Marinas? plzthxbai.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I agree that all the recon lever arms for these are toss

[Taff]

is the telescopic conversion the same as the Morris Minor one? can't be too differant

[anonymous user]

 

 

I had this one for a short while, it was a 1.8 Special Automatic (The combination of a manual choke and auto-box can be interesting*)

 

Didn't drive it a lot but it didn't try to kill me, even though it was on its original tyres, so perhaps I wasn't trying hard enough.

 

I only bought it because I felt sorry for it, it had been owned from new by an elderly couple and whilst hardly used the paint was awful due to being scraped on walls/gateposts. I had it resprayed before selling it (at a loss). Last time I saw it for sale it was described as a completely original, time-warp car (and had dropped about 8000 miles)

[Asimo]

 

"Morris Marina coupe with a Rover 3.5 v8. Other mods include T5 5 speed"

 

 

ttp://www.autotrader.com.au/cars-for-sale/1972-MORRIS-MARINA-JCW3453366?backurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.autotrader.com.au%2Fsearch%3Fsearch_vehicle_type%3DCAR%26search_type_make%3DMORRIS%26uselistview%3Dfalse%26keywords%3DWhat%2Bare%2Byou%2Blooking%2Bfor%253F%26current_page%3D3&backtext=Results

[MrBiscuits]

Back in 1997 when I was in sixth form, a kid called Tom in my physics class was given his first car by his grandad.....

 

You can imagine our reaction when he rolled up in an orange M reg Marina estate, complete with homemade tow bar and giffer body repairs.

 

Also I remember the painter and decorator down the road from mum and dad having an ex British Gas mk1 van well into the 21st century. Every year it seemed to gain a few pigeon shit repair plates and got a fresh coat of blue and white Dulux exterior gloss

[twosmoke300]

Lever arm / rotary shocks just don't work . even Suzuki didn't realise until after the tl1000s

[Anglevan]

Good to see some love for the ol' Marina.

 

I bought mine earlier in the year after being on a 4 year hunt for an Ital and giving up in the end as all appear to have been pillaged by minor boys or simply unloved and scrapped. One thing I did find is that it's bloody hard to deal with a Marina owner! I found 2 or 3 likely candidates but could I chuff hammer a deal out I gave up in the end. One lovely 1.3SLX Ital springs to mind.

Then I found a blue SLX again tried to bat a deal out but guy not interested - was on ebay and car and classic for months if not years. He then emailed me on an old email account some 6 months later offering it to me again however as I didn't check that account regular I missed it and it ended up being sold for £300 to minor boys again (it was up at over a grand initially and I offered £500)

 

As I gave up looking for an Ital I saw this Mk3 and decided 'that I'll do' and have to say I've had lots of positive comments about it which did surprise me - I was expecting all the usual 'Junkman' style comments but nope (I expect em now though !!)

 

 

 

 

 

and who remembers these? -found in the glovebox

 

 

When ever I get a new motor I always try and hunt down material and found an original dealer press pack on ebay - had to buy it - it's full of stuff (too much to scan) and goes into details of why BL think a Marina is better than a Viva / Escort / Datsun etc.

 

Fascinating stuff - some items scanned here >>

 

 

 

 

 

sorry this and others didn't scan well but thought worth adding

 

 

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I will vouch for the shox thing. Lever arms are crap, everything you buy "recon" is just topped up with fluid and slapped with the hammerite stick. The appalling indictment on BMC is that my 1955 Cowley has thumping great telly shox with aircooling fins, torsion bars and steering rack. They replaced that with the Farina - all steering box and hand-clapping lever arms and only went back to tellys on the Morris thirty years after the Cowley! My Cowley drives loads better than any Farina or Marina I can remember driving. If I was in the market for a Marina (and I might be...) it would be 1275 Ital for me.

Sadly that was the Austin cheap and nasty influence - the Cowley was designed under Issigonis and Gerald Palmer slong with the Magnette and Pathfinder - Nuffield did the nice stuff.

[MrDuke]

That's a lovely example, and doesn't look too bad for its age either. The only detail I dislike about the later ones, is the "air dam" - I much prefer the earlier valance with air intakes. I certainly wouldn't turn one down though.

 

And how anyone can not see this dash as pure art, is beyond me:

 

[Lankytim]

Our family have had a few Marinas/Itals. I was taken home from Hospital after birth in 1980 in a 1979 Series 3 Marina 1.7 estate in Denim blue. That was sold to a friend of the family but was often borrowed back for holidays. I remember it breaking down on the M54 returning from a Welsh holiday. My dad had an A reg 1300 Ital van from new which was run into the ground and sold off in 1993 and my mother had a W reg 1700 automatic Ital estate in Champagne with paprika interior. Part exed against a NEW Maestro in 1988 and found under a pile of cars in a Brierley  Hill breakers in 1992. I was gutted!

 

I lived the dream in 2000 when I bought my very own Y reg 1700 Ital estate in JRG. It was a right shitter, full of filler and bodged repairs, I was ripped off but loved it. Drove very well but I remember quite a bit of scuttle shake. Telescopic shocks on the front. I broke 3rd gear doughnutting it in Dawlish in Devon and sold it to someone who didn't send off the logbook and liked to park illegally.

 

A local garage has a few old cars out the back that the owner has acquired over the last few years, one of which is a mint looking 1300 ital saloon. He refuses to flog it me though! He plans to restore them all one day. WatevAr....

 

So, in short I would DEFFO  recommend one. 

[mercrocker]

Sadly that was the Austin cheap and nasty influence - the Cowley was designed under Issigonis and Gerald Palmer slong with the Magnette and Pathfinder - Nuffield did the nice stuff.

 

Absolutely but I wasn't going to say that on here!  

[Ronnie L]

Back in 1980 I got myself a 1976 (P reg) Marina 1.8 Special in metallic blue with a dark blue vinyl roof. It was a nice car to drive and I loved the power and torque from the B Series engine. However ........

I can tell you that even back then the replacement lever arms from motor factors and accessory shops were crap and leaked soon after fitting. An MOT tester told me not to worry about this - just top them up now and again and before an MOT spray them with WD40 and give them a wipe with a cloth to get rid of evidence of leakage and it would pass. And it always did, so no worries there.

 

I kept that car for about 4 years and it was the highest-maintenance thing I've ever owned. It leaked and soaked the carpets which I eventually removed, but not before the floor had started to rot. The boot leaked too and the only solution was to remove the rubber bungs to let the water drain out. The front suspension needed constant greasing and even at that I had to twice replace the bottom trunions ( a pita of a job) and the top ball joints. I changed the rear wheel cylinders (sliding type) a couple of times and replaced both of the front wings due to rot. There were so many rusty scabby bits on the body I had to respray the whole car in blue Hammerite to keep it at bay. The very attractive blue vinyl roof covering began to split and tear and one day the whole flippin' thing blew clean off the roof on the Prestwick by-pass. Being a thoughtful kind of chap I pulled-over, retrieved the thing from the verge and bunged the whole lot into a litter bin in the next lay-by. The next weekend I resprayed the roof in light-blue Hammerite, creating a rather fetching two-tone Marina.

 

The 1800 B series engine was its saving grace but even that decided to burn-out an exhaust valve at only about 40,000 miles. Oh,.... nearly forgot, ....... it popped the gearbox seal at the output pinion, dumped the oil on the road and, because I didn't know about this little trick, I drove on until I noticed that the box was getting very noisy. I had to pull it apart and fit a complete new set of bearings which I managed to salvage from a secondhand 1.3 box out of a scrappies.

 

The other little trick it pulled every so often was breaking leaf springs. As I remember it only had two leaves per spring so if one went the other was soon to follow. I was working as a mobile mechanic at the time and I had a couple of customers whose Marinas did the same thing. The solution was to find a Marina van in a scrappies (they had four leaves) and fit these. The back end sat slightly higher but they never broke after that and the handling didn't seem to suffer noticeably. On that point, I would like to defend the Marina against those who criticise the handling. I drove quite a lot of these cars and I never felt unsafe in any way.

 

You know what ......... looking back on all I've just said, there's plenty of evidence that Marinas were crap cars. I had a lot to thank them for because, as a mechanic, they kept me going with plenty of work. However, despite all of that, I still kinda like them. The coupes were very nice looking cars and the 1.8 TC models had a good turn of speed and were very nice to drive.

[Noel Tidybeard]

 

i fully expect the "DW SEAL OF APPROVAL" with a reg like that

[New POD]

You only live once.

 

 

Well, yes. Having been a passenger in one, which left the road, hit and killed a pedestrian, and ended upside down in a ditch, I think I am qualified in saying that there are better cars if you are looking at living a long life.