Full circle into a Marina again. My 73 Morris Marina Coupe

Brilliant work on the welding,
I have a soft spot for Marina's, I started to learn to drive in one,
before "progressing" to learning in a Maxi,
Thinking about it, it was Dad's first ever brand new car, (ARF 802J - where are you now ?? Long since scrapped I would assume,)
Nigel

That is some really solid progress Kelvinator, looking good.
I'm down your way 9-12 Feb running a mountain bike race. Unlikely to get time to call in but if you need anything fetched down I'm in tga and rotorua this week, picking a mate up from akl airport next wednesday, and driving down in the van thursday.

Having run out of MIG gas, which then nuked my momentum and motivation on the bodywork repairs, I decided to change path, and do something I actually enjoy; mechanical and electrical work.


Ages ago, gosh, back in 2021 now, I flushed and cleaned out the cooling system. This was pretty nasty, with lots of brown sludge.


I removed the radiator and reverse flushed it with the hose, which got a lot more sludge out. As it turned out though, the radiator was trash. The core was all rotting away, and I ended up poking a hole in it with a screwdriver when doing up a hose clamp


After looking at various options, of which there were... none, I ended up having the original radiator recorded at great expense by a local firm. A recored radiator means the radiator is rebuilt using a new center core (with the fins and pipes) and reuses the existing end tanks and mounting straps.


Along with the new core, I had them add a bung under the top radiator hose (the hottest point in the radiator) to fit a temperature sensor for my electric fan controller


I did some quick measurements and decided to go with a 10" fan, which was far too small. I later changed to a 12" fan.


I've had this sitting in a box for months, waiting for me to get my A into G and make more progress. One thing that was stopping me, was that I needed to fit an electric fuel pump and remove the old fixed engine-powered fan (not even a viscous clutch fan, this bad boy spun at engine RPM no matter what; I don't have that much faith in 50 year old plastic).


The fan was easy, it's just bolted to the front of the waterpump with a spacer. I removed the fan and spacer, cut some new bolts shorter to hold the pulley on and not hit the waterpump, and that was done.


The fuel pump was a bit harder. I needed to find a suitable location to mount the pump and then run the hoses.


The pump I went with is a Fuelflow 015 piston pump. It's happy to be mounted almost anywhere, at any angle and has the low pressure output required for the SU carb. Its a nice neat little unit; it even has rubber mounted feet


My plan was to mount it on the inner guard, on the Lh side of the car, running the hose feeding the pump under the radiator. Before I started any of the mounting, I grabbed some hose and ran it more or less how it would be once fitted, and directed it into a jug, just to make sure the pump could pull fuel all the way from the tank, through the filter and pump it up higher than the engine.


The answer was yes, easily.


I drilled a couple of holes in the inner guard, and mounted the pump with a couple of rivnuts


And ran the hose along the radiator support, using a pair of rubber-lined P-Clips to secure it (also using rivnuts - I love rivnuts)


The outlet hose was run from the pump to the carb inlet


And a fuel filter was fitted on the other side, before the pump (as per the instructions). Oh, and a nice new drive belt was fitted, probably for the first time in 15-20 years, maybe if ever.


The next step was to remove the old mechanical pump. It lives up under the alternator on these early 1750 engines (later ones are mounted up on the valve cover)


It's held to the sump with two studs. Yes, like the oil filter, it's mounted to the side of the sump.


Be careful when removing the pump to catch the pushrod that drives the pump (and if you're refitting the pump, make sure it's fitted). It's the straight rod on the right in the above photo. There is also a spacer block, which has gaskets on either side of it.


The old pump was literally leaking everything, from everywhere. You can follow the trail down the sump to the back


Using an old gasket I carefully removed, I copied it to some scrap steel and made a blanking plate


Which I painted black with the quickest shot of black paint. A pair of new gaskets were cut from gasket sheet; one to go on either side of the spacer. You could do without the spacer if you spaced the nuts on the studs since the studs aren't threaded to their base, but it's easier to just fit the spacer. Technically you don't need two gaskets either, just the one between the spacer and sump should suffice.


I still needed a couple of washers to space the nuts out anyway


The stud closest to the filter needed an extra washer, as someone had stripped the thread. Probably why the fuel pump leaked.


One bonus to removing the mechanical pump is getting rid of the dodgy fuel hose that used to run across the front of the sump


I replaced this hose very early on, but I still didn't like it there. According to the manual, it should have a hardline from the pump, not a hose, which makes a lot of sense, but obviously someone "fixed" this at some point.


The last thing to do was to wire the pump, but I wanted to get the radiator in first so I knew where the wires could run.


A note before talking about the radiator. A while ago, while the radiator was getting recored, I flushed the block. There is a block drain at the back of the block above the starter


I used a small funnel in the thermostat housing to pour water straight into the head. I got a ton of brown sludge out this way, and flushed through litres of water until it ran clear


I did this because I really didn't want to risk filling the new radiator with sludge from the block.


The radiator was quite straightforward. Fit right into the factory mounting points, and the 12" fan clears everything (or would have if I had mounted it slightly to the right. As it was, it just touched a bend on the top hose. I cut a few mm off the thermostat end of the hose to move it away from the fan).


I hated the old bottom hose and really didn't want to refit it. Because the car is running the more available Maxi/Allegro water pump, which has the outlet on a different angle, you cannot run the standard bottom hose. The previous owner had done his best to cobble together something that worked, and to be fair, it did, but it was ugly.


The outlet is almost level with the radiator inlet, but is pointing almost straight downwards. The radiator and waterpump are also different sizes...


As it turns out, Dayco makes the 81081, which can be ordered via RockAuto. This has the correct size ends; 32mm and 38mm, and is a suitable length. It took some wrangling to get the stiff hose into the right place, but it fits well and clamps on fine.


With the top hose fitted too, it almost looks like a car again


At this point, I hadn't wired the fan in, but I did run the pump power wire and hotwired it to the switched side of the fuse box. This meant I could give it a kick in the guts and see how it was on the new pump.




Being able to prime the fuel system makes all the difference in starting the car after months of being laid up. With the old mechanical pump, which only pumps when the engine is turning, it would take minutes of cranking to get enough fuel through to fill the filter, then the carb bowl and finally start. Now I can switch the key to ON, wait a few seconds, and away we go.


Now, obviously having the pump hard-wired to run when the key is ON, is not ideal. A lot of people are happy to run it like that, but I don't want the risk of the pump running if I'm in an accident. Yeah, I probably have bigger problems if I crash this car, but I'd also rather not burn to death because the pump fed a fire.


This meant some wiring work. The plan was to have a separate fuse box that the fan controller and fuel pump run through. This would be powered by a relay, which is triggered by the original switched wiring (so all the load runs through the relay, instead of the 50 year old wiring). The pump would be isolated by an inertia switch, just like a modern car.


I started by locating a suitable place for the fan controller and mounting it with a pair of rivnuts.


Now, before anyone mentions it, yes, I hate the primer patches everywhere too, but I'm very much subscribing to the "don't get it right, just get it running" mentality now. I will come back and tidy it up later, but for now, I just need to wind the scope back and make the car go.


A suitable location for the additional fuse box was found


I did toy with the idea of replacing the old fuse box that uses glass fuses, but it works, so I'll leave it well enough alone (other than replacing it with a new one of the same style, when that arrives, just so I can have nice new untarnished terminals).


The fan controller was wired in


And once the relay was wired in,


I powered it up


The readout gives a live coolant temp reading in celsius. This particular controller can switch two fans, hence the two relays, but I'm only using one.


The fuel pump was next. In order to make it safe in a crash, I fitted an inertia switch to the front panel. When this switch detects an impact (or sudden deceleration) it trips the switch, cutting power. It can be reset by pressing down on the top and can be bypassed completely if needed.


This was then also wired back to the fuse box


A few minutes with some fabric tape made the wires look a bit less ugly


The final part of the system was to wire in the fan override switch. The controller is designed so that if you feed 12v onto this particular wire (the AC trigger wire, technically), it will instantly turn the fans on (if they are off), but will not interrupt the automatic switching, so it cannot be used to turn the fans off unless the temp is under the switching threshold. Basically, I can use it to turn the fans on and keep them on, if the coolant isn't up to temp yet. Could be good in traffic, but it's mainly a failsafe I hope I won't need.


To mount the switch, a made a small steel bracket that mounts under the dash using existing holes.


Its definitely function over form


I had an idea where the switch would light up when the fan was on, and as it turns out, you can buy toggle switches that have LEDs in the end, for this purpose


It blends in a bit nicer with some wrinkle black


And when used, it makes the fans go brrrrr




With that done, the radiator was filled with water and tested for leaks. So far, it hasn't lost a drop. I need to run the engine up to temp and then drop the water out and then refill it with proper coolant, which I will try to do this weekend.


With the cooling system and fuel pump done, that signals a turning point where the car is drivable again. Sure, it's missing a door and still has a couple of holes I need to weld up, but we're getting there.

" The temp gauge seemed to only just creep above cold and no higher, and I know the gauge works (goes to full when grounded), so I have ordered another temp sensor to see if that will fix it."

Or is the thermostat stuck open?

Thom

It's taken five months or so, but I've finally finished welding the rear valance. It needs a good skim of bog, and the number plate will hide a multitude of sins, but it's done.

Just a couple more areas to weld and that job will be done for now. Life would be so much easier if I had repair panels...

From


To

Winter sucks. Not only is it cold and dark, but it also makes working in the garage a somewhat unappealing prospect. That, and having other projects on the go, caused a bit of a slowdown with the Marina.


But finally, Lucas is gone, so no more time needed to be spent there, and we're in spring now, so it's getting warmer and lighter.


With that in mind, I took some time off work to finally dedicate some time to the Marina, as it's been so good just sitting there waiting, while everything else gets the attention.


First though, let's step back in time to June, which was the last time I worked on the Marina.


To finish off the door opening area of the sill I used a thin skim of filler just to even out the low spots where the plug welds are, and to tidy up the front edge of the sill where it meets the guard


The window opening also got a skim of filler to smooth out the work I had done there. That rear curve was a real pain to do.


You may have also spotted in that first photo that the floor pans were also seam-sealed. I did this to both the top, and under the car. It's not the tidiest; it's brush on and the goal was to get a good coating and not worry too much about how it looks since it will be covered by carpet anyway.


Once that was done, since I had managed to acquire a new bottle of gas for my welder, I got stuck into the rear valance again. As some context, I started this valance way back in January.


To get to the valance I first had to remove the tow bar. I don't really want this car to be towing anything, so it's unlikely this will go back on again. I'd previously removed the wiring and holes for that, too.


It looks like Old Mate took a few tries drilling the holes before getting it right...


But it came off after a bit of a fight


This gave me clear access to the valance. A quick whip over with the strippy wheel, and this is what I had. Damn.


It's pretty well contained to the LH side though


Amongst the rust there are also some old holes for what I presume were a different screw pattern number plate. They will get filled too.


I started cutting


And found a couple of spots where the inner panel was rusted through too, so out that came


To be replaced with a couple of bits of nice fresh new metal, all folded up to suit


With the inner ground back, The first section of the outer went in. This little filler section was mainly to keep the upper section and lower lip in place so I didn't lose the profile.


The real patching started with this random little hole off to the side


Which extended into filling the rest of the gaping hole with new metal


It's not the prettiest, and to be honest the primer makes it look worse than it is, but its nothing a skim of bog won't tidy up later


And that's about where I ran out of welding gas.


So, six months later, more gas in hand, I got back into it. With a fresh new perspective, I cut the rest of the lower lip off (it wasn't going to survive) and a new lower section was welded in place. This was also plug welded to the inner section I had previously replaced.


A couple of smaller holes on the RH side got the filling treatment


I folded this section up, stuck it in place with some magnets


And metal glued in


I cut out and welded up the other smaller patches, and once it was ground back a coat of epoxy primer protected it


I would've loved to have a new valance panel like the Brits have, but the shipping cost would be prohibitive, and they just aren't available here. Instead, we'll make do with what we have.


And that brings us up to date. Three months later, here we are.


The first job of the day for yesterday was to cut the rear quarter panel up again, as I just wasn't happy with it. When I originally welded the new section in, I didn't leave enough of a gap, and when I welded it it resulted in a pointed high spot where the two panels met. I tried to hammer it out, and made it better, but just moved that metal to somewhere else in the panel.


I also wasn't happy with the gap between one small section of the quarter, and where it met the sill. The gap was larger than the rest of the panel. I tried to fix this with filler, but I wasn't happy.


So I cut it.


I cut the bottom section out to fix the gap, and the big vertical cut released a lot of tension in the panel, allowing me to hammer it back into alignment. Opening this up also allowed me to tweak the arch section of the panel, which always sat slightly recessed from the sill.


Once it was all welded back in, it was much better. Theres still a lot of finishing work to be done, but I wont be contending with a massive high peak in the middle and a deep low at the end


I also completely finished the sill. There were some plug welds missing from the end, and I had to make and weld in a plate on the back of the sill to join it to the inner sill.


I seam sealed the gap, which in hindsight I shouldn't have done until after using filler, but oh well


With that done, the next goal was to finally refit the passengers door. It has been off the car since December last year.


It's almost a car again


The panel gap between the door and the new sill isn't perfect, It's a little tight at the front of the door, but it's not touching, so it's good enough. The door does need to come back a bit, but it's maxed out on its adjustment. Looking at photos, it's always been like that, so I'll need to shim the hinges, or slot the mounting holes a bit. That's a job for another time.


It does open and close lovely though, even with a test door seal in place.


The final task for the day was to give all the areas I had welded and seam-sealed a top coat of enamel paint. The floors were coated top and bottom


Yes, I would have rather had satin or matte, but they only had gloss. The carpet will cover it, and the underside will be undersealed anyway.


I also did the little strengthening ribs in the rear too, since this is where any water is likely to pool if it did get in.


The rear inner boot pocket I fixed got coated too. This will likely get over-coated in yellow at some point


With one full day's work under my belt, I went into day two with a list of things I wanted to try to get done.


The first was to cut out and fix the seal lip on the boot opening. Most of this came off with the seal when I removed it.


I had been putting this job off as it looked complex, but it ended up being a lot easier than expected, just really time consuming.


I started by cutting out a small section and welding a patch in, just as a proof of concept, but it worked well, so off we went


I worked my way along, using scraps from the work bench. Measure the scrap against the body, cut the rust out, clean up and weld in.


And keep moving, patch by patch


I left the scrap bigger than I needed, so I could trim it size afterwards


There was one small spot where the actual vertical panel had a pinhole in it, so that was carefully cut out and a patch welded in there too


This corner section was interesting. I hand-shaped the replacement section until it perfectly matched the profile of the original, and then cut and welded it in.


The final section was welded in. Many hours later.


Yeah, there are still a couple of frilly areas, but it's all under the seal and they were pretty solid otherwise, so I'm not worried.


After some touching up with the grinder, it all got a coat of epoxy primer


After spending so much time fixing that, I moved on to one of the other jobs I hate, filler.


The valance didn't need too much, but the quarter is a bit wobbly and might need a couple of goes.


I'll sand it back tomorrow and see how good I can get it. It's not something I look forward to.


This has been a huge boost towards having the car on the road again. Other than some cosmetic work, like fixing the dent/rust in the boot lid, and fixing the heater box, this signals a huge milestone; all the welding is done.

Just quickly, before moving on, a quick update on the rear quarter panel I left in filler last time. After much sanding, this is where it is. It needs some touching up, but I'm much happier with it.





Finally, something other than bodywork. You're sick of reading about it, I'm sick of doing and writing about it. In a change of scenery, I moved to the front suspension to sort out an issue this Marina had.


Say what you will about the Marina suspension, well no not that; it's not been pulled from the Minor, but anyway, it's very simple.


This simplicity works both ways. It's easy to work on and adjust, but it's also simple in how it operates which can cause some compromises in ride comfort and handling.


One way it's delightfully simple is that it uses a pair of torsion bars in the front suspension instead of traditional springs. These operate as a spring by twisting a spring steel rod along its length. As it always wants to try to unwind, it causes a springing effect.


These have one simple benefit for car weirdos like me; they can be adjusted without special tools, on the car (for the most part), and without any legal headaches. This makes the ride height adjustable.


At the back of the torsion bar, which is about half way down the length of the car, is a trim adjuster. This is used to adjust the fine height of the car. These are usually set about half way in their travel, so the ride can be altered higher or lower by a certain amount (usually an inch or two either way). Coarse adjustment is done by moving the arm by one or more splines on the shaft, one spline is one inch in adjustment.


Mine is pretty ugly because it's 50 years old, and covered in thick underseal, but the basics can be seen. The orange arrow is the torsion bar, this is heading off towards the front of the car to meet the lower front suspension arm. The blue arrow is a locking bolt, this will need to be loosened (not removed) to adjust the arm, and the green arrow is the actual adjuster (which presses against a thick steel "bucket" so it doesn't dig into the floor pan). The adjuster works but moving the lever up and down, causing more or less twist in the torsion bar.


So, the issue the Marina had. Well, just look at it


It was very nose-up. As it turns out, according to the workshop manual, it should be 14.6-15" (37-38cm) when measured from the center of the front wheel dust cap to the arch lip.


This is how mine was sitting, up to a full inch too high. I noticed this when I reassembled the front suspension after its rebuild. I was careful not to move the lower arm on the splines, so it wasn't me that threw it out of whack, but the suspension was so high that the top arm was pressed firmly against the droop stop when at rest. This is not good for ride quality.


It's quite a large gap


It's visible in the delivery photos too, even if the tire is a bit flat on the top.


To correct this was quite simple really. Well, mostly. To actually fix the issue I would ideally need to disassemble the suspension and turn the lower arm one spline on the torsion bar to set the adjuster in the middle again, but because I don't want to do that all over again, I wire brushed off the adjuster, loosened the locking bolt and wound the adjuster bolt out. Loosening the bolt lowers the car as it takes tension off the torsion bar.


I started with the RH side due to easier access and lowered it until the bucket on the top of the adjuster bolt was no longer captive, and wound it back in until it was.


It got it about spot on for what I had in mind, about an inch lower than the lowest stock spec.


It looked pretty good, so I moved to the other side.


Unfortunately this adjuster wasn't in the middle of its travel, so it bottomed out about here. A smidge more than half an inch lower than stock.


To be fair, this actually looked really good too, even though it wasn't quite as low. I wound the RH side up to level it out and ended up with this


Compared to what it was, it's a decent difference. Should improve handling too, both by being lower, but also not having the top arm resting on the droop stop anymore.


Pretty good result on the front. I do have a set of one-inch lowering blocks for the rear, but I want to see what it looks like on the ground again before I decide to lower the rear or not. I think I will, but we'll see.


I'm hoping to get through a lot more work over the coming holiday period and have the car ready for a WOF early next year. It's way behind schedule, but it's slowly getting there.

I've been pushing forward with the Marina this week, spending a couple of days after work finishing up some of the bodywork.


I started by finishing the LH rear quarter window frame; sanding out the filler, and then priming and painting the frame.


The colour match in the rattle cans is pretty good really.


This little corner has come a long way since it was a gaping hole


With the frame painted, I test-fitted some spare door seal I had from the TVR, and to my surprise it's a perfect fit, so I will use that. I still need to cut and join the front edge, but otherwise it's a good fit.


I test fitted the window and it and seems to fit well, but I have a lot of work to do to the window before it can be fitted. It spent many years out in a field.


With that success, I moved on to the rear valance. I'm sick of working on this, so smoothed back the filler, primed and painted it. It's still fairly wobbly, but it's solid and hidden under the bumper for the most part. It looks good at 20ft away, anyway.


I undersealed the back of the fuel tank and filler pipe, to hide them. The plate was also refitted; would you be surprised to find the two holes that were previously used, and that I had been working around, aren't spaced correctly and I had to slot the plate holes for it to fit with the new rivnuts in the original holes? I was both surprised and annoyed. I should've just welded them up and drilled new ones. I'll drill two new ones for the inner pair of holes on the plate so I don't have to slot the personalised plate when I put it on the Marina.


Unfortunately the number plate bulb holder broke at some point, so I'm working on a replacement that should be a bit more reliable than the original that grounds by touching the mounting bracket it's on.


With the bodywork at a point I was happy with, I moved on to the last thing I needed to do before I could finally get the car off the stands; sort the rear suspension.


Even though I had sorted the brakes, I hadn't touched the rear suspension at all. I knew one side was missing a bump stop, and everything else was just a bit tired.


I purchased a 1 inch lowering block set to suit a Capri, Escort, Anglia etc, and some escort poly spring pads. The bump stops are a good pair of used UK spec bump stops.


Speaking of bump stops, it's interesting to note the UK ones are shorter than the Aus spec ones, and have a slightly different shape. The shorter ones are better for a lowered car anyway.


I removed the rather random collection of nuts on the bottom of the original U bolts


Which meant everything started to come apart


In hindsight, I would undo and remove the shock from the bottom spring plate, just so there is more movement in it come time to reassemble.


The old spring pads were in good shape. They appear to already be poly, not rubber, so may have been replaced before.


A nice little collection of bits, less the top plate (still stuck on the axle, but can be removed with a couple of taps of a hammer).


The plates appear to be galvanised which would explain why they were in excellent shape under the dirt


I did a test fit with the new blocks, but found reusing the old spring pads wouldn't work because the thicker U bolts would bind on them (the old, thinner bolts had moulded into them).


Speaking of thicker U bolts, one thing you do need to do is open the bolts in all the mounting plates out a bit, as the holes are a tad too small. I opened them out to the 12mm step on my step drill.


A clamp helps squeeze the U bolt together and fit it through the holes as they come a little too spread apart


All fitted together, with the replacement bump stop, new spring pads, U bolts and 1 inch lowering block.


It took a lot of mucking around with the jack and a ratchet strap to get the axle to line up on the spring holes/pins, as the axle wanted to rotate forward and move backwards, and needed to be pulled forward again; this was made harder on this side because of the forward link on the top of the axle.


The other side went a lot quicker and easier since I had worked out the secret formula on the first side. The main reason I was doing this, was because of the missing bump stop, which would be a WOF failure.


Here it is, with the new parts and a bump stop


I did have to go around with the angle grinder afterwards and just nip the ends off the U bolts as they were a bit long for my liking.


I reinstalled the wheels, cleaned the glass, lowered it off the stands and finally got to see how it looked. In the garage, it looked awesome.


The obvious thing to do now was to see what it looked like out in the cold light of day. After a few goes to get the old inertia start to stop kicking back out, it started without too much fuss and settled into a nice idle. The benefits of an electric fuel pump filling the carb bowl without needing to crank over and over.


There are about two years between these two photos, and hours upon hours of work


The lowered front is the obvious difference, but the rear is subtly lower, the whole lower quarter panel ahead of the wheel has been remade, and the complete outer sill has been replaced.


Lowering it has made a huge difference in how it looks, and I love it. I genuinely think it's one of the coolest looking cars I have owned.

Great progress. 👍

I’m not normally a fan of lowering cars, but I agree completely that it looks so much better. 😃

As someone who still has clear memories of replacing the rear axle on my Ital estate, with only basic tools, in a carpark, in the rain, as an impoverished student over thirty years ago, you have both my admiration and my sympathy. 🤣🤣