Spac’s adventures in Magna

And then there were three…

But getting to four was a painful slog…
I had assumed that the 4th wheel was going to be the easiest because someone had already had a go at painting it with some crappy paint.

Turns out that it was decent paint very poorly applied, so it was awful to sand off.
So I bought aome paint stripper and reminded myself why I hate paint stripper so much.

Apart from the mess, it took four goes to remove enough paint to be ready to sand back.
And then I still had to sand it back!

Got there in the end.

Side quest was to work out the replacement rear door. I was worried about the colour match, so I polished the front door and rear quarter so I was comparing apples with apples.

And I was right to worry - it’s terrible.

If you look closely, the top section of the replacement door is the correct red (more orange visible) but the majority of it is a more purple shade of red.

So that idea has been put on hold. The way forward is to respray the new door in the correct red and then fit it. The colour is close enough that any chips won’t be super obvious, the jambs are the right shade of red, so it still makes sense to use this door rather than one of my blue or green spares.

GreenGL

So far, so good.

The car is overdue for some cosmetic maintenance (ie: wash and wax! ) but so far it is looking fine.

Finally got the wheels on the car.… tyres are RE003s that came as pair on the other two sets of 17” Magna wheels.

Needs to be lower, but that can wait.

Dragged the crappy aftermarket E36 fire extinguisher bracket out of the cupboard, bent it slightly and made it into a Magna extinguisher bracket.

Confused myself with clutches today.

First, non-confusing part is that I confirmed that a second generation RX7 (FC, aka Series4 & 5) turbo clutch plate fits a Magna box/clutch.

So the gamble of buying a nearly new RX7 button plate paid off - it was less than 2/3rds of the cost of a new plate for a Magna.

Then… despite the 3.0 Magnas having 225mm clutches, the 3.0 pressure plate is actually designed for a 240mm driven plate.

And despite the 3.5 clutch being described as 240mm, the spare 3.5 plate I had is 230mm?!

Then onto my pile of old clutches…

Long story short, is that if I can find a source of the pucks and rivets, I’m feeling confident that I can make my own button plates.

The star bit in the lower middle is the splined section from the worn out 230mm plate in the earlier photo. This can be riveted/bolted to a disc like the plate in the bottom left.

I’ve found a Chinese seller of the parts, but I assume they will want to sell me 10,000 at a time.

And after all that, Google spat up a good spec Lancer Evolution button clutch for about the same I paid for the standard clutch that went into the red wagon…

All of the brain melting wasn’t worthless, because I can still use the knowledge to make something for the blue 2.4 Mirage.

Overdue update.

Blue car sold back to the previous owner, but he decided that he was making a poor life choice and brought it back to me a couple of hours later…

Red wagon and blue Magna both making me happy as my alternative daily drivers, although I need to get serious about tidying up the blue one and selling it.
The wagon goes quite well, but Blagna feels super fast when I get back into it after a couple of days of driving the wagon.

Bigger news is that I bought two Veradas and a Magna from one of my vintage dirt bike mates.

This is the first one I’ve picked up.
It’s an AWD Verada that is pretty decent overall.

The other Verada is also an AWD but has a decent exhaust, some lowered suspension and a 3.8 engine swap. And a few other niceties like a strut brace and aftermarket head unit.

The Magna has been my mate’s car for years. Its a dual fuel FWD auto with a blown head gasket.

There’s also a boot load of new parts and oils which is a bonus.

Plans are like usual: Ummm?!

Currently thinking that the Magna will be fixed and sold, the gold Verada will be reshelled in the Whagon, and the white Verada will be used for khanacross.

Alternative idea is to make the white Verada look like an older, less ugly model using Candi’s panels and having a laugh with it.

The idea of a 3.8 AWD wagon is very appealing, but it is NOT an easy or straightforward conversion.
The sedans are all IRS, but the wagons have a live axle. I’m sort of hoping that I can find a live axle diff with the right ratio and go down that path.
But this train of thought might be highly optimistic.