The Restoration of a Marcos GT

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The Blog 2009 & 2010- 2008 - 2007 - 2006

22-Apr-2010

The new electric fuel pump finally arrived yesterday so I was able to fit it to the car. I also have the car booked in for another rolling road session for tomorrow morning before I head off Bradford on Avon for the Marcos weekend. Hopefully the rolling road session will fix the weak fuel mixture above 4000rpm.

Only other thing that I've just discovered is my front left hand sock absorbers is in the process of failing. Looks like the seals have failed and it is in the process of loosing all it's oil. I'm sure by the time I've reached the Haynes test track there will be no oil left so its obviously going to upset the handling of the car but there is nothing I can do about it as there is a 3 week lead time in getting a replacement. I'll just have to make do till a replacement arrives.

15-Apr-2010

Finally finished setting up the car suspension. It's still not perfect but its a lot better than it was originally. With the suspension completed I thought is was about time to take the car to a rolling road to get the carb set up correctly. This went fairly well but highlighted a fueling issue above 4000 rpm. If you look at the rolling road print out you will see that the AFR (Air Fuel Ratio) increase from 13.2 to 15 from 4000 to 5500rpm. The ideal being 13.2 for acceleration. There could be 2 reasons for this, one being the mechanical fuel pump can't deliver fuel quick enough or the main jets are too small. As the carb has the recommended jet size fitted it is most likely caused by the fuel pump. As the rolling road didn't have the next jet size available we were unable to confirm the exact cause.

My plan now is to fit an electric fuel pump and then I will return for another rolling road session. I will also be taking the next size jets with me just incase the electric fuel pump hasn't fixed the issue. As for my engine the performance it is spot on at 130BHP which is exactly correct for an early Essex V6 engine fitted with the standard oval port heads. I am tempted to fit an up rated engine but this is defiantly a project for another year as upgrading the rear axle first is more important for me.

One photo below shows how the track rod end is attached to the steering arm. I plan to have a spacer machined to replace the temporary spacers was I'm confident that no further adjustments are required. The other item is a scan of my rolling road session for the Marcos car.

10-Apr-2010

Spent the last 2 days trying to adjust my cars suspension and it's still not right. It's probably a lot closer than it was but its still not as good as it should be. Having completed the bump steer modifications the toe in now only changes by about 2.4mm over the whole suspension travel which is a vast improvement over the 2cm change that I had before I started the modifications.

I only shorten the steering rack by 5cm but it looks like that was slightly too much! The computer model I did can't have been as accurate as I was expecting as the only way to reduce the bump steer now would be to extend the rack very slightly (Don't think I will bother as 2.4mm is good enough). Before continuing with the suspension setup tomorrow I have taken the car out for a drive tonight. The handling was defiantly better along the bumpy country roads but the car is still pulling slightly to one side.

I think I lot of the issues I have with the front wheel suspension setup is due to the castor not being equal between the two front wheels. However with the equipment I have this is the one thing I can't measure so it's impossible for me to correct. I plan to check the suspension settings again and if everything still looks ok it must be caused by the caster angle being incorrect so I'll have no choice but take a trip to a garage so they can measure it for me.

If I remember I will also take some photo's of my front suspension tomorrow and upload them to my web site.

6-Apr-2010

After being away for the last 4 weeks I've returned home and I'm ready to complete the suspension modifications to my car. Since I last worked on the car the high angle misalignment rod bearings have arrived. This has enabled me to fit them to the car and measure up what I need to fabricate to be able to connect these to the steering rack. Having now taken the measurements I will now need to wait a few days till the machine shop has time to fabricate them (with a bit of luck they will be ready by Friday). While I'm waiting there is very little I can do to my car however I do plan to visit a fellow Marcos owner on Thursday and give them a hand with their car. If the machine shop does complete the parts by Friday I plan to spend the weekend setting the car suspension and wheel alignment up. I expect this to take some time as when you adjust one setting e.g. ride height it affects other settings such as wheel alignment and camber. I also need to spend some time measuring the bump steer on the car to determine the ideal amount that I need to shim the rod end bearings to minimize the bump steer.

3-Mar-2010

It's 2010 and its been a busy year so far. Since returning to work in the new year this has been the first time I've had some time off and been able to work on the car. Today I removed the steering rack from the car and stripped it down so I could shorten it. To achieve this the internal shaft was cut into 2 and a 50mm section was removed from the middle of the shaft. These were then taken to the local machine shop were a lathe was used to drill and tap a 1/2" UNF thread into the end of each section. These were then joined back together with a 1/2" unf stud and then welded to prevent the two sections coming lose under load. The photo's below shows the shafts after machining and when they have been welded back together. Once this was done the rack was reassembled and fitted back onto the car. At this point I was unable to proceed any further as the rod end bearings I had bought don't have enough movement. This means I need to buy some high angle misalignment rod end bearings to complete the modification.

29-Dec-2009

The first photo below shows my home made bump steer gauge. Why pay loads of money for something that can be made out of a few items I had laying around the garage. The only Item I had to buy to make it was the piano hinge. The only issue with it so far is that the piece of wood that is attached to the hub is not perfectly flat but this doesn't cause much of an error when the bump steer is so bad on the Marcos car. I will probably replace the piece of wood with an aluminum or steel plate at some point in the future but this won't be required unless you are trying to measure the bump steer on a car where it's almost zero.

The other thing I've done is fit a set of tubular wishbones. The lower ones are none adjustable, however the top ones are adjustable. This means I should be able to set the camber and caster of the front suspension. The only modifications I plan to do in the future is to narrow the steering rack by about 50mm and then modify the track rod ends so the height of the mounting point can be adjusted. Once this modification is done I'll spend some time trying to set the cars suspension geometry up and I will have hopefully solved the problem of bump steer.

23-Dec-2009

I gained some motivation today and decided to brave the cold of the garage. It was a very productive day as I managed to convert 2 of my rear radius rods to be adjustable. I've already fitted them back onto the car and at some point in the future I will attempt to adjust the rear axle position to hopefully stop the car pulling to one side. However I don't plan to do this till I've fitted some adjustable front wishbones.

The other item I was working on was making a bump steer gauge. If I get a chance I'll try to remember to take a photo of it but it was pretty simple to make out of a few pieces of wood and some spare 16mm square tube. The most expensive part of it would have been the dial gauge but as I already had one on these it didn't cost me anything.

From taking measurements of the actual bump steer I discovered that it wasn't quite as bad as my original front suspension model, but it's still not very good. Once I had the real measurements I made a slight adjustment to the model to get it to match the real data (my measurement of the steering rack height was not correct, only 0.6cm out). The graph below shows the original and updated model along with the real data and hopefully the ideal once the modifications have been completed. From the chart you can see that there is a slight curve to the data and this is caused by the rack being to wide. I plan to make the rack 5cm narrower, which is the most that can be realistically achieved. As luck would have it this pretty much removes the curve from the line. To make the line horizontal e.g. no bump steer I need to either raise the point the ball joint mounts onto the steering arm by 1.4cm or lower the steering rack by 1.4cm. Due to the design of the front chassis the easiest option will be to alter how the steering rack attaches's to the steering arm.

18-Dec-2009

Not much has really happened on the car front as it's hard to get motivated when it's so cold out in the garage. Currently I'm waiting for a new gasket set so I can fix the oil leak on the gearbox. One job I have made a start on is converting the rear radius rods to be adjustable. So far I've removed them from the car and I'm currently waiting for a machine shop to make a couple of threaded inserts that can be welded into the tube. With a bit of luck I should be able to get these next week. The other area I've been looking at is front suspension geometry. I have already decided that I plan to make the top wishbones on my car adjustable so I can set the camber and caster of the front suspension more accurately.

While doing some research on the internet I found this suspension analysis software. You can download the software and try the full version free of charge for 10 day. As it was free and I had nothing better to do with my time I made of few rough measurements of the front suspension and entered it into the software. The one issue/inaccuracy I've found with the software so far is that it expects ball joints to be used on the front upright. As the Marcos uses trunnions it's not really possible to model the suspension 100% accurately. However with adjusting the pivot points I found that it makes very little difference to the results adjusting the bottom pivot point.

The one area I was really interested in calculating was the bump steer as it has been reported that this is a problem on Marcos cars. So far the only adjustments I've tried altering in the software is the rack width (distance between the ball joints on the rack) and the height that the track rod end attaches to the steering arm. There is a copy of an article from a MOC magazine in the download section of my site that discusses how to calculate the ideal steering rack width. It would be possible to make lots of other adjustments but most of these would be very difficult or impossible to actually implement due to the current design of the front of the car.

The photo below shows a chart comparing the bump steer with different modifications made. The 2 changes I made to the model were to shorten the rack width by 50mm. This value was chosen as it is the same amount as the width of the spacers that Marcos Car's fitted to the steering rack to stop the wheels rubbing on the body. Although the calculations show that the rack should be made even shorter I think this would actually be impossible without having to adjust how the steering rack mounts to the car. The other modification I simulated was adjusting the height the track rod end attaches to the steering arm. In the simulation I raised the attachment point by 2.4cm to get the improvements I wanted. In practice this could be implemented very easily with a modification shown in the second photo below.

Now all this theory is great but the only real way of knowing if the simulation is accurate or not is to go and measure the bump steer on the car (looks like I'll have to make myself a bump steer gauge now). If the real measurements are similar to the simulation I will at least know what to modify to improve the situation.

11-Dec-2009

The brake upgrade is complete and there is a definite improvement. However I'm still not happy with the handling of the car. I think there are a number of issues that are causing this but the main problem with the Marcos is that if you adjust the suspension it affects the front wheel geometry. Since the front suspension wishbones are not adjustable you have no way of correcting the geometry when you adjust the springs/ride height. On a Triumph car the suspension mounts bolt on so it's possible to place shims behind the mounts to correct the steering geometry, but when they made the Marcos they decided to weld them in place. I have basically come to the conclusion that I need to have adjustable top wishbones made. This means I can set the springs up correctly to get the correct ride height (maybe even have the corner weight set up). Once this is done I can then adjust the front suspension to get the correct camber and caster. I also think I need more adjustment on the rear axle as only one of my radius rods is adjustable so I will probably modify the rest so they can all be adjusted. Hopefully I can get these mods done over the next few weeks so I can then spend some time getting the suspension set up correctly.

The rebuilt gear box and overdrive also worked but it seems to have a bad oil leak between the overdrive and gearbox. When I was rebuilding it I noticed the aluminum overdrive to gearbox adapter was slightly warped but I was hopping using lots of gasket sealer would work. Turns out it didn't so I will need to remove the gearbox again to replace the gasket and possibly have the adapter skimmed at the machine shop. Looks like nothing is ever simple on a Marcos!

6-Dec-2009

So close but so far. I almost managed to complete the front brake upgrade but was unable to connect the brake pipes. I should have realized that the threads in the calipers wouldn't be imperial so I now need to buy a couple of metric banjo bolts to complete the upgrade.

5-Dec-2009

Not much to report really. All I did today was give a few items a coat of paint so if I get a chance tomorrow I can finally assemble the brakes. If this goes well I might even be able to take the car for a test drive. If this happens it will also give me a chance to test the rebuilt gearbox and overdrive as well as the new brakes.

3-Dec-2009

Finally all the parts have arrived. In the end I bought the vitesse 1600 caliper mounting ring along with an up-rated front alloy hubs from Canley Classics. Amazingly the items fit together without too many major issues. The biggest problem so far is the alloy caliper bracket fowls the vented disk, however a couple of minutes with a junior hacksaw and a file I have managed to remove a small section of the bracket and now every thing fits together without any problems. I have also discovered a couple of other issue with the hubs that isn't mention with the instructions that accompany the hubs. The first thing is you ideally need to use longer bolts to attach the brake discs to the hub. If this is done there will be less chance of you stripping/damaging the threads in the alloy hub. The other issues is the bolts that hold the steering arm in place have to be in a certain position or they will also catch the outside of the ally hub causing damage. There are still some outstanding issues that I need to complete such as modifying the dust shields so they can be used with the new calipers (I could leave them off but I want the car to look as original as possible). Once this is done I just need to paint all the parts and reassemble the front suspensions.

4-Nov-2009

The overdrive and gearbox rebuild is complete. I have also managed to swap the rebuilt gearbox with the one originally fitted to the Marcos car. This turned out to be easier than I expected as it's actually possible to swap the gearbox without having to remove the engine. To do this you will need access to a ramp or pit and the help from another person. If you want to do this step 1 is to remove the prop shaft. Step 2 remove the 5 bolts that attach the cross member to the car and gearbox and also remove the speedo cable. Step 3 remove the gear lever, Step 4 undo the 6 bolts that hold the gearbox to the bell housing. Finally step 5 with the help from someone else carefully lift the gearbox from the car tacking care to disconnect the wires from the overdrive inhibitor switch. Till you manage to refit the gearbox don't let anyone press the clutch pedal or you will never get the replacement gearbox to fit. I still need to take the car for a test drive to check the operation of the gearbox/overdrive but this will have to wait till I have finished the upgrade on my front brakes.

Since first completing the Marcos and taking it out for a drive this summer I have never been very happy with the brakes, I find it almost impossible to lock the brakes up no matter how hard I press on the pedal. Due to this I have been researching what brake upgrades are available for the Marcos. There are a lot of kits available but one of the main criteria I had was that I still wanted to be able to keep the original Marcos alloys(13" Rim). In the end I chose the following kit from Caterham cars. https://www.caterhamparts.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=93&osCsid=4f48bc4c0c1f246c43dbcf422280414b This kit is designed for a Caterham car and is made by AP Racing so it should be the best money can buy. It should also fit the Marcos as the Caterham front suspension is based on the original Triumph Spitfire upright. This means that so long as you swap the caliper mounting ring for the one from a Triumph vitesse 1600 everything should bolt together straight out of the box.

The only parts to arrive so far is the kit from Caterham and I'm still waiting for caliper mounting ring to arrive from Canley Classics. Till I get this part I won't know for certain that everything will fit together. I have tried fitting the vented brake disc to the GT6 hub and this is a perfect fit so now I just need the caliper mounting ring to see if the caliper fit.

28-Oct-2009

The overdrive is 75% complete however I've encountered a couple of issues. The first one was the prop shaft bushing that's mounted in the rear part of the overdrive housing was badly worn and needed replacing. It turns out this part is no longer available but I was able to find a suitable replacement at a local bearing company (only cost a fiver). The only problem with the replacement part is that the external OD of the bush is slightly bigger so I've had to take the aluminum housing to the local machine shop to have it bored out. Once this is done I will be able to have the new bush pressed in.

The other issue is that I'm missing a couple of orings that are required for the main operating pistons. It turns out the pistons in the overdrive fitted to the Marcos car is slightly different to the majority of LH type overdrives (eg the ones fitted to MGB's). The pistons are made from two pieces. This means an extra oring is required and its not supplied in the rebuild kit as standard. When I phone an Overdrive specialist they told me they never normally replaced the orings as it was almost impossible to get the pistons apart. They basically said that if they had a problem with the seals it was cheaper and easier to just replace the whole piston with a solid one, however they didn't currently have any pistons available for sale.

As the seals in my pistons were not sealing i had no option but to try and dismantle the pistons which i have managed to do so now all I need to do is visit the local bearing company tomorrow and buy a couple of replacement orings.

25-Oct-2009

A very successful weekend. The gearbox has been put back together and now all that's left is to make a start on the overdrive. The covers of the gearbox still need to be removed one last time so the gaskets and oil seals can be fitted but I wanted to make sure the selector mechanism worked before I did this. The other issue left is I still need to buy the correct oil seal for the front of the gearbox as the one supplied in the overhaul kit was the incorrect size. This shouldn't be a major problem as a bearing company in Norwich stocks them and while I'm there I will also need to get a replacement bearing for the overdrive as one of them feels a bit worn.

Hopefully if all goes well I can get the overdrive back together tomorrow afternoon.

23-Oct-2009

Spent the day stripping down the gearboxes and overdrives. Overall this was relatively easy job and the only difficulty part was dismantling the gears on the main shaft. The problem was the shaft from the Type 5 gearbox was too long so it was impossible to use a bearing/hub puller to remove the bearing so the individual gears could then be removed. To overcome this the only option left was to pop down the local machine shop and use their hydraulic press (cost me a fiver). Once the gearboxes was stripped I gave the items a quick clean so I could check the condition of the parts. The parts will still need to be cleaned more thoroughly before I can start reassembling.

The selection of parts can be seen in the photo below, hopefully I can remember how it all goes back together!

20-Oct-2009

One of the biggest issues with the 1970 3 Liter V6 is the gearing, basically it was all wrong from new. With the ratios in the original 4 speed gearbox and overdrive along with the 3.77 axle ratio it is impossible to reach 60 mph with out changing into 3rd gear (this is probably why the quoted 0-60mph times are worse that really should be.

In my opinion their are two issue with the gearing. One is the final ratio of the axle is to high and the second is the ratios in the gearbox are not very well space. As my car is fitted with the ford English axle with a 3.77:1 differential there is not much I can do to improve the ratio in the axle. It is possible to get a 3.54:1 crown wheel a pinion for this axle but from the opinion of other owners it really needs to have a ration of 3.09:1 or 3.22:1 (this is what the 3 Liter Capri had fitted. With is in mind I eventually plan to replace the rear axle with the an Atlas Axle from the Ford Capri(this will be a future project).

The other area that I think is correct is the ratios of the gear box. I think there is a large jump from 2nd to 3rd which is far from ideal (especially on a race track). The list below shows the ratios shows the ratios of the original gearbox along with some other ford gearboxes that could be fitted. As you can see from the table most of the ratios are similar with the exception of the 2nd gear ratio.

There are several advantages and disadvantages of the different gearboxes. The Type 5 4spd would be a straight swap but you would loose the 5th gear(overdrive). The T5 and Type 9 would be stronger by I would require a different bel housing. The Type 9 also had a cable clutch which would also require further modifications. The Type 5 and Type 9 are cheap and easily available second hand unlike the T5. I was actually having problems trying to decide which gearbox to go for when I discovered that it would be possible to take the gears from a type 5 gearbox and fit them to the Zodiac Gearbox this would solve the problem of the 2nd gear ratio, the car would still look original, wouldn't require any modifications to the car (e.g. clutch and gearbox tunnel) and it would be cheap as Type 5 gearboxes can be found for about 70 on ebay. The only downside would be that the gearbox would not be as strong as a Type 9 or T5 but as my engine isn't tuned I can't see this being a problem.

With this being my forward plan I've actually bought a Zodiac Mk4 gearbox and overdrive as well as a Ford Type 5 gearbox. This means I can spend time trying to make a hybrid gearbox out of the two with out having to take the Marcos car off the road. The Phot blow shows my Donor Type 5 Gearbox along with the 4 speed gearbox and overdrive that I plan to upgrade.

17-Oct-2009

After traveling over 2000 miles in the marcos since I completed the restoration I decided it was about time to fix the rear wheel bearings that have been rumbling away, even as loud as the engine and exhaust is I couldn't keep ignoring it as I'm sure it was getting worse. Stripping down the rear axle and removing the half shafts was relatively easy but removing the old bearings from the shaft was quite a bit harder than expected. I really should have expected this as on the Ford English Axle ford rely's on a friction fit to hold the bearing in place.

The bearing is kit actually consists of two part, one is the bearing and the other is a metal ring that is also pressed on the shaft to help keep the bearing in place (see photo below). The first step in removing the bearing was to place the bearing in the vice and squeeze the bearing across its diameter. As the bearing is made out of hardened steel (and it's slightly worn) the outer race will shatter just leaving the inner part still on the shaft. Luckily the metal ring is made out of normal steel so it was possible to carefully cut about 80% through this ring with out damaging the shaft. once this was done i hammered a chisel into the cut causing the ring to open out making it slip off the shaft. Once this was done it just left the inner section of the bearing on the shaft. this was the difficult part to remove. First I tried brute force of punching it of when this failed I tried grinding through the bearing but gave up on this approach as I feared I would end up damaging the shaft so the final approach was using the oxy acetylene bottle to heat it up and then knock it off. This worked in the end but it took me and my father over 2 hours to remove the old bearings.

Once the old bearings had been removed the next challenge was to fit the new ones. As they had to be pressed down over the entire length of the shaft I ended up using a piece of scaffolding pole and a large sledge hammer. This worked well but yet again was a two man job.

With the wheel bearings replaced the next job was to remove the diff while the half shafts were removed so I could to check the differential as I believed their was slightly too much back lash. Once this was removed The backlash was measured at about 0.4mm (should only be about 0.13mm) The job of adjusting this is quite simple so now all I'm waiting for is a replacement gasket to arrive so the rear axle can be reassembled.

13-Aug-09

Well one day to go before I'm heading off to the 50th Anniversary Weekend for Marcos Cars. The car is just about ready and the photo's below show the finished interior. The only slight issue with the car is that the rear left hand wheel bearing is making some noise. I've been unable to locate a wheel bearing in time so I will just have to take it steady this weekend and hope that it holds together.

10-Aug-09

The cars back from the upholstery shop and the newly retrimmed seats and door cards are suppose to look good. I'm actually looking forward to seeing them for the first time myself as I'm still away at work. The plan is for me to return home on Wednesday, which will give me all of Thursday to check the mechanics of the car before giving it a quick washing. If all goes to plan I will be leaving early Friday morning to arrive in time to start the mystery tour at the 50th Anniversary Rally.

2-Aug-09

With the annual rally fast approaching I thought it was time to complete the last few jobs so the car is completely finish for the rally. Due to the issue with the overdrive I looked into it further and discovered that I had put the wrong grade of oil in the gearbox and overdrive. This was drained and refilled with the correct oil. I also stripped and cleaned the filter on the overdrive along with the solenoid and pressure relief valve. Since doing this the overdrive seems to be working much better but I won't know for certain till I take it for a long drive (will know by the time I get to Prescott).

The other task I have been working on is refitting the wood frame into the boot that hides the spare wheel. Once this was done I cut some carpets to size to line the boot. All that is required is to have the edges of the carpets bound to finish it off. The final job of the day was to drop the car off at the trim shop so it can have the seats recovered. Next time I see the car the interior should be finished and it will be ready for Prescott.

12-Jul-09

The MOC annual rally was excellent and it was finally a chance to put some faces to names. My car also performed almost perfectly and suffered from very few problems. During the whole weekend the only issue I had was the overdrive occasionally dropping out on its own which was more annoying than being a serious issue. The only other problem I had was when the brakes locked on at a set of traffic lights when I was about 1 mile from getting home. Not sure how I managed to achieve this but the only solution was to crack open one of the brake lines and bleed off the pressure.

10-Jul-09

After spending several hours I finally found somewhere that could balance the Marcos alloys on the stud holes. The bad news is that the alloys are in bad condition as it took a lot of weight to get them to balance. The ideal solution would to buy a set of new wheels but the car just wouldn't look as good.

There is still a bit of noise coming from the rear of the car so I could have a wheel bearing on the way out but its not that bad yet so I've decided it ignore it for now and try and get some use of the car while the weather is good.

The photo below shows the car completed with the exception of the interior. At least you can drive it and I will have to do till the seats are re-trimmed in August (just in time for Prescott).

9-Jul-09

UJ on the prop shaft were replaced but this hasn't fixed the problem. next option is to get the new wheels rebalance tomorrow if possible using the bolt holes. If this doesn't work I'm not sure what i can try next! and with only one day to go before I'm suppose to go to the MOC rally its looking less likely the Marcos will make it.

8-Jul-09

Seat backs arrived back today with the head rests covered so I was able to fit these back into the car. With these fitted I was able to make 2 new bottom seat cushions. The ones I have made have slightly more padding than the originals so hopefully this might help to make the ride a it more comfortable. With the seats fitted back in I was also able to refit the rear screen again with a new seal.

With all this done I was able to finally take the car for another test drive and this is were the fun and games started! First thing to fail was the car develop a sudden tendency to stall when pulling up to a junction (not sure what changed but it was ok for the first 30 minutes) this wouldn't have been an issue but the wire to the starter motor shorted out so it was impossible to start the car again with out the assistance of a couple of people pushing.

Although this problem is nothing compare to the noise and vibration coming from the rear of the car! On finally getting the car home the issue of the starter was easily located and fixed. The cable routing has been adjusted and some sleeving has been placed over the wire to protect it. I think I have also found the problem of the noise coming from the rear of the car as the prop shaft UJ look worn, but till I replace them tomorrow I wont know for certain.

30-Jun-09

Still working away slowly on the car trying to fix a number of small issues so the car will be ready for the Marcos Owners Club rally on the 12th July. The one item that won't be finished will be the interior as I don't have the car booked in at the trim shop till the 3rd August, but at least it will be done for the 50th Anniversary. All I'm waiting for now is to get the seats back from having the head rests recovered so I can take the car out for another drive to see what other issues I can find before the rally.

26-Jun-09

It's been a busy few days and last night I had my doubts the car would ever be ready in time but today all the effort was worth it as I got a MOT certificate. Thankfully my local garage is very understanding towards classic cars and on the few items he could have failed the Marcos on he quickly fixed for me or pointed them out to me so I could fix them after the MOT before taking it out on the road in anger.

Although I have an MOT I won't be able to take the car out for the next week or so as I've removed the seats to have the head rests recovered. The rear screen needs to come back out as the seal needs to be replaced and the most serious issue is the seal around the petrol tank sensor is leaking. Luckily the strong smell of petrol alerted me to this fault when I filled the car up for the first time on the way home from the MOT testing station.

20-Jun-09

Still making slow progress on the car. The majority of the day was spent rubbing down, filling and then painting the battery box and mud guards. the phot below shown these with the primer applied along with some filler in all the small holes that suddenly became a lot obvious once the paint had been applied. The rest of the day was spent fitting the door handles and fixing a couple of other small issues such as a leaking oil pressure gauge pipe and a couple of faults with the car electrics. On Monday I'm going to see if I can get the car booked in for on MOT on Wednesday,

18-Jun-09

Spent today fitting the window into the drivers door and then fitting the door to the car. I then spent the rest of the day stripping down the window electric motors as they seem very reluctant to work. On stripping them they seem to be in far better condition than I expected and the man reason I could find for them not working was the large amount of dust, muck and carbon stuck between the gaps of the copper rotor. All I really did was carefully scrape out this muck using a feeler gauge and then clean up the rotor with some emery paper before using and air line to blow out all the loose dust. Once this was completed the motors were reassembled and they now seem to be working much better.

16-Jun-09

Well I'm still working away on my car. However even simple thinks seem to take a lot longer that they should, for example today I connected the battery to check the electrics and even though every thing was connected correctly a few things didn't want to work. These were mainly caused by bad connections, but even simple things like this waste half a day to track down and correct. However on a more positive note I also managed to fit the passenger side door to the car today. Its the bit items like this that make a dramatic difference to the car. With a bit of luck I will get the drivers side door fitted tomorrow and than I can work on getting the electric window motors fitted.

15-Jun-09

Spent the day trying to fix the heater blower motor today. The photo below shows the badly worn rotor of the motor. All that was required was to have a local machine shop to skim the rotor and to replace the brushes. Although this cost 20 quid I could have tried buying another motor from bay but their would be no guarantee that it would be in any better condition! That's the problem with owning a car that is almost 40 year old.

13-Jun-09

It might have taken the majority of the day but I've finally got the front window screen fitted along with the top of the dash. Before fitting the screen I spent the morning fitting the choke cable along with the heater control cables as this is far easier to do when the screen is not in the car. The previous couple of days has been spent on reassembling the front suspension along with filling and sanding the front mud guards and battery box to try and get them ready to paint. With a bit of luck these will be completed in the next couple of days so I can get them painted.

7-Jun-09

Spent the day painting the chassis around the engine and all the front suspension components. Every thing is now ready for me to start reassembling the car when I return from a training course on Thursday. The photo below shows the engine bay looking much better with its fresh cost of paint.

6-Jun-09

The engine bay of the car was looking in a very poor state and everything was covered in over spray from when the car was at the paint shop. As I'm unhappy with how it was looking I've made the decision to strip the front suspension and engine bay so I can repaint everything. With the bonnet removed and the suspension stripped I also took the opportunity to make and weld a bracket to mount the heater blower motor.

4-Jun-09

If every thing goes as planned I should be off work till the 12th June so if all goes well I should be able to get the Marcos completed and MOT ready for the Marcos Annual rally. Today was spent working out how to mount the ashtray into the car. once this was completed the remaining carpets were fitted The phot below shows the carpets fitted.

16-May-09

I'm back at home for a couple of days so its time to continue with the car. I'm starting to have my doubts about wether it will be completed for the 50th anniversary event. As I'm short of time I plan to spend my time on getting the mechanical side completed so I can get an MOT and then if I have any time left I will spend it completing the interior. The weekend has been spent recovering the center section of the dash, and then fitting it to the car. I have also cleaned all the glass in the gauges and polished the gauge chrome surrounds before refitting them. Although its taken most of the weekend I'm happy with how the completed dash looks.

29-Apr-09

There has been a dramatic improvement to the car today as I've managed to get three of the four original Marcos wheel that I've had powdered coated fitted to the car. This has improved the looks as the offset of these wheels is slightly different to the alloy wheels I had fitted. The only reason I've managed to get three of the wheels fitted is that the steel inserts are missing from one of my wheels. I've already arranged to get some made at a local machine shop and with a bit of luck they will be ready when I return from work in a few weeks time.

28-Apr-09

Spent the morning refitting the petrol tank and tidying up the wiring in the boot of the car. Hopefully the petrol tank will be staying in for good now. I also took the last of my carpets to be bound.

27-Apr-09

On returning I've made a start on the interior of the car again. The main task for the day was fitting the sill carpets that I had bound so I could then work on cutting the remaining carpets to size. This has took muck longer than I expected, but I am now happy with the fit of the carpets.

24-Feb-09

Didn't get much time to work on the car today before having to return to work but I did manage to refit the boot lid, fit the aerial and the reversing lights. I also managed to take a couple of carpets to be bound. The photo below shows the rear of the car.

23-Feb-09

Today was a relatively slow day and not much was achieved. The newly painted sunroof parts were reassembled and fitted so you can now open and close the sunroof properly. Now all I need is a new liner made for the inside of the sunroof. The only other task completed was the inside of the boot was painted black again to cover the yellow over spray. Once this was completed the fumes were giving me a head ache so I decided to give up early.

22-Feb-09

Well as all the under felt is now fitted to the car I've now made a start cutting out new carpets. I've not got that far with this as most of my carpets are missing so I don't have anything to copy. This means I'm having to make cardboard templates and once I'm happy with the fit of the cardboard I'm cutting out a section of carpet. Its slow going but so far I've not screwed up yet and cut a carpet to small. The other item I spent some time on was cleaning the webasto sunroof so its ready to fit back onto the car.

21-Feb-09

Today I finally gained the motivation to finish fitting the under felt to the car. This was a slow job as the foot wells on the Marcos car are not the easiest to gain access to. Cardboard templates were made first and then these were used to cut out sections of felt just slightly larger than the template. The sections of felt were then fitted and trimmed to size before being glued into place with contact adhesive. The first one to be completed was the passengers foot well and this proved to be much easier as there were no pedals in the way and you could also gain access from under the bonnet as the battery box has still not been fitted to the car. To make it easier to work on the drivers foot well the steering wheel was also temporarily removed but by the time I had finished gluing the felt in place my knees were sore and I was light headed from the glue fumes. The photo below show the completed drivers foot well.

19-Feb-09

The fibre glass on the rear speaker panels had set so the first task was to cut the holes for the speakers I plan to fit. The photo below shows the speaker panels ready to be recovered. These were then fitted to car to ensure the fit was ok before being recovered in vinyl. Once this was completed 2 section of the dash were also recovered in vinyl.

18-Feb-09

Today I made a start on the interior of the car. The first area I worked on were the rear speaker panels. One of these had a hole cut in for a speaker and the other was complete. As the speakers I have bought are a different size the first task was to fill the hole with fibre glass so a different size hole could be cut. Once this was complete I started cutting felt and gluing it to the rear parcel shelf.

22-Jan-09

The photo below shows the car shortly after it returned from the paint shop in January. With a bit of luck I'll get a chance to update the bolog in the next few days showing what I've done since the car has returned.

Design by Adrian Mann