Mk3 Cavalier Owners Club | Vauxhall Cavalier Dot Com

I replaced my front discs a while back and found them to be out of balance (just like out of Balance wheels). The discs clocked on the DTI were fine but one, or both, must have been machined so that the vented part of the casting was out of balance.
Job to get them changed as they didn't believe me, but new ones were fine!
Just a thought.

Alan

Interesting stuff. How's it looking with the out of balance running?

The car is running good. Gave it a boot on Sunday and is pulling really good now that I have the cams set up. The brakes are working better than they have done in years too. Just need to play with adjusting the hand brake again.
Been thinking, it's about 10 years since the front suspension was replaced could be something wrong there causing the shaking steering. I can see a total rebuild of the front suspension coming again.

Greig

Greig Sri wrote:I've put 60 miles on the car all good except steering wheel shaking. Start to feel it at 55 mph ish and by the time you get to 65 mph ish it's shaking quite bad. Speed up more and shake goes away.
Before I took the car off the road last year the shaking was there. I put it down to the wheels needing balanced but I've swapped to my other alloys and they were rebalanced a few weeks ago. Front discs skimed so not warped.
I'll have to start checking out other bits. What else could be causing the shaking?

Greig

Just a shot in the dark, I had a cav years ago that displayed these symptoms. It did what you describe, mine was like a jack-hammer at 70 on the motorway, but went back to smooth at 80. I fitted a full set of steelies-no shake. Like you my first thought was balancing, didn't work.
Turned out it needed hub spacers, I'd never heard of them I thought 4x100 fits, not so. The after-market alloys centre bore was 4mm larger than the hub.
I'd try hub size and correctly faced wheel bolts

The alloys are vauxhall wheels so hub hole correct size. But I did repaint the wheels mabe I need to rub the paint off the hub face of them. I'll try putting the steel wheels on and going for a run to see if the shake goes away. It's been shaking with 2 different sets of alloy wheels so far.

Greig

I've been checking the front suspension and steering. I've found knocking coming from the steering rack. At the point the movent of colum going round is changed to left and right movement. Rocking the steering wheel back and forth a very small amount makes the rack bang. (With both front wheel off the ground). But I can't see any play in it because as soon as steering wheel moved the road wheel moves. Maybe just the first signs of rack on way out. My car has the ZF rack and ive dug the rack I took of the diplomat and it's different.
Quick look on line didn't come up with any ZF racks.

Greig

Mystery deepens with the shaking. After poking round front suspension yesterday. Took the car out of town for a spin last night and got hardly any shaking. This morning I swapped to the steel wheels . When removing the bolts a few felt a bit spack. I did tighten them correctly the other week. Any way I went for a spin and no shaking at all. So I swapped back on to the alloys again but before putting them on I cleaned up the hub face of the wheels back to clean alloy. There was quite a few layers of paint and what looked like the remains of rust on the face of the wheel. This time no more shaking, so hopefully it's fixed. I'm putting it down to some bolts maybe slackened off and the layers of paint on the back of the wheels. Note to self recheck bolts in a few miles.
Also looking under the car and poking about yesterday I seen rust on the lower front cross member. Today I took the rad fan out for a better look. I'll be removing the front bumper and rad at some point soon. Then getting the welder out
Think I use some rectangle box section to fix it.
Greig

Envoy CDX wrote:

+1

With a free day today I stripped the front bumper, lights, radiator etc from the cavalier. So that I could check out the rust on the cross members.




Once I started digging at the rust I decided it was not worth patching the lower cross member. I drilled out the spot welds on the upper cross member and got it off.

I then took the ends off the replacement cross member. It's now all ready to weld back on.


Some of the bits that were removed.


And how I left the car. Lower cross member removed and sizes taken to get some box section.


Once I have some box section ill make myself a new cross member and weld it on to the car.

Greig

someone on the FB page has just found there front cross member all rotten, Looks alot worse than yours.

Since I'm on holiday again from work (use them or lose them). I've started to make myself a new lower cross member , got this far with it today.



My step son is taking it to his work tomorrow to weld it properly. The bolts are holding the captive nuts in side the box section Untill it's welded.
Once I've got it back and bolted to the sub frame I can mark up the holes for the rad fixing bungs, the fixings for oil cooler and the clips for power steering pipes. Then remove it, drill the holes and run paint down the inside of the box section to protect from rusting.

Greig

Didn't have time through the week to do the cavalier. Since the weather was nice I set about some diy outside. High lights were me hand digging a big hole then filled it with rebar and nearly 2 cubic metres of concrete .

So today was car time. I got the new cross member marked and holes drilled, then painted inside and out , welded on to the car. Also welded on the upper cross member. Then gave them a paint in black. Tomorrow once the paint is dry ill get the rad, lights, bumper, etc back on.
Well here's the pics I took.









Hopefully tomorrow the Cavalier will be back on the road.

Greig

Looking very nice!

Good work.

It will be the strongest part on the car now. It's made from 3mm box section 25mm x 50mm and 50mm x 80mm.

Greig

The car is all back together. Had a small problem getting the bumper back on. Had to file the hole in the upper cross member a wee bit bigger for the bumper 'lug' to fit in. My box section just fitted in behind the bumper. Thought I might have to dig out the grinder again. Also refitted the lower engine cover. It had to get trimed a bit to get it on. Got the car up to temperature and let it cool as I washed it, then topped up the coolent. Job done
Up next will be the MOT due at end of July. My only worry is the emissions. Since the last MOT the cams have been set up and a sports cat has been fitted. So hopefully the emissions will pass the test.
No pics today as we all know what a cavalier looks like when it's in one bit. Lol

Greig

This weekend I've been playing with the central locking. Have a question up in the electrics bit of the site about the vectra stuff when fitted to a cavalier.

I dug out some of my spare wiring looms and front door central locking motors. Got them layed out on the bench , wired up to a battery and then temp wired in the vauxhall remote locking kit I have.


Pic shows the front half of a cavalier central locking loom all conected up. To the vauxhall remote locking kit.

Got it working like it should. But using the kit it dead locks all doors execpt the drivers from the remote. To dead lock it the key has still to be turned in the lock. But putting a passanger side motor in the drivers door makes it dead lock from remote. But I don't think it will unlock with the key in the door lock. If the car battery fails or the remote. So I've been trying to find ways to get in car if the battery or remote fail. Think I may have got away round that problem if it happens.

Greig

Today I have spent hours cleaning the cavalier. Started off using g3 scratch remover on most of the car. Then g3 paint renovater on all the car. That got rid of quite a few scratchs and marks on the paint. Black shows them up to easy. Next I polished the car twice and waxed it twice. So in all 6 times going over the car. My tennis elbow has now started again.



Also booked the car in for a MOT on Thursday. Hopfully will pass ok.

Greig

Stunning !
Good luck on Thursday, don't think you'll need it though

*whistles* Looking awesome Greig!

If the tester's looking for depth of shine it will fly through.

My word.. It may have given you tennis elbow, but I can only dream of having a Cav that looks that shiny and good..

Well won't stay clean tomorrow. As it's ment to be raining and the cav has its MOT. fingers crossed no problems.

Greig

Car passed MOT. Only 1 advisory as normal for 'chassis undersealed restricting full inspection'. Car has done 382 miles between the MOTS this time.

Had the bonus of coming back clean as the rain held off today.
So I'm happy.

Greig

Good news on another 12 month's ticket.

And bonus on the extended period of car cleanliness.