Marcos Maniacs

Good Evening all yee fellow Marci owners.

Let me first introduce myself, my name is Ashley and I am located in 
the UK (Herts.) I acquired my Marcos (a car I had always ALWAYS 
wanted), about 5 or so years ago now. It was/is in need of a full 
restoration. This does mean that to this day I have never driven my 
car, or been out in another for that matter! (I am gagging to have a 
go!). The restoration made strong progress in the first few months of 
ownership, with a full body off rebuild of the chassis. Unfortunately 
this was as far as it got until early last year due to the usual jobs 
and house buying etc. Anyway I have made a concerted effort to get 
the car back on the road. I thought I would have time to do the rub 
down and re-spray myself but have to hand it over to the capable 
hands of my friendly spray shop (Gary is a Lotus trained specialist 
so he knows is Fibre glass).

Having only stumbled across this Group by accident on Friday and 
spent the last few days going through all of the messages thus far, I 
have a number of questions I hope you will all be able to assist me 
with. Now the bit you've all been waiting for me to tell you. My car 
is a 1969 V4 2litre (#2M5504). I am going to convert it I'm afraid to 
an Essex V6, (mainly because I have a reconditioned engine from one 
of my fathers waiting projects - Scimitar GTE), is this as 
straightforward as it seems. Whilst reading through the various 
entries I noted that someone said that all the V6 cars had 4 speed 
gearbox with overdrive as standard - is this the case? I only have my 
original 4 speed box to put in at the moment - is it worth me 
sourcing an overdrive box at this stage?

I have gone through all the parts I have missing, and surprisingly 
the main thing appears to be, the locking mechanism for the driver's 
door (I have the striker plate). The door is a new one - I believe 
some one ran into the door - hence the car was off the road for 10 
years prior to my ownership. I have been told that this lock is from 
an Austin A40 - can anyone confirm this and does any one have one 
spare or a source to obtain one (Marcos Heritage can't find one).

Does anyone have any spare seat squabs they are willing to part with? 
Mine are in need of lots of work - which I will have done, but I need 
to get the car running first.

So far the car has been completely rubbed back, and all the spider s 
sorted! the car was then gel coated several times before being filler 
coated with a high build filler. Currently the car is in primer 
waiting for its final colour (color for those over the pond), which 
is Gulf GT40 powder blue (one of my favourite cars). I know this was 
not an original colour but it is a period colour at least.

I've had the sunroof remade and as soon as the car is sprayed and 
cured, it will have the roof lining redone, 'A' and 'B' post trimmed 
and sunroof fitted, which all seem necessary prior to re-fitting the 
glass. On another question has anyone found a source for a roll over 
bar which would also be best fitted prior to the rear glass at least, 
being re-fitted? I am planning on tackling the rest of the interior 
myself, but if the trimmers do a good job (at the right price!), I 
may have them do the rest, (they are Aston Martin specialist so the 
job is sure to be good but at what cost is anyone's guess!)

I hope I've not bored you all with stories you've all heard before, 
but I would love to have any advice I can get, because prior to this 
group, and the Marcos maniacs web site, I was working pretty blind, 
(Torque and CMI the exception!). If any of you would like to see pics 
of my car they can be found on www.molyneuxs.com please forgive the 
amateur nature of the site I have not had much time to rework it yet. 
Any info on previous owners etc of my car would be greatly received; 
the original reg was TKN 164H.

Keep on motoring (and making me jealous)

Ashley

Marcos V4 (#2M5504)
Lotus Elan (M100)
Lotus Esprit.