Project Marina, Motorkhana & End of WOF

Well, that’s it, it’s been six months, which means the WOF on the Marina has run out.

So what did we get up to in that time? Not much. I covered around 150km total in that time, but other than some mishaps, the smiles per mile were high.

One thing I had been looking forward to, after British Car Day, was a grass Motorkhana run by the local MG Classic Car club. It’s close to where I live, and fairly low stress since it’s on nice smooth grass. It’d be a treat for the Marina for being so good.

Before then I had a couple of small things to sort. The main one was the valve cover gasket which had been leaking down the side of the head, onto the exhaust manifold. Not ideal.

Quite easy to do. Whip off the six bolts on top

From there, the cover just lifts off, revealing the pinnacle in 70s OHC technology

After a good clean, a new gasket was fitted and the cover went back on

I also replaced the fuel filter as I’m still running into issues where its filling with old fuel sludge from the tank. This was from just a couple of times driving it. Not as bad as the last filter, its not blocked, but still a lot of sludge.

Before replacing the filter I wanted to try something; draining the tank through a filter and seeing what comes out. I fitted a new filter, rerouted the outlet of the pump into a fuel can, via a funnel and grips…

And powered the pump directly from my jump pack

I drained about 15L out of the tank, until the pump started to suck air, before hooking it all back up to the carb, refilling the tank with the fuel I just removed, and changing the fuel filter again.

This was a new filter. It’s not as bad as I thought, but still quite a bit of sludge.

With another new filter fitted, a fresh 20L of fuel in the tank, we were ready to go

A couple of weeks ago the Motorkhana rolled around, so I got up nice and early, bundled the tools into the support car and head off.

Lots of awesome cars in attendance, and a bunch of great people too.

Before long, we were queuing up ready for the first course. This was one of three courses set up for the day.

Here I am, ready to tear it up

Being one of the first cars through, the grass being very wet, and my first time ever doing something like this (let alone in a Marina), my times were… slow.

Even with my complete lack of power, traction was non-existent. I got a pretty darn slow time, but who cares, I was having fun!

I lined back up for another try

This time the ground was a lot more torn up, less grass, more mud. Traction didn’t improve…

I went into it with a bit more vigour this time

Still slow as heck, but went for maximum flair. The world’s slowest steering ratio doesn’t help when things get a bit crossed up, it feels like it’s a million turns end to end

That run looked like this from outside the car

Leaning with intent

Definitely slightly sideways

I was having a darn good time, sliding the car around in the mud, even if I was way off pace.

Having done that course twice now, I wanted to move onto the next one and see what that was like.

I was inching forward in the queue of cars, waiting my turn. All was going well. Too well. The car was running great, the temps were good, everything was working.

Until it wasn’t.

I pressed on the clutch pedal to move the car forward and bam, suddenly my foot was on the floor. Dammit. The clutch slave cylinder again.

You can see me gently tapping the pedal to see what the state of it was. Last time this happened I stomped the pedal to see if it was jammed, this resulted in all the guts of the cylinder being ejected when the force of my foot pushed the piston out through the circlip. I didn’t want to do that again, So I was careful not to press too hard.

Thankfully my battery was fully charged, my starter a trooper, and I was on grass, so I could turn the engine over in gear and get it started, which allowed me to move the car off the line and back to the parking area.

After popping the bonnet I could see what had happened, the large main circlip that retains the slave cylinder and stops it sliding backwards away from the clutch lever had decided to yeet itself and was no where to be found. Thankfully, the rest of the slave was still intact.

Myself, my wife and a couple of other competitors had a good look around for the circlip, but it never turned up. As far as I know, it’s still there, sitting in the grass.

Broken or not, It’s still a cool car

After scrambling around for a bit, we eventually jumped in the support vehicle and shot home to see if I had a spare circlip. I did not, and could not get one on a weekend either. Damn.

So, what does one do then? Zipties. All I needed was enough clutch to do a couple of starts at intersections on the way home, I could start it in gear to leave, and rev match the shifts without the clutch on the drive back.

I secured the slave in place with 6 large zip ties, pulled as taut as I could given the space.

We knew when the entry gates were being opened, so we left a little early. Starting in gear, and leaving it in first until I got to the gate, as it’s all low speed shared public access

At the gate, waiting to be let out

The drive home was fairly uneventful. The clutch worked, with a couple of pumps, for the once or twice I needed it, otherwise I kept it in second for maximum low speed grunt and with some creative route-taking, managed to get home without having to stop for traffic and avoided too many intersections.

To my amazement, despite the heat down in that area, the zipties were all still present when I got home, albeit they were softening up as the clutch was barely working by the time I pulled into the garage.

I’m not disappointed the car let me down, not at all, you have to expect things like this when pushing a 50+ year old car that until recently had been off the road half its life. I’m disappointed I didn’t get more time out on the grass, doing sweet skids. I’m more impressed though that even though it broke, it still got me home under its it power, with nothing but zipties to fix it.

Through the day the Marina attracted a lot of attention, particularly when the bonnet went up, but everyone was very positive and loved seeing it out there. There were offers of help, tools and one guy even offered to shoot home and get a metal detector to find the clip; none of which were needed, but very much appreciated. The whole community around entry level events like this is awesome.

Once I got it home, I looked at my options. I could convert it to the UK style cylinder, which is a different shape and doesn’t rely on a circlip to retain it, it uses the body of the cylinder, so it physically can’t fail in the same manner. These are available ex UK, but are a pain to fit and I have already rebuilt my current Aus cylinder, so that’d be money down the drain.

I decided to give the Aus cylinder one more chance. This time I grabbed some calipers and got measuring. It turns out when buying external circlips, you measure the body of the shaft its going to go on, not the groove it sits in

I ordered some 35mm stainless external circlips online

And after struggling with circlip pliers to fit it, the slave was once again back where it should be, less the zipties

I did wonder if the fact the cylinder had been painted when it was rebuilt had anything to do with it. The circlip groove had paint in it, so before fitting the new clip I used a wire brush to thoroughly clear all the paint out of the groove.

I’m not sure if the old circlip was wrong or just old and tired, but it was a very loose fit compared to the new one. You could almost fit the old one by hand, the new one takes a bit of force and work with circlip pliers to get in place.

The clutch pedal feels a little firmer now, but that could be a placebo. I took the Marina for a really good, hard, run over some twisty back roads near home and the clutch seems to be operating 100% fine now, with no signs the circlip wants to jump off again. I will call it a success for now, but keep an eye on it (and a spare clip and tool in the boot).

That brings me to today, where the Marina now has no WOF and cannot be driven on the road until it is renewed. I have chosen not to renew the WOF for now and will instead take the car off the road over winter.

During the last check, I had an advisory for the bushes on the rear diff reaction rod being perished, so that will be high on the list of things I need to do, but there is also a reasonably big list of work I would like to complete before its back on the road, one of which is upgrading the suspension, and I plan to get the twin carbs on too. Heck, If I get around to it, the door cards need trimming too.

So, here we are again, the Marina is off the road, but with a clear plan in mind. We will be back, better than ever, ready to do more KM than the last WOF period, and next years Motorkhana.