Mk3 Cavalier Owners Club | Vauxhall Cavalier Dot Com

humbucker wrote:Nice work, useful part numbers too. Not sure those rubbers are sitting properly though tbh, they should lip over the lamp, creating a seal. Yours are tucked under so water can still get in, although obviously they are providing infinitely more protection than none at all. Should look like this (note where the indicator and headlamp meet):

Well I never knew that must go and refit my seals now

Looks very nice all the same

Looking good mate.

Bad news I'm afraid. My father was involved in an accident last night where a mini-bus went into the side of him.
The driver was just moving the mini-bus a few yards down the road to another part of the bus depot and didn't look while turning right.
The driver vanished soon after and my Dad spoke to his boss instead. Apparently this "happens all the time", Well I'm not surprised driving like that!

He just got home today and here is the damage:




So not too bad, more of a glancing blow, I was expecting much worse. Though it has flattened the wheel arch.

Well everything will be sorted out. the driver of the bus accepted full responsibility and the company he worked for is going to pay out for the repairs and give us a courtesy car in the meantime

So all in all It's actually quite lucky that it hit he rear of side part of the car as that was the scabby part anyway. And now it's going to be repaired free of charge.



Anyway, I got some genuine rear rubber floor mats to match the ones in the front as a Christmas present for my Dad:



And I don't believe I ever uploaded a photo of the new electric aerial which now works like a charm.

he came off very lucky with that, its a good job that the company have admitted full liability.
should come back very nice indeed

Are the rubber mats new?

btcctroy wrote:he came off very lucky with that, its a good job that the company have admitted full liability.
should come back very nice indeed

Yes, very lucky indeed. Apparently there wasn't a scratch on the bus.
My Dad did swerve a bit so that might have tipped the balance also.

Super89 wrote:Are the rubber mats new?

Yes they are, part numbers:

Front pair: 91138676
Rear pair: 91138677

Well, We had a call from the insurance people and.... they can't repair it. Apparently they can't find the parts.

However, they did offer a cash settlement.

£600!! negotiated up from their original offer of £500.

That's almost twice as much as we paid for it!!

Really pleased, If we don't get any repair work done (which we don't really need) then she has actually paid for herself!!

But we are going to get the work done, and with £600 to play with she will be like brand new!!

I got a couple of little things done over the last few days.

First of all, the outside air temperature gauge has only just stopped working. It was working fine when we bought the car so I can only assume the shock of being left outside for the first time and not being kept in a garage killed it.

Very simple job, I think most people on here know how to do it. But just in case, The sensor is located on the passenger side of the front bumper about 8 inches from the wheel arch. Take the old one out, put the new one in, simple.






Next, another newly developed problem, the windscreen washer jets were reduced to just a dribble.

I, like all amateurs, instantly went out a bought a new pump.



I fitted it and... nothing, no change. After much pondering and internet searching I found out that the filter might be blocked.
I checked, and sure enough it was, and boy, was it blocked.



20mins of scrubbing later:




now it's working perfectly.

Next job was to get rid of that silly mud flap at the back.
I had tried to find some original rear mud flaps (the rubber ones with the griffin in the middle) but to no avail, so I decided just to remove the one that I did have, at least until I can find another one.

Before:


After:


It was a real pain to get the dam thing off. There wasn't enough room for the screwdriver to get the two lower screws off so I had to jack the car up to get at them. The top screw was rusted to hell so I had to unscrew it with a pair of pliers bit by bit.

Other than the body work, which is just a matter of time now, I don't really have many plans for her at the moment. There isn't really much to do to be honest; everything works. The only thing which isn't working at the moment it the light bulb behind the heater controls, and I don't fancy doing that right now in the cold.

As usual, part numbers:
Windscreen wash pump: 90492357
Outside air temperature sensor: 9152245

Some nice work there m8 and I'm liking the effort you have put in to make sure she's looking good and working right with that washer bottle I thought I was the only one who actually cleans the bottle in and out LOL.

:mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen:

It's just been booked in for repair at ELVA, the same place that did my LS.

I'll be dropping it off tomorrow so hopefully it will all be finished by the end of the week!

James McGrath wrote:It's just been booked in for repair at ELVA, the same place that did my LS.

I'll be dropping it off tomorrow so hopefully it will all be finished by the end of the week!

If the forums had a 'like' button I would click it, look out for the puppy if he is there

planetc wrote:If the forums had a 'like' button I would click it, look out for the puppy if he is there

Just dropped it off. I didn't see a puppy, but I did see a series 2 Jaguar E-Type there!

I also spotted 2 cavaliers on the way, a blue facelift saloon, I think it was a CD or a diplomat and a green facelift saloon GLS.

Just got it back from the bodyshop. It's looking great!

I'll post some photos up tomorrow.

They should look after you well down there James. They know our connection and I get on really well with them.

planetc wrote:They should look after you well down there James. They know our connection and I get on really well with them.

Yeah, they are very good down there. Thanks for recommending them to me.

I was thinking of getting my clutch replaced there as I see they do original parts.

Who was it who made the original clutches for the Cavalier? Was it Valeo?

Think it depends on who Vauxhall were getting the best deals from at the time.

Ok I've taken loads of photos of this as both the Cavs were looking so nice today.

I'll post a few of the relevant ones here and I'm going to open up a new thread in the shiny room for the rest of the pics.

Ok first of all, what it looked like before:

Front bumper in a bad way, lots of amateurish repairs made by the previous owner which only made it look worse:






Small dent in the boot lid:




Badly painted wing mirror:




You konw about this already, but here you can also see the badly painted fuel filler cap:




General:






After:

Front bumper restored:






Both wing mirrors striped down and re-painted:






Rear quarter now immaculate, I was worried that we'd loose the white stripe, but it was professionally hand painted back on by a local sign writer and looks great:






Dent in boot now totally invisible:




General:










On the whole we're very pleased with the result. It wasn't the same re-spray type affair that I had done with my LS so it's not immaculate, but all the worst parts are now gone.

The only problem, which is ironically my fault, is that the passenger rear door moulding is wrong, as you can see from the last photos. It's a real pain in the ar*e because it checked it before and could have sworn that it was the right one. It must have been one from a pre-facelift or something but it's more square than the others. It's also annoying that I used a perfectly good genuine part which has now gone to waste. Doesn't really matter though, I'll just get one from the same scrap yard as the drivers side one and swap them over later.

Went to the Vauxhall scrap yard in Ashford on Sunday and picked up a few useful items.

First of all, the thing I made the trip for, a door moulding, the correct one this time.

Here you can see the subtle difference between the two, the right one has a slopping top edge whereas the one on there at the moment is more square and must be for a pre-facelift:





I also picked up a couple of perfect seat belt buckles to replace the two broken ones in the back of the CD:





I also managed to find a set of boot parcel shelf straps as one of them had broken and also a fuel filler cap for my LS.

So not a bad hall for one day. I nearly managed to get a full set of original style rubber mud flaps as well but they weren't foe sale unfortunately.

Looking good after the bodywork - nice pair you have there (stop sniggering in the back).
Good haul of parts too, cavs are rare down in the south and are normally heavily stripped if I do manage to find them!

lowrider dave wrote:Looking good after the bodywork - nice pair you have there (stop sniggering in the back).
Good haul of parts too, cavs are rare down in the south and are normally heavily stripped if I do manage to find them!

Thank you!

Tell me about it! I'm in the South too and it's normally the same for me when I go to scrap yards,
However, this time the owner of the scrap yard let me take a few minor things off a GLS 1.7TD Cavalier that he reserved for himself to restore his SRi or something. So I got first dibs on some of the parts. I wasn't allowed to take the mud flaps though.

Not done much with the CD lately. Hasn't really needed anything.

Though I did manage to find the time to replace one of the wing mirrors. One of the clips was broken so it embarrassingly fell off every time I washed the car and whipped under the bottom of the wing mirror case.

Anyway, this was the problem:



So I bought a new electric mirror but got one of the plain unpainted ones and swapped the cases around





Job done:



I also did the same on the Diplomat, only the problem was even worse as the actual metal bracket itself had snapped. Must have taken an almighty whack at some point.




I've done a ton of work on the LS since I last posted and I've done some on the Diplomat today as well. So excuse me while I temporarily take over the WIP section with their respective updates.

Well done old girl!

nice one

Looking good mate. Get them clocks out and give them a good scrub Or at least get the dust off