1989 Opel Vectra GT

[vectra1903]

After looking at this thread and all of my "well the car is garbage and is going to get scrapped/sold" episodes I think it's about time for a more serious update.

As you can see the car is still with us. Why? Well... for starters I probably listed it for a bit too much... but I guess that turned out good in the end because over the months in which the car was hidden away in its original garage at my grandmas house I came to a conclusion that selling something so valuable for me (sentimentally, not financially) would be something I'd regret for the rest of my days. I grew up and decided that well... in the future there will always be a way to earn some money but there might be no way to get this car back. My mother reinforced that decision too. In April of 2023 I took all of my savings and took out a loan from my parents to buy myself a daily driver - the loan was supposed to be paid off with the money I would get from selling the Vectra but I decided that I'd rather pay off the loan by working hard in the summer and keep the car.

So here I am, a 20 year old with no money and two cars - but I am not complaining at all!

As I mentioned I'd like to say that I grew up and now I can look back at this thread and laugh at all of the rookie mistakes and disasters that happened during this "project". But thanks to you lovely people my knowledge of cars has expanded a lot and I have acquired some much needed tools over the summer to kinda get myself more comfortable with working on cars.

So what was the old Vectra doing since the last "big" update?
When I bought the new daily I ripped all of my mods from the Vectra thus bringing it back to "factory-fresh" spec.

Up to around October it was just sitting in the garage gathering dust, except for a short episode of my now ex-girlfriend borrowing it when her Passat was in the workshop.

In October and November though I put the car through its paces as my step-father's Corolla was getting a major engine top end rebuild so he had to borrow my daily driver for work (he does long distance trips regularly so he had to have something reliable) and I got to "daily-drive" the Vectra for a bit. I probably racked up almost a 1000 km's in this time and the old thing did it without skipping a beat.

And because of this I gave it some much needed maintenance which was repairing the very broken front wiper mechanism which I had problems with a couple of posts ago (which got really annoying when the wipers started parking in the middle of the windshield) and replacing the valve cover gasket. The gasket was quick and easy, as for the wiper mechanism what needed to be done is I had to manually set the parking position of the mechanism and tighten it back onto the motor spindle as the issue was the spindle bolt coming loose and the spindle was slipping. I also discovered that one of the mounting legs of the mechanism was snapped which was the source of a noise that bothered me for a long time - every time the wipers did a full wipe they did a big "clunk" sound almost as if the wiper arms were hitting something. A quick look on the internet later I saw that every mechanism for sale also had snapped mounts so I fixed mine with two zip-ties and two washers. Works for now, if it stops I will try to source a good condition mechanism.

And since then the only problem I had was the recent fuel leak but that was an easy fix too. For the summer I will have to a basic oil service and I am really considering replacing my rear springs as when the rear was welded up I also had my springs replaced not realizing that the GT had lower springs than the normal version so the rear is now sitting very proud. GT springs are basically just Calibra springs so I will have to buy those and replace them so the car doesn't look like a tractor.

I will dedicate this paragraph to the unbelievably almost zombie-like battery in this car, it is going on 5 years old now, the same battery that was in the car when it was sitting in the garage destroyed to pieces, the same battery that went flat like 5 times while the car was not being driven, the same one that was basically not being charged with the faulty voltage regulator, and the same one that started the car last week after 3 months of sitting without any problems! It is a Voltmaster unit which I probably wouldn't buy if I were looking for a battery as I have a bad history with Exide-made products but it is a damn strong unit.

And that is all for now, next friday the car will be going for it's MOT and we'll see if anything pops up.

Oh, almost forgot to ask.
I have an issue with the rear window defrost. The switch is getting stuck and I can't get the defrost to turn off after it's been on for some time - are these switches easy to disassemble to clean? I presume mine is pretty dirty and the resistance from the dirt is making it heat up and fuse together.

[Robsey]

Chances are, the internal mechanism isn't operating properly or the contact faces are dirty.

From memory, the rear window demister switch is a momentary switch... push-to-make.
Not a latching click-on, click-off switch.

The switches are very easy to strip and clean.
There were many old threads discussing changing the bulb or led colours.

I will see what pictures I can find.

[Robsey]

Well I didn't see any pictures of the switches, which is odd, because I went through the blue led phase until I fitted my Vectra-C infotainment system.

I even blue back-lit my Kadett-E digi dash for a while.

A small flat bladed instrument is all you need to prize the slits in the outer casing off the locating wedges on the switch body.

Take your time, and don't be too heavy handed levering the casing off over the wedges.

I could do them in my sleep, they are that easy.