1989 Opel Vectra GT

[vectra1903]

The v6 has about 6 relays and 5 extra fuses in there.

What engine and spec is the car (air con or not)

2.0 C20NE, no air conditioning, the ECU is a Motronic 4.1 if that matters.

[vexorg]

one or two relays sound about right

[vectra1903]

So... a good friend really wanted to take the big machine for a ride.
I, of course, agreed.
And...

Here I am, 90 kilometers later. This car is very fun.

I'm not gonna say that we obeyed the speed limit all the time, there were moments where we were pretty high on the speedometer, but I honestly have to say that going above 110km/h is not as fun as driving it around 80-100. At these speeds it feels like a rocket flying through the roads. No reason to go above that.

My friend daily drives a Punto, so this was quite an experience for her, but after driving around for a bit she asked me how much I want for it.

It's really nice to see this beast on the roads again in full working order. Before today's ride I replaced the speakers. I settled for Zafira A units as they were cheap and basically a drop in replacement.

Blasting 80's and 90's rock music while going around country roads is a very special experience

I bought handbrake and gear shifter gaiters so I'll probably mount them in a couple of days. Today I passed as it was a nice sunny day, ideal to take the car out for a ride.


The front doors are a different shade of silver, but I don't have the money to have them painted right now. Maybe one day...

[Robsey]

In the UK, the national speed limit is 70 mph (115kph).

I found in my mk2 Cavalier (Ascona-C) that the car went through a resonance band.

Between 65 and 80mph, the car vibrated....
But above 80, it all goes smooth, and it felt like you were flying the Millenium Falcon.

But of course, I am not advising you to exceed the speed limit.
Just memories of lively driving before they filled the UK with speed cameras.
Even I was young once.

[vectra1903]

In the UK, the national speed limit is 70 mph (115kph).

I found in my mk2 Cavalier (Ascona-C) that the car went through a resonance band.

Between 65 and 80mph, the car vibrated....
But above 80, it all goes smooth, and it felt like you were flying the Millenium Falcon.

But of course, I am not advising you to exceed the speed limit.
Just memories of lively driving before they filled the UK with speed cameras.
Even I was young once.

Luckily where I live we don't have many speed cameras, just one or two unmarked police cars hunting for speeding cars on the longer roads.

As for the resonance, this is also something that shocked me when riding in the Vectra, there wasn't a single time the car started annoyingly humming or vibrating like crazy, unlike every other car I ever drove in.

I am generally an anti-speeding person, but I put that aside for today, the car needed a bit of a rough, fast ride after sitting for so long.

I also forgot to say something in my previous post.

There was a moment where we stalled the car at an intersection and it had a very hard time starting after that, it had to crank for a long time before it started. That was around the 50km point. Oddly, after we turned the car off at a parking lot a couple of kilometers later it started perfectly fine.

Maybe that's just a weird quirk of this car, I don't know.

[vexorg]

Just memories of lively driving before they filled the UK with speed cameras.
Even I was young once.

Bringing back memories of policemen waving flags on longer stretched of road to measure your speed?

[Mk3alan]

Not sure if it's country wide but certainly round here on faster/bigger roads it's quite common to see painted squares on the carriageway the idea being that a police officer can view a vehicle (with binoculars) when passing over a square, and start a stopwatch. Then when passing the next, spaced at half mile intervals the speed can be calculated!
Novel eh!

Alan

[vexorg]

Is that not the vascar system? They have them in scotland too

[vectra1903]

More problems today.

We took the car out for a little drive, around 20km and now every time it was turned off it had big trouble starting.

It cranks and cranks... and cranks.... and cranks... until the engine starts to "react" and the rpms slowly go up but they instantly start dropping and the engine stalls. If you give it a good revving for a while it will stabilize and run normally for the rest of the drive. My guess is the replacement idle control valve as I faintly remember something similar happening when I replaced it the first time around.

[Robsey]

If it is the idle control valve, then the best test is to leave it unplugged.
Then see if it will start more easily.

The engine light will come on, but the car will start and run.

[vectra1903]

Thanks for the help. I'll make sure to post an update when I get a chance to test this.

[vexorg]

CTS was another common failure, the blue temp sensor for the ECU. It wont start hot because the ECU thinks the car is cold and floods it.

[vectra1903]

I replaced the ICV and the starting problem is gone, but of course because I fixed one problem I had to make another one in return.

I tried adjusting the gear linkage by following the guide.
I loosened the bolt, inserted the drill bit into the hole where the cap was, had someone hold the gear shifter to the left side so the arrow met with a small black point, tightened the bolt, extracted the drill bit, put the cap back in and now it seems that I can only shift into 3rd, 4th, 5th and reverse. The gear lever doesn't pop back into the center like it did before this, it only jumps back max. 5mm from the left side. It seems to me that the whole gear pattern shifted to the left, meaning I can't reach 1st and 2nd anymore. What can I do to fix this?

[Robsey]

It is odd that you can get reverse, but not 1st and 2nd.

I would still look at the link nearest to the selector turret on the gearbox.
I suspect that there is too much movement from side to side.
Broken, loose or worn pin.

Get your friend to move the gear stick from side to side, while you watch what the linkage on the gearbox does.

[vectra1903]

It is odd that you can get reverse, but not 1st and 2nd.

I would still look at the link nearest to the selector turret on the gearbox.
I suspect that there is too much movement from side to side.
Broken, loose or worn pin.

Get your friend to move the gear stick from side to side, while you watch what the linkage on the gearbox does.

I could get all of the gears before messing with it, reverse and 5th were harder to shift into though, now it seems as I've got 5th in the place where 3rd would normally be and there are no more gears farther to the right, it's exactly like this picture I drew here:


I wonder if loosening the clamp bolt and alligning the shifter not by lining up the arrow, but by holding it in the very middle will fix this - I think this will result in moving the gear shifting pattern back to the right side where it belongs

[vexorg]

Can you get first or second if you lift the reverse collar up?

[vectra1903]

Can you get first or second if you lift the reverse collar up?

Oh, that is actually possible, maybe what I thought was reverse is actually 1st gear. I haven't tried shifting into 2nd with the collar up, but I can definitely get something where reverse would normally be.

[vectra1903]

Don't want to spend much time on this, as I'm seeking some relaxation, but we have had a minor accident. Really, it was my fault that I took the car out of sleep, that wasn't very smart. It is very minor though, just needs a bit of bending and polishing, maybe some welding and painting too.

A medium parking style crash, my friend reversed into me as he was reversing uphill and his Megane has a very high back window. He didn't see us and... bam, crash.

I'm not gonna cry or anything, it was a good friend, he is very worried and willing to pay for all of the damages and work, so not a very big deal.

Just a sad thing to happen after basically finishing work on the car.

Thankfully the bonnet and fenders are alright, although the bonnet doesn't open at all.

Next week I'm having it looked over by a mechanic, this time I'm offering help in return for a job done a bit better. I chose a good mechanic that I know and respect, not a cowboy like the first one.



As I said, no big deal, just a small set back.

Just lowering the bonnet in a image manipulating program makes it much better.

[Robsey]

It looks like it is the panel under the radiator grille that took most of the damage.
I suspect it is the front panel and the slam panel that the bonnet latches onto that have bent.

Once the bonnet is open, you will be able to get a better look.
I hope that this will be quite an easy repair for a qualified panel beater.

[vectra1903]

It looks like it is the panel under the radiator grille that took most of the damage.
I suspect it is the front panel and the slam panel that the bonnet latches onto that have bent.

Once the bonnet is open, you will be able to get a better look.
I hope that this will be quite an easy repair for a qualified panel beater.

That is exactly what happened, the slam panel suffered the most damage, the panel under the grille only got a small dent and it spun a bit on the bolts holding it in on the sides. Nothing terrible.

[Robsey]

I can see slam panels are still available to buy...
But the strip that goes under the grille is much harder to find.

I suppose, your friend has done you a favour.

Based upon the history of the headlamps,
You said before the bump that the gap above the headlamps and the grille were not level.

I guess the slam panel was already bent, and your friend bent it a little bit more.

If it is so weak, then I would strongly recommend a new slam panel.

[vectra1903]

I can see slam panels are still available to buy...
But the strip that goes under the grille is much harder to find.

I suppose, your friend has done you a favour.

Based upon the history of the headlamps,
You said before the bump that the gap above the headlamps and the grille were not level.

I guess the slam panel was already bent, and your friend bent it a little bit more.

If it is so weak, then I would strongly recommend a new slam panel.

I was quite shocked by how easily the slam panel bent. Probably the best idea would be to cut one out from another Vectra and weld it in here.

I'll be sure to post updates when my mechanic checks this over on tuesday.

[vectra1903]

So, good news.
The mechanic looked at the car (the bonnet opened without any problems for him which shocked me).

He says that it's all gonna be good, and that he's glad that this happened because the car will finally get the kind of reconstruction that it should have gotten from the very beginning of this story.

Let's just hope that he is right and that the result will shock me.

We also spotted a dangerous problem, the front shock absorber is not mounted properly and it's loose. That may be the source of the "steering not quite straight" problem.

[Robsey]

Looks like your mechanic and I agree on what is needed.

As for the shock absorber -when you say loose - do you mean that the top nut was not tightened?
Or is the big load spreading cup sitting too high (big gap above the inner wing).



If it is the nut, then this is an easy job.

If the top cup is too high (more than 4 or 5 mm above inner wing skin) then this means that the upper bearing cup is probably cracked - mine was before my restoration.

[vexorg]

I've seen the shock nut come loose, probably becuse they need more to tighten that people realise.