Charging onwards!! Body work etc April-May 2015

Hi Folks!
Its been a few weeks and a mental few weeks too! with ongoing work on the Marcos together with my volunteer work on Shackleton WR963 a lot has been done over the last two months. When I left you all before, I was working on the engine strip down.
The engine was taken apart piece by piece starting with the Heads, all the parts were stored in number order push rods etc put through numbered pieces of cardboard so that they go back in exactly the same place they were before. everything looked great! until of course we got to to the crank and bearings.....most of the bearings were fine, a quarter of them though were quite heavily scored and the crank apparently has so much wear on it that it will need a full re-grind all the bearing shells need replacing and also to my dismay was the bores on the engine itself, these were a different measurement from the top down to the bottom so unfortunately a re-bore HAS to be done so I'll most likely go to just under 3.1 as advised by a contact who has been speaking to Ric Wood (Manufacturer of race spec Essex V6 engines. So thatll be in the memory bank for sometime until I rebuild my engine. At this time we have a spare Essex unit that for cost purposes we will use in mine until such times my original engine is rebuilt as this will cost around a £1000 to sort out fully.

I just want to get the car out on the road so Ill earn the rebuild cost with some extra overtime.

So below are some of the strip down pics of my engine. only limited im afraid as the phone I took them on had a melt down this week and lost half the camera folder!!! grrrr! stupid thing not buying a samsung phone again!

Shortly after this was done the Marcos Chassis was taken over to the Fibreglassers to be reunited with the body tub after we had completed the build up of the chassis.
Significant work had already been done with the body as well as a totally new roof as the old one was quite frankly......knackered!!! Rory at M.H.S invoiced around 300-360? for a new one? he is the only person who can provide one as he has the moulds for them all. so the roof as per previous posts was a top with 4 posts to enable a better fitment to the body (And itll take less time for Andy my fibreglasser to put in place than re-hashing the old one!)

Below are some of the placement pics of the roof before the fitting work was carried out.

As you can see, the bootlid had a significant amount of remedial work done to it too to make it stronger and have a smoother non-crazed finish.

Looking a little bit like a patchwork quilt the marcos has a number of other jobs to be done on it, not least a great deal of remedial work to the front end, the wiper motor cut outs in the front just forward of the front screen had bbeen made larger by years of use and movement these have been shored up and strengthened, together with the make up of a new dash console top the piece that the leather top cover then fits over.
below are some more pictures of this work carried out too.

 This is the old dash top cover as you can see in a number of pieces and fairly rotten the whole top has been recreated in ply as per the below image......

Brand new ply Dash top cover, note the cut outs in the body tub for the new roof pillars included within the new roof mould we had done. 

From this point the new Dash top was installed into the car.

As you can see from the insulation covered gear box tunnel, there is still a lot of fiber glass damage visible and this is also on the list of 'must fixes'

Huge amounts of work have gone into this bit as the seat base rear kept fouling the chassis so a decision to modify this was made to ensure that when unscrewed completely you can remove the chassis with far more ease than currently possible far from the current crow barring and jacking of old! please note the cut outs near the pillar points around the edge of the front screen area this is where the new roof inserts go in.

The Gear box tunnel has been reglassed including repair to the retro ash tray fitting hole. Ill keep this in but no smoking in this car!!

The seat belt mounts now all come through the tub and have been glassed around the bases im told that the floor is now strong enough to stand up on! you currently can with no roof!

I now move to the bit that is massively important on the car.....the roof bond in! This car hasnt had a roof in place for a couple of decades i think, the chop off caused a bit of consternation in the club from what I heard, so this is now remedied please see the below pics emailed to me short time ago that show the re-bond.

Wit the work that has been so far, the car is at last looking far more solid than she was I can rest easy knowing that the car has been fully sorted from top to bottom.

well. at this point it was necessary to clean out the garage that the car hasnt been in for the last two and a half months so we swept out and arranged a lot of things so that we can get the car in at some stage soon. the old chassis that I intend to sell is currently sat in place of the rebuilt marcos  being degreased and prepped for a new coat of paint. This Chassis has been modified to accept the latest strengthening mods, a rebuilt front end with additional bracketry and although 45 years old has been fully approved by M.H.S (as they found out during welding) it is packed solid with waxoyl hence why it hasnt rusted and is in such good condition.

So the main jobs we will be doing over the coming weeks will be painting this (at the point of writing we have painted the front third already and also mechanically prepping yellow V6: TTU 11J for its trip to Luxembourg for their fantastic rally pictures to follow. See ya next time!

Engine Strip Down March/April 2015

So now that the body work has been taken to the fibreglassers for work, It was time to move on to the next big job, this is to strip the engine down.
The main ancillaries have already been removed together with the timing cover and inlet manifold. we have exposed the timing wheel also during the previous work and found that it was the worst kind of wheel you could have found, the fibre one that has a tendancy to shred itself and ruin the engine at high revs and low pressure.

Engine front with Fibre timing wheel.

A replacement steel timing wheel has been sourced and we plan to install this once the newly refurbished and shiny engine parts return from being treated. (see below Steel timing wheel) these are a bit noisier than the original when run, but are worth the inconvenience as they will last a hell of a lot longer! A friend of mine bought a couple of V6 Essex engines and each of them had these wheels in so that was a bonus we arranged a trade of parts.

I intend to acid dip the main block and other components to ensure that the old paint and dirt comes off to reveal a nice smooth clean finish.
Several other bits will be sent away for powdercoating/chroming etc..cue my favourite shotblasters and powdercoaters over in Redditch. :)

Below I have included some more pictures of the work, The first picture shows the Heads taken off following closely the order of the bolts according to the Ford Capri Haynes Manuals we have.

Heads removed

Block shown minus the first Head

Looking at the block as it is here, you can tell by the orange on the block where the oxidised water has been, but no worry these waterways will be thoroughly cleared when acid dipping and cleaning commences. new core plugs must be bought as my dad has informed me after the strip down that these are as thin as tin foil now.

Another thing to note while doing this (as we found out twice already) Don't tip the engine up at this stage!! oil if left in the sump will find its way out everywhere!!

Since these stages of the engine strip down tyhe Chassis has been completed with all brake lines being finished off and connected rear wiring harness has been refurbed and put into place through its run down the gearbox tunnel.

Working January-March 2015

Hello All!

Jem Marsh 1930 -2015

 Firstly It is with great sadness that I write to inform you all of the passing of Jem Marsh, founder of Marcos Cars. My thoughts are with his family and friends. Jem leaves us with a lasting legacy in the shape of the beautiful cars a few of us like myself are lucky to own. These cars have brought so many of us together and the Marcos family is both large and a strong one. Long may it continue.

Another overdue update, again work and additional commitments have been manic! but have recently been able to make major progress.
Since the last post I have with my father installed the clutch and brake lines and started on the fuel lines together with the rear axle rebuild and install. The Chassis is now completed so this means I can move on to the engine and the bodywork.

So first up is one of the images of the rear axle build up, using all the powdercoated original parts installation of a new brake compensator and cabling was put on the axle the old compensator was worn through so best to get a new one.

The front wishbone and shocks and hub assemblies now built up and installed onto the chassis my apologies for not showing the complete process, but with the backup of my phone pics not being where I left them I cannot locate the previous images!!The Track rod ends shown in silver were starting to corrode having been installed on the car for some time now so these have now been painted in silver hammerite as well as the top ball joints also made from the same material.

I'll update you all with where we are now, the chassis is now fully completed, and on the four original Marcos Alloys previously used on my dads Marcos before he changed them to Minilites.

At the middle of February the Bodywork was (rather amusingly) packed into a white sprinter van and driven to the fibreglass specialist there are quite a lot structural cracks in and surface defects also so these are being cut out at the moment and re-glassed and profiled all of you other Marcos Restorers I'll provide details on who is doing the work once the work is completed.

Amazingly all this fitted in! also took the old axle and an additional set of parts at the same time.to be refurbed in the Garage.

Currently the first items to be repaired on the body is the boot the structural elements where the boot hinges attach to were cracked and not very solid either so these have been reconstructed with new glass and reinforcement. there was a crack along the rear of the boot that has now been cut out and rebuilt also, the metal lock mechanism was loose and not held on by much so this was reconstructed to fit better and be stronger. some pictures below showing the work done.

These shots above show the major boot repair work and re-profiling done to tidy up what I feel was horrendous before! the bonnet work is due to nstart next for which I have provided the new Marine Ply inserts that allow the bonnet to mount to the chassis A-Frames. 

In addition, the cut off roof I had was deemed to be too far gone to repair, the webasto sun roof was a bit heath robinson in how it was installed to this car and was too large also, so I will attempt to source a replacement unit to use on the car.

In the meantime, I have purchased a brand new roof moulded by Marcos Heritage spares from the original patterns and moulds. this will be reinstated to the car in the fibreglass workshop which I hope to take over with the chassis next week so I will have a lot of space to work on the engine and the clean down and repaint work on the old chassis that I had modernised and strengthened, repaired where necessary. You may all recall what the main body looked like minus its roof:

Picture below shows the new roof (Green gel coated)

In addition after ordering the roof I requested the pillars to be added too for a better stronger installation this should in turn cut down the amount of time the fibreglasser will need to spend repairing and re-bonding the roof.

Following these events, The Chassis has now been completed we put all the wheels on 2 weeks ago and Dad when I havent been able to make it has been working to finish off a few chassis bits for me and has secured and installed all the wiringand final break pipes and hoses. the pictures below show the completed chassis finally rolling again for the first time in 3 nearly years.

Here are a selection of pics showing the work up to the minute.

For securing the fuel line and the rear wiring harness I've used Aston Martin supplied tie wraps that have their own mounting stub we drilled a slightly smaller hole so that the stub fits in nice and snug and won't come out again is the most important bit! the fuel pipe has been cut from a length of 8mm Diameter Zinc copper pipe and will meet a section of steel braided hosing up front into the pressure regulator.
The rear brake hoses have now all been connected we may need to shorten the front ones around the wishbones and the pedal box as we over estimated slightly, but, better too much than not enough!

Well, that's all for the potted three months blog, I'll try and be more proactive and update as I go along next time as larger stuff happens from here almost the home straight!!

Ciao for now!