Club 80-90 Forums

vanisveryrusty wrote: On the other hand, about 80% of Morris Marinas had clutch judder when new.
Which is strange because nothing was actually new on he Marina enginering wise, it had all been used in the Minor or the MGB.

I had the misfortune to work on those piles when I first went into the motor trade, in a BL garage. Marinas were well known for this as you say, and particularly the high performance TC model. I believe BL did do a 'fix' with stiffer anti-tramp bars meaning the drive-train was more stable under load.

That was a truly dreadful car And I wouldn't be surprised if there's an owners club too

My name is Ian and I owned a Morris Marina

It was all down to maintenance.
My one never broke down. Ever.
It was 5 years old when I bought it.
Bottom ball swivels siezed up fairly regularly, tappets needed adjusting every weekend, but it would do 90 on the clock and thrash Cortinas away from the lights.
Going around bends was an art form nbut yes, you could hang the back out and catch it again if you tried hard.
Even managed to lose a Capri down a lane once. Driven by my boss who fancied himself as a rally driver.
He was not amused ......
1.8L B series engine was very liable.
It was Zeibarted from new ( thats an expensive anti rust treatment)
AND
It rusted away by the time it was 8
Owners club here, you know you want a laugh !
http://www.morrismarina.org.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ian Hulley wrote:My name is Ian and I owned a Morris Marina

me too

not my name is ian

thanks for clearing that up.

no probs kev happy to help

1664 wrote:

ghost123uk wrote:The good news was that since that day (over a year ago) it has not once juddered when moving off

So technically speaking she fixed it yes?

I suppose the answer has to be "Yes"

Re Morris Marinas, the Police used to use the 1.8TC's didn't they
Lets not get into Allegros or Princesses

I hired a Morris Marina on the Isle of Wight eons ago. It was the only car I've driven where the back end tended to slide out from under you during cornering worse than the 1968 Sunbeam Rapier I had. Of course being only a sprog back then I found the whole experience exhilarating. Broke down on the last day there

1664 wrote:than the 1968 Sunbeam Rapier I had

I had a 68 Rapier as well, went on honeymoon in it Good memories of that car. Later I had a "Holbay Hunter" = great great engine, basically the same as the Rapier but "Holbay tuned" with twin 40's

Not mine, but very similar =

My Rapier - and sorry, I don't seem to have any 'before' pictures







this being the car where the windscreen fell out upon impact and I found myself splayed across the bonnet (collapsible steering wheel) watching it slide away in front of me . July '79, no seatbelt

so there you go, I could have been much uglier than I am

It made a hell of a mess of that MkIII Cortina Bren

Ian

Actually it was a Vauxhall Viva HA van full to bursting point with boxes of ceramic wall tiles. Might just as well have been a brick wall. The Rapier was to put it mildly, of substantial heavy construction but was slightly banana shaped after that little lot. Cortinas were made of paint.

ghost123uk wrote: Re Morris Marinas, the Police used to use the 1.8TC's didn't they
Lets not get into Allegros or Princesses

It's a wonder the old bill in SE London made any arrests in their Allegro Panda cars, they too were terrible. I had a mate who worked in the City of London's police garage and Allegros were known to kink their roofs if jacked up in the wrong place Police panda cars also had round steering wheels fitted as against the Quadric steering wheel as officers complained that they could loose control of the steering at high speed. Allegros came I think in 3 flavours, standard, SS or triple SSS, the latter with a 1750 twin SU carb engine. Top heavy and handled like a tea-trolley.

Mind you, what about the 6 cylinder lorry-engined MGC We did lots of crash repairs on those too

As for Princesses [ADO71, if memory serves] they too were bad, though an improvement over the Marina in that they didn't leak quite so much, as they - if memory serves again - were the first British car to use plastic wheelarch liners.

No wonder our car industry faded away...

I also remember when the Police in Liverpool had some Escort Mexico's in their fleet