Faults:

Water pump bearing seal failed at 56000 miles, annoying, but very easy and cheap to repair.

Off sided rear leaf spring broke at 58000 miles, spring was in stock at the time in the local dealers and was quite a quick job to repair.

Hydraulic brake pipes corroded resulting in an MOT failure at 58000 miles, but replaced with Kunifer (rust resisting) ones by the MOT garage.

Clutch master cylinder seals failed at about 60000 miles so I replaced every seal on the vehicle for not very much money (at the time).

The clutch actuating arm between the clutch slave cylinder and the release bearing wore through at the pivot point which resulted in a clutch that would not disengage. Spare was in stock at the local dealer and the repair carried out in a morning on my own.

The clutch backing plate failed at about 72000 miles, it disengaged and then stayed there. It was cheap and easy to repair, but occurred at 5pm one Christmas Eve which resulted in a tow home of 50 miles!

I eventually fitted this Marina with 155x13 radial tyres (a British Leyland 'option') instead of the 560x13 cross plys ones and this transformed the handling of the car un-believably.

General Comments:

When I first purchased this car it had a serious case of the 'Marina wander'. I solved this by taking it to the local tyre dealer who was an expert on Morris Minor and Marina tracking after which it was like driving a different car!

This Marina was fitted with drum brakes all round and was a bit of a pain as they required manual adjustment. Also important was to use the best linings for example brake shoes by 'Ferodo' or 'Girling' otherwise brake fade would appear without warning.

Faults:

Slave cylinder went in 1991 (30,000 miles).

General Comments:

The car handles like a wobbly jelly but with uprated springs and dampers will actually handle quite well for such antiquated technology.

The 1.8 is a gutsy engine, fast enough to scare to odd more modern car, especially when overtaking.