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Kilroys 1982 Morris 1700


Kilroynz

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I pretty quickly discovered that this car had been assembled in order to sell it - not to drive it.
While the previous owner said he managed to get it running, and it smoked profusely, he also found that there was no gearbox oil and the gearbox had not been assembled completely, as-in the tailshaft housing had not been tightened up and that was where all the oil had leaked out.
I had a quick look and found that the gearbox support had not been tightened up either..


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There were also the occasional wiring alterations which had been left to do their own thing..


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It was beginning to look like the previous owner had made a wise choice to pass it on.
The gearlever did not seem to be commanding any gears to change, the suspension was all from a much earlier model and in dubious repair, two compressions were absent from the engine dept, the starter motor was in trouble, there was as much fuel in the sump as there was oil, none of the lights worked, the oil light did not work, and I discovered that a wire from the starter motor had been connected to the oil pressure light switch. This would have vaporised the first time anyone tried to start the thing except for the fact that it had a diode halfway along it, and that vaporised instead.
We seemed to be getting a picture.
 

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It takes a whole lot longer to remove all the ancillary bits of an engine than it does to remove the dang engine.

I try to keep things in groups, so I will be able to find all the manifold nuts/bolts when I next need this manifold again, for example. Sometimes it works.

 

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Got this thing looking good.

Took a few years on the lawn...

 

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The Marina has no crossmembers other than the rear gearbox mount - which can be removed with the gearbox. So the easiest approach is to drop the entire engine/gearbox as a unit on the deck, then lift the body and drag it out the front. My engine hoist has just enough room between the leg extensions to allow dropping the body back down to remove the hoist and mess with the rest. I drop the engine assy on a piece of wood with a couple of small rollers under it, so moving it is quite easy.

 

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That gets us to the point where this engine can be spruced up for another life in yet another body. Has outlived 3 so far...

 

 

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Once this lot is ready to move into the estate I will drop its engine out in the same way.

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I had noticed the rear brakes were dragging a bit when pushing the car around the yard, and the handbrake lever was a bit naff, so I replaced that while the carpet was out, but it made no difference.

I attempted to back off the adjusters but there were none, so I plucked a drum off to find there had been an earlier rear end fitted which had the 'auto-adjusting' (hohoho..) setup, which doesn't.

 

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As there was a good rear end of the proper type hanging around I fitted it along with a new pair of shocks.

 

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As this one had been out of service for a while the wheel cylinders were bound to be seized up, so I stripped it all out, cleaned it and fitted new cylinders.

Some I had prepared earlier...

 

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That all went as planned and the handbrake now worked as it should.

The pedal box was a 2 pedal type as befit a manual gearbox, so it would need to come out and be replaced by the setup that came with the auto.

 

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Being alloy the housings always corrode and look manky, especially as I live near the beach. I stripped the new lot, wire brushed the housing and gave it a coat of clear to keep the air off it. The master cylinder got wire brushed as well and some silver wheel paint while the booster got engine paint. Great stuff you get in cans these days.

Should do the job.

 

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Not much point in attempting to bleed up the hydraulics as the front suspension and brakes are also going to need checking out first.

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Inspecting the front suspension revealed some early stuff fitted here as well. Seems this car was built with parts from several. Perhaps the donor car also supplied the twin-carb 1800 engine as this would have originally had the 1700 O series.

The early suspension had rubber bushes in the shock absorber arms, which form the top arms of the suspension, so that allows a bit of vagueness in the steering. There was also a camber change at some point, but as I could not detect any difference in the dimensions of this setup otherwise, I decided to reuse the uprights but convert them to later spec by fitting the later top swivel joints which have a tapered pin that fits to the shock absorber arm, so I would also need to fit a different pair of shocks.

 

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First step to rip it all out then..

 

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Doesn't take long, although some parts were rusted together so I just left them that way.

What does take the time is cleaning all the crappy bits and painting them. There is a trunnion at the lower end of the upright which need regular greasing, but they are prone to letting all the grease go to the loosest bit and starving the other, so when you are assembling them is the ideal time to get grease everywhere.

The trunnions screw onto a huge thread on the upright, so the steering turns the two parts up and down the thread, albeit only about 1/4 turn. This is why the grease is important.

 

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The swivels were removed from some spare uprights and bunged onto these, and a pair of shocks found that were nice and clean, which makes me suspicious, but they would do for now.

 

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The brake calipers were problematic, but I got one working properly and found another to replace the one that wouldn't. That allowed me to bleed them all up and get the car back on its wheels so I could turn it around when needed.

I had fitted some 2" lowering blocks when the replacement rear end went in, so I dropped the front a similar amount. This is as simple as fitting the lower arms onto the torsion bar in a different position on the spline. The torsion bar is the silver thing just above the exhaust. Crude but effective.

Another couple of things completed then. If you don't go through absolutely everything you miss the bit that is going to give you trouble...

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Finally everything was in place for the wof check.

My wof guy has met many of my previous Marinas, and he knows that I know far more than he does about them, so he sticks to the necessaries.

Absolutely everything worked, and the only negative comment he could make was that the seat belts were a bit faded.

Indeed they are, but it has taken them 38 years to get to where they now are, so I am not expecting any trouble with this over the next few 6 monthly wof's..!

 

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With that in the bag I headed directly - did not pass 'go' - to my exhaust guy. Turned out they were no longer 'my' exhaust guy, but as I was on a mission I engaged their services.

I wanted the godawful tailpipe removed and a basic 2 feet of 2" pipe instead. With a slight bend.

Got that for a princely $120..!

Well - that might have paid for a cheap welding device.

Never mind. It is now what I wanted, and the reason the fog lights had to go.

 

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This was the most driving I had done in the car, and it was obvious that there was a nasty drone from amidships suggesting something was in trouble.

Because it sounded like it was right next to me below the floor I figured it would be the prop shaft centre bearing. And it was.

I dug out a few possible candidates for a straight swap.

 

 

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Second from left got the nod, so I wire brushed it all up and got the car airborne to make life easier. That means axle stands at my place.

Seemed happy, so I now looked at the other issue I had detected. The left front shock absorber felt soggy. I sorted another, cleaned it up and gave it a coat of paint.

An hour later it was in place and I was out there doing some more miles. In short time the new propshaft was squeaking when reversing. Over the rest of the afternoon it got more persistant until it was also squeaking going forwards.

It seemed I had swapped a dud centre bearing for a dud universal. I had.

Sigh.

I found an even better unit lurking in the shed behind a heap of other stuff.

Next day I completed the third propshaft change in 3 days. Fortunately its a ripper, and we are sorted in that dept at least.

In other news, my 10 week delivery Chinese mirrors arrived in a week and a half. I decided I had to fit one up to see if it was going to be the thing.

 

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Hmmm.

Jury is still out. I had intended to paint it body colour, but I am just not sure it looks the part. Works well though. Left the original one on meantime.

 

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To console myself I took it for a few blocks while holding the ancient Gopro. I wanted to compare the amount of body snake the standard tyres allow versus the 7" superlite wheels and 205 radials.

The car feels way under-tyred on the standard setup.

That got us this...

 

Coming along...

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Cheers all.
The shifter rod problem was just the small spring clip that retains the end of the rod in the auto lever. It was bent way out of shape so not even trying to hold things together. No idea what caused this. I was able to straighten it out, but fitted a different one anyway.


In other more mundane matters.
I fitted some rear mudflaps. Had not previously noted they were made in NZ..

 

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The petrol tank cap I had found, which belonged to no particular vehicle I can think of, was behaving amazingly.
So I got suspicious.
It began making a lot of vacuum noises each time I removed it.
I once had a tank suck itself to half volume, all because of a blocked cap and a very diligent mechanical pump.
Decided not to risk that outcome again.

 

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Sure enough, no vent hole at all, but no leaks either.
Found the smallest drill bit that my drill chuck would grip.
0.9mm.

 

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So whatever fuel can get out of this, is welcome to do so. The problem only happens on left turns.
And because of my driving...

 

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Finally, I did some fine tuning of the wheel alignment, because it is much easier with the Superlites on, as they come to the edge of the body.
While that all made sense, I discovered that the right front shock was leaking fluid quite badly.
This makes both of the first set I chose for the car a fail.
Mostly I chose them because they did not require painting. Luckily I found that the mate of the one I painted for the left side was in equally good working condition, so I cleaned it up and painted it.
Now we do the swap..

 

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A friend called in as I finished this job, so I was cleaning up as we talked. I wiped the place where I put the nuts and bolts while working - not sure what its technical name is, but the panel the bonnet catch lives under - and there was a slight noise like I had bumped something over the edge.
Could not see it so chose to ignore.
Friend left and I went for a test drive. Huge improvement in the ride, so very pleasing.
Then I noticed that the bonnet was floating up against the safety catch. Stopped to check but it would not close. Turned out my rag had grabbed the end of the catch spring and neatly dropped it out of its hole.
Sheesh.
This car is finding some interesting things to test me with.
At least they are small....

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