Blimey, these '81 +8's are as common as muck !
Thanks for the offer Gary and I admire your endeavour to make your own.
I'm from the KISS school of thought so for me the original set up is fine.
I'm not known as Analogue Man within my circles without reason !
The main wiring loom thats behind the dash on my car is probably fine but beyond that and at the extremities, its brittle, cracked, covered in underseal and generally not nice but it is 40 years old !
I had to strip out the interior for a retrim anyway, including the dash, so its at the stage now to commit.
I very rarely post on here except for requesting technical advice, which incidentally, is always very good, so I'll indulge myself and give you a bit of background to my situation.
My current '81 +8 is the second +8 I've owned, the first being a very fancy last edition anniversary +8.
Great car but not quite the vision of the simplistic +8's that I had as a "Yoof" back in the 70's so when the opportunity to purchase the '81 car came up ( previous owner had it for 25 years ) I bought it and sold the Anniversary +8.
I finally had the +8 of my vision, no easy up hoods, no fancy wire wheels, no radio / CD player ( really, whats the point in a Morgan, you can't hear it, ha ), no fuel injection modules, no bling, just the discreet +8 badge on the bonnet cowl and the all round patina of its age and originality. All was well in the world.
Roll on 5 years or so, the mind wanders to pastures new and I was gradually being seduced by the idea of a Cobra Reincarnation ( sounds so much better than "Replica" doesn't it ) but not for me were the garish side pipes, roll hoops, stripey bonnets of the stereotype's, I wanted something far more discreet and along the lines of the original Cobra road cars.
Cut a long story short, my search came to an end with a plain silver Crendon Cobra fitted with a 5.7 ltr 70's Ford Mustang engine.
Wow, what a beast, superb handling, classic understated looks, all round stunning car.
I still have the the '81 +8 at this time as I wanted to make sure that I "bonded" with the Cobra first which I duly did.
Then came the hard decision that the +8 now needed to find a new owner as in many respects they were similar cars.
Now when I sell something I like to present it to the best of its potential, so began a big spruce up of the +8.
This "spruce up" included removing the seats and carpets in order to give them a good clean.
During this process what I had previously considered and indeed valued as the aged patina of the trim, rapidly revealed that the leather simply teared like A4 paper and the unavoidably realisation that a full retrim would be needed.
This rapidly developed into I might as well replace the original, now sagging plywood floor sections, which in turn lead to sandblasting and repainting of the subsequent exposed chassis frame, etc, etc, etc and the whole thing was put on the back burner whilst life, running a business and restoring a property took their toll on progression.
After contemplating the expenditure and time that would need to be put into the car in order to get it to an albeit very good saleable condition, I decided to keep it and give it the refit it deserved and started to collect the necessary parts to do so.
Complete front and rear suspension overhauls and up grades from Mulfab, braking system overhauls, new alloy rad, interior retrim, new tyres, new fuel tank, pump, etc. etc have duly been gathered over time and by over time I'm talking the last four years when the car has lain idle and semi dismantled.
I subsequently sold the Crendon Cobra after four years of ownership in order to fund a large outlay on the property restoration.
I had a great time with it and sold it for considerably more than I'd paid for it. I was unwittingly ahead of the zeitgeist in whats become the trend for the more understated Cobras.
So the +8 resurrection continues and I'm trying my utmost to refrain from my usual instinct which is to unnecessarily over restore something as opposed to refurbish it and retain as much of its character as possible.
It will be finished at some stage next year and my affection for it means that it will probably be a "keeper" now.
I'm staring 60 in the face and maybe its a consequence of getting older but my Magpie instinctive attraction to new shiny things seems to be diminishing and whilst there's some fantastic new Morgans I'll stick with being Old Skool.
Having said all that, I sometimes get a hankering for one last hurrah before the Greta Tunberg brigade shut us down completely, in the form of a so called Tool Room Cobra, an alloy bodied, as close to the original that you'ed ever get. Hmm, watch this space.
