kws

I follow the ADHD Squirrel 🤣 Usually it's just when I get bored and need that sweet dopamine hit, But in this case, it's having done a couple of track days and wanting to try a different platform that triggered the sale of the Alto.

It's that time again, a New Year, another track day. This will only be a small update. There were basically no changes to this car since the last track day, and I really wanted to focus on my skill and technique instead of just going full send like I was last time. The one change I did do beforehand was to change the brake fluid. I had previously been using generic Dot 4 fluid, and I noticed a couple of times at the last track day, particularly when coming off the track into the pits, that the pedal went very squishy for a couple of presses. It wasn't an issue on the track, but did indicate to me that the fluid wasn't keeping up. I brought the Alto into the garage, and up onto the Quickjacks Using my vacuum bleeder, I flushed the system and drew through the new Castrol React "performance" Dot 4 fluid. I know a couple of others that have used this on the track with good results (in much heavier and faster cars than the Alto) The vacuum bleeder is good for quickly flushing the system, but I always finish up with my one-man bleeder bottle, just to make sure I have a nice firm pedal and no air in the system. Once that was done, I finally fixed something else that's been bugging me for a while; I refitted the missing section of mesh in the rear bumper (to the right of the number plate) It's not a perfect match, I'm not sure how long It's been off the car for, but it's better than a gap. The drive up was fairly uneventful this time, no one in a fancy BMW trying to blind me, and the weather was even decent. No friends could make it this time, so we did a solo trip and picked our usual spot out early I managed to convince my wife to hop in the passenger's seat this time, for her first time on a track. We started off with the usual training sessions, which were a little different this time around. They had the three exercises; a slalom (weave through cones there and back), reaction test (drive at some central cones with a light either side, which randomly light up to show you which side of the cones to go) and an "ideal line" through a corner (like a Gran Turismo license test, pairs of cones set up to guide you around the best line of the corner). Usually you would do an exercise and continue on to the next one, but this time they ran each group 3-4 times through each exercise before moving onto the next one. Once the training sessions were done, it was time to jump into the Group 1 "slow group", and get onto the track I only recorded the data for the first two sessions, one with my wife in the passengers seat, and one out solo. I think I did about 3 or 4 session in total this time. Due to higher ambient temps, and having nothing to prove, I left it on low boost this time. The first session, we did 13 laps, with a best of 1:42.76. A pretty slow, but smooth session. Compared to the fastest low boost lap from last time (a 1:39.86), although I was down on speed on the straights I was carrying a bit more speed through the corners. My wife says this was me trying to show off, I say it was me trying not to scare her, and end my marriage by putting it sideways into the gravel. Fastest low boost lap from September Although she didn't file for divorce, and she'll still go in a car with me (mostly because I'm her ride home), one session was enough for her. Hopefully I can get her out again next trackday in something a bit more exciting than the Alto. Even better would be for her to one day be behind the wheel herself. Pulling into the pits the new performance brake fluid was already evident. It had none of the soft pedal that it had last time, and worked well all day. After a quick cool down and some lunch Ignore the badly photoshopped out thumb over the lens. Rookie move. It was time to line up and get ready to give it some proper beans (Featuring old mate in his way too fast Porsche, in the wrong group, again. Unlike last time, he didn't stay out there long, bullying the slower drivers and went out in the faster groups later) I had some great little battles, including with one of these OG Lotus Sevens I got back to the pits and the owner came over and jokingly commented that I was the one he just couldn't shake. Every corner I was there, right up behind him, but he could just pull away from me on the straights. I love a good little battle where you pick a car, and see if you can stick with them. The fastest in that session was 1:40.13. Way off my best time, but not bad for higher ambient temps (around 22-25c) and on low boost. What is interesting though is that the cornering speeds aren't that different from when I had a passenger, in fact, they're almost all slower, the only gain was in straight line speed. I know I'm heavily limited by the tyres currently as the front just starts to wash out and go wide, which is what was happening when I pushed harder, leading to understeer and slower exit speeds. One thing I attribute the higher cornering speeds this trackday, vs the last ones, is a change in technique. I had previously been using a lot of trailbraking, where most of my braking was done before the corner, but I was still on the brakes during turn in. The reason for this was due to how the Jazz cornered in my very first trackday; you brake heavily into the corner and the back will rotate when you start to turn. The Alto on the other hand, hated the idea of rotating and this technique didn't really work with it. Too much rear end grip I guess. This time, I tried to make sure all my braking was done before the corner began. So going into the corner, I would be hard on the brakes in a straight line, off the brakes completely when I start turning, and then hard on the gas as soon as I could and use the LSD to pull the car through the corner. This suited the Alto a lot better, although on low boost it did struggle a little with lacking power to really pull out of the corner. I'm looking forward to trying out new techniques in different cars/platforms in the future. I'll be back to FWD again, It is my favourite platform, but I'm itching to try RWD or AWD and see how different it is. Before wrapping up for the day, I was offered a ride in a GR Yaris. I have pined for these things since they came out; they're legitimately one of the coolest cars to have been released in years. 260hp 1.6L 3 cylinder turbo, manual, AWD in a 3 door hatch. This car broke my mind. Leon is an awesome driver, being well involved in all the local motorsport events and having spent a lot of time on the track, so I can't discount his extensive skills, but what the car could do was beyond what my brain could comprehend as physics. The way it gripped and pulled around corners was incredible. The big brakes shed a bunch of speed before the corner, but once into the corner it pulls around it with no fuss and then slingshots out and straight towards the next corner. We had fun chasing down and passing a bunch of cars To say I loved that car was an understatement. If I had unlimited money and space, one of those would be the first into my garage. Once back into the pits and the grin on my face stuck there for a while, it was time to pack up and head off. Another trackday done, and the last one in the Alto. And with that, that brings us to a close on this chapter. I won't sugarcoat it, the Alto is sold. It's bittersweet, and it's one of the few cars I have sold that I am actually sad to see gone, but the Alto goes on to live new adventures with a new owner, who is local, so I'll still see it around. The last photo, as I left it with its new owner It was a little weird to see it at Cars and Coffee today, and know it wasn't mine anymore It'll do him well, it's an awesome little car. We had some great times. I took that car from a barely usable ex track car in Japan, cobbled together with whatever bits the seller could find to get it through compliance, to an awesome little track ready, daily usable, dingus. 070 - Suzuki Alto Works For me though, It means I can look for my next toy. Something to play with on the track again, and learn new skills and techniques. Something with a bit more power, and better parts availability locally if it all goes wrong. I have some ideas in mind, but time will tell what I actually end up with.

I might be a bit simple, but can you not just use some exhaust spooge (maniseal or the likes) in the exhaust joint? Its not like it needs to slip once the clamp is on it.

Good lord I remember that from the GP forums

Actually, there it goes. It is the one from the museum

There was a story on taped on the window of where it came from, but i didn't take a photo. I think it was a private import, one owner. I thought it was the one from the Museum too, but it didn't mention it.

Thankfully they moved the car next to mine forward, not mine back. It still had the effect of putting my car in the shadows. I've been a member of a couple of different clubs and parked with them at shows, and usually there would be someone from the club that at the very least gives you a wave and comes for a quick hello, or even tries to direct parking a bit (particularly as we were fairly early), but here there was nothing but a group of people sitting in a group drinking tea and ignoring the rest of the world.

It's not that they were rude as such (other than moving that car, maybe), It's that they just didn't seem to care. It'd be interesting to know how I would've been treated had I been in a Minor, or if the Marina was painted and actually presentable. Just as we were leaving though, we had a good chat with a member, Chris, who liked the car and had a good story about his own Marina from back in the day.

Finally, after four years of work, the Marina was off to its first car show. But not before a few changes and bumps in the road. The first change was that my black personalised plates finally arrived. In New Zealand, "black plates" used to signify a classic car, as all plates before 1987 were matte black with silver machined text. After 1987 they all changed to gloss white with black text So to me, white plates on a classic car look wrong. Unfortunately, back in 1995 when the Marina was re-registered, they didn't retain the old plates and it was issued with white plates of the time. I have had MEH for a few years now, and it's been on a couple of cars, including my Vitesse 050 - Rover SD1 Vitesse But it was white with black text, as personalised plates previously never came in anything else. A few years ago they made it so any car could get black plates, with either silver or (gross) white text. This was a re-design though, giving it a reflective gloss background so "cameras can see it better", and with the modern font. I had wanted to convert my white plates to this for a while, and when I heard they were discontinuing black/silver plates due to some... technical... issues, I jumped on the chance to finally do it. After a couple of months waiting, they were finally in my hand and quickly on the Marina exclamation: meh expressing a lack of interest or enthusiasm."meh, I'm not impressed so far They aren't perfect; I don't like the gloss black, and the font isn't right, but it's the only legal way to have black personalised plates (without the gross white text). Normally I'm strongly against removing original plates from old cars, but since the Marina wasn't on its original plates, I wasn't too cut up about it. Shame to lose the 2 letter combo though. Why did they pull the sale of black/silver? This. In certain lights the black goes silver and makes the plate almost impossible to read. Many people were clambering to get these before they were stopped, as there is a rumour that speed cameras can't see them... but I'd bet that's a myth (and a dumb reason to buy them. Kiwiplates themselves probably started the rumour to drive sales...) My "new" black plate on the right, with an original black plate next to it Before I could head off to British Car Day though, a couple of things bothered me. First, was the fuel filter. I had noticed it had changed colour to a dark brown since I topped the tank up with more fuel a while back. I was wondered it was full of rust, so I removed it to inspect. It had a noticeable heft to it Eww. I cut the filter open to see what was inside A huge amount of sludge in the bottom of the canister, and the filter material was completely plugged The good news is that it's completely nonferrous, so it's not rust. I believe it's "varnish", or dried/dehydrated fuel remnants, that must be coating the bottom of the tank. It dries to a powdery light brown substance, and fresh fuel rehydrates it. I have no idea how the car was even running, let alone as good as it did. I popped a new filter in, dropped a spare in the boot, and I'll keep an eye on it. With the carb possibly seeing more fuel, I wanted to check the mixture as it was a prick to tune last time (maybe due to the filter). Last time, I tuned the carb by ear as the piston listing method wasn't working (it would just stall despite it being tuned to best idle). Before tuning it I removed the fuel bowl cover and drained the fuel and removed the small amount of sediment in the bottom (now I know where that sediment was coming from, the plugged filter) I tried again to tune it with the lifting pin, and had the same results. Tuning it to the point where the lifting pin resulted in a slight bump in idle which settles back down again, resulted in the car idling rough and uneven. Not very nice, and I didn't trust it. Going back to an old tried and true method of tuning, I pulled the Colortune out The initial setting, was a nice orange flame. Far too rich Tweaking the idle to the best by ear, got me pretty much bang on a nice blue flame, which is ideal I don't know what's wrong with the lift pin method here, but the old tuning by ear trick doesn't let me down. With the car seemingly running happier, I took it for a quick test drive around the block. Sure enough, the engine was pulling nice and strong and sounds good. I pull out of an intersection, clutch in to change to second, and clunk, the clutch pedal goes to the floor. I rev match into second, but now I'm stuck in second as the pedal has gone from nothing, to everything, and I can't push it down. Luckily, I'm just around the corner from home, so being stuck in second is fine. I pull into my driveway, and have to stall it as the clutch won't press down and the loading on the gears mean I can't pull it out of gear. I give the clutch pedal a hard shove, and with a crunch it goes to the floor. I manage to pull it out of gear and roll down the drive into the garage. As soon as I get out of the car, I can see the trail of fluid. A quick sniff test tells me it's brake fluid, so I'm guessing it's clutch hydraulic fluid. At least it's not gearbox oil, I guess. Now, this is the day before British Car Day, so I'm a bit low on time if it's anything serious. I pop the bonnet and sure enough the clutch res is empty. I have a look at the slave cylinder and I can see all its guts have been ejected into the boot. Yay. It was easy enough to remove, since it had fallen to bits. Thankfully, all the bits are there and I don't need to go see what I can find on the road. This appears to be the culprit. This is the circlip that retains the piston inside the cylinder. It appears the piston forced it to deform and pop out, with everything following it. A quick rush around a couple of shops and I had a pack of 1" internal circlips in my hand. You can see how deformed the old one is Reassembled, with the new clip in place After refitting, refilling and bleeding the fluid, thankfully it all seemed to be working fine again. I'm not 100% sure on what actually caused the failure. I have a couple of theories, but I'm not sure. One theory is that the clutch pedal stop was out of adjustment and allowed the slave to over extended, bash the clip out, and explode everywhere. Unfortunately it appears the stop is present, isn't adjustable, and the pedal does seem to contact it. Stop here, with the orange arrow Pedal appears to touch it fine, without too much force I'm going to look into a small pad to put on the end of the stop, to extend it slightly and see how it feels then. At the moment though, I'm just going easy on it. So, with that crisis averted, the show the next morning, I should be all sorted. No. It was pointed out to me that the patch of black rust convertor at the back of the bonnet looked a bit gross... so I had to fix that A sanded it back and gave it some epoxy primer Wait, what about the RH sill though, It's bugged me that It's patchy in primer. I gave it a quick sand, masked it up, primed a couple of extra spots and then shot some yellow at it What to do while that dries though? Fix this mess on the front guard, which I hate. I stripped the mountain of bog off it when I got the car, and other than hammering it out a bit, haven't touched it since. I need to replace the guard, or at the very least the front half of it, but in the meantime, bog. Damn, what do I do while that dries? Cover the ugly stripes I made on the door when I sanded the primer off. ADHD is hard work. After sanding the first layer of filler back, I applied a second coat to fill the lows After that cured, I sanded it back, and gave it a coat of epoxy primer. It's far from good, or done, but it's better than it was, and only temporary. The RH side looks a bit less shite. Once again, far from good, but a bit less offensive. I then gave the car a waterless wash, cleaned all the glass inside and out, and half dead of exhaustion made my way upstairs and called it a day. The next morning, we clambered aboard and departed for the show. The old girl fired straight into life, choke disengaged correctly (I wonder if it was sticking from the gummy fuel varnish) and off we went. It did me proud, like usual, and got there with no drama. I love driving it, it's such a nice sensory experience, and it runs and drives so good. We arrive nice and early, and I head to the Morris club stand. Unfortunately, I felt a bit shunned by them, as no one acknowledged us, welcomed us, directed us to park or anything. A pretty average attitude, considering I'm a paid member. I decided to park at the end of the row next to another older Morris, away from their main stand. No, it's not the prettiest car there, but it is honest, and rare. For anyone curious, this is what is in the passengers window. I guess a story appeals to people, as I saw a lot reading it. We noticed almost immediately that the Marina drew a crowd. People made a bee-line for it, and throughout the day it always had plenty of people checking it out. So we were very surprised when shortly after we parked, from the other side of the field, we suddenly couldn't see the Marina anymore. It turns out, someone had moved the car I was parked next to forward, tucking the Marina back Now, I'm sure it wasn't deliberate, trying to distance themselves from the ugly car, but it sure felt a bit intentional... Jokes on them though, as the Marina gained a friend shortly after, and it appeared to be the two most popular cars on the stand. I guess there are only so many times you can see the same Morris Minor in a different colour, yet when was the last time anyone saw a Marina Coupe, or an Ital Estate?! The Ital was for sale, said it was 1 of 1 in NZ and I'd believe that. I wasn't aware we even got Itals in NZ. It's a tidy, honest car, with some bits needing some love, but over all a good, road legal, classic wagon. As cool as the Ital is, the Marina front appeals to be far more. The blocky headlights just take away from the friendly face. I'll tell you what, it was hard to get photos of these two without people in them... I'm proud that after 4 years of work, the Marina finally made it there. It was always a goal, but the criteria was that the car had to get there under it'd own power, and road legal. Interestingly, today was 4 years and 1 day since I contacted a random guy on Facebook, minutes after a ratty looking Marina Coupe appeared on Marketplace, with one photo and a vague description. 7 days later, it was in my garage, ready to start a massive journey involving a huge amount of work, far too much time, and many new skills. No regrets. I love this car and it's been well worth the work put into it. Back to the show. It was a great turnout, and some really cool cars were there. I didn't take many photos, I prefer to just enjoy what I'm looking at these days, but here are a couple of outstanding ones As a note, I call it "British Car Day" as thats what it started as, but these days they also allow Euros in too. Casual, road legal, military vehicle I like these old Mercs. Just big, solid old 80s tanks The paint on this classic Porsche was amazing. Love the colour I also loved this little Fiat. It seems today was the day for great paint jobs/colours (excluding the Marina, obviously) You just dont get colours like this anymore. Such a shame A nice classic old Brick and finally, this gorgeous old Multipla (yes, that Multipla) It was a great show, and I'm looking forward to taking the Marina back again next year. This time I won't bother parking with the "club", and as my plan is to improve the car each time it goes there, it'll be better, faster and nicer.

Well hell, it might almost work... Thanks to @locost_bryan for the lower arm for mocking up

I haven't done that in 12 months in all 4 of my cars combined 🤣 Good work for getting out and using it!

Well, that's another year done. Happy New Year and welcome to 2025. May everyone's year be excellent and filled with car stuff. To celebrate the New Year, and the weather not being the usual NZ "Summer" trash of wind and rain, I took the Marina out for a quick spin, the first of the year. The main goal here was to do some testing. I hadn't really driven the Marina since freshening the carb up, and upgrading the ignition system, and wanted to see that the issues I was having were resolved. The biggest test was that I wanted to try heading up some hills and see how the engine responded. I've not been up any hills yet, so haven't really had a chance to put the engine under sustained load, and see how it likes it. Before redoing the ignition, I suspect it would've just cut out and not made it. I planned a route, a 22km round trip. Enough time to get the engine warmed up before I hit the hill, and a wide enough road that if I have to bail, I can pull over and do a U-Turn. My wife and I jumped in the Marina, and after a quick tweak of the idle (too low) and unsticking the choke jet again, we were off. After a quick drive, we get to the bottom of the hill. Now, by normal standards, it's not that steep, but for a 52 year old car that's not seen a hill in at least 15+ odd years, it's Mt Everest. Much to my surprise, the Marina just cruised up it with no fuss. My concern was for nothing. Being twisty, most of it was done in second gear, but third was also given a work out too. The engine pulled great, and the temps were stable the whole time. The suspension was struggling a bit, the front really needs the telescopic conversion to control it, and the rear should get the new shocks fitted soon. Corners are best taken slowly. I had my wife checking my speed against the indicated speed on GPS, and it seems my Speedo is reading about 10% low, so I've been speeding everywhere, oops! Being out on the back roads gave me a chance, for the first time, to open it up a bit and see what the car was like at higher speeds. The pancake filter really unleashes the carb intake sounds. At 80kph, the car feels perfectly stable and cruises really well. At 100kph, It's not so good, everything starts to get a bit floaty, a "feature" I suspect is related to the front suspension being too soft. Basically, it's an old car, drive it slowly (at least until I sort the front suspension). We pulled over for a quick check and to grab some photos. Everything was happy, no leaks, temps were good and the fan was working well to keep it under control. It's a cool looking car, even in its current "ratrod" look. I quite enjoy the reactions of people as I drive by. It seems yesterday the cyclists got the biggest kick out of seeing the Marina out and about, many stares, lots of smiles and one audible "Marina?!". Over all, a very successful drive. We're getting closer to being brave enough to drive the car the 60km round trip to work...

Thanks, I do actually have one on the shelf, just haven't got around to using it. I too used it on my Mini when I had it. I just changed to the Penrite dashpot oil, but was previously running 20w oil. Probably changed too much in one go... This carb is only a short term solution anyway, so its not worth me spending time or money on. The goal is to get the twin carbs on sooner rather than later.

I've not driven the Marina since the last update, and it's been a month now. The reason? My usual "it's on the road now, let's pull it to bits" thing. To be fair, it's not without reason though. In my last outings in the car, I found the engine would cut out under higher RPM, so I wanted to investigate this. Since I got the car, despite having run and driven it a bit, other than cleaning out the fuel bowl and tweaking the mixture, I haven't actually touched the carb. To kick everything off, I thought I would pull out the old carb that came in a box with the car, and strip it down to see what state that was in. The fact it had a big X marked on the top of it didn't bode well. I love SU carbs, they're just so easy to strip and service. Nothing fancy, but does the job. Sadly, there is almost nothing in this carb that was reusable. I pulled the throttle spindle out and it had massive wear The bushing in the body was worn too, as even the "good" bit of the shaft would wobble about when tested With the right tools, some new bushes and some time, I could fix that, but I really don't care for it. Even the needle was stuffed. The holder is cracked and the needle itself is actually bent The jet seems to be welded into the jet bearing, as when trying to remove it the complete plastic end of the jet decided it would rather come off instead So moving on from that development, I popped the bonnet on the Marina. This is what I started with I removed the air filter saucepan and its intake pipe which gave me access to the mighty SU HS6 carb Three tight and one loose nut later, the carb itself was off. The gasket and under the carb were all quite wet with oily fuelly muck The heat shield and spacer came off next With the carb on the bench I removed the fuel bowl lid and was annoyed at the muddy sediment on the bottom of the bowl It didn't really act like rust and wasn't ferrous, it was more like dirt. I have a filter in the system before the fuel pump, and that not shown any signs of rust or dirt (yet), so I'm not sure where this came from. I cleaned the bowl out when I first got the car running. The float looked fine. It moved freely and had no signs of liquid inside it Next I removed the damper, suction chamber and piston. This allowed me to remove the needle, which I confirmed is the correct "BAN" needle for single carb 1750. One of the biggest reasons for servicing the carb was due to this, a sticking jet when the choke was applied. The jet doesn't return and causes the car to run super rich and drop a cylinder Usually it takes just a gentle tap with your finger on the bottom of the jet to pop it back up again, but this requires popping the bonnet when starting cold, which is unacceptable when you have an image to withhold. It should sit all the way up against the adjustment nut The fuel feed hose had been weeping too I removed the jet and feed hose I thought it was weird there appeared to be no seal on the end of the hose in the bowl... turns out it was still in the bowl Careful use of a couple of picks and I managed to chip the "rubber" seal out. It was harder than plastic. The new seal is to the left of the remains I ran some brake cleaner through the jet and found more gunk I cleaned the outside of the jet and inside of the jet bearing up as well as I could, and when testing on the bench it all worked nicely with no sticking I fit the new seal to the fuel feed hose. A new washer came in the gasket kit, but I found the outside diameter too big and I couldn't thread in the fitting, so I ended up refitting the old washer and it works fine. And refitted to the fuel bowl. It turns out this also wasnt tight when I removed it, as the fitting screws much further in than it was The choke linkage was also refitted I refit the needle to the piston and after a thorough cleaning of the inside of the carb body, refitted the piston. As its turns out, the spare carb had a different piston spring. Neither have any obvious paint markings to show which one is "RED" as indicated in the manual. The one from the spare carb is slightly longer and has thicker wire in the coils 0.99mm wire and the one that was in the carb on the car 0.82mm wire I don't know which one is right for the car, and just for curiosity I fit the thicker coil spring from the spare carb to the car to see what it was like. I might need to swap back though as I'm having some weird tuning issues. Next was the fuel needle and seat, and float. The needle and seat are what stops the fuel flow into the bowl, so it doesnt overfill and overflow. As the level in the bowl rises, the float will rise up with it and at a certain height it presses on the back of the needle and pushes it into the seat, blocking the inlet. My needle and seat appears to be original, and replacements these days come with viton rubber tips, to help seal. Mine was a plastic body with brass tip. With these carbs, to remove the needle and seat you need to remove the float. This is held in place with a small hinge pin. I used a smal punch to carefully tap it out enough to grab with some pliers The seat just unscrews from the cap. The spare carb had one washer under the seat whilst the in car one had two. These set the height of the float The new needle and seat. The new needle is all brass with a viton rubber tip After a lot of faffing about with float levels, which I'm still not 100% sure is right, the new needle, seat and float were refitted. It's annoying these floats don't have a metal tab that allows for adjustment. With a new float bowl gasket, the carb was reassembled. I didn't remove the throttle plate or shaft as I didn't have new ones or new screws. There is some play in the shaft, which pretty much dooms this carb, but it'll do for now. Before refitting I decided to bite the bullet and remove the inlet/exhaust manifold. I knew there had been a leak, it wasnt bad, but it was a good time to address it anyway. Plus, this gives me a chance to prep the fittings for easy removal when I go to fit the twin carb manifold. By some miracle, all the nuts and bolts came off without issue. The only little hangup was that the front stud was rusted into the manfold, and needed some persuading to give it up. The inlet port sizing on the manifold is... slightly mismatched. I may check the match on the twin carb manifold and massage it if needed I cleaned the face of the head up with the wire wheel on the drill Add went through with taps and dies cleaning all the threads DIY short spinning tap handle After cleaning up the manifold I found a rather decent crack in the casting between the two center exhaust runners That necessitated some copper exhaust spooge on the gasket, for maximum sealing And with that, I banged it all back together, with new gaskets on everything Because I'm sick of the saucepan handle rattling on my hood prop, I replaced it with a cheap foam "pancake" filter. So much room for activities now. In hindsight it's a bit close to the heater hoses, so I should've got the offset mounting to raise the filter up. Oh well. I've set the carb up, and tuned it as well as it wants to be tuned. It runs well, but I cant help but think the float height or piston spring arent quite right as when lifting the piston the engine revs up slightly and then dies, indicating its lean, but if I add more fuel it starts to run a bit rubbish. At the moment its running at the "audiable sweet spot" where it sounds happiest running. Unfortunately the damn jet is still sticking when the choke is applied, so this carb isnt long for this world. I have a kit to rebuild the twin HIF4s, so they will be going on the car some time soon. It's no real surprise I guess; only a month or so ago the jet was completely jammed solid and didnt move, so I'm lucky I can use it at all. In the mean time, I wanted to investigate the ignition system a bit further to see if it has any affect on the cutting out at high RPM. I have nothing against points, they have their charm, but I wanted to convert to electronic ignition to do away with any risk of the points or condensor being an issue. I bought an Accuspark Stealth "Kit 4" for a Lucas 25D distributor, which I can now confirm works fine on the Lucas 29D4 in the Marina. The old points and condensor accepting their fate I pulled the rotor off and removed the points and condensor I wouldnt be surprised if this had something to do with the issue... The main power feed to the points had been "fixed" at some point, with the worst crimp they could find. I don't even know if any copper was still connected, or if the only thing holding the terminal on the wire was the insulation. I could spin the terminal right around with no issues. This also wouldnt help With some careful poking and prodding I pushed the grommet through the housing and removed the old wire The terminal fell off once out of the car The new Accuspark pickup fits right in, after smearing some of the supplied thermal grease on the underside. The pickup ring slips over the shaft easily. The kit comes with new grommets, only one of which will fit and annoyingly it's not quite right, it should really have a 90 degree outlet to avoid the clip for the cap, but it is pliable enough that you can bend it out of the way without issue. I wanted to also replace the coil, as I suspect it was probably original. I got a nice Powerspark high output coil. Its very understated, with not even so much as a label on it. Perfect. UK spec Marinas mounted the coil on the inner wing, away from all the heat and vibration of the engine Aus cars didnt have that luxury, the coil is mounted on the engine. It'd be quite an easy thing to change, I believe the holes are even already in place. Unless you're me, and have mounted an aux fuse box to that location. Nuts. Oh well, I cleaned the inside of the bracket up And mounted the new coil. Its a little bigger than the old coil, so its a tight squeeze. The Accuspark gets wired straight to the positive and negative terminals. The rotor, cap and sports car racing leads were all refitted again. You'd not even notice the fancy newfangled technology hiding in the distributor The car fired into life straight away, with no issues, which was a relief. Once it was warm I checked the timing, which was a little more advanced than it should be, so I knocked that back a little, tweaked the carb tune and took it for a run around the block. I'll tell you what, it has no trouble revving to the 5500rpm redline on the tacho now! The sound it makes from the little pancake filter too, its excellent. I'm not 100% happy with the carb, so will do a couple more tweaks on that, but otherwise its running and driving very well. I think the biggest surprise for me is that the gearbox syncros can keep up even at over 5000RPM on a 1st to 2nd change. Heaps on the list of things to do, but I'm really trying not to get too stuck into much else that will take it off the road, as if we can get some sunny days for once, I want to be able to drive the car.

Bloody enshittification ruining everything these days. So hard to find good quality stuff now. Congrats on the wof regardless of it's efforts to foil your plans.