Those of you familiar with my ramblings will already know I have a penchant for Morris Marinas.
Why? - I hear you ask.
Difficult question.
I think they adopted me.
I had one - got given another - and several more - then thought - what the hell - and began collecting a few.
Despite having given several away - I believe I now have NZ's largest collection.
A dubious honour indeed.
Still - they please me - and do most of what I require from a vehicle - although I do tend to modify them a wee bit.
So - having decided to stop this foolishness, and desist from the habit, I saw this one in the local online auction called Trademe.
It was in a car sales in Timaru - 100 miles away - and had stalled at $1000. Now - thats rather expensive for a Marina hereabouts - in fact, it would be my second most expensive ever - if I could keep the price close to that - but the paint had that shiny apple look that makes you want to bite it. I waited until the eleventh hour, and popped another $20 on. After brushing the opposition aside, I won it for $1040. Not bad.
Drove down and collected it - and within hours of getting it home, had blacked out the grille centre and moved the Morris badge - just to consolidate it with the rest of the fleet of course.
I also removed the towbar - formerly used for extracting WWII tanks from Russian bogs - and snapped off the rusty back muffler - complete with blunderbus tailpipe.
This was replaced with pipe only, and with the end suitably kinked up so as to avoid large amounts of seal excavation when reversing - especially after the intended 2" worth of wormburning slammage I had in mind.
Now - within a few miles of collecting this car - several things had become evident.
No oil light.
No temp gauge.
Door locked itself every time you slammed it.
Steering pulled to the right.
Something under the bonnet was making a 'bearing' sorta noise.
Just to be on the safe side, I turned the heater on - to make sure we did actually have some water.
No heat.
I stopped and raised the bonnet. We did have water, and everything appeared normal under there.
We continued, and at the first opportunity, I checked the tyre pressures - but the steering still wanted to slew us into the oncoming traffic.
Various squeaks and rattles eminated from the dashboard, and a few trial tweaks whilst driving suggested that there was not a lot actually holding it in place.
Henceforth, one of my next jobs was to remove it, and check out some of the mysteries.
This revealed that the entire dash had been refitted - after the car had changed colour from brown to red - with absolutely no concession for how it was meant to be fitted at all. Besides this, there were a number of bodges on the instrument panel that had led to the absence of temp and oil functions - plus half the panel lights.
With this lot put to bed, I was able to restore some semblance of order, and appreciate a rather expensive array of carpet and upholstery.
Both ends.
About the most sumptuous car in the fleet no doubt.
Some prodding under the bonnet elicited a dud water pump - hence the noise, and an artfully crafted piece of pipe that had been fitted instead of the readily available lower radiator hose.
I fitted a new pump, and a new hose, but was astounded to find that having gone to all the trouble of fabricating this pipe, they had failed to drill a hole from the heater hose stub through into the main pipe. How could you do that..?
At least that explains the lack of heater.
I was getting the impression that this car had either been assembled by someone other than he who took it apart - or maybe the chap suffered from alzheimers.
When fitting some reset rear springs, I found the handbrake cable draped over the top of the axle housing - instead of being clipped below it - and it had neatly worn halfway through the fluid pipe. Nice.!
The spring shackles had been hitting the towbar mounting bolts - so that was another reason to biff it. The bush had popped out of the steering rack, so I replaced the rack too.
Then I found some spitfire rims - 2 had been widened, so after taking this photo, I had the other 2 banded to 7".
Amongst other things - there are some very loud and annoying rattles inside the doors - plus the self-locking to investigate.
The gearlever has far too much travel, and jumps out of reverse when provoked, so the box needs to come out.
Having rebuilt the front suspension, it still pulled to the right a little, but dubious swapping of tyres fixed it.
The engine has such low compression that the starter will nearly spin it up to idle speed - so I'm thinking that our intrepid mechanic chappie may have botched the valve clearances. Apart from that, it drives quietly enough, and although leaking a little oil, does not seem to burn any.
I lucked into some Spitfire centre caps for the wheels, so having added some suitable 205/60's, I fitted the steels, and proceeded to have some fun.
Its actually a lot of fun to drive - although a tad gutless due to the missing compression. The handling and steering is brilliant with the new wheels, so thats all good. Gearbox will come out when the weather has improved a bit - only working outdoors has its limitations.
Otherwise fine.
Cheers from the dark side.
Why? - I hear you ask.
Difficult question.
I think they adopted me.
I had one - got given another - and several more - then thought - what the hell - and began collecting a few.
Despite having given several away - I believe I now have NZ's largest collection.
A dubious honour indeed.
Still - they please me - and do most of what I require from a vehicle - although I do tend to modify them a wee bit.
So - having decided to stop this foolishness, and desist from the habit, I saw this one in the local online auction called Trademe.
It was in a car sales in Timaru - 100 miles away - and had stalled at $1000. Now - thats rather expensive for a Marina hereabouts - in fact, it would be my second most expensive ever - if I could keep the price close to that - but the paint had that shiny apple look that makes you want to bite it. I waited until the eleventh hour, and popped another $20 on. After brushing the opposition aside, I won it for $1040. Not bad.
Drove down and collected it - and within hours of getting it home, had blacked out the grille centre and moved the Morris badge - just to consolidate it with the rest of the fleet of course.
I also removed the towbar - formerly used for extracting WWII tanks from Russian bogs - and snapped off the rusty back muffler - complete with blunderbus tailpipe.
This was replaced with pipe only, and with the end suitably kinked up so as to avoid large amounts of seal excavation when reversing - especially after the intended 2" worth of wormburning slammage I had in mind.
Now - within a few miles of collecting this car - several things had become evident.
No oil light.
No temp gauge.
Door locked itself every time you slammed it.
Steering pulled to the right.
Something under the bonnet was making a 'bearing' sorta noise.
Just to be on the safe side, I turned the heater on - to make sure we did actually have some water.
No heat.
I stopped and raised the bonnet. We did have water, and everything appeared normal under there.
We continued, and at the first opportunity, I checked the tyre pressures - but the steering still wanted to slew us into the oncoming traffic.
Various squeaks and rattles eminated from the dashboard, and a few trial tweaks whilst driving suggested that there was not a lot actually holding it in place.
Henceforth, one of my next jobs was to remove it, and check out some of the mysteries.
This revealed that the entire dash had been refitted - after the car had changed colour from brown to red - with absolutely no concession for how it was meant to be fitted at all. Besides this, there were a number of bodges on the instrument panel that had led to the absence of temp and oil functions - plus half the panel lights.
With this lot put to bed, I was able to restore some semblance of order, and appreciate a rather expensive array of carpet and upholstery.
Both ends.
About the most sumptuous car in the fleet no doubt.
Some prodding under the bonnet elicited a dud water pump - hence the noise, and an artfully crafted piece of pipe that had been fitted instead of the readily available lower radiator hose.
I fitted a new pump, and a new hose, but was astounded to find that having gone to all the trouble of fabricating this pipe, they had failed to drill a hole from the heater hose stub through into the main pipe. How could you do that..?
At least that explains the lack of heater.
I was getting the impression that this car had either been assembled by someone other than he who took it apart - or maybe the chap suffered from alzheimers.
When fitting some reset rear springs, I found the handbrake cable draped over the top of the axle housing - instead of being clipped below it - and it had neatly worn halfway through the fluid pipe. Nice.!
The spring shackles had been hitting the towbar mounting bolts - so that was another reason to biff it. The bush had popped out of the steering rack, so I replaced the rack too.
Then I found some spitfire rims - 2 had been widened, so after taking this photo, I had the other 2 banded to 7".
Amongst other things - there are some very loud and annoying rattles inside the doors - plus the self-locking to investigate.
The gearlever has far too much travel, and jumps out of reverse when provoked, so the box needs to come out.
Having rebuilt the front suspension, it still pulled to the right a little, but dubious swapping of tyres fixed it.
The engine has such low compression that the starter will nearly spin it up to idle speed - so I'm thinking that our intrepid mechanic chappie may have botched the valve clearances. Apart from that, it drives quietly enough, and although leaking a little oil, does not seem to burn any.
I lucked into some Spitfire centre caps for the wheels, so having added some suitable 205/60's, I fitted the steels, and proceeded to have some fun.
Its actually a lot of fun to drive - although a tad gutless due to the missing compression. The handling and steering is brilliant with the new wheels, so thats all good. Gearbox will come out when the weather has improved a bit - only working outdoors has its limitations.
Otherwise fine.
Cheers from the dark side.
Does look nice though.
Very strange. Pretty sure mine jumped out of reverse too ?
