Mk2 1.8 HL Automatic update

[mickthefitter]

Matt, historically I have a way of making easy jobs hard, it seems! If I can blow my own trumpet, in work situations I'm generally known as someone who does a good job, but how I get there can often seem comparable to crossing the Antarctic! Now I've packed up driving lorries for a living, and am back to fixing things, I'm quite fond of quietly muttering the lyrics to 'Right Said Fred' by Bernard Cribbins - "we're gonna take the wall down, that there wall is gonna have to go..." or "She swallowed the bird to catch the spider, she swallowed the spider to catch the fly..." That was a favourite of a workmate of mine at the cable factory where I worked years ago whenever we were stripping anything down.

I've had a call late this afternoon that the starter is ready to collect already. Only £35 so I can't grumble. It's had a rewind. The guy said "It's for a 1300 isn't it?" so I told him no, a 1.8 and that I'd been told it was the wrong one. He agreed with Barry's advice that it should be a 2M100, and that I couldn't just get one for an MG. He said he thought it would be the same starter as for a Princess, but I can't just go down the scrappy and pick one up from one of those! He said it would do the job, but it might turn over a bit slow at first. Which may well be why I've kept charging batteries and found they aren't very discharged. I'm also wondering if my attempts to do compression tests with repeated cranking weakened it, though the starter let go when I was trying to start and warm the engine about a week later. The guy on the phone said all the solder had blown out. I'm hoping that when I get the carbs refitted, with the milder weather it might not be so hard to turn over.

Yes you're right, the starter was wafted over with black paint. Records show the motor was 'reconditioned' in 2013, but it makes me wonder if this was when a 2M100 was substituted for M35J, because all the work, including taking the starter on and off, appears to have been conducted by a garage. I'm very unimpressed by the standard of work conducted on past repairs. The auto box has several fluid leaks but records show that has also been 'serviced' and 'fixed'.

[mickthefitter]

Got the starter back this morning. As mentioned, £35 which isn't bad at all. I'm not putting down Earlpart at all, because they sorted me out with an appropriate new choke cable and I'll go to them again, but their exchange price for a (incorrect, as it happens) M35J starter was £117, and since they hadn't got one and offered to rewind mine for me, on a two week wait, I reckon it might have cost me the same or perhaps no less than half that to get mine rewound. I asked the fella at W Whyatt if he thought my cold cranking to test the compression had finished off the starter, even though it didn't expire on that actual day, and he said not. He said whoever reconditioned it last, did not do a rewind, and it would seem he has put in a different shaft already rewound, as he showed me my old worn one. On this starter the brushes act on the end face of the winding, not the circumference, and the wire windings were badly worn down and probably one or more segments between the windings were full of carbon and had shorted.

Anyway I'm back at work next week so my spurt of progress has halted for now, but seeing as the milder weather is here and at least a chance of some dry weather for pushing the car out of the garage to work on it, and longer lighter days, I'm feeling a bit more of that enthusiasm that was lacking before, in doing bits and pieces to it to get it running again. I can't remember if I mentioned it, but I've also bought a lot of new ethanol proof flexi fuel pipe and an inline filter, to replace all the flexi pipe from the tank, before I bolt the carbs back on.

[mickthefitter]

Happy Anniversary! One year ago today - I bought a 40 year old car at auction. The first and probably only time I'll do that. One year on...and I'm still trying to make it go properly. Or go at all, in fact

[Kilroy]

Lovely motor guv..!

[mickthefitter]

Heh heh! I put the same photos and message on Facebook. My bro' in law said "Push it somewhere nice and stand next to it!" Fella I know from down south said "You'll get there eventually." I replied "Only if I walk...."

Got a couple of 30 amp relays by the way. Got one to do the lights too. I think I might need to get a bit of decent wire to connect things up though. I've had scraps of wire kicking around for years. Do you know, I've still got a coil of waffer thin yellow and black wire that came with the Linwood alarm I fitted to my Mk1 Marina in 1982?

[mickthefitter]

I assume this petrol pipe I replaced on Saturday wasn't ethanol resistant. The short piece running from the fuel tank, which I took to be original because of the wire clips and disintegrating fabric outer braid, was a bit stiff to remove but the bore was fine. This pipe in the photo, running from the middle of the floor to the fuel pump, and secured by jubilee clips, is delaminating. Who'd have thought original BL rubber pipe was tougher than later aftermarket stuff?

[mickthefitter]

I just renewed my insurance with Peter Best. Been with them for years and never really had any cause to grumble. The renewal paperwork came a couple of weeks ago and the premium, with tax and everything, was £94. I got in from work, checked the mileage on the Marina HL (only 226 miles more than last year but then we all know it's not been far. My average miles in a classic is usually about 600 annually) and phoned them up to renew before they shut for the day. I was asked if there were any changes and I asked if they'd got my Marina Club membership number. The number on their records was read out, and it was my expired British Mini Club membership number. I gave them the new club membership number and the girl on the phone said "£101 please".

"I've got £94 here".

"I'm sorry" she said, "It's because of the change of club membership".

"What? Is that a charge for giving you a different number, or is that because the Marina club is more expensive?"

"I don't know. It's just come up on the system with a different price compared to the British Mini Club. Sorry".

I said it was ridiculous to be charged more for being in the correct club for my car compared to the wrong one, and then paid anyway because I couldn't be bothered to start phoning round for the sake of £7. But it IS ridiculous. When I swapped jobs in November and stopped driving lorries and went back into a maintenance job, I went online to change my occupation details on the General Accident online-only policy for my daily driven Volvo, and got charged £15 more! I queried it - by email - and was told it was just how the risk factors are calculated and that they can change day-to-day. 'Sorry'. So somehow because suddenly I'm not driving a Class 2 every weekday, I'm a bigger risk on the road in a 4 metre long hatchback....

[Kilroy]

I have a similar bitch regarding our NZ car registration annual fee which includes accident insurance, and now incorporates a 'safety' discount.
So - my 40 year old Marina with modest horsepower costs me significantly more to rego than my 250HP Volvo - which despite its airbags is going to make a much bigger mess if it comes unstuck.

Besides that - when did a road legal Marina last feature in a vehicle accident in NZ.?
I should be the one to know - I own half of them...

[mickthefitter]

[marinabuoy]

“Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered/I’ve seen lots of funny men/Some will rob you with a six-gun/And some with a fountain pen.”


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[mickthefitter]

Ref. above - like.
Unbelievable. I've just got home from a day I'd rather forget to find my Peter Best insurance documents on the doormat and of course they've finished for the day. No-one in the office now. Not only have they not updated the mileage on my 'statement of facts' but where it says what car club I'm in, the bit that cost me the extra £7, they've put the Morris MINOR Owners Club! Marina! Marina! I said Marina! I'm going to ask them if they owe me a refund when I get somebody on the phone!

[mickthefitter]

All is well with Peter Best Insurance. I just phoned up (Your call is recorded. Please treat our staff with respect) to tell them they got my details wrong. They only had to update two things, and both came back wrong on my paperwork. This time a very competent sounding young lady looked into the fact that the mileage on my limited mileage policy was still recorded as the same as when I bought the car a year ago, that I'd been recorded as being in the Morris Minor Owners Club, and that I'd been charged an extra £7 for the privilege. She said the woman who had taken my call last Thursday was new and on training, and she couldn't understand what she had done, as the premium should not have altered by changing the details of my car club! Anyway the new paperwork is on the way and £7 has gone back into my account, so my faith is restored.

[MarinaCoupe]

Good news mate, perseverance pays off.

[mickthefitter]

Oh My God. Cracked distributor cap. How much is THAT going to affect performance? Somebody please tell me I can buy one meant for an MGB!

[MarinaCoupe]

Your distributor should be a Lucas 45D, so yes late MGB