Castrol are listed.
Some newer oils sold today are not the best for older cars or running in etc.
I know some on here have used modern oils and had good results but I am just using the oils which were specified back when these cars were common place.

If the handbook is missing (as they tend to be :x ), pop down to your local library. With any luck, they'll have a comprehensive range of Haynes (or even factory ) workshop manuals.

Thanks guys, I am a mechanic at a main dealer, won't use modern oils because they aren't designed for old machinery. Old oils were designed for old machinery. I don't know if my marina has a manual as I haven't even seen her yet. Collect Saturday all going well. I hope that there isn't loads of welding to do!! I was Reading a thread by uncle frank and one of the marinas he was doing up most of the panels were rotted away I only hope that isn't usual!

Philip Factory and Haynes manuals come up all the time on Ebay. There are currently over 300 Marina or Ital ones on there, follow this link to check them out.

Ebay Manuals

Factory manuals are best if updated (they should say) and will cover everything. If you go for a Haynes, it will cover normal servicing, engine rebuils etc. but not some of the more complex stuff

Have fun.

if you need some oil filters give me a shout philip i have tons of them lying around.

Hi Ray, Got any Unipart ones for the 1800cc B series with upwards pointing filter?
These are the larger type.
Cheers,
Paul.

Hi,

Be wary of the large upside down filter, my TC came with this fitting. Over the previous few years I noticed that the oil light was taking longer to clear and being fearful for the bearing I started timing it. I tried all the cheap filters and more expensive ones and before 500 miles was up they all took toooooo long to clear the warning light.

Looking at the face of the filter when removed the rubber seal was blown out or repositioned so not holding a reserve of oil and having to be filled before oil is pumped to the bearings. I went onto unipart filters (bought 4 at a time), but the next time I bought them the same problem appeared, on close inspection of the old one in the bin and the new one, they were different (different maker).

I have changed to a down hung 1.8 filter and change the oil and filter atleast every 3000 miles or 1 year. So don't expect the newer unipart filters to be as good as the old ones.

Brian

ill have a look paul but i think that most are aftermarket.

I believe that 1.8 Marinas used Unipart GFE114 on the early (upside down fitting) and GFE148 on the (hanging type) later cars. GFE148 was also used on Minis, MGBs, some Fords and Vauxhalls during the 1970s, so if you get stuck try some non BL suppliers.

I read somewhere that GFE148 was also used on some Volvos and that Volvos own version has the best (ie shortest) oil pressure timing, but I don't have any part nos. or vehicle details.

Hi Brian,
Thanks for the warning!
I think I have a cooper or Fram one fitted at present which will be changed soon when the run in miles are covered.
But I have 2 NOS Unipart ones which are the black ones with yellow text written on them! These I think are the older type!?

I am always on the look out for some spares when it comes to servicing parts.
Will it be the white ones with the Unipart logo in red and blue which may be different?
Is there any signs or shapes I should look for?

I guess this is why they altered it?

Which seal was the problem one?

I know that the filter part on the engine has a long feed pipe which goes in to the filter, I guess this will help hold some oil.
Plus oil lamp goes straight out presently
This is rather important :shock: :?

Hi Paul,

Both the the good and bad unipart filters were white with Red printing I think, had the same numbers as mentioned by Chris, looked identical until they were sat side by side and the differences could be seen. For me the fram was less than impressive and the cooper better.

If you look at the base of the filter, there is the large threaded hole in the centre and then a ring of small holes around the outer edge. Looking at these holes they seem to be covered, and they are by a rubber seal inside the filter, using a screwdriver carefully you can move this in the same way the oil does.

The oil from the pump is feed to these holes and pushes past this seal onto the outer surface of the filter material (outside of the filter has the largest area to collect muck) through the filter and the down the sticky-up pipe and on to the galleries and bearings. If the seal is damaged and the oil runs back to the sump then it has to be pumped up when the engine is started, one of the reasons I use semi-synthetic 10W40 oil as it pumps up quicker and hopefully protects better (a very good motor engineer recommended I ran my 1961 jaguar XK engine on it rather than single oil grades it was designed for).

My TC engines always seemed to have a good oil pressure, but more importantly a very good oil flow, and when cold this distorted the internal seal so it would not sit down again to block the holes when switched off.

Sorry to upset you Paul its just that I was never happy with the pump up times (oil light going out) so tried to do something about it, I suppose really ignorance is bliss on this one as you will still get 60,000 miles or more on the engine with a slow pump up time (I used to get that even with thrashing it).

I also checked the oil pressures at cold and when hot and found very little difference between 20W50 and 10W40, oil flow is more important than oil pressure.

Brian

Hi Brian,

Is it an easy job to convert to 'hanging' filter? My TC also has the inverted filter. I've never noticed a problem with the oil light, but I want the engine to last as long as possible!

Also, it's a very messy job, changing the filter. I think it would be much cleaner with the hanging type!

Dave.