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The mighty blue Marina passion wagon


trigger

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This thread is making me feel a bit wibbly.

 

If there was ever a car that would force me to smash the piggy bank to smithereens and run off to That There England waving a thick wad of banknotes*... it'd be this one.

 

It's simply unbelievable.

 

Every time I look at it, I'm just blown away by its perfection. Not that it is perfect, in a Pebble Beach sense - but it just looks sooooo *right*. Just a well-cared for four or five year old car with the odd blemish, but that's somehow driven through a wormhole in time and popped out in 2018.

 

Phenomenal work!

 

 

 

*Presupposes that I might have a thick wad of banknotes. Which I don't. But, y'know, the sentiment still stands.

 

 

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What a belter! I was brought home from hospital after being born in one of these (it was a "special" in Denim blue estate with the black strip on the boot). later my parents also had a 1.7 auto Ital estate and Ital van. from what I remembered they weren't terrible for rust, about as bad as any other car of the era, but they still rotted. I think out of the three, only the 1.7 auto didn't blow it's engine up, but back then cars did seem to knock out big ends etc and seize pretty regularly. 

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  • 8 months later...

I can't believe I haven't updated this since July! There's obviously been adventures done in this but it hasn't had as much attention as it should have, I done a couple of shows over the summer, and done a few collection jobs too.

 

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And it was even on display at the NEC last November.

 

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This was quite exciting as it was something I've wanted to do for years, a friend took it up for me on his trailer and I drove it home but things didn't go well as the alternator stopped charging and the lights got dimmer and dimmer on the A14 until I had to give up and call on the assistance of the professionals.

 

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Bad times, I still haven't had chance to investigate what the issue was properly, the alternator was tested and found to be perfect but the fan belt keeps coming loose, I've since found that it's missing a couple of washers from the bracket which could be the problem though.

 

As I'm going though the worlds slowest house move it was loaded up with a load of crap from my garage, along with the van and moved into a barn temporarily, this was nearly 6 months ago...

 

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Another problem was that the head gasket kept leaking oil so I splashed out £25 on a Payen head set and went to the barn today to remove the head.

 

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Unfortunately that didn't go to plan either as one of the head stud snapped, looking at it we think it was broken for a long time as it took no pressure to break and it's dirty where the break is, I suspect this is the reason why the heads been leaking oil.

 

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Still I've now ordered a full stud set for it and have given the engine a good clean since these photos were taken so hopefully it won't take much work to get back together again, then I'll hopefully have moved and be able to start useing it again!

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Also people like trigger should run an AS marriage counselling service. We send our wives/other halves to triggers missus and she tells them it's absolutely fine to buy lots of old cars. Send me your address trig and I'll put our peg on the next train

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Yes it's a very simple engine, easier than the one on the Dolomite as you haven't got to disconnect twin carbs or anything, they all just come apart with the manifold on this, seeing as the car was only on the road 4 years I wonder if the stud was broke when the car was originally built in 1977?

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Yes it's a very simple engine, easier than the one on the Dolomite as you haven't got to disconnect twin carbs or anything, they all just come apart with the manifold on this, seeing as the car was only on the road 4 years I wonder if the stud was broke when the car was originally built in 1977?

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the stud was broken when the guy assembling the engine torqued it down 'ooops, ummm, it'll be ok' :D

Minispares for decent parts unless you've already got one Trig!

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