Gary's Mumford

For those of you of a nervous disposition look away now!  Sometimes you just have to look don't you?

 

 

This is Gary Simms latest project, it started as a report on the FastMarinaMagazine.com forum, that there was a white Mk1 TC Coupe under a tarpaulin in a West London front garden.  Someone went round to check it out and found that it was a Mumford.  Something had to be done about it, the consensus was that it couldn't be left to rot any further, step forward Gary who went to see the car, made an offer which was accepted and he towed it back to Cambridge.

First view was that it wasn't too bad, however the tarpaulin wasn't really secure, the entire interior was swimming in water.  If you know anything about Marinas, then you'll know where they rust and this one has ticked every box on the rust check sheet.  This report is hopefully the first of several which will document the progress of the car.  How long will it take? Difficult to say for sure but let's say Spring 2010 is realistic.

Gary's first task has been to dry her out, he's stripped the interior out to reclaim as much as possible and to survey the state of the metal underneath.

Non-standard transmission tunnel

MGB overdrive and crossmember

As Gary stripped her back, he has started to notice some unusual things about the car; you'll have noticed the non-standard transmission tunnel in the cab?  Underneath was an MGB overdrive gearbox on a special crossmember, the front suspension has had a telescopic shock absorber conversion, the back axle sits on three leaf Marina estate leaf springs, with lowering blocks to bring the ride height down to what it should be, the front torsion bars are the heavy duty ones, someone who knew how to improve a Marinas handling had spent some time and money on this car.

 

Rotten chassis

Telescopic front shock absorber

Does anyone have a new offside chassis leg for the rebuild?

Gary started work on the offside sill area, she didn't look too bad from the outside and she had withstood the front lift tow home without folding up in the middle, so he reckoned that this job would be straight forward.  The plan was to zip the out sill off and insert a 50mm by 25mm box section into the sill as a strengthener.  Frank Philips (Marina restoration guru and club President) has done this to his own Mumford and reckons that it makes a big difference in day to day driving.  As you can see, the sill and part of the rotten rear wing came off OK, but before Gary could weld the new metal in the he had to deal with a missing section of the inner sill where it meets the floor pan (below).  Whilst he was fixing this, the chassis sank in the middle which jammed the drivers door in its' frame.  So Gary had to carefully jack up and chock the chassis to realign it all.

 

Once he's finished this side, Gary will move to the other to put all the strength back in.

 

The other major area for concern is the front of the car, The slam panel, both headlamp panels and the lower valance all need replacing.  Knowing that the front valance was so bad and that he was going to replace it, Gary cut it out to make the engine and gearbox removal easier.

 

Gary is still looking for some panels and parts, the most important being a new offside chassis rail, so if you have one stashed away email me at web.admin@morrismarina.org.uk and I'll pass your details on.

Some research has suggested that the first owner may well have been something of a celebrity in the UK - Linda Lusardi of page three of the Sun fame!  If anyone can say for sure whether she owned a Mumford and has the registration number or even better a picture of her and the car please let me know and we'll add it to the page.

Well that's part one done, as you can see Gary has his work cut out, but based on some of the other cars that he has done over the years, I'm sure that he'll get there.  This is a story that will run and run, so I'll post further updates as the work progresses.