M.A.G.M.A. Mobile,
born August 2004

Hello members, i've taken the last couple of weeks off from rockhounding to rehab and rebuild the new M.A.G.M.A. Mobile fieldtrip vehicle. I had been looking for an all purpose vehicle that would do whatever I wanted in the field and also could be of use to the club. This is what I found, these vehicles are auctioned off by the U.S. Govt. to the general public. This truck came from an auction in Kansas. These trucks are well maintained by the military, the govt. paid approx. $50,000 a piece for these when new. They put low miles on them and when a new truck is bought, an old one gets auctioned away. This is a 2.5 Ton Kaiser Jeep, it has 34,000 original miles. The motor was rebuilt in 1999 and has 5,000 miles. Here is what it looked like at the auction yard:

The original paint looked a little rough so RJ and I spent some time and stripped the old paint off and applied a new coat of U.S. issue chemical resistant c.a.r.c. army paint:

One nice thing about the MAGMA Mobile is the engine. It is powered by a 465 LDT turbocharged 6 cylinder multi fuel engine. Multi fuel means that this vehicle can run on gas, diesel, kerosene, alcohol and more. Of course the preferred fuel is diesel. I made some minor changes to the engine, by bypassing the multi fuel injectors and only running diesel fuel, the top speed went from 55 mph to 70 mph and increased the fuel mileage up to a whopping 7-8 mpg. 8^)

465 LDT Turbo Diesel

After missing out on a couple weeks of rockhounding the project is complete.

Even Coonie the cat likes the new look!