James' 2.0 8v Diplomat

[James McGrath]

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll lube up the bearings when I get a new resistor. The motor on my CD manual has been known to make an annoying squeaking noise for time to time so I may do it on there too.

You have probably found already there is about 4 sorts of resistor for them too

Yeah it's a real pain. I'm not sure about the CD auto but the LS, Diplomat and CD manual all have different resistors!

[James McGrath]

It's a real pain looking for the right type of resistor actually, I remember going through this last year. The picture that I posted up on page 1 of this WIP was actually the wrong part that I bought by mistake.

Look at these:

Right part

Wrong part

One part number, two completely different parts! WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!!

And of course the one I need is 5 times the price!

[Cavalier342]

I had that problem before when I had the early Cavalier. They both shared the same resistor but one packed up so I had to swap them to whichever one I drove, but I couldn't find a new one anywhere, just the "L" shaped ones. One I needed was the symmetrical looking one with the resistor on the back. Ended up finding a spare somewhere, and that was that, but yes pain in the ass finding the right one now...

[DiplomaXE]

your memory is so poor Andrei! i brought my carrier bag full to a meet and you had one off of me and iirc bought me a beer..

the thermal fuses (187 deg C iirc) are freely available making the resistor pack fairly fixable as long as the resistance winding is sound, as long as you don't try and solder a new fuse on it and blow it with the soldering iron. they are spot welded on by the looks of it.
I have just last weekend used 2 separate bits of choccy block on one when changing the fuse, giving a bit more metal at the new joints, plus you can get the fuse a bit further away from the heat of the resistor, plus it's easy to change.

my P code VIN - 92 but 93 MY dippy with the A/C has the resistor with 5 round receptacles on it, I have a new flat spade A/C one here bought in error by a friend with a dippy hatch (now scrappage schemed! dickhead!), plus many others. they do seem to be silly money new mind and you really want to be having the old one out to match them up before you buy.

when you buzz out the resistor winding you usually get about 3 ohms, 1.5 and 1. if they don't fully buzz out, they are fooked.

the bitch with the fan motors is one of the bearings is behind the fan, as i said, making it tricky to get to.

[James McGrath]

Finally got the heater motor resistor fixed this morning.

Simple job to do, hardest thing was finding the part what with all the part number confusion.
In the end I managed to track down a brand new, genuine Valeo part all the way from Poland!




I do love these air-con resistors, so easy to get to.




No wonder there was smoke when it blew, the dam thing exploded! The moral of the story here is don't buy non genuine parts!




The one on the right is the original 20 year old part (Also made by Valeo). Looks in better shape than the 1 year old part!




Anyway, working fan! Hooray!

Valeo part number: 509731

[Lowrider Dave]

Great job!

[Super89]

Only thing it looks like you need james is the front bumper silver trims. They look like they have started to go black.

Anything to report with your fleet of Cavaliers?

[James McGrath]

Only thing it looks like you need james is the front bumper silver trims. They look like they have started to go black.

Anything to report with your fleet of Cavaliers?

Oh it needs an awful lot more than just the chrome!

Nothing much to report. It's still being used by me as my every day car, thought not at the moment with my broken arm.

The ABS is shot to bits and I've just resorted to pulling out the fuse. It keeps on engaging unnecessarily even during very light braking. I believe it's an ABS sensor that needs replacing.

The engine has developed a strange idiosyncrasy where occasionally it seems to cough when I switch off the ignition.

Also the engine light keeps on coming on. This has happened before but Dan (Humbucker) put it on a Tech 1 unit for me and cleared an O2 sensor fault code and it stopped coming on until now.

On top of that one of the speakers has stopped working and it needs a new CV joint.

It's defiantly not the best of my four I'll say that.

[Super89]

Sounds like your engine might need de-cokeing, One of my 1275 Mini engines had the same problem, pressing the accelerator pedal as you turn the key off helped. Maybe you could also try running cooler plugs?

[James McGrath]

Sounds like your engine might need de-cokeing, One of my 1275 Mini engines had the same problem, pressing the accelerator pedal as you turn the key off helped. Maybe you could also try running cooler plugs?

Come to think of it, that may very well be the plugs I'm using.

Started happening around the same time that I put in some Bosh super 4s.

[iangsi]

Are these original? Dealer fit possibly or just after market?
.

Just read through this & noticed no one responded these are Vauxhall matts I bought a set years ago from my local dealers, to go in my black GSI.

[James McGrath]

Just read through this & noticed no one responded these are Vauxhall matts I bought a set years ago from my local dealers, to go in my black GSI.

Oh, c*ap.

I think I threw them out.

[James McGrath]

I don't believe this but the heater motor resistor has gone yet again!

It all started when I took my fan motor out and gave it a good oiling up as it had stated to squeak pretty badly.
That all went well and it stopped squeaking but a few days later the fan stopped working altogether.

I've just taken the whole ting apart again thinking the fan motor itself had packed up only to find that it's working fine. So I checked the system with a multimeter and found that it was the resistor that's packed up again.

I put my old one back in and sure enough it works. Well on fan speed 3 and 4 anyway.

It's strange because normally when a resistor goes it still works on setting number 4 at least, but not this time; it doesn't work on any setting.

This is unbelievable. These parts are really hard to find and they are not cheap either.

[James McGrath]

I've just diagnosed it further and it seems to be this little resistor here that's the problem:



If I bridge the connection it works again.

[Cavalier342]

That's the thermal fuse, very essential for safe use. I did post up a thread about replacing them somewhere, if that's what you're looking for? Got mine from Maplin and fitted it fairly easily, worked fine.

[dazzlersri]

Yea as above, this is an easy job with maplins thermal fuses, i did this on a mates laguna a while back and it worked a treat. Just be careful not to get too much heat from the soldering iron on it and blow the new fuse !

[James McGrath]

very essential for safe use.

What happens if you don't have one?

[Cavalier342]

From what I've heard, the resistor pack can overheat and crack. They can crack over years of use anyway, but that thermal fuse is important for having the maximum temperature benchmark, I don't know if it cuts out or not exactly if it reaches it, but I know it's there for a reason.

[James McGrath]

Oh, boy. I've really left this too long haven't I?
Hold on to your spleen everybody, this is going to be a long one.

Right, well let's get stuck in.

First of all, I'd like to say I got it back on standard springs. Got these from Garry (Gray16v).
Sri springs at the front and standard at the back. Gives it a bit better handling while not compromising on passenger comfort.

I went to go and see Pete (DiplomaXE) in Southampton. This was back in September last year by the way, shows you how long overdue this update is.

I picked up some invaluable spares when he was breaking his Diplomat. I got lots of bits and pieces for the other cars but most importantly for this car I picked up a proper GSI/Diplomat gearstick and some much needed pedal rubbers.

I also swapped the SC804 radio that I bought for the LS into the Diplomat, that kept the LS original and was a decent upgrade for my every day car:



Great to finally get these put on:



November 2014

Next job was to get the headlamp rubbers fitted correctly:





I can now safely say that all my Cavs have them fitted properly.


February 2015

After that I was having an intermittent squealing noise from the heater motor. A common problem and an easy fix:






Took the motor out and gave it a good greasing:




Took the opportunity to clean out the matrix as best I could. It's surprising how much crud gets stuck in here:

Before:


After:



I always hate taking the windscreen wiper assembly out and fiddling under there. Done it so many times I'm completely fed up of doing it. Needed a brew to get through the experience:

Marvellous:




The exhaust manifold gasket had been blowing for a while so I got that replaced. Also bought a new O2 sensor but didn't get round to fitting this until later as the old one had completely seized and wouldn't come out. More on that later...




April 2015

A leaky header tank put the Diplomat out of action for a few weeks. Luckely the weather was rather nice so the LS was woken up and dragged back into front line service to give the Diplomat a rest. Oh the irony.

Took me a while, but I got a non-genuine part basically because it was about a third the price:




Here you can see the problem with the old one:




I thought this would be more difficult but it was pretty easy to swap out. Just had to figure out how to turn off the date on my camera, then drain out the coolant:




Slide the old one out:




Pop the new one in:




Put the coolant back in and job done:




Feeling rather proud of myself, I treated it to a polish for the first time since the Norfolk costal run meet up!

Didn't scrub up too badly!





Soon got messed up on the country lanes again though.


May 2015

The breaks had started squeaking and it was time for another attempt at getting the new O2 sensor in.
The ABS was still not working at this point too.

Treated it to a full set of EBC pads front and rear:




And, as the rear box had disintegrated on the inside (sound padding had started to come out the back of the exhaust!), I got new a genuine one along with an aftermarket downpipe so I could just plug the new O2 sensor straight in with no fuss:




While I was getting those put on, my mechanic finally found out what was wrong with the ABS kicking in too easily. The N/S CV joint was knackered and the ABS ring had cracked!
So a new CV joint and ABS ring was fitted.

New downpipe and O2 sensor (Photo taken today):



After this it was like a new car to drive. The fuel economy went back up from an all time low of 22MPG to an average of 35MPG, not bad for a 2 litre on country lanes.
The breaks are so responsive and it defiantly stops the quickest of all my Cavs now!

July 2015

So, now it's July, it's show season, and I've been paid a few times for my new job role at the National Trust. Obviously I start thinking about getting the exterior sorted.

Found these at billing just a few days after asking about restring the old ones:




Also got these off eBay to replace the old tired bolts. Also came with a key, something I've never had. Oh the luxury:



Bit of a result I think.


One thing that has really annoyed me about this car since I got it is the chrome strips in the bumpers. These were in a dreadful state; they'd gone black, then cracked, let in water and turned yellow! Lovely:




So a bit of looking around and I found this, a genuine rear chrome strip from Genuine Parts Search:



Made in Great Britain, rock on!




Fitting this was a real pain in the proverbial. Hardest thing I've done in a long time.

First of all I had to get the rear bumper off. I knew this wasn't going to be pretty and I need to get this fixed before the winter this year:








Anyway, I had to get the coloured part of the bumper off to make the chrome assessable. This is held on by a million clips. It's well built I'll give them that but I get the feeling that this was way over engineered:




These things holding it on an the bottom are stupidly unnecessary and a pain to get off, you have to push the pin out from the top first in order to get them off, took me about half an hour just to figure that out:




That took a whole day and the chrome hadn't arrived in the post by this point. So I called it a day and put the grey plastic part of the bumper back on just to make it drivable.




Well the chrome arrived today and with the weather looing bad for Beaulieu tomorrow I got my act together.

Putting this back on was much simpler than taking it off!




Looks a bit better at the back now and should look great once I've got the new badges on too:




Next thing was to giver it a dam good clean inside and out:




Found a ton of rubbish in there including some masking tape, snooker chalk, an umbrella cover and a ball bearing, no idea where that came from.
To my delight, I also found an un-opened strawberry little trees air freshener! This of course instantly got opened and put on!
The tapes aren't mine I promise!




So, after all that. Here's a bit of an inspection.

Paint work is beyond bad with chips and scratches everywhere. It's ok from a distance but close up is another story:










There is rust on the arches, but it's not too bad for now:




The alloys are going to be my next target and I plan to get these done in the next few weeks. The front ones have a very slow air leak which means I've had to pump up the tyres every week for the last 2 years, which has not been fun:






The interior isn't too bad all things considered. Only annoying thing is the rattles, which are plentiful believe me:




I do need a new door card though. Please, please, please if anyone has one of these let me know, big stash of cash waiting!



So there you have it. I think that pretty much, for the first time in about a year, brings this WIP up to date.
See you at Beaulieu.
Hussar!




Chrome strip part numbers:
Facelift front: 90428472
Facelift rear: 90428476

Pre-facelift front left : 90347909
Pre-facelift front right: 90347910
Pre-facelift rear: 90306819

[Lowrider Dave]

Great update! I have a new chrome strip for my V6, but have always shied away from doing it as it looks hard!

[James McGrath]

Great update! I have a new chrome strip for my V6, but have always shied away from doing it as it looks hard!

Thanks!

Put aside a whole day to do it. It's a bit silly the lengths Vauxhall went to in order to stop the coloured part from falling off.

[Robsey]

That corrosion on the rear valance will definitely need sorting sooner rather than later.
Mine was exactly the same.
It will need to be cut out and replaced with fresh metal.

Not bad though for a 22 year old car
All little niggles, but nothing that cant be sorted easily enough..

I do like the colour too.

[btcctroy]

Looks lovely James..
Many of then scratches can be polished out as there typical surface lacquer scratches.
G3 and a buffer works wonders, i f your feeling adventurous then 2500 wet sand and then buff. The results would be staggering
Obviously stone chips are a curse of everyday driving and hard to avoid.
I

[humbucker]

I'll echo Troy's sentiments as far as the scratches are concerned; a machine polisher and a multi-stage paint restoration process would get rid of most of the car's cosmetic imperfections. In the meantime, you could help yourself by ditching the Autoglym SRP. It produces a horrid white filler/powder, making your car's stone chips and/or scratches look a whole lot worse than if you were using a less-powdery polish.

Well done with regard to the bumper trim. I replaced the same part on my green Omega Elite a few years back. I found out the hard way that the chrome strip has sharp edges! Ouch...

[James McGrath]

Thanks for the positive comments guys.

I've got a long way to go on this car and it tends to be the last one of the 4 to receive attention.

On a side note. I've been able to track down the correct '2.0' and 'i' badges from eBay so I will be changing them over soon.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to the best way to remove the old ones and what to stick the new ones back on with?