Mk3 Cavalier Owners Club | Vauxhall Cavalier Dot Com

PS Tks for the info about the reg no palaver. I got on to the DVLA people way back then and came away thoroughly confused and concluded that such matters were best left to someone in the restorer community who knows his way around the minefield. Options such as swapping the chassis number cropped up...

Hi. Your latest summary of the situation sums it up nicely and saves me repeating things. In essence the project has been frozen for various reasons except that I now have what I believe is a suitable donor vehicle = N-reg '95 LSi @ 55k miles. (what is the donor and what the recipient is something o...

I am proposing to resurrect a project that never got going a few years ago to restore a '91 SRi. Rust a. removal and b. prevention will be a major consideration. I'd appreciate any tips, recommendations, do's and dont's that anyone can pass on particularly in respect of which products / preparations...

I am to see if what the scrapyard can come up with is an improvement on what I got from them previously. If not then looking at what Euro Car Parts has on offer - a huge (price) range which one can only split easily by brand and guarantee period. This still leaves a lot. How can one make a "rat...

I've said to the scrap yard man that I want a replacement with an acceptable rest charge, or refund. I don't think they are that sophisticated electronically - I'm having to bring my own multimeter to test! If it comes to a new battery it's not just the price but the performance that I need to check...

Just checked. It's now down to 11.9 V (disconnected)

You learn as you go along ... There's "automatic", "fully automatic", "prevent thermal overload", double insulated" and "automatic cut-off" and a few other choice descriptions in the blurb to justify quite ginormous price differences in these things. I go...

"Go back to the scrappies and take your meter with you. Find the right battery number and take the strongest one." Surely my multimeter will only show the current state of charge of the battery / batteries they have in stock, not whether the batts themselves are any good??? I don't think m...

The sequel to # 166748 "Victory??" was meant to have read as follows: The battery from the scrap yard charged up to 11.7 V after 7 - 8 hours on my 4 A charger, but no higher. I then bought a new 6 A charger and by the wee small hours of Sun morning the charge finally reached 12.6. Later at...

Nothing in the UCP under "Manage Drafts". I will recompose later.

Nup, my last post is missing from the thread that I have on the screen in front of me - no humour intended - and if it didn't somehow get through then all the helpful comments will inevitably not apply in the way that they were intended I will repeat later.

My last post "Victory??" with an update on the replacement battery charge situation seems to have got lost in cyberspace. Wait to see if there is a time-lag before I repeat. I have here an old tube of Holts No-Crode which seems to be targeted at battery terminals, also a tube of Carlube Co...

Replacement battery ex scrap yard as per forum advice is currently on charge, but untested by scrap yard as far as I could tell. If the battery is kosher, what "peak" voltage should it show on my multimeter before I connect it up? Is anything over 12.6 V acceptable? Same again after 24 hou...

Thanks I will follow that tip if it turns out that the battery is at fault.

Point of info: My "brainwave" as above using the jump leads connected to the other car, but which failed to start the Cav. Does this "prove" that replacing the battery would NOT solve the problem???

Tks for the useful info which does of course open up the scope for other factors being responsible. May be there is more than one. .. * My thought about using the jump leads was to test whether a "new" battery would solve the problem. The fact that the car still failed to start makes me th...

I had a brainwave and put on a pair of connected jump leads to provide the boost if indeed 11.7 V was not sufficient to start the engine. >> Same result, dashboard lights illuminated and clicking sound from front nearside but otherwise zilch. All points in the direction of the ignition switch (+ bar...

Oral-B or Colgate?

I agree that used soft toothbrushes are an excellent invention for such tasks. If the growth is stubborn I have some bicarb of soda. Would using that diluted risk damaging the paintwork and / or trim?

The car stands outside and over time green growth accumulates in the nooks and crannies. Brushing can remove some but not all of this. Anything like a cleaner dissolver solvent that I can use that won't attack the paintwork?

Not easy to turn the ignition switch whilst faffing around with the voltmeter on the battery terminals, one handed .. The battery's showing a green light so the condition would appear to be OK. Having left it disconnected for 24 hours it reads 11.7 V. Would this normally be enough to start it if thi...

What would you regard as "normal" for the battery to hold once it's been charged but is not in daily use? I usually disconnect it for such periods in case there is a slight drain. I'd come to think that it would drop to somewhere between 11 and 12 V in the normal course of events and that ...

That's the one tks!

I'm reluctant to do anything more than strctly necessary with the interior trim for fear of breaking the brackets. It might be worth it just to replace the ignition switch anyway without faffing about. Would you go along with any (or all) of these?: https://www.autopartspro.co.uk/vauxhall ... ion-sw...

When my last computer died it took with it the link to the online opel ecat catalogue which I came to regard as the gospel for part numbers. I'm guessing that it is still there somewhere in cyberspace if someone could kindly provide the correct link pls. In this instance I am looking for a replaceme...

Update for readers: The car was returned to my home in my absence this afternoon from having some work done by the local garage. They had had no starting problems. The engine was still warm. Battery reading 11.8 / 11.9 V. Turning the ignition key > lights in the dashboard illuminated in the usual wa...