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Mazda 323F GT 1991
1840cc Transverse 4 DOHC 16 valve EFI 140BHP
5 speed manual
Colour - Burning Red
 

Waiting for recovery

      I bought this in Feb '02 as a daily driver to enable me to take the Supe off the road to tidy it up. I was looking for a cheap Corolla, Sunny or Civic and I was surfing through Autotrader when this jumped out at me. 8sec 0-60, 35mpg and bright red! How could I resist? (oh yeah, and the vendor was a used car dealer just a 1/4 mile up the road!)
     I gave it a service and had the cambelt changed and it ran great for four weeks until one Sunday afternoon, on a trip to visit my sister, it let me down big time. I was just half an hour into a four hour journey, cruising at 75 on the M4, when without warning the front wheels locked up. I slid to halt in a cloud of tyre smoke, and by luck more than anything, ended up by the side of the road and not in the middle lane! The recovery guy reckoned the gearbox had seized and he traillered it home for me. The car had 3 months warranty on major components so I called them and they came and took it away. 
     The mechanic told me the remains of the gearbox were like 'a bucket of shrapnel', with no trace of any oil. He reckoned that as it's really awkward to check the gearbox oil level on this model (he's not wrong there!), that people don't bother and if it leaks then it runs dry (then goes bang).
     A secondhand 'box was fitted and it's run OK ever since. I only bought it as cheap transport but it's a lot of fun to drive. 
Feb 2003 - Gearbox starting leaking badly.
Sept 2003 - The oil leak was becoming embarassing, it was leaving its mark wherever I parked it, so I part-exchanged it for the '98 Celica.

 

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