Fast Marina Magazine

Not sure if this has been posted.
In last weeks Classix Car Buyer there was a 3 page feature on a Blaze
TC Coupe (JRO445K). A good read! And on front cover,
T

That's Chris Kirman's TC, very original and well loved. Hopefully coming out to play at Woburn in May. It's an early TC with suicide front suspension.


Chris

Sent from my iPhone

Hi Chris,

What do you mean by 'suicide front suspension'???

Brian

Martec wrote:Hi Chris,

What do you mean by 'suicide front suspension'???

Brian

Hi Brian

I mean the very early uprights, trunnions and top arm angle that led to excessive understeer. I've driven it and nearly put it in a ditch without even trying, ultimate originality.




Chris

Sent from my iPhone

A view of both trunnion types and favourable roadtest
http://www.flickr.com/photos/triggersca ... otostream/

Good article with good comparison shots of the different trunnions.



Chris

Sent from my iPhone

Am I going loopy, or are the captions back to front in the article?

Missed the Classic Car Buyer in question, but there's a letter from another Marina owner in the current one, grumbling about the reviewer's comments regarding understeering
A well thought out response from the paper though, from my brief flick through in Sainsbury's anyway (I was actually looking to see if the full article was in there).

The captions are right, the trunnion has the bolt going through below the main body of the trunnion in the modified setup, whereas in the early cars the bolt goes through about halfway up the trunnion body, sorry for the poor description

Hopefully there will be an early Marina at the Nats for you to have a look under and see, so long as it has not been modified!

I think the lower arms are also shorter in the early cars?

I don't think the lower arms are shorter. The leaver arms are at a different angle though.

That's very interesting as I have always thought I had the earlier suspension on my 72TC and couldn't find any signs of the 5 degrees of caster associated with the earlier one. I had the later (though still cr$p ) trunnions in the photograph and suffered the usual lack of grease in one of the bearings.

Brian

PS Chris this would make the 'Jacking' effect worse.

Yes Brian, it would wouldn't it. Maybe the car being tested was on the early suspension?




Chris

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Just a quick question....
The car in the article was quoted as having been 5766th off the line.
Is this identified by the cars chassis no. itself?
I only ask as mine has a number of approx 500 lower on the vin plate but was 1st registered the following March (72)?
And would it be different being a Coupe's number as opposed to a saloon's?
I'm just wondering how BL actually defined the numbers themselves.
Just trying to get as much of a handle on the history of my own as much as is possible.
T

The chassis numbers for all coupes and saloons are sequential, whether or not the car was a 1.3 or 1.8. Estates had their own number run as did commercials.

Individual cars could well have sat in dealer compounds or in showrooms for some before being registered.

I certify year of manufacture to the DVLA on behalf of the club for free road tax and have found that TCs particularly seem to have hung around a while before selling. With examples cars manufactured in October 1972 not selling until March 1973. It's always possible that they were made in batch runs, so that the line could get back to making the bread and butter versions.



Chris

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Ah! Now that might explain it.
Its wierd to think that mine has a lower number (52**)yet the later wipers compared to the test model.
It seems that there was probably a guy who matched the cars to numbers. Wonder how he worked it out?
*Think* mine has the later trunnions too.
In the garage later so will look.
Daily runner is poorly so needs some attention instead.
T

Date of Registration on mine is 01/08/71. Although on the back of a door card it says 28/05/71. My chassis No is 8935. Engine No 828. Fitted with wipers that park to the left. And early trunnions