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!