Supp.?

[Kilroy]

Seeing I'm bored - stuck at home with a back that is taking way too long to come right - I shall write something.

I bought my first Marina in 1995 as a daily driver.
I had enough mechanical savvy to fix anything that might occur to it - and I also had a complete spare car that I had swapped for a used washing machine.
Once I had assembled the best of both into one - I drove it everywhere, every day, for over a decade.
In that same period, I somehow managed to acquire a dozen or so more, and many of these were bought over the net, so I had no real idea what state they might be in when I arrived to collect them.
Only a few were towed home, the rest were driven.
It did not always go smoothly, but we sure had a lot of fun in the process.

As Sue has a talent for taking photos any time something odd happens, I have a record of each occasion.
Here is the first.

June 2005
I got talking to a Rover guy in Auckland, and he had a spare engine and auto from a Marina 1.8 HL that he offered me for free.
As Auckland is 1100Km from here, I thanked him but declined.
He then went on to tell me his friend had a 575 van for sale cheap.
I offered $250 for it and a deal was done.
Sue and I flew to Auckland and found our way to Mark's house.
We loaded the engine and auto into the back, and in the pouring rain, headed off in a totally unknown vehicle which had no wof or rego.
Nor did I have many tools, as they would have thought I was going to hijack the plane or something.

The van did not run very well, nor did the heater work, so I was trying to keep the revs up while driving through a strange city, and we were frantically wiping the windows as the heater did nothing.
I tried every control I could find, as there were a couple of accessory type knobs - one of which seemed to be a speed control - presumably for the heater fan.
None of it helped, but a few blocks further on, the engine stopped.
Fuel gauge read a quarter full - but I did not know if it worked.
I had a screwdriver, so I took the top off the float bowl.
Empty.
Bother.




Not knowing where we were, we walked in the rain until we found a fuel station.
They rented us a can, and we walked back with some gas.
I first filled the float bowl, then poured the rest in the tank.
All aboard.
It fired up, so we prepared to get moving again - during which time it stopped again.
Float bowl top off - empty.
Damn - must be the fuel pump.
I figured we could maybe walk back to Mark's house and see if he had a pump.
I took one last look around the engine bay.
Hello - what's this? Some sort of solenoid valve in the fuel line.
Ah.
Lightbulb moment.
I turned the "speed control" knob back to it's original position.
After a period of cranking - the 1275 fired up. Woohoo.
Seems that the van had once featured a dual-fuel arrangement, and while all the LPG gear had been removed, the solenoid shutoff was still fitted and working.!
Drove to the fuel station to return the can and gas up proper, and while under their handy roof, I adjusted the ignition points.
Suddenly we had a sweet running A+.
Nifty.

The rest of the trip went extremely well - I think the whole thing is still here..

http://homepages.vodafone.co.nz/~kilroy/No9.htm

Not bad.
First breakdown in 10 years, and in a Marina I had only owned for half an hour.
What next.?

[Kilroy]

July 2005.
Obviously 2005 was a busy year.
I had become so enamoured of Mk3 Marinas that I advertised in the local "buy/sell/exchange" in the "wanted" column.
A visitor to the city from Blenheim - 200 miles north - bought some vegetables that were wrapped in pages from that paper - and thus saw my ad.
He had a beautiful low mileage example of a sandglow auto, but wanted some serious money for it.
I drove up to view it, and drove it around the block. It really was mint.
We did a deal, and the plan was that Sue and I would train up to Blenheim for the fun of it, and bring "JF" home.
We walked from the station to the owner's home, arriving to find the car on blocks and rear wheels removed.
Turned out he had left things until today to get a wof - and it was found that the rear wheel cylinders were seized.
I decided to take it "as-is", because we had already booked a night at the (formerly) Blackball Hilton 100 odd miles away, and I did not want to spend the day here.
So that is what happened.
We made the trip to Blackball ok, spent the night, then continued toward home over Arthurs Pass the next day.
At Otira the car began to lose electrics, so I diverted into the abandoned railway village where we came to a stop outside the only house with lights on.
Maintaining the Marina mystique, Sue knocked at the door and it was opened by someone she knew.!
Problem turned out to be simply a loose fanbelt that had been allowing the alternator to avoid doing it's job - so I was able to deal to it quite quickly.




Our friend had a battery charger (of course..), so we enjoyed a cuppa while some ergs went back in the battery.
Continued our journey with no issues at all.
http://www.kilroy.co.nz/cars/car24.html
Obviously - this car had been a long term storage, so it had no roadworthy papers, and I was fully prepared to talk my way out of any scenario that might ensue from any police attention.
There was none.

So that's nice.

I was getting a real taste for this lark...

[Number 63]

Enjoyed those stories Kilroy, the scenery is fantastic in the pictures on your site.

[Kilroy]

Cheers Number63 - thanks to these cars I have been able to see a lot of the country..

[Kilroy]

December 2005.
Having treated our newest Marina (JF) to the obligatory front suspension overhaul - new shocks, bushes, steering rack bush - plus new rear wheel cylinders, and a bit of lowering, we decided to take it up to Nelson for a break over Xmas.
Made the 300 mile trip north with no problems, and running around while there was a model of good behaviour.
On the way home, a problem began to develop.
Shortly after resuming our trip from a lunch break, the car suddenly lost power and stopped.
It seemed to have lost fuel supply.
After much messing about, I discovered a small split in the fuel line just where it attached to the fuel pump, and this was allowing the pump to suck air.
I sliced half an inch from the line and reattached it.
All was well until we stopped again to look at a seal colony. Same procedure, only this time the split had increased in length, and there was not enough line to shorten it further.




Using a bit of lateral thinking, I found a plastic supermarket bag, and wrapped it around the offending hose several times.
This cured the air leak and we were able to drive on to Kaikoura, where I bought several metres of fuel line from a petrol station.
As we had quite a bit of fuel onboard, and the fuel line runs from beneath the car up to the pump, I found a grassy reserve on the side of a hill, and we drove onto the grass with the car pointing quite steeply uphill.
No fuel came out at all when I pulled the old line off, and it only took about 30 minutes and we were on our way again.
I subsequently found this fuel line to be in need of replacing on every Marina I had.

Not bad - only 3 breakdowns in 10 years so far - and we drove home from every one.

What next...

[Kilroy]

April 2006.
Easter weekend.
Long term friend arrived from Australia with his partner to do a tour around the deep south of NZ.
I had offered to loan them my V6 Mazda to "cruise" in - but we had also agreed to travel south with them to attend the biennial "warbirds over Wanaka" weekend - the biggest flying display of WWII aircraft in the southern hemisphere.
Sue and I were joined by my son Sam, and we made the trip in my blue estate.
We had a fun-filled trip south, staying overnight at Lake Tekapo, rising early to make the rest of the trip to Wanaka before the birds were flying.
All good, and an awesome day of craned necks watching those fabulous machines doing their stuff overhead - then taxiiing past our fence with the pilots waving in response to the heartfelt applause.
Brilliant.
After the show, we went our separate ways - Steve and Andi continued south, and we 3 crossed over the astounding Haast Pass to the West Coast, and headed north.
We made it as far as the Franz Joseph Glacier, and found a Motel for the night.
Easter Sunday. Still observed as a fairly religious milestone, so most businesses close up.
Fortunately these days, some petrol stations remain open - but not much else.
We made our way to Hokitika and fuelled up for the final dash over Arthurs Pass back to Christchurch.
I do enjoy taking some of the lesser travelled routes - so it happened that we headed off fully laden through the "old west coast road" - a gravelled track which meandered inland through a forest of native trees and remote country before rejoining the main road at a point further inland.
As is the habit of the west coast - it was pouring with rain - something it does with great flair.
As we drove deeper into nowhere I noticed a shearing shed with signs of activity - poor old farmers don't get a day off.!
Several miles further on, we suddenly lost drive.
I let the car run backwards down an incline we were on, and into a grassy area beside the track.
When I got out I found a trail of auto fluid tracing our tracks.
Our lack of ground clearance had seen us do a little impromptu grading of the metalled surface, which had opened a split along the front edge of the auto pan, and all our fluid had escaped.
Shit.!
Up a back road in a forest in a remote part of Westland on an Easter Sunday.
Cue "duelling banjos"...
I decided to head back to where I had spied the shearing shed - trying to maintain a cheerful pace in the steady rain.
I found a couple of blokes there and explained my situation.
They suggested I try a side road about 1Km further on, as the farm there would have a phone.
I did that, and a pleasant young woman phoned the only service station she could think of at a small town called Kumara.
They answered - which was a surprise in itself - and the mechanic asked me a number of questions to try and establish where the hell I was.
He said he would come out and tow me to his workshop - so the young woman then drove me back to the car, where the other two had been cooling their heels and hoping I was having some luck.
In a seemingly short time, the mechanic turned up and set about attaching a steel tow line to the Marina.




The other guys rode in his 4WD while I tried to maintain some form of control over the estate as this guy dragged me sliding all over the track on our way to the next thing.
20Km later we made it to Kumara without whacking anything. Phew.
The Marina was promptly pushed onto the hoist, and our new friend set about welding up the fluid escape route.
He succeeded, and after pouring quite a few litres of fluid back in, we made sure that the auto would still function while the wheels were off the ground.
It seemed happy to do so, and we all shook hands in a very happy fashion.
A modest sum of dollars changed hands - considering the magnitude of what had just taken place - and we were back on the road.
Total time elapsed since our breakdown = one and a half hours.
In a forest - up a gravel road - on the sparsely populated west coast of the south island - on an easter sunday.
Un-bloody-believable.!
The rest of our trip was uneventful - although I did stop several times to peer underneath the car to check for any leaks.
None.
That pan is still in place.
Once again - we survived the event and continued under our own power.

These Marinas are starting to look indestructable.

Maybe...?