MatraSport Forum

Just thought I'd say Hi,  just recently bought a 2.2 murena in silver with grey  buttoned velour interior ! going to be  a running and hopefully !! only a tinkering project. It has the usual slow electric windows, especially the passenger side. Also the 2nd speed on the wipers is not much faster than no 1.  managed to source the passenger door mirror off of ebay that was broken, so a few little jobs done already. This is not my 1st matra as I had a orange bagheera  s  37 years ago, funnily enough the age of the murena . Tony

Hi Tony, congratulations on your Murena - I hope you'll have many years of fun with tinkering and driving. It would be lovely if you could share some pictures of it. Welcome here!

/Anders

Some photos maybe ! car is up on ramps and stands due to cooling issues. At first thought it was the pump but after further investigating turns out there is a new pump on the car. the problem was a faulty stat a seeping hose on the cooling pipe at the engine end and a completely worn out fan belt. Having ordered some new hoses for the engine to coolant pipes, I started to replace them, unfortunately it turns out the pipes that run down the engine are corroded and holed where the hose clamps to them. Also the front to rear are in a similar state and the heater pipes had been replaced with 15mm copper tube at some point in the past ! so my cheap fix of a new stat and 2 new hoses has escalated into ordering new pipes !

On reading previous posts on this subject removing the front wheel/ battery molding will give me better access to fit the pipes ? I guess with so much rust in the system it will pay to do this and remove the rad and give it a thorough flush through.

better photos resized hopefully !  ::)

looks like i have not mastered the uploading o photos  ::)

Hi Tony

Yes, removing the tub for the spare wheel will give you good access. Remove the battery and the ground and plus wires, drill out the rivets (don't forget the small brackets underneath on each side), remove the vacuum actuator and the two connected vacuum pipes, and disconnect the fan (underneath) and unfasten the connector housing from the tub.  You should then have the tub free and should be able to carefully pull it out.

New pipework under the car is a good investment, so don't feel too sorry for having to replace them. Cooling is so important on mid-engined cars, the Murena included. Flushing the rad sounds like a good idea as there will likely be some rust collected in the system.

On your photo of the enigne, I noticed that your reservoir only has two connections, a 16 mm at the bottom and what appears to be a 6 mm on the top. The rad vent looks like it's connected to the top, which is incorrect and can cause problems with air getting being sucked into the rad. A T-piece inserted in the bottom hose should do the job.

https://www.carbuilder.com/uk/black-nylon-stepped-t-piece-1512mm-108mm

About picture uploading. The forum software will not resize your pictures, but display them as uploaded - pixel by pixel. So you need to resize them before uploading. 800 px is a good width. We like the software for many other good reasons and have never gotten around to fix this :)

I've taken the liberty to resize your photos :)

Best,
Anders

Removing give the workspot much better acces.
It's a simple job to get it out.
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-fTEHG1o6uho/UFIoPm4F89I/AAAAAAAABWU/kqIvge8mVBw/s800/P1050343%2520%2528Custom%2529.JPG)

 nice pic mate ;D well  after removing all the rusted cooling engine pipes and various botched hoses ! I will be fitting this lot !

Looks great!!

thought i would do an update  ::) well after fitting all the new cooling pipes and replaced every hose, the cooling system was still playing up with overheating problems. So I ended up replacing the pump which cured it in driving conditions but i was wary in traffic with the temperature rising whilst ticking over. I have an over ride switch fitted which obviously turned on the fan but still did not do much, the new pump had an identical impeller as the old one , so if you revved the engine a little faster it did help. ( I know Roy has a write up about this ) Anyway today I fitted a Davies Craig EWP 80 electric pump as a booster and wired it in with the rad switch and the over ride switch. I have fitted it in the orientation as per page 5 of  Anders thread. Hopefully I will load some pictures at sometime, unfortunately my phone is playing up at the moment so cannot at the moment.

some pics of pump and the installed position on the car.  have fitted a warning light in the console for the pump and fan so it comes on with either over ride switch or the rad switch. also fitted a digital volt meter. As the console is not standard due to the choke cable I didn't mind inflicting some mods to it ! the gator is torn anyway and needs replacing.

I recently replaced the rear cluster lamp holder reflectors as the MOT history kept showing problems with the rear lights. they were badly corroded and bodged jumper wiring had been attached  ::) anyway old and new  8)

It looks like you have a wrong hose in that photo Tony.  Your car has a single down-draught carb. on a water heated manifold, but that hose at the bottom of the picture, the one shaped a bit like a question mark, is for the 'S' model without inlet manifold heating.

Roy

Hi Roy, i think I got carried away when ordering all the hoses  ::) I've managed to make use of it for another project anyway, so not a total waste of money !

Your installation looks good. I only finished the installation of mine a few days ago, it looks similar. Mine has plastic connectors.

I still think it's strange that you can't keep the engine cool with the mechanical water pump with the correct straight-bladed impeller. You might want to check if there's something wrong somewhere. I'll be interested to hear if your EWP-as-a-booster improves the situation.

What makes you say they have a straight bladed impeller Anders?  He says the new pump was the same as the old one but they could both have the curved vane impeller?  I don't see any picture either.  Maybe we could be told for definite which is has, please Tony.

Like Anders I would be surprised if it does have a straight vane close fitting impeller and it can't cool in traffic.  That would suggest it has another problem somewhere.  Does it have 6 or 8 vanes?  A picture of the pump and impeller would be useful, thanks.

Since the radiator bleed hose is not connected to the header tank correctly, that might be part of the problem.  But what ever the problem is, fitting the booster pump without correcting the original fault is the wrong way to tackle this.  You never try to compensate for a problem with something else non-standard.  That can lead to more trouble.

Roy

I wrote a positive statement to be confirmed or disconfermed. It would indeed be good to see a picture of the impeller of your old pump, Tony.

Anders/Roy I don't have any pics sorry ,the pump came from Simon's so was exchanged, but pretty sure it was straight vaned. I reconfigured the hose layout as suggested by Anders from my original picture that i posted. To be honest I was thinking about putting it back as was, maybe with a one way valve inserted inline to see if it makes a difference.  ( opinions welcomed on that thought ) that's how the car had been set up with the alloy tank for possibly years with no issues ? with having no real history I am finding things out as i come across them, as for instance yesterday did a oil change don't know how long since the oil filter had been changed but a decade was my thought ! I also noticed several sump bolts missing ! The car is certainly testing my patience and bank balance !

OK well that's a start to know that it appears to have had the correct pump.  Now the next thing is that after you changed the pump, how did you bleed all the air out when filling the system?


These cars/engines have a special hose connection sequence and circulation, and if it is not correct may cause problems.  So the first thing I would need to know is how all the hoses are connected (where to where) as I cannot make it out from the few photos here.  But as pointed out, it appears you have the radiator bleed hose connected to the top of the header tank where there is air, when it should be at the bottom of the tank under the surface of the coolant.  Email me direct to my matraclub email please not here.


Or possibly it did have issues, which is why it had been unused for so many years!  I know that car had spent over six years unused by one owner who finally sold it in 2017, he had it for two years and then you bought it, possibly because that new owner couldn't fix the problem that the previous owner had left it unused since 2010/11.   I usually find that cars that either sit unused for years or change hands often, are because they have issues and the owners don't understand how to fix them.  BTW You could have asked me as I have 2.2 water pumps in stock.


Which is exactly why these sort of problems mean they change hands often, or languish off the road for long times.

Quite possibly the oil and filter hadn't been changed in a long time owing to all that time spent off the road.  As for sump bolts missing, which ones Tony?  I'm curious to know why for one thing but also if it is more important than you realise.

Roy

well having the car running with a steady temperature for a week with no issues in various traffic conditions and around 150 miles, I decided to get some new front tyres with the slightly lower profile as suggested by Roy, definitely improved the steering for about ten miles ! I now seem to have a blown head gasket, had oil blowing out the dipstick tube all over the engine and I can see water spraying about under the rocker cover via the oil filler cap. So I know its an engine out job to change the gasket but maybe the rings are damaged as well with the blow back issue so so not a cheap or quick fix if at all. just to add the breather filter was cleaned out and not blocked, as I know it can cause the blow back issue if blocked or caked up. I am not sure how or when i will proceed yet. I might have to wait for later on in the year if funds will allow.From what I can see £4k is what car joy are quoting for an exchange engine I'm not sure if that is around the amount required to do it over here and is the car worth spending £4k on.  ? I might do some investigation on the trailing arms to see if they will play ball to make life easier ( as that is just my time) if i go ahead with the engine removal ! Also just to add the car never overheated when this happened and managed to drive home around 5miles without any misfiring or real loss of power, I only knew it happened because i did not have the engine cover on and could see the oil hitting the glass hatch !

You can take the head off without removing the engine.  If you've got water spraying into the cam cover then that could be what is pressurising the oil.  I would just remove the head and inspect the damage before doing anything more radical. The rings may well be ok.

I was under the impression it was a pain to do in situ ! I guess if i lower it an support the engine as when i changed the water pump this will make it easier to deal with the cam chain end of things then ? I must have upset the Matra Gods, as i looked at the trailing arm with its possible removal if the engine has to come out, and found a hole roughly 30mm x 15mm near the outer bush mounting, can this be repaired ? the rest of the arm looks be okay at the shock and anti roll bar mountings all look good.

You can get away with just lowering the left side of the engine slightly.  The trailing arm sounds like a write-off.  That seems to be the place where they all go first, but the rest is probably weakened too and any repair would only prolong the life slightly and may not be acceptable for the MoT.  All the major suppliers supply replacements, but I suggest you read the relevant threads on this forum first.

First that last comment is wrong, as Peter has pointed out.  You can certainly do a head gasket replacement without taking the engine out.  You simply lower the gearbox end as you do to change the water pump, to give you access to take the upper timing cover off to get at the camshaft gear bolts and remove the timng chain, but first you must back off the timing chain tensioner!  Many forget to do this and that can then mean the engine has to come out.

However, two things worry me about your description.  You say water or more correctly I hope, coolant which conrtains anti-freeze, is spraying about under the cam cover!  Even if a head gasket has blown that is an unusual thing to happen as there is no easy path from a blown head gasket to the cam and rocker cover area.  The first thing that you need to do therefore is remove the cam cover, remove most of oil from the top so you can see the four small core plugs under the cam in case one of those has sprung a leak.  That is about the only way I can think of that coolant would be spraying in that area.  If that has happened maybe the head gasket is in fact not blown.

The next thing would be to do a cylinder compression test, to verify if you do have a head gasket problem.


Very unlikely Tony.  For the oil coming from the dipstick, that could simply be crankcase pressure caused by a blocked vacuum port to the inlet manifold.  That is not uncommon as it can get carboned up.  If the port is blocked the green P.C.V. is going to get lots of oil mist through it as the pressure from the crankcase would blow via the cam cover hose and the suction from the top of the carb. assuming the set up is as per the originally designed system.


Possibly not but that depends on just what has happened.  If it is a core plug and not the head gasket, it could be relatively quick and easy.


It's not a case of the filter being blocked, as that rarely happens, it's whether the vacuum port is blocked.  It the vacuum from the inlet manifold cannot draw the fumes from the crankcase, then the crankcase will pressurise and you will get oil blowing out of any other possible orifice and that usually means the dipstick tube and the mechanical fuel pump for starters.


As I said, remove the cam cover first, which is relatively easy, to see if there is a lot of coolant in that area along with the oil which should be there.  Remove the oil or oil and coolant, in the wells using either a small oil syringe or soak it up will cloth, and check those core plugs.


At this stage an engine exchange is possibly way over the top, and in any case why go to Europe when I have engines here?


If you have a problem with a trailing arm or arms, then that sould be a major consideration first as these are not cheap!


Which is another reason that the first suspect should NOT be the head gasket.  You need to find out what has happened before you can make any informed choice of how to proceed.

Roy

Thanks Peter/Roy for the replies / advice . I will get the cam cover off tomorrow  and see what I can find. I will do a compression test aswell. Just to add the vacuum pipe and manifold port are clear and can feel a vacuum pull. I only mentioned the carjoy engine price as i was wading through some of the known suppliers to get an idea of what it would cost to obtain a rebuilt engine that was all. I have not worked on a cam chain engine in 40 years that was a  twin cam XK jag, as in removing a head i have mainly taken heads off OHV Ford's and my old Daimler V8250 and a few belt driven engines. So what is the procedure to back off the tensioner please ? I am using water as a generic term for coolant i have purchased many litres recently , comma have definitely made some cash out of me in recently.

Well I am back on working on the car after my bar in the garden project  ;D Every thing is off and removed even the slave cylinder  >:( and the wiring disconnected so it's just dropping out of the engine and box  ::) The arm is worse than i thought and the thermostat housing hose connections spigots have pretty much had it as well !

That trailing arm has rotted through in exactly the same place as my LH one did. I wonder if that's a common place for them to go, it's right in line with the wheel so would get a regular blast with gravel. I found that the RH one was completely solid, so I just bought a new LH one from Politecnic. I looked at options for welding the LH one, but when I chopped it in half to send the hub to Politecnic I got a full dustpan of rust out of the inside of the trailing arm. That's a lot of metal gone missing, so I'm glad I did it. I could hear it all rolling round inside before I cut it in half, but I could hear very little sound coming from the RH arm. At £670 a pop it wasn't worth buying a RH one when I didn't need it.

Nice bar BTW  ;)

Does the politecnic arm come with the bushes or are they an extra cost ? my right arm looks like it has been replaced in the past, it almost looks like it has been galvanised. on my elan turbo the rear lower wishbones are a known weak spot, and are similar price to the murena ones luckily for me they had been replaced in the past and these are galvanised as well now.

Well the engine is out :) plonked by the air conditioner for a cool working area  8) Hopefully it is only the head gasket that has failed on N01 cylinder as the compression readings were pretty good on the others. I found dropping out the engine was straight forward, my tilting lift definitely made it quite easy to get the height required.  I did find it  a bit unwieldy pulling it out from under the car. I think i will have to make the custom Trolley like the one  Anders used for his engine removal for the return journey ! 

I like that tilting lift, I used a combination of trolley jacks and axle stands, more time consuming for sure. If I did the job again I would remove the gearbox and engine separately even though it's a bit more fiddly, but there's less weight to haul in and out. I have a hydraulic bike lift on wheels for dragging the engine out and putting it back, but it was on the limit of its capacity with the combined engine and gearbox unit, so was I! In fact your photo seems to show you have something similar.

The Politecnic price included the bushes and wheel bearing, but they won't fit them, so you have to do that yourself. I had a nightmare trying to fit the bushes with a small hydraulic press I borrowed from a neighbour, so in the end another neighbour took it to a truck maintenance shop and got everything pressed into place there. I recommend not trying threaded bars and winding these things in, they are just too tight in my limited experience.

 I removed the head and gearbox today, it looks like the gasket delaminated on 1 water way and about to on another one .

stripped down the head over the weekend, this is what i found No3 inlet valve guide dropped down in the head as can be seen in the pictures  ::)

here is a pic of whats left of the exhaust lobe due to the inlet rocker arm incorrectly fitted to the exhaust side  :o

Some bearing surfaces def not like a baby's bum  ::)

Wow time for a rebuild! I made a point of telling the people who refurbished the head of mine that the rockers are different and need to go back in the same order. I hope they did it properly! Is there any way of telling which rocker is which when they're fitted? I would like to check them when I torque down the head after running in.

no way to see from above , it's if you can get your finger or other device to feel for the oil feed hole underneath the rocker by the lobe. I am sure Roy would have a cunning way of checking  ;D

Faulty information
================
Edit

Yes you can check when it is fully assembled and fitted.  Two ways in fact.  The cheap way is as you suggest, with you finger as you can get a finger under the arms and feel the indentation where the oil hole is, or where it is simply 'smooth' if there is no oil hole.

The more expensive way? :)  I also have a small magnifying mirror on a handle, rather like a dentist's mirror, and if you get the head under the arm you should be able to see which is which.

Roy

No, that only applies to the 1.6 engine, as in your photo.  The 2.2 OHC engine is totally different, and the rocker arms look the same and unfortunately can be fitted in the wrong place.  However, all the rocker arms are internally supplied with oil from holes in the rocker shaft, but the exhaust rocker arms have an oil hole on the underside to spray oil at the exhaust valves.

Roy. (I will get one of each out of my garage in a day or so and add a photo here later)

Oops, I must stop drinking to much.
I tought I reacted on a post from Grapes.
He has a 1.6
I wil remove posting.
Herman

Valve seals for the 2.2 are this one.
What I linked was 1.6
https://carpartsdeal.nl/pages/product/2633064

I get where your coming from, since i bought the murena my drinking has increased to take the pain away ;D

some more engine pics note the sealant customised seal inserts  ::)

That waxed rope crank seal needs a bit of care when you replace it. I watched a few you tube videos on other engines first because there seems to be a blend of art and science involved with fitting it! I still have a pot of (look away now if you're veggie!) tallow in the garage because the Chrysler 180 manual recommended using it.

I have that manual as well and saw that about the tallow. I have a tub of it , back in the day we used it for the  threading of electrical conduit , as soon as I smelt it all those memories came flooding back !

Just to bring this up to date with a few pics. engine rebuilt by me, my first ever time, and ready to go back in car. Many thanks to Roy for advice and help in sourcing and supplying the parts needed for the build. It has had  a head skim, the dropped valve guide has been replaced a new cam and followers, new pistons, main and big end bearings, crank has been polished and the flywheel has been lightened. I am doing some de rusting and cleaning/painting of the engine bay/ wheel arches so will be a while before it goes back in though.

Sorry these are the pics  in a ramdon order ::)

Well the engine is back in the car and running. took it for a MOT on Tuesday, failed on just the rear tyres and low handbrake, had new tyres fitted and adjusted the handbrake as per Roy's manual. She passed yesterday, so took her out today and did 250kms. so just to gradually increase the revs with some more kms to fully run her in, and of course to  torque down the head again and maybe a tune on a rolling road.  BD engineering are just 5mins away. We shall see what comes up next !

Well done Tony a great job indeed.

I have been following with interest since your first ever post which went quite the opposite to your hopes! :-

"Just thought I'd say Hi,  just recently bought a 2.2 murena in silver with grey  buttoned velour interior ! going to be  a running and hopefully !! only a tinkering project. It has the usual slow electric windows, especially the passenger side. Also the 2nd speed on the wipers is not much faster than no 1.  managed to source the passenger door mirror off of ebay that was broken, so a few little jobs done already. This is not my 1st matra as I had a orange bagheera  s  37 years ago, funnily enough the age of the murena . Tony"

I have always used BD Engineering myself for tuning and setting up my 2.2 and have been pleased with their work.

Make sure to post your Rolling Road Tune Up Power Run Printout on here when done please.....

Cheers,

Graham

Job well done, Tony!  ;D

clutch master cylinder now failed  i had the slave fail a month ago   ::) is it a split pin holding the rod at the pedal, i cant see properly but feels like it ?

On the 1. 6 you don't need to remove the rod from the pedal. Just undo the cylinder and it will come away.
Think the 2.2 is the same

That's not right Terry, sorry.  The rod is held in to the clutch master cylinder by the mushroom shape at the end of the rod, to prevent it dropping out.  If you can remove it without unhooking it, it wasn't fastened in properly, in the first place.  The 1.6 and 2.2 are the same.  The only difference between the 1.6 and 2.2 is the bore of the 2.2 clutch master cylinder is slightly larger than that in the 1.6 model.  To hook or unhook the rod from the master cylinder you have to have the rod at a high angle to the cylinder and you can't do that with it attached to the pedal.  See my 8 second Quicktime clip of inserting the rod.  (it appears the movie clip is too big to attach here, so you'll have to view/download it from my website)

To remove the clutch master cylinder, you remove the split pin where the rod is attached to the pedal, remove the washer and end of the rod from the pedal pivot, then remove the flare nut and flexible hose, followed by the two nuts securing the master cylinder to the bulkhead, then you can remove the master cylinder, to clean and overhaul it.

It is not uncommon for the clutch master cylinder to start leaking when a Murena has been unused for some time, then starts to be used again.

Whilst on my technical articles webpage for the movie clip, you should also check the article for the special procedure required for removing and refitting the flexible pipe to the master cylinder.

Roy

Mine must be worn then as when I removed mine there was no interference from the rod so when refitting I had to get the boy to hold it from inside so it all lined up. I May need to check it out if it ever stops raining!

I had to remove the rod from the pedal before the master cylinder could be removed from the car. Mine hooks in as per Roy's video.

Took the car to BD engineering for a rolling road tune up.

Engine power 118.4 BHP
At the wheels 84.7 BHP
Max power at 5570 88.3 MPH

MAX Torque 125.4 ibf. ft at 3925 RPM

Technician advised I should fit a slightly larger filter as in deeper. The carb has a k&n pancake filter fitted. Was also advised a rebuild of the Weber carb would improve the figures. So something to get done over the winter. It was running rich when I got there and the secondary jet was spun out slightly aswell. So overall pretty pleased with the figures after the engine rebuild.

Good job there Tony, well done!

Very honest figures too from BD Engineering for a standard car.

Cheers, Graham