Marina Roadster

[cameronfurnival]

Re: Marina Roadster

Yes Jez in my olden days of tweaking minis I had an old 1275 and it had a pair of 1 14 SUs (iirc) and I swapped them for a single 1 1/2 and the difference was amazing. No lumpy idle no hesitation on take off - it was a good swap though didnt look anywhere near as flash. If I went for a singleton HS6 is it the same manifold as the ordinary 1.8 Marina?

[lil_red_roadster]

Re: Marina Roadster

Cooking Marina - cast iron combined inlet/exhaust...needless to say, Aladdin's cave contains all the bits minus a silencer

[cameronfurnival]

Re: Marina Roadster

will i have to get past fluffy the demon dog?

[lil_red_roadster]

Re: Marina Roadster

He is guardian of the cave entrance but the toll is cheap...a Bonio or 2 & you've got a friend for life.

[cameronfurnival]

Re: Marina Roadster

when's good to visit? I reckon this whole car may end up being rebuilt form your stock of parts!

[lil_red_roadster]

Re: Marina Roadster

After 2 tomorrow or Friday works OK for me...not sure after that...I haven't been programmed yet.

[ruby131]

Re: Marina Roadster

I for one agree with the single carb issue. Back in the early 70s when I was racing M.G.Magnettes' as a Formulae 2 Stock Car, a ruling was passed by the promotors that twin carbs were to be replaced by single. I chose a 1622 cc manifold and the out come was, that for that type of racing, the lap speeds increased dramatically and it was a heck of a lot easier to keep in tune. Cheers Chris

[stevejgreen]

Re: Marina Roadster

If I recall correctly, the needles for a standard 1.8 TC Marina TC are the same for a 1275 Mini.

[cameronfurnival]

Re: Marina Roadster

ok so twin carbs removed, Fluffy the guardian of Aladdin's Cave allowed ingress and I came away with a single su plus manifold. I mentioned to Jez, looking at the the single carb manifold, that I would now have to make yet another exhaust system, "ahah" he said, "look no further" and with a deft flick of his cape he pulled from his top hat a two piece exhaust down pipe. I scurried away laughing that I had exchanged a few quids for such treasure.
Back home, my lad (who is the real reason I got this second car...of course! what do you mean???) became quite excited at the bootful of metal work. At this point in time, he has decided to 'clean the garage' and I can no longer find anything. The garage is clean but if you open any box it will be filled to the brim with 'stuff'. My toolbox, for example now contains the whole contents of several old cardboard boxes of electrical stuff together with wet&dry paper, t-cut, several old toothbrushes and a large bag of nails.
Any way, a new gasket and a couple of cylinder head studs were procured (me laddo shearing them in the vice in an attempt to clean them) and the new manifold was on. Exhaust pieces flew on too and so did the nice single carb. Now the single carb has a rather nice arrangement with a sort of cam on it to make throttle response smoother. But I dont have a linkage to join the bits together - no probs - its just a bit of bent steel rod, I can do that. More hateful is the cable - its all frayed at the end so I need a new one. (anyone want to tell me which part it is? Come on Mr Green, bet you know the BL Part number?). And of course, the lovely shiny carb is too high for the bonnet. So a scoop will be needed. And how do you get an air filter in that gap?

[lil_red_roadster]

Re: Marina Roadster

So you'll want my spare Land Rover engine mounts next..! Forgot that the single carb sits higher...
As for the throttle linkage I could have sworn all the bits were there...

[cameronfurnival]

Re: Marina Roadster

landrover engine mounts....ah yes, i see a reference to them in the manual - do they make the engine sit lower? Or is a bulge the way to go?
The throttle linkage Im missing is probably someting like a pice of bar which joins the bit on the mounting plate to the carb's own link. It shouldnt be too difficult to make up.

[lil_red_roadster]

Re: Marina Roadster

LR mounts do make the engine sit lower so the carby dashpot just clears the bonnet...well, clears it most of the time anyway. That said, nowt wrong with a power bulge if you fancy it...
The mounts are from the series LR...you can also get similar ones from CBS.
I'll have a scout for the linkage...must have dropped off somewhere in the cave.

[cameronfurnival]

Re: Marina Roadster

Cheers Jez, Temporary one made out of coathanger for now. Engine started fine on the single carb and ran quite nicely (for a B series). Fantastic. Throttle cable was very frayed so I have ordered a new one and a new choke at teh same time, one that you can lock on.
Spent some time today (sat) beginning on the brakes. Shiny new refurbished caliper on the front OS but no brake fluid coming through. I began to wonder if I had got something very wrong (I do that a lot). So went round the whole car trying to get any air out of the system. NOthing doing. I have one of those vacuum bottles you attach to a compressor which draws the fluid through. IN any case it was going to have a complete fluid renewal but the fact nothing was moving struck me that the master cylinder was US. Whipped that off and yep all siezed. Onto ebay to see what's what and nothing there seems to match up. Mine says girling 75 on the side - i guess that means 3/4" bore (verniers agree) but the mount is at 90 degrees (ie horizontal) to the body not up&down vertical like on most. There is a white plastic reservoir on the front. Now before I go and buy an exact replacement does anyone have any recommendations? I would rather not interfere with the servo so ideally the mounts will stay in the horizontal plane, is .75 too much? Better travel with a .7?

girling-cyl-1.jpg

[lil_red_roadster]

Re: Marina Roadster

For stock brakes I found Hugh's recommendation of 0.7" worked well...with a 0.75" MC the pedal barely moved and the lack of feel didn't inspire confidence. 0.7 gave much better feel & coupled with Greenstuff pads seemed a pretty good setup. With the vented setup I've gone back to using 0.75".

Powertrack Brakes can source MC in a wide variety of sizes/formats if Ebay doesn't come up trumps.

[cameronfurnival]

Re: Marina Roadster

Thanks Jez, they have a pic of mine on their website so will ring them tomorrow.
Meanwhile today I fitted the tie rod poly bushes, quite straight forward and made up some new sidelights from the old Range Rover side repeater units.

polybushes.jpg
polybushes
oldsidelight.jpg
rubbolite monstrosities
newsidelight.jpg
much nicer