Tim's 1992 'K' 1.8 GLS auto...

[tim130879]

Well after a 6 hour round trip... back with the new project. Was a bit nervous about this one as service history isn't great and only seen a few badly advertised pictures but MOT history shows its been clearly looked after.
Happy to report, a lot lot tidier than I was expecting and I don't doubt for a minute the 43'000 miles on the clock isn't genuine. Seats have no wear, nothings faded, no scratches around the interior door handles, the steering wheel looks like its just been fitted, and I've seen loads of these interiors go pink and bleached in the sun around the rear hear rests and parcel shelf; so must have been garaged for most of its life. The rear seats look like new and never been used.
Few jobs to do obvs, and there's a poor arch repair gone on, but you wouldn't see it unless you got up close. Boot floor looks rot free and the panel behind the rear bumper is spotless as I've tried my best to show in one of the pictures. Still yet to go up on a ramp though but I'm sure it'll be fine.
All completely standard, orig dealer plates, window stickers and jack's never ever been out the boot!
Faultless 80 mile drive on way home.... but now to dark to get the polish out! lol
To do list:
Firstly full service, cam belt, aux belts, filters - the works. Prob look at auto box fluid flush and change too
2 New front tyres
New wiper arms and blades
Replace rear Griffin (anyone got one going cheap?)
Get wing mirrors painted
Source some fanblade alloys
Front bumper respray
Consider lowering only by 20/30mm (want to keep it quite original but just improve it a little...
Let my know your thoughts or any suggestions
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[Robsey]

I used Spax lowering springs on my LSi.
They are 30 / 40 drop, which goes nicely with the 15" Fanblades.
Got them from Demon Tweaks in 2016, along with Bilstein dampers.

195 60 R15 tyres will give the same road speed indication on the speedometer as your current 14" steelies.

The ride will be more positive and firmer, but not back breakingly harsh.



Those wheel trims look the same as my original 94 LSi spec trims.



It looks like your brake pad wear indicator is on too. (P)
Depends how they are wired up, it could be that non-sensor pads are fitted, or your pads are actually worn.

[Robsey]

Nice looking car.
Seems to be very tidy and original.

Other than a good service, and a few minor upgrades, it looks pretty much like you will have a very short work in progress thread.

[Cavalier342]

Looks pretty tidy, and bonus being an auto, my first Cavalier had the same engine/transmission setup. Nice and comfortable and smooth to drive.

[tim130879]

Thanks guys - I'm quite chuffed with it to be honest
Brake pads Robsey? the (P) is just the hand brake on from memory and the owners manual lol

Do you think that for one minute back in the mid-eighties Vauxhall ever imagined when they were designing this dash board that they were creating the perfect aperture for a magic ‘wireless’ speaker that played music from a mobile telephone when your radio/cassette isn't working? Well they did.
Anywoo…. I knew there was a reason why I kept this spare in the garage for at least the last 15 years. And there’s ‘her in doors’ saying, ‘why do you keep all this junk?’ Well, there you go! Lol
But not needed; a dead stereo (according to last owner), just needed a new fuse and coding; result, so got the childhood 90's music going, and it appears the electric ariel now works perfectly too. Admittedly it still stays up a bit as the top section is bent but I can live with that for the moment. Good result for day 1 of mucking around with it.
Untitled by CaptainTimbo, on Flickr
Untitled by CaptainTimbo, on Flickr
Untitled by CaptainTimbo, on Flickr

PS; the links from Flickr are different than yesterday, so is uploading actual pictures now!!

[Cavalier342]

I did wonder what that ANKER box was for, thought it was some plastic case for something. One thing the Cavalier dashboards aren't short of is storage space (the ones without passenger airbags). The aerial can probably be "reset" back into position with a bit of fiddling. As for spare parts, you can never have too many.

[tim130879]

Yeah I might give it a go one day, but worried about stressing the metal to much and the whole thing snapping off.... you haven't got an aerial in your 'box of spares' have you? Or a rear boot Griffin. Or a drivers side wing mirror glass?

Can any one tell me what this is coming out of the bulk head??? I was under the bonnet this morning a was wondering where a slight drip was coming from. Saw that this was wet, went to move/grab it and all this water started seeping out. Saw it was absolutely clogged up with mud and leaf's. So got a wire hooked in side, a load of shit came out with about a litre of water...! Hoping its just a blocked drainer from the scuttle or something. But it was clearly full of water, and when I got in the car next there was a soaking wet patch in the passenger foot well. Which was quickly moped up. What is it??

Untitled by CaptainTimbo, on Flickr

PS excuse the state of the engine bay - another job for another day lol

[Cavalier342]

No aerial masts or badges unfortunately, but I know I had some original Cavalier mirror glass pieces in the garage, can have a look for you if you want tomorrow.

That is commonly referred to as the "elephant trunk" for obvious reasons. Yes, it's just a drain hose basically, the first thing you ideally need to do is chop off the bottom half-inch or so, as it tends to get blocked and side narrow slit in the side for outflow sometimes isn't good enough to clear water/dirt that builds up.

If your footwell had water coming into it, then the scuttle drainage channel was totally blocked and water is probably getting in to either the heater fan ducting or somewhere in the corners of the scuttle area (under the scuttle panel which surrounds the windscreen wiper spindles)

On a dry day it's well worth removing the scuttle panel or just lifting it up enough to have a good poke about inside, to check for obvious dead leaf/dirt/gunk build up inside, especially around the heater fan motor area and in the corners. If it's not cleared out every so often, you tend to get a build up of water when it rains.

[tim130879]

Haha no I was only joking. I'm sure I can stretch to £5 for a new one online. But thanks anyway...

Elephant trunk? Yeah I can see that lol. To be honest what a stupid design, why doesn't it just drain out from the bottom?? I'll be cutting that off tomorrow for sure.
That might explain why its a bit wet inside. It doesn't feel or smell damp at all, but the windows do get condensation on them very easily. Hope fully I can catch this before anything get anywhere to serious. Hope no rot has developed because of it. But then I did clear all this out yesterday so god know when the engine bay was last cleaned.
Untitled by CaptainTimbo, on Flickr
Untitled by CaptainTimbo, on Flickr

Same on other side as well.

[Cavalier342]

Yep, always worth keeping an eye on the scuttle drains, particularly if you've just bought the car and if it's parked near trees or bushes this time of year.

[Robsey]

Brake pads Robsey? the (P) is just the hand brake on from memory and the owners manual lol

Silly me, of course it is...
(P) = Parking Brake (Hand Brake).

I am getting confused with the other two symbols...
(!) = for low brake fluid level in the reservoir and
(O) = the brake pads wear indicator.

I would see how you get on with the damp carpets.
There are three + inches of foam under the carpets that soaks up and holds the water.

Roll on the hot sunny weather on the third Wednesday of May. Hopefully the heat will boil off any excess moisture - with the windows open a little to let the moisture out and the fresh air in.

Still looking like little niggly bits , thankfully nothing too serious.

[tim130879]

Please don't do that Robsey! You had me panicking there for a minute lol
Well I hope that's all it is - just little niggles. I'll run it around for a bit with the heater on max on the floor and the sun roof open.

Tomorrow is first decent interior tidy and hoover; I'll let you know how it goes and cleans up

[cavalier1990]

Brake pads Robsey? the (P) is just the hand brake on from memory and the owners manual lol

Silly me, of course it is...
(P) = Parking Brake (Hand Brake).

I am getting confused with the other two symbols...
(!) = for low brake fluid level in the reservoir and
(O) = the brake pads wear indicator.

I would see how you get on with the damp carpets.
There are three + inches of foam under the carpets that soaks up and holds the water.

Roll on the hot sunny weather on the third Wednesday of May. Hopefully the heat will boil off any excess moisture - with the windows open a little to let the moisture out and the fresh air in.

Still looking like little niggly bits , thankfully nothing too serious.

Nice example there Tim. You can get the griffin badge still, I can't mind the number but got it off one of the facebook cavalier groups.

Regarding water leak, the front floors can be like a swimming pool and the top carpets can still feel dry due to how thick the underfoam is. Id suggest taking the side sill plastics off and lifting the carpet up to check how wet it is. The only way I could effectively dry mine was to cut both bits of trim out and let them drip dry. You can't remove the foam in one piece without stripping the dash out as it's one piece. You can also stick a ton of newspapers under and do it that way, it will take a bit of time though as you'll need to change paper several times.

Clean out all the mud and crap from behind where the elephant trunk is and dry floors off, should be good after that.

Andrew

[tim130879]

Cheers for your advice Andrew - I've had the heater on max and pointing to the floor all day whilst in it with the sun roof open, to try and help dry anything down there. But as you said it'll take time to properly dry out. I'll keep doing that for at least the next week as I don't want to start taking anything apart or up as the interior so unmarked I wouldn't want to risk damaging things, as you'll see when I update later this evening. BUT.... it hasn't had any condensation build up on any of the windows today, which I a first since I got it. So hopefully its a good start.

Badge wise; there is a new one on ebay for sale but its like £35. I think I'll just invest it that - as its playing havoc with my OCD haha.

[Robsey]

Badges are expensive, sadly.

Part numbers for information are: -
90 462 182 - Without Spoiler.
90 464 666 - Without Spoiler.
90 462 184 - With Spoiler.

I had been looking at that badge on ebay for my car, but I am too tight to spend any more on the jalopy.
You may as well spend on the car now, whilst the parts are available. Lots of bits are like gold dust.
They are listed as "no longer available" on the usual suppliers' websites.

[tim130879]

Yeah exactly - then its done then. Just hope its still available on pay day next week. lol

Spoke to an ex colleague of mine at Vauxhall today. He's been looking on Channel21's ESA to find service history. Its normally really good as I was still able to find history on H408NUX from new when I was working there. However there's nothing listed. He says it probably due to a massive data clear out when Vauxhall and Peugeot got married.

Foiled again!

[Robsey]

I am sure he has given you the EPC build spec for your car though.

Although, even 12 years ago, EPC3 was very hit and miss to which VINs and registrations were still recognised.

[tim130879]

Well after a good hoover and wipe down I still cant quite believe how well this is all scrubbing up. The interior was always a big positive about this car; but today its cleaned up like its just come out of the showroom
Untitled by CaptainTimbo, on Flickr
Untitled by CaptainTimbo, on Flickr
Untitled by CaptainTimbo, on Flickr
Untitled by CaptainTimbo, on Flickr
Untitled by CaptainTimbo, on Flickr
Untitled by CaptainTimbo, on Flickr
Untitled by CaptainTimbo, on Flickr
Untitled by CaptainTimbo, on Flickr

Goodbyyeeeee!!

Untitled by CaptainTimbo, on Flickr

One elderly owner for most of its life? I think so from what I found under the seats lol. The marmalade is from Windsor farm shop.... you know.

[Robsey]

It just gets better and better.

Good to see a car that has been looked after.

Sheesh I remember those old Auto-lock gear stick locks from our Mk2 in the early nineties.
Simple but effective when set up properly.

[tim130879]

Its seems too... fingers crossed! I've got about £1500 set aside to sort any problems out. A friend of mine owns a decent bodyshop in Christchurch, that I used to use whilst at Vauxhall and Jag/Land Rover, who does all sorts of custom cars, classics and so on. Hoping to get it up on a ramp soon then we'll really know if its a cracker or not lol. Think its worth putting some money into to keep it tip top.

I'm thinking of keeping that Auto lock just for nostalgia sake if nothing else . Talking of nostalgia, I've been majorly debating whether to replace the stereo as its clearly never been out and there's not a mark around the surround. I really want the original to stay but with wanting some music, using the phone, bluetooth blah I'm not sure what to do. But saw this cool little thing on ebay…

Untitled by CaptainTimbo, on Flickr

How cool is that? If it works..... lol

[Cavalier342]

Oh that is too weird. That yellow autolock transmission/handbrake security lock thing, I got the very same exact one when I bought my old 1.8 auto. Previous owner threw it in with the sale. Good work on the clean up, it looks pretty much brand new, what a find that was.

[tim130879]

Oh that is too weird. That yellow autolock transmission/handbrake security lock thing, I got the very same exact one when I bought my old 1.8 auto. Previous owner threw it in with the sale. Good work on the clean up, it looks pretty much brand new, what a find that was.

Goodness - that's really weird! lol Tbh this whole buying experience has been really freaky. Hadn't seen a Cav in the flesh for moths and months, then when I go and see mine, I follow a burgundy Club all the way up the M3 pretty much. Every time I've got in it the radio seems to play a favourite track of mine from when I was about 20/21 when I had my first 3 Cav's. All too spooky.....

[Cavalier342]

LOL I think there is something going on somewhere...

[Robsey]

These Cavaliers are posessed.
They know what is going on.
They also know how to push your buttons - good and bad.

I am surprised to see a 1993 GLS without an air-bag.
One thing less to go wrong.

I don't see any mention of an alarm either.
That would be the first thing on my list if it has not got one retro-fitted.
Don't want such a nice car to get pinched.

[ilovedmymantas]

What a good find!
Really clean, and looking at the console parts, totally undisturbed.

Your photos got me thinking of my first mk3, a 1990 model. That was my first car with electric windows .
I'd forgotten about the cassette holder and the useful adjustable steering column, I really miss that.

I've got one of those locks too. I bought it new in the late 80's after my first car, a mk1, was broken into.
It didn't take long to get fed up with the faffing about though

matt