M Plate 1.8LS Saloon

[cavalier1990]

The sill is now welded up, not finished but welding all done. Given the weather we've had the ast few weeks I'm amazed I've got anything done. Never one to be put off welding in the rain I got on with it.

Last night and today my knee has been a bit achy so I decided to do things that didn't involve kneeling down or having to go down under (Not to Oz!) so I got that fibre tape stuff out and started re-doing the wiring looms, done the N/S one seems ok, the driver side one has that big connector on it and a few extra connectors floating about so had to wiggle my way round those. I found a couple of what looked like an OE wire join like a little metal block with 3 wires moulded into it.

One of them looked a bit powdery so decided rather than muck about with it, I would just give it a quick spray of the old bulldog and taped it up. The old insulation round it was frayed so water had obviously been getting in it. I've also managed to pull the reverse wire earth out of the big block connector when I was tussling the wiring loom about to get it out the way where I was working. Hope all that tussling has not ruptured any 30 year old wires!

Once that was done I went round all the weld patches on the floors/bulkhead/inner wings etc. and sealed them up with black gunk. I couldn't quite get underneath due to my knee but most of the rest of it is done.

I also treated all the rusty spots along the chassis legs and various bits on inner wings with rust eater then rubbed them all down to give them a key as going to paint the engine bay. Polar sea blue at the ready!

I still have the front panel in place so that the bonnet can sit on it and wanted to leave something in place to give me a reference point for replacing all the front striker and light panels, although I do have the front of the dippy to refer to if I get lost.

Plan is to get the engine ready to go in, take front panel off and push the engine straight in that way rather than having to lift it over a new front panel or even the old front panel. I also need to start putting in the little striker plates and then the lower and upper front crossmembers - those will be after engine is in.


still lots to do but it's mainly just building back up now, the front panels are mainly spot welds with a few butt welds here and there, and the only repair welding I need to do is the front seat back bracket, which I'm hoping to get a cut out section from a guy on facebook save me trying to plate it as the whole area has been patched so many times it's a mess.

Cheers

Andy

[Envoy CDX]

Its all progress Andy, you're doing better than I Welding in the rain? you barmy sod.

[cavalier1990]

Its all progress Andy, you're doing better than I Welding in the rain? you barmy sod.

I was about half way through and light light misty rain started, it was blowing from the opposite side of where i was working so was actually sheltered by the car. The wind direction then changed and it started blowing up the driveway so had to chuck it!

[Envoy CDX]

Never fun, but hopefully all welded up at the time of replying

[cavalier1990]

Never fun, but hopefully all welded up at the time of replying

All welded up now envoy, Sealed up most of the weld repairs in floors/wheelarches and primered the sill repair to stop it rusting.

Cheers

Andy

[cavalier1990]

Couple of pics showing the N/S and O/S repairs sealed up.









When I had a look this morning I was greeted with a big puddle of water sitting over the O/S floor. I think it might have been the temporary piece of tape I have over the airbox opening to stop water filling back over the lip into the cabin that's came off a bit so I re-taped it up. Will check later when it rains!

[cavalier1990]

So I removed the scuttle panel plastic thingy and cleaned all the drainage channels of any dirt and debris with a view to resealing the area where I had welded new plates on the front of the bulkhead, just above the elephant trunk and to the drivers side as well.

Not sure if the water was backing up and tipping over through one of the little bits I'd welded higher up on the back of the bulkhead panel or something. I ended up using that black goo stuff for sealing coolant joins, it goes rubbery and seals water and I was hesitant to open a full gun of that mastic stuff as I knew it would dry out. I'm keeping that for when I put all the new panels on the front end though I really shouldn't need too much of it there, more for the senator.

Cheers

Andy

[Envoy CDX]

Kool, looks nice all the same

[cavalier1990]

Resealed the scuttle area as I had the proper sealant gunk out for doing the rest of the welds up underneath. I am starting to prep the engine bay for a coat of paint to freshen it up. Started out taping round the drivers side bulkhead bit where the steering column comes through, it's like a plate with I think it's seven 13mm washered nuts. I took the nuts off and put tape over the threads to stop them getting covered in paint then masked round the edges of the bulkhead plate. Ideally I'd take that out and give it a freshen up but I'm really not wanting to strip the whole steering column out, I need to start building stuff back up.

Masked up round all the wiring loom rubbers and removed any rubber bungs from the top left of the bulkhead apron for the washer pipe and there is also one rubber bung below that, which I've no idea what it is for but it looks like it has a small hole in the middle.

Gave all the wee rusty bits another dab of rust eater and when the time comes for painting I will wrap the wiring looms up with paper and hang them over the side of the wings to get them out the way.

Cheers

Andy

[Envoy CDX]

Nice, the one bit about the steering columns i hated was the pesky sheer bolt and trying to knock it round. otherwise its a fairly easy job. Better if you're putting a tilt column in, make it more worthwhile

[MrSteve]

It's good to see another Cavalier having its rust holes replaced by nice new steel. Well done!

[cavalier1990]

It's good to see another Cavalier having its rust holes replaced by nice new steel. Well done!

Thanks, it's been a mission to get all this done, I'd been patching it up for years and always wanted to strip it back and fix it properly. Now done that and will post some more update videos below.

Cheers

Andy

[cavalier1990]

I have now got the engine bay primed and painted and the wheelarches primed. Still got topcoat/black gunk to put on wheelarches.

Masked up all the wiring looms and for doing the wheelarches I plugged up all the wee screwholes in the inner wings so spray wouldn't come through onto the newly painted engine bay. Spent a bit of time chasing the rust off the engine and box mounting bolts, they seemed to go very tight very quickly when I tried running them in. Was a bit worried they'd shear off the captive nut thing inside the chassis leg, seem to have loosened off now with a good dose of loose oil.

First video below is the primer, it was a trial of a new primer I got from BDX, the spray from it was quite intense so had to be quick and there were a couple of runs in it because of that.

https://andrew-cars.s3.eu-west-2.amazon ... Primed.mp4

THe next video is once I had the main coat on and lacquer:

https://andrew-cars.s3.eu-west-2.amazon ... nted_2.mp4

Not got a video of the wheelarches yet, it was a 2 pack paint in a tin that you use an activator thing on the bottom too activate the contents. Seemed ok and I have an black goo one the same I need to do next. Only got one tin as it was trial of those types of paint so if I run out will just use regular black goo.

Edit, here is a pic of the wheelarch bit primed:



Cheers

Andy

[cavalier1990]

Can't quite believe it's been september last year since I posted here, that would reflect pretty much the time I kind of wound up working on the cars for that year, well it was actually about mid October but was just doing menial stuff. Come the start of November my old dad had a bad fall in the house and whacked his head on the wall, leading to a small brain bleed and concussion so basically spent December till now getting him back on the mend, he was in hopsital for about 6 weeks and got out a week before xmas.

As you can imagine xmas was more or less a non-event. He ended up with a lot of memory issues and confusion as well as a lot of UTIs and delerium. His recovery isn't linear, he almost seemed to be making good progress in hopsital but went back downhill a bit and looking after him was and is pretty stressful.

My omega has been parked up at my place for the whole winter and I just used my folks wee polo to get around as I was practically staying at theirs anyway. Having my car down just takes up space on the road so I just left it back home. I think my prayers were answered early February as I was on the lookout for a cavalier breaking and with good rear floors, something I thought akin to the rarest of hen's teeth, especially up here. But then up pops a cavalier breaking across the Clyde in a little place called cardross, I didn't really get the full story why it ended up where it ended up, but the guy seemed to have it for a spare shell for an old SRI he had, but he got rid of that and the one he was breaking he wanted shot of.

Luckily and thankfully the guy had a big stihl saw at his lock up and the floors were pretty good so he chopped off both back floors, and while he as at it he took the sunroof off as mine is past it, just one of those things you think oh that might come in handy as mine doesn't open. I also got various bits and bobs as well as one good wing, a set of front seats, basically the runners and the seat belt tensioners was what I was really look for. I also took the doors while we were at it as I was always looking for a good set of facelift doors.

He was quite keen to get the car cleared, cut up and ready to go. It would have been good if I had became aware of it earlier and could have had more of a dig around it, but happy with what I got.

The floor cut offs were really to get that bracket for the back of the front seat mounting point, but I might be able to replace the whole rear floor section with these as they look not too bad with only minor crust at the back section.

Try and put pics up later and hopefully start getting back to working on the blue jalopy as soon as spring gets its act together!

Cheers

Andy

[ilovedmymantas]

Sorry to hear about your dad, i hope he's continuing to improve.

I thought UTI's were nothing more than an infection that caused stinging when you p. How wrong i was.
I was speaking to a friend of mine last week ( mid 50's, fitness instructor, heart attack last October ) who told me he'd had several UTI's. I don't know if the medications played a part but he told me having them caused him nightmares and hallucinations, he also said at worst he was standing at the living room door and couldn't figure out how to work the handle to get out. He's clear of them for now and is improving, hope that's helpful.

[cavalier1990]

Sorry to hear about your dad, i hope he's continuing to improve.

I thought UTI's were nothing more than an infection that caused stinging when you p. How wrong i was.
I was speaking to a friend of mine last week ( mid 50's, fitness instructor, heart attack last October ) who told me he'd had several UTI's. I don't know if the medications played a part but he told me having them caused him nightmares and hallucinations, he also said at worst he was standing at the living room door and couldn't figure out how to work the handle to get out. He's clear of them for now and is improving, hope that's helpful.

Thanks, he seems a bit more brighter the last few days. We changed his diet and started giving him boring breakfasts with probiotics to help his guts rebuild the "good bacteria", so that seems to have helped quite a bit. My brother works in old age physchiatry so gave me warts n all rundown of UTIs in the elderly. They generally cause delirium and even once the infection is cleared the delirium can last for sometimes months. That's based on that they don't get another infection, which with elderly is quite common to get infections back to back. Added to that the antibacterials they get for them screws up their guts and energy levels for a good couple of weeks so there's that on top of the other stuff. Not a pleasant thing to experience.

Cheers

Andy