1989 Opel Vectra GT

[Robsey]

As said -
Either not fitted properly after the first accident,
Or
Something inside the roof got bent
or something fell into the channels that the glass roof slides in.

There is also a black wind deflector at the front of the roof, which rises up as the glass panel slides back.
Maybe this is bent or broken, jamming the roof in place.

[vectra1903]

As said -
Either not fitted properly after the first accident,
Or
Something inside the roof got bent
or something fell into the channels that the glass roof slides in.

There is also a black wind deflector at the front of the roof, which rises up as the glass panel slides back.
Maybe this is bent or broken, jamming the roof in place.

Thanks for the info, now I know what I should look at. It has to be fixed, it's gonna improve the coolness of the car by at least 25%

[Robsey]

Do you have a repair manual?
Such as a Haynes manual.

It will have a lot of repair and maintenance information in there.
Including the sunroof...

Check your emails.

[vectra1903]

Do you have a repair manual?
Such as a Haynes manual.

It will have a lot of repair and maintenance information in there.
Including the sunroof...

Check your emails.

I guess I do now
Thanks!!

[Robsey]

Hopefully, it will make things easier to do.

[iangsi]

Did PlanetC not do a how to about the sunroof repair.

[Robsey]

Not sure about a How 2, but I found this.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13785&p=141530

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=5348&p=123020

[vectra1903]

Here are some pictures of the front end.


I know, the grille looks like something put together with lego bricks and there are no rubber seals under the headlamps.
I will replace the grille sooner or later for the GT version and the headlamp rubber seals - I think I hid them somewhere when I was looking at the damage from the accident. I remember they were cracked and in bad shape.
I would be very happy if realligning the front end was easy to do because sooner or later I'll have to disassemble the front anyway to replace the grille and bumper for original GT parts.

[Robsey]

You could use washers or spacers to lift the headlamps or grille a little,
and longer self-tapping screws,
to make the gap less obvious.

The grille looks fine - it just stands out, because it has been painted.

The satin grey plastic may look less obvious.

The headlamp rubbers will not affect the height or spacing.
They just stop the wind and rain getting into the gap below the headlamp assemblies.

[vectra1903]

Well... it's been a while since I posted anything here.

Since march, which is when the pandemic started really taking off in Poland the Vectra hasn't been really used that much. There were some longer journeys, but most of the time it just sat in the garage.
My grandpa, the owner of the Vectra, went to the hospital to get treated for cancer about a month ago. Today he unfortunately passed away due to Covid-19. He didn't really get to drive the car that much since it was repaired, which makes me a bit sad. He really loved it and was very happy to be able to enjoy it again.
Now the Vectra is going to sleep for around a year, waiting for my turn to be the owner and maintainer. In august my grandpa took it to the mechanic to get it checked out well and to get the oil changed. There are some things that need to be done. The transmission fluid, brake fluid, horn and battery have to be replaced.
I am 1 year too young to take driving lessons and get a license to drive the Vectra. Because of that it will have to sit in the garage unused until December 2021.
Unfortunately due to the law in Poland we can't unregister it or anything like that. It has to be insured and it has to have a valid "MOT", even though it's not being driven by anyone.
Other than the things I mentioned it's in great shape, technically and visually.
Going through my grandpa's stuff I found something cool. It's a repair manual for the Vectra. The cover basically says "Operation and repair manual. Opel Vectra 1988-1995".

I'll make sure to study the book and find out everything about the car. It's a really nice thing to have!

Well, that would be it for me for about a year. Wish me luck!

[Robsey]

Sorry to hear your very sad news about your Grandpa.

I wish you and your family the strength to cope throughout this sad period.

I guess it will be a bitter-sweet feeling when you finally get to drive your Grandpa's Vectra next year.

Keep safe, take care, and we shall see you next year.

Good luck!

[vectra1903]

I decided to post a quick update on the state of the car.
It's doing great. Well, as great as it can just sitting doing nothing in the garage.
Thankfully nothing bad is happening, because it passed its inspection. The front windscreen and front shock absorbers have been replaced. Also all of the fluids have been checked/replaced.
The tank needs a fill-up because the fuel level is very low, but that's about it. It starts perfectly on first try everytime.
I have found some spare parts in my grandpa's garage, like a colour matched mirror and a front bumper panel.
I am starting to do some basic "improvements" before I finally get my drivers licence (8 months).
As the first job, I decided to try and recreate the front bumper red stripes. I found something called "front door rubber bumpers" which are just a U shaped rubber strip with adhesive tape. I can say it worked pretty well, here are the results:

Definitely not perfect factory fresh level, but I am very pleased with the result.
Also - new number plates - too bad we couldn't keep the original white on black plates but oh well.
I also decided to get a bit "rough" with the front headlamps and grille.
I discovered that the reason for the front not being fully straight is that the front left headlamp is completely loose and the grille is just barely hanging on, stuck on with some silicone. That's gonna need replacing.
Also, I discovered that I have front foglight cables routed to the front, so I guess I will just mount foglights instead of replacing the bumper panels.
I also bought the factory alloy wheels! Four for roughly 40GBP (converted from polish currency). They are in need of a refurbishing, but I won't be doing that anytime soon, as I would be so scared not to scratch them that I would probably cause an accident
Next stop is replacing the electric antenna, because the rubber around it disintegrated and the antenna itself doesn't work (it's bent). Hopefully I won't break anything

That's about it. I'll make sure to post an update when I get some more work done to the car. It's coming along quite nicely.

[Robsey]

That red stripe works well on your bumper.

Your car does look very nice.
Excellent progress being made

[3cav3]

The red strip looks great, reminds me of my second Cavalier.After it got hit in the rear, once id repaired it (long story but for once I came out ahead of the insurance company) I put some blue trim tape in the grove to hide a couple of screws in the bumper then continued all the way around the rest of the car. I thought it looked good against the gun metal grey paint. Made a good profit overall on that car. Paid £450 for it, received £800 off the insurance, ran it for another year, then when the rot started setting in to the chassis rails sold it for £450.

[ilovedmymantas]

Nice update

There doesn't seem to be much needing done
The red strip looks good, fogs will be a nice addition and your alloys - what a bargain!

[vectra1903]

Took it out for a short drive around the city with my dad. Have to say that it takes off pretty nicely

It does have a small problem though. Low idle rpm-s. It idles at around 600rpm, everything in the interior starts rattling like the car is going to stall.
Also the temperature needle doesn't move, after 16km it was still at the blue line at the bottom, but it was so hot under the hood that I almost burned my hand trying to get the rod to prop up the bonnet out of its holder. The fan does switch on though.
How would I be able to fix these issues?
Now that I finally got a proper look at the car I can see that there are some more things to be taken care of but nothing bad.

[Robsey]

I had this when I first fitted my C20NE.
It was caused by 2 things.

1 - I had a small air leak between the throttle body and the intake manifold.

2 - I had the wrong octane plug fitted.
The C20NE often has a yellow octane plug, which increases the idle speed by 100 rpm.

[vectra1903]

I had this when I first fitted my C20NE.
It was caused by 2 things.

1 - I had a small air leak between the throttle body and the intake manifold.

2 - I had the wrong octane plug fitted.
The C20NE often has a yellow octane plug, which increases the idle speed by 100 rpm.

The octane plug is the proper yellow one, set to 95 octane.
I guess I'll have to check for any leaks Don't have the proper tools for that so it's probably a job for my mechanic.

[vectra1903]

Something just popped in my head. Is it possible that the low rpm-s on idle are caused by the battery being disconnected for a while? We had to charge it so we took it out of the car. All of my family's cars behave like this when the battery is reconnected, the rpm-s are so low that it's almost stalling but after some time it adjusts itself and runs normally. Is this the case here?

[Robsey]

In normal use, the engine ECU will go into learning mode.
The car may not run as smooth or economically for a while...
But it should not stall or idle very slowly.

I suspect an air leak...
Have a look at all the pipes from the air filter to the manifold.
Any loss of air flow through the air flow meter, may cause the engine to supply less fuel to maintain a good air to fuel ratio. (14:1).

[vectra1903]

In normal use, the engine ECU will go into learning mode.
The car may not run as smooth or economically for a while...
But it should not stall or idle very slowly.

I suspect an air leak...
Have a look at all the pipes from the air filter to the manifold.
Any loss of air flow through the air flow meter, may cause the engine to supply less fuel to maintain a good air to fuel ratio. (14:1).

Some people (in Poland) suggested that it might be a dirty idle control valve, will that cause this type of issue? Cleaning it is a job that I can do myself, but taking off the throttle body, the cable for the pedal, that's a bit too scary for me

[Robsey]

You do not need to disconnect anything to remove the throttle body.
There will be four M6 nuts to undo - 10mm spanner.

All that you may need is a new gasket.
I made a gasket using a piece of cardboard from a breakfast cereal packet.

The idle control valve can affect the idle as you describe.
I fitted two used valves and a new one... in my case it did not change the idle rpm.

A quick test is to unplug the electrical connector.
The car should idle at a much higher rpm.
Probably close to 900 rpm.
It will stall / cut out if you reconnect the plug whilst the engine is running.
But it will restart again.

They can be cleaned quite easily, but this is not always successful.

[vectra1903]

You do not need to disconnect anything to remove the throttle body.
There will be four M6 nuts to undo - 10mm spanner.

All that you may need is a new gasket.
I made a gasket using a piece of cardboard from a breakfast cereal packet.

The idle control valve can affect the idle as you describe.
I fitted two used valves and a new one... in my case it did not change the idle rpm.

A quick test is to unplug the electrical connector.
The car should idle at a much higher rpm.
Probably close to 900 rpm.
It will stall / cut out if you reconnect the plug whilst the engine is running.
But it will restart again.

They can be cleaned quite easily, but this is not always successful.

Thanks, I will definitely poke around and try to fix this problem.
As far as the temperature needle not moving goes, some people suggested that the fault may be the coolant temperature sensor. I know where it is and I'm pretty sure I can replace it, but would I need to flush the coolant to do that?

[Robsey]

Temperature gauge needle not moving.

2 possibilities.
1 - the connector (female spade) is corroded, snapped off or has come off the gauge temperature sensor.

2 - the thermostat may not be closing properly - this will mean that the car takes a long time to warm up enough for the needle to register the engine temperature.

A faulty sender will still move the needle, but it would not be very accurate.

As for flushing the coolant - this will be needed if the coolant has not been changed in the past few years.

It is good practice to replace a lot of fluids every two years
This goes for coolant to protect the engine from corosion.
And brake fluid should be flushed to ensure that the brakes will work effectively, especially under hard breaking or heavy use.

[chrisp]

Re brake fluid changes, I'm having a conversation on another forum where people are claiming that replacing brake fluid every 2 years is outdated and not necessary because you can measure the water content of the fluid with a meter to see if it is high enough to warrant replacement - and most times it isn't.
I think the problem with this is that you can only easily sample the brake fluid in the master cylinder reservoir, when in fact you want to know the water content in the brake calipers at the road wheels. Of course you could bleed a little fluid out of each caliper and test that, but if you're at each wheel bleeding fluid you might just as well bleed more out and change the fluid.
So, yes, I think the 2 year brake fluid changes are really valuable and prevent internal corrosion by water of all brake components.