Mk3 Cavalier Owners Club | Vauxhall Cavalier Dot Com

It looks really nice, the surface-rust in the ebay pictures wasn't too flattering. Pleased -it's a good one, solid.
It seems to have had some sort of waxy black protection.
Spoken to the powder-coaters, it won't be powder-coated, but cleaned, sand-blasted, primed and painted, industrial coatings.
Quite how painted -dipped? -sprayed? I've still to figure. Colour I have a choice, think black. Sure it'll be an excellent job.

Dropped it off for blasting, painting, 2K stuff, so won't be messy or sticky, soft, to handle afterwards.
Fitting can proceed from the latter half of next week.

Subframe back, blasted, painted, looks great, will have a proper look in the daylight tomorrow. A touch shiny.

Certainly looks the part, the subframe on my cav has a lot of surface rust settling in, but no rot yet. If I decide to keep it then will probably have to do the same as you.

One option was fix the subframe, the other was replace it.
With unexpectedly finding a replacement, fixing it got forgotten and seemed unneeded.
Instead circumstances make doing both the best option.

I just assumed the old one was toast, never looked properly.
Have found it already had a patch in the same place from its past life, which explains why it didn't ever look right.
Repairing this one properly, and letting it bear the brunt of this coming winter, makes more sense, takes all the time-pressure off everyone.
Call it Plan C.

"Subframe back, blasted, painted, looks great, will have a proper look in the daylight tomorrow. A touch shiny."

Don't worry about the shinyness - it'll soon disappear when subjected to our salt & grit laden winter roads!
The subframe will probably be better protected than when the original left the Vauxhall factory. I've never understood why car manufacturers bang on about how they protect car bodies by dipping them in anti-rust primers etc, and then they "protect" the subframes they fit with just a single "blow over" with black paint, probably leaving bare metal inside the box sections.

That is the problem area, on mine, expect the driver's side to be no more or less affected on other cars, given enough time.
The welds don't look great, parts left unwelded will have been left so, for good reasons, relieving stresses possibly.
Lot of reflections off the paint make it look in places bare or thinly coated, but it's not it's thick and glossy in every part.
Thinking how it could be further protected, could find grommets for some of the extra holes, access points, if not drain holes.
Will let loose a part tin of clear dinitrol inside it. Was looking for something like thick, setting, clear transport-wax that could be brushed on.

So much for Plan C.







Old frame will probably go for scrap.
Rear engine mounting replaced as well, old came out no bother though.
Inner ARB bushes supplied for this car didn't fit, hole in rubber for (original) bar much too small. Ebay -sigh.
Downpipe gasket, o-ring, bolts, springs all replaced.
One manifold to downpipe bolt snapped, drilled, re-tapped through.

Bit harsher, vibey, might be some exhaust noise, something has changed.
The new engine-mounting was different, solid as a brick, the old one is like a jelly, the middle part floating about.

Thanks to all who've pulled out stops to get this done today.

The rear mount does feel stiff and sounds harsher, but will soften and settle after a few weeks.

I thought the same thing when I did mine about ten years ago.

I wouldn't go removing material from the subframe, it'll weaken it significantly. and ultimately you'll be replacing it again.

Lanoguard is getting some good reviews for metal protection and after seeing it applied the other day, looks very easy to use.

Thanks Robsey, Envoy. Settled a bit, but still a little bit of engine vibe, at lower rpm, vanishes once moving.
Could maybe do with re-seating the downpipe sprung-joint. Seems a kind of exhausty-rasp or rattle, audible, and felt.
Front feels much more taut.
Hope can re-check re-torque subframe mounts, lower arm pivot and balljoints, once settled and bounced along a bit.
Pity about inner arb bushes, golden opportunity to change them.
No centre-weight on roll-bar. Lower arms are later type not using damper-weights.
All's well anyway with it. Job done. Taking a break from fettling it anyway, it's up for anything.

Primer and paint, good and joints, seams covered decently, but doubt it's enough though.
The replacement lasted so well as it had some wax applied, below, with light pitting only around the round and rectangular holes between middle subframe mounting and forward lower-arm attachment.
Could really have done with dipping the frame in a tank of un-endangered-species oil.
Feels like I've just re-wound the corrosion-countdown clock a few turns.

The painter seemed keen on, was leaning towards yellow, I wasn't sure until I collected it if he hadn't done it that colour.
I do have a set of bushes that fit 5,347 different vehicles, just mine isn't one them.
Wondering if a red-bottom might more befit a red-top?

Better update this.

Have a little bit at the end of the n/s sill and n/s rear arch outer and little bit of n/s inner arch to do, as soon as the weather improves.
Already have the sill panel and arch repair section cluttering up the place. Paint is the good stuff again, should match well, fingers crossed.

Got a pair of genuine GM front discs boxed, new, with light surface-rust, and Bosch pads, for a little front brake fettle, But bodywork first.

Great stuff,
looking forward to seeing some new Cavalier build and repair posts.

Hi, Robsey.

I still haven't sorted hosting, thought a cPanel type account a bit excessive for just picture hosting.

Have it all backed up with the directory structure retained so should be easy to re-instate the older stuff, broken image links could be fixed server side with something risky like:
or Discs part number is: 90511128, think they're right but not the end of the world if not as they were cheap considering they're OEM.
Once had a Sierra, the 2.3D Peugeot engine that warped cheap discs every three months or so. Didn't recur with proper Ford ones.

All that code stuff is voodoo to me.

I can barely understand written English, never mind computer code.

As for non-OEM parts. Sadly it is too common for non-original parts to wear or fail prematurely.
Or they simply do not fit properly.

Been tackling some of the moss and algae building up in places, on the sunroof seal and along the tops of the door and window seals. Greenish or faded door handles, rubbing strips and stuff. Used neat screenwash and a toothbrush as well as a wetted cloth. Finished them with Bono Black bumper reconditioner. Expect it will come back, but looks a lot better for now.

Robsey wrote: ↑Tue Apr 30, 2024 11:32 pm All that code stuff is voodoo to me.

That sort of stuff was my "bread and butter" for more than 40 years, so sad to say it made sense to me

jgwilliamson wrote: ↑Fri May 10, 2024 7:18 pm

Robsey wrote: ↑Tue Apr 30, 2024 11:32 pm All that code stuff is voodoo to me.

That sort of stuff was my "bread and butter" for more than 40 years, so sad to say it made sense to me

You might have noticed then that you do not need to backslash escape the literal dot in the replacement string as I did, as you must in the first part -of a plain or regex match expression. It doesn't do any harm though to do so in the match and the replacement and it is as well to do so, for consistency. You do of course need to backslash escape the url forward slashes in both the match and in the replacement unless you changed sed's default separator from the forward slash to something else.

Had another go at the car today. The rubber strips under the headlamps came off get the green slime off them. Used a few dots of superglue to stick them back on, wish I'd done that last time they were refitted, instead of relying on the wing and prayer method.

You don't really need to glue them...
The bit that wraps around the front metalwork can be crimped tighter with a pair of pliers.
That is what I did a week or so ago.

The difficulty before was fitting the headlamps would push the rubber strip back off again, no regrets about glueing them, think I used (useless here) contact adhesive last time.

Headlamp glass bottoms and between indicators/headlamps, were right mucky too. The indicators, it gets under the outer lens edges, I used Flash with Bleach and the toothbrush again. Very satisfying. Sometimes little jobs are the most pleasing, even if no-one but me appreciates the difference.

nighty night!