Spac’s adventures in Magna

Wagon got new oil and new cam cover gaskets yesterday.

A bit overdue: the rubber seals were pretty brittle…

Surprisingly difficult job, TBH. The top half of the intake manifold has to come off to do the rear cam cover, and my cheap ebay gaskets didn’t want to fit properly… but the real problem is feeding it back in under water pipes and cam belt covers.

Here’s the rear cover with the gasket being “glued” into place with sealant before I wrestled it into place.

Ah, crap…

New cam cover gasket is leaking badly.

*sigh*

Rather than fixing the Exxon Valdez cam cover, I fixed the heater fan.

It was only working on the highest setting.

The resistor had overheated and shat itself, so it was a quick and easy job to replace it with the resistor pack from the white parts car.

Fixed the cam cover gasket on the wagon today. The cheap gasket is too small, so it pulls out of the groove it is meant to live in. While it leaked, sitting in place for a few days stretched it enough that I could fit it properly today…

Also refitted the ECU back into the Maroogna, and slapped in a period Clarion CD head unit. Then I turned the ignition on the third time and it demanded the security code… ?

I will pull a newer stereo out of the cupboard and try again.

I am unimpressed by the way the centre part of the dash goes together - I am fiddling with the maroon car before I fit a decent head unit to the wagon, in the hope of avoiding the carnage that has befallen both the white and maroon cars in the past.

I would say “oops”, but I had plenty of time to think about it…

$500 manual 380 parts car. Revolting interior, blown head gasket. It has an aftermarket exhaust that I hope can be made to fit a Magna.

I will remove the motor and box, all of the manual parts, the brakes and the wheels, and take it to the scrappy.

Must have been near the Falcon’s legal towing limit, but it did it absolutely fine.

Oh, and speaking of the scrap yard, the white Magna went last Friday.

AshDVS

While I absolutely cannot get on the Magna bandwagon, I'd always thought that the 380 was a 'better thing' than the Magna it replaced - is this the case or not really?

Yes, as a standard car, the 380 is better.

That said, the Magna was under-rated, whereas the 380 was judged more fairly, so the gap is smaller than you probably perceive.

I suspect that the Magna was always under-rated as a hangover from the original models that were much slower and dowdier than the Falcadores they were supposed to be competing with in the marketplace.

2.6 carby Magna vs an injected 3.0 VL is a pretty simple choice in 1986… but the difference between a 3.5 Magna and a 4.0 litre AU is more about personal priorities.

If they had made a 380 wagon, then I would probably already own one.

Confirmed that the 380 has a blown head gasket. Combustion pressure in the cooling system.

It runs, clearly with one dead cylinder. When the revs are right down, the steam pulses are in time with the misfire…

I am currently pondering whether to fix it straight away or just pull the motor & box out and leave it in the shed for a while. Third option is to actually give the engine a rebuild - a rebuild kit is $800 including delivery, which seems pretty tempting.

Some wheel shuffling…

The 15” Solara alloys went onto the wagon so its 16s could go onto the 380 (15s don’t go over 380 brakes), so that the 17” 380 wheels could be test fitted over the Evo Brembos…

But the 380 wheels have nowhere near enough clearance to the inside of the spokes, so that’s a fail.

Solution!

These are 17x8 +35 with 235/45 tyres.

They have tons of brake clearance and don’t seem to scrub. They juuuusst stick out of the front guards though. Dropping back to 225/45s combined with the small amount of negative camber that will come when I lower the car, ought to be enough to bring them back in.

Hopefully.

And another one.

TJ2, auto, 150,000km. Been sitting in an underground carpark for a couple of years.

It’s a very nice car overall. Still starts easily on the original battery and runs nicely.

A few niggles: taken a light hit on the bum , and some idiot felt the compulsion to put clearcoat on the the front guard…

I honestly don’t know what I am going to do with it - really only bought it to save it from the scrapper. Most likely outcome is that I will get it roadworthy and sell it.

Yup…

$300 3.5 manual. It looked MUCH better in the photos in the ad - could only see the damage to the driver’s side front corner…

Meh, it was only ever going to be a parts car… it’s just that there’s less useful parts than there appeared. The only usable panel is the bootlid.

Still runs beautifully, including the 3-years-since-the-crash battery being able hold a charge (so far).

I think that does me.

I have more decent motors and manual gearboxes than I have decent cars, and I have more cars than I want.

Need to move the Mirage back on the trailer, but this experiment goes live tomorrow morning.