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Go Back   Madabout Kitcars Forum > Mad Build Area > Marlin Sportster, Cabrio, Berlinetta and Roadster builds

Marlin Sportster, Cabrio, Berlinetta and Roadster builds Enthused or Confused about your vintage Marlin build? Ask away here or show off your build.

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  #1  
Old 1st October 2022, 12:33
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Default Wiper motor wiped, new shock mounts, clutch hydraulics and first show in years

Some recent service items:

Took a test drive after swapping the shock top mounts. It’s a few days until MOT time and this is obviously when things like to break. I had no wipers, no washer fluid pump. After some diagnostics found the 30amp fuse to the wiper system popped.
A few signs of issues on the wiper motor – black goop coming out one of the screws and around the casing. A plastic plug on the bottom looking a bit goopy / melted. It didn’t smell to good either.











Not sure on the sequence of failure but the magnet was cracked, one of the brushes worn and some coils melted (which is where the smell and all the black rubbish came from).

Ordered a new one off eBay from Classic Landrover Parts, it's a Lucas wiper motor used in many classic British cars.





Swapped in the 90 degree cog from the old one and reinstalled. To make future changes easier, also order a plug/loom as originally we’d used spade connectors.







Nice to have fully working wipers again!
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Old 1st October 2022, 12:34
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Last year the MOT person mentioned there was excessive movement in the rear shock mounts. After some testing it was mainly the top mounts. They are from Gaz Shocks, purchased in 2005. They still have replacement ball joint parts but advised the top mounts have been upgraded significantly since my original purchase. Sadly the top mounts they sell are designed for OEM BMW where they offset the mounting position. In the Sportster the mount position needs to be in the BMW stock location. I’ve had some Powerflex mounts on order for quite a long time now, they had no stock so I’m waiting for them to manufacture new ones.
I’d already ordered new ball joints for the lower mount from Gaz, so I decided to install these and use the much less damaged old ball joints from the lower mount in the old Gaz top mounts. With the circlips out they still needed to be pressed out with some creative use of sockets and a vice.
Will see if the MOT tester comments this year or not, the movement is about as much as it was stock now.
Hopefully I will get the powerflex mounts soon (which will need some modification) so this can be finished properly.











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Old 1st October 2022, 12:34
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The ball joints in the gaz shocks were worn out, they didn’t have an upgrade unit available with stock BMW top mount/shock positioning. I therefore looked for an alternative which I found with the Powerflex PFR5-5630-10BLK. Ordered a set on eBay but ended up having to wait 2 months for the next production run (eBay seller was great at keeping me informed of progress, so if you need some bits check out Strutbracer). Worth the wait though it’s a nice set.



What I did know before ordering is that this set comes in 10mm and 12mm variants for different shocks, however the Gaz shock is 11m. I therefore ordered the 10mm version that I then modified.













With that done I swapped out the top mount







Need to do some driving make sure I have not clearance issues as the top of the shock can move more now than with the ball joint.
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Old 1st October 2022, 12:35
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Sometimes you shouldn’t touch a thing, although in this case it was probably good I did. Sportster clutch pipe from the reservoir to the master had a split so it leaked everywhere – outside the cabin luckily.





So I thought I’ll fix that and also change the adapter into the master cylinder, that broke a while back and I patched with a hose clamp in a Halfords car park, so it’s been on the list for a while.

Took the master off (bolts in the wrong way so had to take the entire mount out – this must have happened last time I had the pedal box out, or when I made the printed clutch cylinder mount, as you can’t get the bolts in that way round normally. It turned out to be a good thing as one bolt had backed almost all the way off so it was a good catch to fix it.

While moving the master cylinder I broke the hard line connection to the end of it, turns out it wasn’t a great flare I made years ago, so was another good catch. Got a much better hydraulic flare tool now so put a double flare into it. Still a bit fiddly under the dash with limited room but much easier than the old tool I used to use.



Installed the new hose adpater plastic tube into in the new adapter in the top of the master, installed a new feed hose for the brake fluid and reassembled everything.



Went to bleed the system, nothing came out the bleeder. Even with over 20 PSI in the brake system!

Took the slave cylinder off, cracked the host off. The worst grey rubbish you can imagine came out the pipe. The bleeder on the slave cylinder was ok, but the passage behind it was blocked up with some pretty solid gunk. With that cleared the system was good to bleed.

Bled the system after a lot of cursing and several rounds had a decent pedal.

Cleaned up went in for a bit to wash hands, came out – no pedal. Tried a bleed again, loads more air so turns out the master cylinder is hosed. Looks like it might have blown an seal inside which is where the gunk probably came from. That then clogged up the the other end.

To be on the safe side, ordered a new master and slave cylinder, overnight parts from eurocarparts in Basingstoke, lucky they had one of each in stock from pagid.



Fitted those this morning followed by 3 rounds of bleeding, seemed OK second time – enough to let the car roll pushing on the clutch, but couldn’t put it in gear when the engine on. So one more clutch bleed and now it’s all good. Infact the clutch is better than it has been in a long time.

All because of a crack in a rubber hose!





The good thing was it was fixed so we were able to attend Classic Car Sunday at http://www.thedepartureloungecafe.co.uk/ - first weekend of every month during the summer, worth a visit if you're in the Hamphire/Berkshire area.





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