Spac’s adventures in Magna

Today was spent on the maroon one, dodging the rain, and sometimes in the rain.

Apart from the terrible paint, it is actually quite a nice car.

Clutch master cylinder had some gunk wedged under the seal. Just needed a clean out.

Haven’t bled the system properly, because it didn’t seem fair to drag either of the kids out into the rain to help… but it works well enough to move it around the yard.

Next was swapping the alternator. Have to take the radiator out to do this, so I swapped radiators because the maroon car’s was visibly blocked.

(Forgot to take photos)

This is the white car, with the radiator removed… I am guessing that it was driven through a muddy creek at some stage shortly before it was parked.

Washed it, to see how bad the paint/body is… It is actually very straight, except for the poor repairs down the passenger’s side.

I mean, when your clear coat is worse than 1990s Mitsubishi clear coat, then it is time to take a long hard look at yourself.

——

Probably the first time it has been up to operating temperature since 2015. The steam pouring out of the engine bay (see three photos up) was a source of concern, but it was just evaporating out of the outside of the radiator.

Starts easily, runs smoothly, and does everything nicely except for very occasionally misfiring on one cylinder at idle. I am assuming that it is water somewhere, or maybe oil in a spark plug tube. Meh - it definitely needs rocker cover gaskets, so it will be sorted then.

I pulled a front upright off the white car to test fit the Evo Brembos. Apart from needing to trim the backing plate down very slightly, it all just bolts straight on.

Side quest was to sus out the differences between Magna and Mirage uprights.

Balljoint taper is bigger on Magna. Note how far the reamer slides into the dirty Magna upright compared to the the Mirage one.

Strut bolt spacing is the same 65mm, and the same 12mm bolts, but the Magna upright is 3mm wider.

Magna strut is about 35mm longer. NBD considering most coilovers can be adjusted for overall length.

Spring OD appears to be the same as Evo/S40 but I forgot to measure it.

PCD for the strut tops is larger on the Magna. I reckon that it is close enough to just make the holes on the strut tower oversize, but I need to think it through properly before I do that.

Oh, and I found a nice looking, lowish kay 3.5 litre wagon in Victoria at a decent price. I really need another couple of weeks to get my act and my brain together, but I think that it is something that I should buy…

Around lunchtime today, I bought a Magna wagon in Ballarat.

About 20 minutes after picking it up, I pointed it toward Adelaide…

It has many of the predictable problems that $1500 cars have, but it has impressed me so far.

As a car, it is better than the BF Falcon wagon, but I have zero doubt that the Falcon is the better tow car.

The early ‘00s trip computer tells me that it used 8.9l/100km, but the trip meter and servo bowser say that it is more like 8.4. The Falcon would have been around 10.0 for that trip.

The shocks aren’t quite up to the task - they’re not awful, but they don’t have enough rebound dampening and this makes the car a bit bouncy. Not sure if this is worn out shocks or just low quality bits.

The radio doesn’t work, which is not ideal before spending 8 hours in anything…

Interior smells like a heater core leak.

It has more top end power than the Falcon - it doesn’t count as a fast car, but it is remarkably entertaining when overtaking other cars in 110kph zones.

Seats aren’t wonderful, but after four hours in the Falcon’s XR6 seats and 8 hours in the Magna seats, I only got a bit achey in the last couple of hours - no real discomfort and I feel fine now that I have been out of the car for a bit.

Really looking forward to seeing how it goes with the manual conversion from the white car. And the Evo Bilsteins, and the Evo Brembos. ?