Mk3 Cavalier Owners Club | Vauxhall Cavalier Dot Com

Even if I'd done the MIG (gasless) welding myself and bought the parts needed I'd be looking at the thick end of £600+. Having looked at the other rusty areas, I'd run the risk of an annual MOT failure as the rules continue to tighten. I didn't want that stress. So, I'm now £100 richer but I have no...

Having driven this car for 22 years I got quite used to it, with aircon, electric sunroof, central locking, heated leather seats, excellent handling, 38mpg, no nasty electronics and a very good radio. For me it had it all but now I've just had it. Maybe an advanced welding course is called for...now...

The car failed its MOT due to rust that I can't fix and to repair professionally would cost thousands. I won't be trying to get it fixed and it can't be stripped for spares in the drive here. So it'll sit outside until a scrap company arrives to drive it off to its fate. At least I can now strip the...

There was the correct relay available on French Ebay yesterday. Other than that it seems really hard to come by and the pin orientation seems different from all the other relays that have the same switching arrangement. That's two pins for a 220 ohm coil and two sets of changeover contacts. I guess ...

It is becoming a project! The brake pistons look to be OK ,and all caliper movement is fine and all wheels rotate with no noises or binding. I bought the now-damaged pads as original old Vauxhall stock and, since I assume brake pad materials changed a lot over the years, newer pads may have behaved ...

Any help will be gratefully received! This is the car's original aerial so it's had a good run over a quarter century. However, I'd like to know how it works (and fix it), particularly as I can't see that anything's damaged. It was really quiet in operation and that's why I didn't notice it'd stoppe...

Probably this should be in the brakes section but it's related to the water pump, so here goes. The front disks were covered in melted brake pad and there were areas in the pads where its material was missing. A drill with a wire brush just polished the black mess so I had to revert to a paint scrap...

Although the SC303 works fine I hadn't noticed the aerial was always fully up. The motor works, the aerial tube's not distorted and the plastic drive cable's fine too. By taking it to bits I can wind it down manually but when the radio's on, up it goes again. It won't go down under its own steam Ins...

For whatever reason my Diplomat didn't seem to follow all the construction changes for other Cavaliers. This meant that it had the really useful DIY clutch installed. It also means I have to be really careful when replacing things as Vauxhall's records are often misleading. The best info seems to co...

Thanks for that reference! This is pretty conclusive that my tensioner is crook. The adjustment plate mentioned does nothing but rotate so its internal connection must be broken. I had a feeling, because Haynes refers to two types of adjuster, that this may have been another one, although it does lo...

...and the car's still fighting! I just looked in the Haynes manual for the mk3 and it looks like the tensioner could be broken. Although it will tension it doesn't work like the manual shows on page 2A17. The triangular plate the tensioner securing bolt goes through to tighten it up when you're don...

It's out! I asked a friend who works for a local garage for his thoughts and he came over and hammered it out in 15 minutes with better tools than I have! I feel a bit bad I couldn't have done this myself but sometimes experience and the right kit really counts. If the replacement pump is OK, and it...

My concern up till now has been that using too much force could damage the aperture the pump fits in but, in the last resort, I'll have to take a risk.
Right now smashing it out seems the only practical solution.
Good idea, thanks!

I started by being optimistic and sprayed many times with releasing fluid. Zilch. Then came a bit of wood. Used a hammer to bash the pump at various places but a half hour later I'd achieved nothing but splinters. Then I did the same thing with a rectangular steel tube. That finally released the imp...

The car was working fine until yesterday when the water pump seized, throwing the timing belt. Although I've removed the pump's 3 bolts it's still stuck tight. I can't turn the pump's pulley and, although I can get spanner on the pump's Hex body, I can't budge it. Can anyone offer suggestions on how...

What bugged me was that, to the best of my ability, I couldn't see (measure) that the bolts' holes were anything other than symmetrically positioned! But then, having scraped off the clutch dust from the flywheel, I saw a smear of yellow that wouldn't rub off and so was probably the mark mentioned. ...

I think I saw a yellow paint smudge and I lined it up with the clutch cut-out, but apart from being instructed by Haynes to do that, I didn't know what what actually being aligned or why. The clutch pedal movement is now so soft from top to bottom it's like there's no spring, apart from the interior...

I just replaced the car's clutch after 170k miles as its Xmas present.
However I couldn't see why the Haynes manual said that a paint mark on the flywheel of a 2.0 litre engine had to be aligned with an indentation in the clutch assembly.
Can anyone throw some light on this?

I can't figure out if the motors are failing or the lock mechanisms are stiff or the rods are jamming somewhere. So I just bought a nsf lock to plug in and test how the complete mechanism works when a door harness plug's connected to it. It looks like the same lock plug's used for nsf and osr and, a...

Well, I have to say that the control unit looked dry and all wiring was sound. I tended to discount it after checking it over since the same lock/unlock pulses go to all 5 locks at the same time but 3 or 4 locks carry on locking and unlocking correctly. Unfortunately I know I can't discount it compl...

All 5 locks generally work normally when locked either on the driver's door or the passenger door. At some point the nsf lock stops working. It still makes the normal loud locking noise but the control knob only moves up or down a little, , when locked/unlocked with the driver's door key. The passen...

Well, it's cold again! The expansion valve was located inside the narrow pipework in the engine compartment leading to the evaporator. It looked OK but I replaced it and the accumulator. There was no sign of the leak that the mobile aircon guy said was in that area. So I went ahead and got a low sid...

I finally got around to fitting a secondhand ABS unit today... and now the braking is completely normal. The ABS operates when you try to skid the car and, under normal and ABS braking conditions, the brakes have feel and balanced action. Even bleeding the brakes was easy, just like with a non-ABS C...

My overriding thought now is the near consistency of what happens and when. Yesterday I swapped over the two relays in the ABS box and did the test run again. The car had good, balanced braking every time. Then I tried harsh braking that operated the ABS. It brought the car to a halt, straight. That...

Some success! I did the now normal test drive from cold and the brakes were really good. I thought the problem had gone away until I realised I'd not yet got the ABS to operate, even though the braking had been very heavy-footed. So, up to 40, on with the anchors, on came the ABS, the car veered to ...