Popular Post DoBro Jesus Posted August 5, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted August 5, 2020 For those of you who know me, know I'm a mitsubishi pest. For those who know me even better, know I'm an absolute sucker for mk2 mirage wagons. Spotted this wee duck when we first moved to chch about 3 and a half years ago parked at muscle car madness. Shat my daks tbh, JDM spec twin sunroof wagon. First one of them I'd ever seen. Having seen it around a few times since then and pining hard everytime I knew I needed to acquire it at some point. Fast forward to a couple months back and @azzar found out that it resided only a couple blocks away from me. So of course I did what had to be done and left a note on old m9s window. I then get a call from him in the afternoon and he yarns to me about it, calls it the "mitsuferrari" and tells me the motor is buggered in it, perfect, I'm thinking as this is bargaining power. We agree on a very reasonable price for it. And we pick it up the next day. Combing over it once we got it back to the workshop it's actually a really tidy, rust free little car. Promptly fucked off the ugly mesh grille and hubcaps, replaced the starter motor, as that was all that was "buggered" about it. And she runs smooth as silk. He had put a catch can in as he reckoned the motor was very tired and kept filling it up with oil. Nothing wrong with the motor per say aside from when it's cold, the head drains very poorly so oil fills up in the rocker cover then globs it out into the catch can. Hence it filling up so fast. Took it for a fang once I'd got it running. 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post DoBro Jesus Posted August 5, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 5, 2020 But anyway a bit of info, it's a jap import Mirage CX Wagon, so top spec for one of these, plush interior, stainless steel monsoons, colour coded mirrors, twin sunroof with the rear one being electric which still works great and doesn't leak amazingly, has air con which still blows cold, and the worst part of all, a 3spd auto. This is the single biggest letdown about it. It is punishingly slow, not to mention when it's at 100clicks it's doing 3500rpm. Aside from that it's a little honey. Anyway back to the story, got hold of a straight bonnet and already had a mint front bumper lying around, so swapped all the nice bits onto it and gave it a good clean. Managed to get hold of the original hubcaps for it too which are a really neat 80s design. Lowered it about 50mm cause factory heights for chumps. Took it up to Hanmer for the weekend a couple weeks back with my mate who also has the little blue 2 door and performed like a champ which was a relief as I'd only really taken it round the block a couple times. I then saw a lush set of enkei aero wheels on Facebook marketplace so snapped them up, and thanks to @smokin'joe who managed to get them a good portion of the way from dunedin towards chch I picked them up from him. Gave them a quick repaint and polish as they were a bit grotty, and got a set of 195/60r14s fitted up on them. Also fitted a pair of LED lights on the front as the bumper had holes drilled in it already so figured I better utilise the holes. Just some cheapy jaycar things but are bright enough to help at night time as the factory headlights are crap. @azzar also worked his magic on it and installed a digi dash from our stash of parts just to make it that little bit more lush. And I put in some semi decent sounds and gave the interior a really good scrub up and she came up great. Plans, probably not a lot tbh, I'm torn whether to manual swap it as its such a rare commodity to have these wagons with a slushbox and I'd like to keep it as original as possible given how rare they are, but on the flipside, it is so painfully slow its not funny, auto box is healthy though and shifts smooth enough for a crap old 80s unit. In an ideal world I'd love to 4d68t swap it for diesel nangs. But that's a pipedream. Middy has been dailying lately and she's loving it aside from getting told "it's so bloody slow" haha. So this is how it sits now! 22 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Positive Ape Posted August 5, 2020 Share Posted August 5, 2020 Cool car. You should manual swap it though. My dad used to have a three-speed-auto Corolla and it was awful. He'd put his foot down for more go and "wham", straight to 5000rpm 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
igor Posted August 5, 2020 Share Posted August 5, 2020 +1 for keeping it original cos it's such an oddball. Not like you don't have plenty of other cars in which to drive fast. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaxPower Posted August 5, 2020 Share Posted August 5, 2020 i brought one of these off here, its currently getting paddock bashed due to rust and fucked shocks, but its manual so if it ever blows up theres some cheap parts for yours, panels are\were pretty good. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cletus Posted August 5, 2020 Share Posted August 5, 2020 I got one of these for free off a mate who thought the engine was chooched, just had loose rocker cover bolts Had the same roof decals and was twin sunroof as well I think. Auto too. I drove it for a year or so, was a good little car 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoBro Jesus Posted August 5, 2020 Author Share Posted August 5, 2020 11 hours ago, Positive Ape said: Cool car. You should manual swap it though. My dad used to have a three-speed-auto Corolla and it was awful. He'd put his foot down for more go and "wham", straight to 5000rpm Yeah it's a bit like that, but as igor said I have plenty of other manual cars to smash around in so would be neat to keep it auto, as shit as it is haha. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoBro Jesus Posted August 5, 2020 Author Share Posted August 5, 2020 11 hours ago, MaxPower said: i brought one of these off here, its currently getting paddock bashed due to rust and fucked shocks, but its manual so if it ever blows up theres some cheap parts for yours, panels are\were pretty good. Excellent, always looking for more bits/complete cars haha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoBro Jesus Posted August 5, 2020 Author Share Posted August 5, 2020 9 hours ago, cletus said: I got one of these for free off a mate who thought the engine was chooched, just had loose rocker cover bolts Had the same roof decals and was twin sunroof as well I think. Auto too. I drove it for a year or so, was a good little car Haha awesome, this is the first one of these I've seen, most are just nz new GL, GLX or 4wd ones. Yeah it's a lovely little car, Just don't expect it to get anywhere fast. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoBro Jesus Posted August 12, 2020 Author Share Posted August 12, 2020 Went down for a wof this morning. Failed on right steering rack boot which I was stoked with, no notes or anything else yes boi. Split boot off. Woop woop. Gave it a clean, excuse the rake, has wof springs in the rear, courtesy of thieving them from @datto_610s wag haha. 8 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post DoBro Jesus Posted September 1, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 1, 2020 Nanged it up to Hanmer for the official unofficial Hanmer meet, was a laugh going up Jack's pass 4 up in it, spent a lot of time dodging potholes and other rough road issues haha. Didn't skip a beat all weekend! Such a great little car, love this thing much more than I should haha. 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoBro Jesus Posted November 17, 2020 Author Share Posted November 17, 2020 Update on this, about a month back the missus thought it'd be a good idea to park this behind the pajero. Then use the pajero to pick up our daughter from preschool.... Forgetting this was behind it.... Thankfully there was no structural damage, but it had wrecked the front end pieces I'd tried so bloody hard to find, needless to say I was pretty upset about it haha. Went through insurance, they wrote it off due to not being able to find parts rather than there being terminal damage. So long story short I bought it back off them, being able to keep it registered thankfully. And will be able to be insured again. Tracked down another grille and the other parts we had in our parts stash aside from the bonnet which I'm still struggling to find. But this one is still perfectly usable in the meantime. Made one good bumper out of 3 lol. Also I wanted to do away with the spotties on the bumper this time, but still wanted to have the decent lighting leds throw out. Had a spare little light bar, and there were 2 threaded holes in lower radiator support. Incredibly the mounts on the lightbar were the exact same spacing as the bolt holes on rad support so that bolted straight in! So gonna run the wee incognito lightbar haha. Should hopefully have it all back together this weekend! 2 1 1 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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