Good to hear a positive outcome, have a good holiday in Wales

Dave

Hi Paul,

I know I'm a wee bit late to help with your breakdown but I'd like to share with you some tales of woe I suffered with my Marina based TF shortly after I purchased it 10 years ago.

As you rightly say these motors are pretty difficult buy or to get spares for

However the problem I encountered although affecting and ultimately killing the starter motor was caused by a tortuious earth/ground link to the Battery,

The battery was mounted under the Bonet and the earth wire was bolted to the angled bracing bar that goes from thefront of the cockpit pod to the back of the Rack/suspension mounting frame, then the engine earth strap was bolted to the chassis frame.

This meant all the starting current was trying to make its way back from the starter through several bolted connections, resulting in a very slow crank speed as the motor was only getting a fraction of the required volts to start the poor wee beastie.

With the purchase of a longer earth lead i.e :- Battery directly to Bell housing bolt and the same starter was able to get the engine running with as little effort as possible.

Sorry to waffle a bit but if it helps anyone it was worth the few minutes to write it.

Cheers Chris

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the note.

I fitted a new starter and new solenoid and successfully completed the trip to wales without incident from the electrical side. The solder on the oil pressure gauge failed, the pipe came out of the union and spewed hot oil everywhere but thats another long but different story.

When I came back from Wales the alternator was making a bit of bearing noise so as a precaution I decided to exchange the alternator with a brand new one from Ebay.

Everything was fine until last week when I went to start the car to use it. I was met with a very slow cranking speed that would hardly turn over. After a few choice distress words, I put my emergency battery pack on and got her started. After about 30-40 mins turned her off and tried to restart and nothing but an even slower cranking speed.

Bearing in mind I had fitted a new battery, solenoid and starter motor and there is nothing on the car to drain the battery like radio,alarm etc, the logical place where the problem was seemed to be the alternator.

So after a few more choice distress words, I swapped the alternator with the old one(I had oiled the bearings). Everything has been fine since (touch wood) so I am assuming that the new alternator failed which has miffed me just a little.

The good weather of late has really been fantastic and I have been enjoying NG,ing around all over the place and I hope the weather holds for the national rally in a couple of weeks time....

Regards

Paul