Blazin'
12-06-2008, 12:07 PM
G'day all! first let me introduce myself. My name is Matt and I get around in a 1990 TP Magna Elite. I love the car, drives nicely, and has plenty of features +1 haha. Im from SA, and 19 years old, and have owned Magnas since I was 16 haha.
My first car was a TP GLX, carby model, with the metallic grey paint.... faded as all hell, but with only 120,000kms on the clock it was a good buy for $1200... I thought...
January-February 2006...
It was a long trip home (over an hour drive, for fellow South Aussies think Noarlunga to Tea Tree Gully area) on a stinkin' hot 42C January day. So, not so surprisingly, when I got home it overheated... and I blamed it on the weather... Anyway, later that week it continued its overheating habits on only short drives, and I started to think something was a bit suss...
yep, you guessed it, I had bought a car with a cracked head... i was most annoyed! took the head out and took it to an engine reconditioner (A small plug for anyone in the area, Colliers on Tolley Road, St Agnes is a good place to start. He's a great bloke, and charges a good price). So $400 later with a recond. head, and a valve grind and all that jazz I had a fairly good car to putt putt around in. The radiator looked pretty crap so a few weeks later I took it to Ridgehaven Radiators, another good place imo, and got the radiator flushed. It was over 70% blocked with chemi-weld, the crap they put in to disguise a cracked head or a water leak for example. Anyways... now I was happy for a while...
(while passes)
September 2006...
Was a nice afternoon, and though I'd go on a hills run, my fave place to go driving. I was coming along down North East Road ( Near Newmans Nursery for the locals) and there was a slight traffic build up due to a car turning right, so I stopped... too bad the car behind me didn't... *screeeeeeeeeeech* *bang* *another bang* and It all went pear shaped. A car had rammed me from behind and knocked me into the car in front (a pretty nice looking torana too!). I was the meat in the sandwich... Result: My car was rooted, boot caved in and front not in the best sahpe either... the pintara behind me had the bonnet bent up and didn't look in the greatest shape... and the hardy torana, well it only had a small dent and bend in the rear bumper...
So, without boring you with technicalities, we all wrote down each others addresses and phone numbers etc and the torana went home, the pintara parked in the carpark and I limped home... by limped, i mean limped... lucky its nearly all down hill to my place. there were many scrapes and I managed a top speed of about 20kph.
So that night I called (tried to) the woman that hit me... Phone was disconnected... "oh ****" I thought... so we went to the address I had been given... in Mount Barker for the locals... about 45-1hr drive thru the hills or up the freeway, we chose freeway... got the the unit... and it was abandoned, absolutely nothing in the place. we asked the neighbors and they told us no-one had been there for a month or so, and it gets rented out... "oh ****! ****!" I thought... starting to worry since she had obviously given me dud info, and tried to do a runner...
So next morning we went to the police station to tell them the details... and they said they would call me if they find out anything...
Next call was the RAA insurance... they told me I needed to know their insurance company etc etc to get paid out for the car... so we went to the scene and took photos of the skid marks, and her car which was still parked there, and then photos of my car... and made a huige report describing everything in detail, and sent it away to the RAA... I got paid out $1600 for the car, and was overjoyed. Luckily RAA has a policy to cover you up to $3000 if they were uninsured. I kept $1550 of the money and also kept my wreck.
So now I was feeling a bit better... wasn't quite sure what my next step was but I eventually decided to buy another Magna, and strip my old one since it still had some good parts, including the recond head, and a good motor. So bought the Elite for $1000, and it didn't have the gratest motor in it, 130,000kms on the clock and it was smoking slightly, but lucky for me I had the other engine at home, so I thought OK, no worries mate ;)
blah blah blah... eventually got rid of the wreck and kept all the parts in the shed to use for my new magna when I needed... soo now if something goes, I usually have the replacement part for it... has saved me a lot of money so far.
edit (forgot this bit): A few moths after the crash I got a call from the police, a patrol car had spotted her car parked outside of a house somewhere and the got her that way. She got done for driving unregistered/uninsured/unlicenced, and speeding, giving false details trying to avoid penalties... yeah she was pretty screwed.
2 Months ago...
The time had come to replace the engine... wont go into the details, but it took me and my dad a good 4 days to get it out, swap the EFI from the elite motor to the carby motor, and mess around with all that crap, replaced welch plugs, and made the engine all clean etc etc..
anyways, I was happy after this, since it was hopefully the last major thing I'd be doing to my car for a while... I'm happy with my car, and now hopefully I will get time to modify it to my likeing, including a good exhaust system, and the elante body kit, they will be the first two things on my to do list.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my story haha, and it didn't bore you too much!
-Matt
p.s I'll post up some pics later on if I can find them still...
My first car was a TP GLX, carby model, with the metallic grey paint.... faded as all hell, but with only 120,000kms on the clock it was a good buy for $1200... I thought...
January-February 2006...
It was a long trip home (over an hour drive, for fellow South Aussies think Noarlunga to Tea Tree Gully area) on a stinkin' hot 42C January day. So, not so surprisingly, when I got home it overheated... and I blamed it on the weather... Anyway, later that week it continued its overheating habits on only short drives, and I started to think something was a bit suss...
yep, you guessed it, I had bought a car with a cracked head... i was most annoyed! took the head out and took it to an engine reconditioner (A small plug for anyone in the area, Colliers on Tolley Road, St Agnes is a good place to start. He's a great bloke, and charges a good price). So $400 later with a recond. head, and a valve grind and all that jazz I had a fairly good car to putt putt around in. The radiator looked pretty crap so a few weeks later I took it to Ridgehaven Radiators, another good place imo, and got the radiator flushed. It was over 70% blocked with chemi-weld, the crap they put in to disguise a cracked head or a water leak for example. Anyways... now I was happy for a while...
(while passes)
September 2006...
Was a nice afternoon, and though I'd go on a hills run, my fave place to go driving. I was coming along down North East Road ( Near Newmans Nursery for the locals) and there was a slight traffic build up due to a car turning right, so I stopped... too bad the car behind me didn't... *screeeeeeeeeeech* *bang* *another bang* and It all went pear shaped. A car had rammed me from behind and knocked me into the car in front (a pretty nice looking torana too!). I was the meat in the sandwich... Result: My car was rooted, boot caved in and front not in the best sahpe either... the pintara behind me had the bonnet bent up and didn't look in the greatest shape... and the hardy torana, well it only had a small dent and bend in the rear bumper...
So, without boring you with technicalities, we all wrote down each others addresses and phone numbers etc and the torana went home, the pintara parked in the carpark and I limped home... by limped, i mean limped... lucky its nearly all down hill to my place. there were many scrapes and I managed a top speed of about 20kph.
So that night I called (tried to) the woman that hit me... Phone was disconnected... "oh ****" I thought... so we went to the address I had been given... in Mount Barker for the locals... about 45-1hr drive thru the hills or up the freeway, we chose freeway... got the the unit... and it was abandoned, absolutely nothing in the place. we asked the neighbors and they told us no-one had been there for a month or so, and it gets rented out... "oh ****! ****!" I thought... starting to worry since she had obviously given me dud info, and tried to do a runner...
So next morning we went to the police station to tell them the details... and they said they would call me if they find out anything...
Next call was the RAA insurance... they told me I needed to know their insurance company etc etc to get paid out for the car... so we went to the scene and took photos of the skid marks, and her car which was still parked there, and then photos of my car... and made a huige report describing everything in detail, and sent it away to the RAA... I got paid out $1600 for the car, and was overjoyed. Luckily RAA has a policy to cover you up to $3000 if they were uninsured. I kept $1550 of the money and also kept my wreck.
So now I was feeling a bit better... wasn't quite sure what my next step was but I eventually decided to buy another Magna, and strip my old one since it still had some good parts, including the recond head, and a good motor. So bought the Elite for $1000, and it didn't have the gratest motor in it, 130,000kms on the clock and it was smoking slightly, but lucky for me I had the other engine at home, so I thought OK, no worries mate ;)
blah blah blah... eventually got rid of the wreck and kept all the parts in the shed to use for my new magna when I needed... soo now if something goes, I usually have the replacement part for it... has saved me a lot of money so far.
edit (forgot this bit): A few moths after the crash I got a call from the police, a patrol car had spotted her car parked outside of a house somewhere and the got her that way. She got done for driving unregistered/uninsured/unlicenced, and speeding, giving false details trying to avoid penalties... yeah she was pretty screwed.
2 Months ago...
The time had come to replace the engine... wont go into the details, but it took me and my dad a good 4 days to get it out, swap the EFI from the elite motor to the carby motor, and mess around with all that crap, replaced welch plugs, and made the engine all clean etc etc..
anyways, I was happy after this, since it was hopefully the last major thing I'd be doing to my car for a while... I'm happy with my car, and now hopefully I will get time to modify it to my likeing, including a good exhaust system, and the elante body kit, they will be the first two things on my to do list.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my story haha, and it didn't bore you too much!
-Matt
p.s I'll post up some pics later on if I can find them still...