Fast Marina Magazine

Hi, can any of you knowledgable guys out there advise me what gearboxes apart from the original will bolt straight onto my 1300 Marina engine. My car is a Marlin Roadster built from a 1300 Marina 4 door saloon which was M redg (1973?) . Thanks in advance to anyone who can assist........Cheers Chris Exeter Devon

Hi slipalong - your mate does well on stage doesn't he?

Any 1.3 Marina or 1.3 Ital box will fit.

Marina 1.7s, 1.8, Spitfire, TR7 & Dolomite gearbox are similar but have a different input shafts that won't fit into your 1.3 engine.

You can fit a type 9 sierra box with a kit from 5speedmarina.co.UK just a bit of machining to do!

As Chris points out it is the input shaft that is the problem.
The 1.3's are 20 spline, 1.7 and 1.8's are 23 spline.
It is possible to fit a different clutch plate to your 1.3 and fit a 1.8 gearbox but its not really worthwhile as though the ratios are different between the 1.3 and 1.8 boxes, both end up with 1:1 4th gear.

There are a couple of Marlins out there that have Dolomite boxes fitted. The Dolomite input shafts have shorter clutch splines. This means that the engine load is transmitted through a shorter spline length and is more prone to failure.



Thanks Ben for the plug.

Would the Morris Minor or MG Midget gearbox fit? Would imagine the Minor box might be even weaker, though.

The bolt pattern on the Minor and Midget is different it wouldn't match to the Marina bellhousing, so you'd have to include their bellhousing, backplate and clutch, and probably the flywheel and starter motor- gets expensive.

To go back to the original question, why not just buy a Marina one off EBay? Or buy a rebuild kit of EBay and recondition yours yourself.

Thanks to you all, as usual a mine of information. Cheers Chris