1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

[Robsey]

I don't like to make people feel silly

Looking forward to seeing the progression

I don't need help to look silly

Looking forward to making the progression - Eventually after all this time.

[Squig]

Well I'll be there so I'll give you a hand... had the tank off mine a few times... hope for nice weather

[Robsey]

Thanks, that will be really appreciated...

Apologies, but normally I am a bit stubborn / proud to ask for help.

The tank is all painted ready to go, I have some sticky backed foam for padding, and I have some spray underseal / wax-oil for whilst the tank is out.

If it is quite a quick job to do, then I will gladly help out anyone else with any niggles on there Cavs or whatever you attend in

[Robsey]

A bit of a cross-over from the North West Meet thread.

Today saw Squig do about 95% of the work required to replace my fuel tank..
I helped where I could without getting in the way.

And Mandy my wifey did the many trips to the car spares shop in Hyde, to buy a fuel filter and various hose clips, fuel hose and some fire putty.

I also managed to strip and re-assemble the front gaskets and seals on the Cat pipe and middle section, whilst Squig re-fitted the back box.


Here is the dodgey tank.. can you spot where the leak was?

[Lowrider Dave]

Good job. That must have been some leak!

[planetc]

Funny, sure I could smell petrol when I looked at the picture?

[Robsey]

I'll do the reveal this evening... couldn't last night as the site kept dying on us.
and I'm on the works computer at the moment so no pictures here.

The main damp, is from where it got rained on, however the actual leak was from a very fine split / crack in the tank just above the fuel filter.

The crack was only about 20mm (3/4") long, but enough to smell when fuel was sloshing about
You'll notice also that the two small stubs (Vent pipe and filler breather) both snapped off.

Yup that tank was knackered.

[Envoy CDX]

Least its done now, but I've been nagging you for a year to get it done...

[Robsey]

Yep, I know, I know

Well thanks to Squig, it is done now

anyway as promised, here is where the tank was leaking..

Had to slightly tweak the back box hangers, as the pipe was vibrating against the corner of the tank..

Also had to swap for another wheelchair battery, as I killed the other one, by leaving the boot open all day

What a bugger, having to re-set the clock, every time I got the car to start after being jumped of a spare battery.

Now for the bad news...

There is a big box section across the underneath of the rear of the boot floor.
On mine, there was big chunks of corroded metal dropping off -
I will have to weld in a new section across the entire width of the box section.

Also, I will need to weld in plates along the floor pan, where the fuel line clamps attach - along the right hand side of the floor skin.

Looks like I will be busy doing my version of welding in early October.

[Squig]

as said matey no worries it was good to see you again... sorry If I kind of took over.

TBH those pics really don't show just how bad the tank was, the leaking was pretty bad but the general state of the corrosion was worse... I spent 5 minutes just brushing rust off with my finger tips before I started to remove the tank, even then I still got plenty of rust in my eyes.

That was one cav that was pretty desperate to get a new shiny tank... and it did... Woo!

If you need a hand again just hint

[Robsey]

as said matey no worries it was good to see you again... sorry If I kind of took over.

If you need a hand again just hint

It was good to have someone who was happy to help, even if I did sort of take a back seat

I also listened to your idea to look for a manual ECU.
I have now got myself a few links up for a replacement manual engine ECU (Alpha code GE).

Can't believe that I never thought of getting another ECU for a manual C20NE to get the idle speed sorted.
Just got myself hung up on the idea of getting the thing Tech 1 programmed

Regarding the offer of assistance - that goes both ways. Just holler if you need a hand. Even if it is one of the other cars.

[Robsey]

Suppose this will be an MOT failure, but I cannot find the replacemnt panel from Hadrian

And here is the lovely tank in it's finished state.

So, I am bringing my "Hobby" Gasless welder home from work on friday.. ready for the fun to begin in October

[Envoy CDX]

That should sort out easily enough Rob.

[Robsey]

I have been toying with fitting electric mirrors to the Cav...

well,

the door connectors are dead easy...

1 wire from the rear window demister relay for mirror glass heater / demister
(different on pre-facelift cavalier - sorry!!)
1 wire for the ignition live supply for the mirror switch and motor feed
The earth is already in the main connector. There are then three wires that simply link the driver's door to the passenger door.

So why am I posting this... well, I am not a Cav geek, so I had to hunt down where the rear window demister relay was.

So run the engine.. and press the button on/off until I could suss out where the clicking of the relay came from.

The experts will know, but I didn't until about an hour ago..

On the mk2 cav, there were supplementary relays on the back face of the fusebox... on the facelift (I have a 1994 LSi), Nope nothing, just all the wires.

So I flipped out the fuse box...

Carried on pressing the HRW switch on and off....

Hmm somewhere below the instrument cluster... and then by jingo I found it

There is a strip of relays on the "Relay Frame"..which is located on the back of a panel behind , and just above the fusebox.

I had to remove my fuse box cover plastic completely, and swing the fuse box out of the way completely to see the little blighter.

I am going to modify my wiring in a couple of weeks, so I will put up pictures then...

I will have to have serious words with Envoy, for mentioning this blummin mod...

[Envoy CDX]

You loved modding it really

[Robsey]

Hence the laughing smiley

Researching the mods and wiring diagrams can be done indoors where it is dry and warm.

Some lovely looming will show it's face in October

[Envoy CDX]

Hence the laughing smiley

Researching the mods and wiring diagrams can be done indoors where it is dry and warm.

Some lovely looming will show it's face in October

Excellent

[Robsey]

Just as a point of interest...
Thinking of electronic modding...

I looked at my old C18NZ loom tonight, and realsied that the connectors X9, X10 and X11 (The three small connectors that sit underneath the ECU in the driver's kick panel ) will fit many other components.

In my case, they will fit the electric mirror connector,
the cruise control stalk buttons connector,
as well as -
the omega variable wiper and fuel computer stalk connector.

I already have the connector plugs, but my stalks would benefit from being fitted with a couple of the proper connector pins.

So I am looking at carefully dismantling the ECU loom, to salvage the wires and connectors for my projects.

The SPi fuel pump relay socket would also be useful for mounting a relay for yet another project. (Standard 4 pin relay socket).

Even the original loom sleeving and fabric tape will help maintain that OEM look.
(EnvoyCDX will be proud of me as he likes to keep things looking as original as possible.)

[Robsey]

Well, I've been at it again...

playing with the Cavs wiring

I have a week off from work this week, so I am able to spend some time on the Cav without too many distractions.

So yesterday (Monday), I decided to rip out all of my dash (instrument panel, heater panel (Display panel in my case) and the glove box.

The reason for this is a new ruling in the MOT relating to unidentified Cabling.
So I thought that I should re-wire in my oil pressure sensor and speed tranducer in the engine bay. I also fitted the nice shiney speed transducer that arrived with my recently fitted replacement Astra GTE digi-dash.

I stripped apart the ECU loom from the C18NZ set-up, and used all the black plastic sleeving to make the job look "OE".
Then I fed this wiring into the cabin via the hole left by the removal of the mechanical speedo cable the other year.

Whilst I had the dash out, I also decided to wire the fuel computer in properly.

I connected everything up, and found that the fuel computer stalk worked fine

Then I took the car for a spin before putting all the instrument hood panels back... This was just as well, as the speedo registered too low a speed.
I flicked the red switch to position 2 on the top of the digi dash, and an accurate road speed was now displaying.

The shrouds and trim panels were all refitted.... but this wasn't the end of the speedo saga - I will go into his in a moment.

I then removed the ultrasonic module from my Meta alarm, because it consistently triggered the alarm if I didn't turn it off via the fob.

I then dropped out the relay frame (behind the main fuse box), to identify which relay needed to be re-wired to wire in electric mirrors.
There is a black/white wire on pin 5 of the beige heated rear window demister relay.

I left this hanging about, and ventured indoors to do other jobs..

[Robsey]

Later in the evening, I decided to dry-foam and steam clean my rear velour headrests..
Now much better..

Last job of the evening was to re solder my 10 pin ALDL to 16 pin EOBD2 conversion lead.

That sleeving is pink.. ... meant to be red (pah).... that's another reason why I didn't use it to sleeve my fuel lines.

I would have looked a right womble on MOT day

[Robsey]

So today.... (Tuesday), I had to go to the post office to pick up a parcel, and run a few errands.

That is when I noticed that the fuel computer was reading wrongly.
It was suddenly reading only 7 mpg.

cav oct 11.jpg

So guess what ?

The speed transducer that I fitted yesterday was matched to the speedo cluster, but not to my fuel computer...

transducer 2.jpg

So I had to take out this one, and refit the original one.

Then I had to rip the instrument panel out again, just so that I could throw the red switch back to position 1.

Put the trims etc back again, and full service was resumed - yay.

It turned out that the original (early) transducer - AK operates at 16 pulses per revolution.
The later transducer AH operates at 6 pulses per revolution.

transducers.jpg

[Envoy CDX]

All good progress

[btcctroy]

good to see your back in love with her agian lol

[Robsey]

More "Lack of" progress today

After a lot of faffing about all week, I finally decided to do my brake cables.

My handbrake had turned into a C.B. Radio Dipole, pointing towards the sky, and not doing much in the process.

Nope, I couldn't hear Smokey or the Bandit, but then I remembered I don't have a CB radio - "You got ya ears on there gud buddee!!"

And it only just held the car on a gradient - not good when I live 165 yards up a hill (According to the altimeter on my sat nav).

So I loosened the road wheel nuts and jacked up the rear of the car so that I could set her up onto my big stands.

I stripped and cleaned the passenger side drum and brake shoes... Theye were virtually useless, with very little movement when I operated the brake cable by hand. Almost seized solid. The cables at it happened looked okay, so that saved me a pig of a job.

So I cleaned up the brake drum, back plate and the shoes, and then re coppa-slipped all the contact surfaces.

The shoes moved a lot better and smoother now, put the wheel on (and off a few times), until I got a good level of brake actuation from the brake lever.

I then moved onto the driver's side rear wheel, and hit a wall - a very hard wall...

I got the bolts out, and thought..."Oh bugger, this thing is rusted on solid"!!

So I tried walloping it with a big mallet and a very big hammer, tried kicking and stamping it off from under the vehicle.

Even tried levering it of with a very long socket bar and a big spanner... the spanner got stuck between the drum and the wheel rim at one stage

nothing.... solid as a rock

So I have put a heavy dowsing of plus-gas on it and now I am just crossing my fingers hoping that it will penetrate enough to let me get the wheel off and do the other brake assembly before I do any irrepairable damage to the rim or the bearing.

[Kevwaggy]

That is a fecker, had it happen on my combo, rustwelded itself to the hub, in the end it only came off after me beating the living daylights out of it with the biggest sledge hammer i could find from underneath! This of course resulted in the rim of the steelie being like the surface of the north sea

You're clearly a much more patient man than I