1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Show off your pride and joy! All Mk3 Cavaliers are welcome (please post only one thread per car)
User avatar
Robsey
Club Admin
Posts: 10568
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:42 pm
Location: East Manchester

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Robsey »

Mis-fortune continued when I changed my spark plugs...
No2 plug lead was far too fond of the plug, and refused to let go. Therefore the lead let go of its clamp ring....
Bugger.!!

All four plugs changed (BPR 6EK).
I shoved the clamp ring back up unside the bore at the end of the lead and rammed it in as tight / far as it would go.

Miraculously the lead continued to work.
However I bought and fitted a new set anyway.
Another service item off the list.

On the way home, I noticed a pronounced blow from the back box...
Pah!!

So the car is booked in on Monday (hopefully) for the rear three sections of the exhaust.
Catalytic converter, middle box and rear silencer.
I say hopefully, because two suppliers to the tyre and exhaust firm I visited today reported that they both did not have the parts for a C20NE exhaust system before first thing Monday.

I fixed the driver's side rear speaker ( both wires snapped during disassembly - not by me).
Made up new wire end and we now have some "bangin' tunes" again...
Or so I thought - the rear passenger side had a pronounced dry / torn "cone" rattle when I was testing the speakers with a bit of Gary Moore.
More spending required.

Last job of the day - additional / 3rd brake-light.
Then I hit a snag....
I could not get the wire to feed around the tail-gate frame from the bottom centre of the rear screen, up the passenger side of the hatch frame to the grommet / rubber tubular snake where the cables pass through from the tail gate to the car body.

Even stiffer wire could not be made to feed around the hatch frame.
So I have tied the wire up inside the hatch cavity for now, until I can work out how to do it.
User avatar
Robsey
Club Admin
Posts: 10568
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:42 pm
Location: East Manchester

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Robsey »

Jobs for Easter weekend (hopefully) will be the fitting of the front arch liners, resonance box covers and if I remember, fit a replacement pair of horns from a Vectra-C.

I have set of after market horns fitted at the moment but they are too quiet and twee.

That just leaves the timing belt kit and water pump. They are in the boot of the car ready to fit.

Before ALL of that, I need to collect my SRi trim, hatch cover, spare wheel and jack from Troy's unit.

I haven't been back since I collected the car about 5 weeks ago.
User avatar
Robsey
Club Admin
Posts: 10568
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:42 pm
Location: East Manchester

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Robsey »

There are other jobs to do...
A lot of missing, cut or broken parts - I am assuming caused by the paintshop lad during dismantling and partial rebuild.


And as expected by any Cav owner - running repairs as and when the Cav decides to test my patience and wallet.
Almost continuously at the moment.

As a point of interest - I have cleaned the car four times this week.
They are building near work, so there is a thick blanket of dust when I leave the office each night.

I think I only cleaned the car four times in the whole of it's previous life in the last ten years of my ownership.
User avatar
Envoy CDX
Club Admin
Posts: 9652
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2007 3:51 pm
Location: Jarrow, Newcastle Upon Tyne

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Envoy CDX »

I got pull cord from bnq and its really flexible but stiff enough to allow you to feed cables pretty much anywhere. Sounds like your're getting there.
Check the Rules!

Raw 8v Power! - Bad Cav, Naughty Cav... Cav want's to do 90!

The How2 Index
User avatar
Robsey
Club Admin
Posts: 10568
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:42 pm
Location: East Manchester

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Robsey »

Indeed - as with any Cavalier owner,
Two steps forward, one step back.

A bit like wading through mud - but it will get done....
It has to - my bank account is groaning under the strain already. :roll:
cavalier1990
Registered user
Posts: 1460
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2011 9:15 pm
Location: Paisley, Scotland

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by cavalier1990 »

Robsey wrote:I think I only cleaned the car four times in the whole of it's previous life in the last ten years of my ownership.
I used to be a wash and wax addict, now I can't be bothered! I will need to do a full detail, wash and wax some point though.
User avatar
Robsey
Club Admin
Posts: 10568
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:42 pm
Location: East Manchester

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Robsey »

I am sort of obliged to keep the old girl clean.

Troy made me promise to look after the car after all the welding and protective treatments that he had done...

Otherwise - yes, I would be a lazy bugger.
Normally I cannot be bothered either.
User avatar
Robsey
Club Admin
Posts: 10568
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:42 pm
Location: East Manchester

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Robsey »

Aaaaaaghhh!!!

Bloody car!!

Okay - so I have had a full exhaust fitted.
Sounds quieter and idles smoothly.
Fuel economy is still no better, but hey ho.

If you drive a 90's car, then you cannot expect particularly good economy.
Apart from the diesels of course.

So just as I am starting to enjoy cav ownership again, and after lavishing the car with a new exhaust, what does it do?
It thanks me by killing off all the instrument warning symbols.
Only the side-light, high beam and indicator tell-tale bulbs are illuminating.

So no air bag, no engine light, no hand brake and no abs - you know the important stuff - lol.

I have checked all the fuses and they are fine.
Looks like fuse 2 provides ignition live to the cluster tell-tales.
For info -
Fuse 9 for illumination
Fuse 7 for the indicator tell tale
Fuse 23 for the high beam tell tale.

I am guessing that one of the connectors has come adrift at the back of my cluster.

Being an Astra mk2 digi dash, it has two rear plugs...
One for gauges - tick. They are working.
One for tell tales - hmmm - time to rip out the cluster again to check the connections.

Thankfully I have not fitted the cowlings or trims yet, as I am waiting to fit a cruise control dash symbol and the associated wiring before hopefully putting everything back properly on a more permanent basis.

A piece of advice - Digi Dashes look nice and funky.
But I recommend avoiding them like the plague.
They are woefully inaccurate, and mine have been a nightmare on several occasions with no apparent rhyme nor reason.
Rant over.

I will have a look at lunch time tomorrow - too p'd off with the ungrateful heap of "$#!*" at the moment.
User avatar
Envoy CDX
Club Admin
Posts: 9652
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2007 3:51 pm
Location: Jarrow, Newcastle Upon Tyne

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Envoy CDX »

Hopefully things are looking up and it was just a simple fix Rob?
Check the Rules!

Raw 8v Power! - Bad Cav, Naughty Cav... Cav want's to do 90!

The How2 Index
User avatar
Robsey
Club Admin
Posts: 10568
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:42 pm
Location: East Manchester

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Robsey »

Yep took about 10 minutes at lunch time.

Not sure how permanent it is as it appears to be an intermittent fault between the connector and the tracks on the rear foil.

Wobbling the connector side to side put the lights on and off.
But the lights were working properly tonight on the way home - so all is good.
User avatar
Envoy CDX
Club Admin
Posts: 9652
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2007 3:51 pm
Location: Jarrow, Newcastle Upon Tyne

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Envoy CDX »

Sounds potentially expensive going foward, that or time to start cleaning some contacts.
Least for the moment it's sorted.
Check the Rules!

Raw 8v Power! - Bad Cav, Naughty Cav... Cav want's to do 90!

The How2 Index
User avatar
Robsey
Club Admin
Posts: 10568
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:42 pm
Location: East Manchester

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Robsey »

Easy way is to drill two holes through the back casing and cable tie the connector into the socket.

It is a common fault on many Vauxhall instrument clusters such as the Corsa-C etc.

Probably why the moved over to lever latch / quadlock connectors on all models by model year 2000.

Expensive.... a bit late for that, ha ha

I bought the car for the wife in 1995 at 15 months old for £7500.
Now 21 years later I have paid virtually the same all over again...

If I ever get the alloy wheels done, then I will have spent more than that figure and that would be without tyres...
User avatar
Robsey
Club Admin
Posts: 10568
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:42 pm
Location: East Manchester

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Robsey »

I have an age old question...

When is bin fodder considered as in good condition?
Answer - When they are parts from an ebay based scrap yard.

I bought a heater panel for my Cav..
I always check, strip and clean my parts before fitting them to my car.

So I stripped the heater panel - or at least I would have done, but as it happened, it must have been wrestled out of the car by a heavy handed baboon in the scrap yard.

As I turned the unit over and peeled bits off carefully, whole chunks of plastic fell off.
The fan switch was corroded to hell and the bulb was burnt out. Even the black slider ribbons were cut or snapped.

Probably not all the scrapper's fault, I am sure the previous owner must have had a good go at modifying or faffing with the panel.

So I ended up with two piles... useable parts, and bin fodder.
Here is what I have: -

A small pile of usable parts.
I have extricated the pins, so that I can custom convert the compressor and recirc switches for my bluetooth and alarm

Image

Bigger pile of bin fodder.
Check out the heater panel symbols panel...
Looks like someone has taken a dremmel to the main icon window.. :wall

Image

Not all bad news though.
It was actually the main front facia panel that I needed, and that does appear to be in relatively good condition.

"So your mission, should you wish to take it, is to make one good unit out of your current one and your new pile of bits"
Mazza
Registered user
Posts: 258
Joined: Thu Nov 03, 2016 11:00 am

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Mazza »

What a coincidence, I was planning on doing the same. I have a couple spare heater panels and one in the car. Looks a bit tedious,... perhaps for a quieter day when the kids aren't running around
User avatar
Robsey
Club Admin
Posts: 10568
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:42 pm
Location: East Manchester

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Robsey »

Once the panel is out of the car, dismantling is a piece of cake.
It all just clips together.

To be honest, you need to be either clumsy or just being too hasty to break stuff.

So as long as you take it slowly and moderately carefully, it will come apart quite quickly and easily.

Took me all of about 2 minutes to strip down to the last wire, without breaking anything myself.

What I did find, was that the "T" shaped plastic tangs on the back of my switches appear to be 180 degrees out.
They line up if plugging in from behind the panel... but that is just daft.

Anyway just waiting for some yellow 3mm leds and resistors to properly illuminate the panel.

We all know how pants having one single bulb can be.

I did have a panel already wired up with yellow leds, that worked a treat, but I have no idea where I have put it.

I already have blues and reds by the dozen, so no problem there.
Mazza
Registered user
Posts: 258
Joined: Thu Nov 03, 2016 11:00 am

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Mazza »

Top job and thanks - appreciated

I want to avoid the same scenario when I dismantled the electric arial ... little parts just disappeared from the kitchen table
User avatar
Robsey
Club Admin
Posts: 10568
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:42 pm
Location: East Manchester

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Robsey »

I have done a little pin out of all the switches and added the picture to my electrical info thread.

Here is another copy to aid any plans for alternative switch ideas.

Image

And here are my plans for modified switches.

1 - Existing demister switch - unchanged.

2 - modified demister switch for bluetooth status and control.

3 - modified recirc switch for alarm status.

Image
User avatar
Robsey
Club Admin
Posts: 10568
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:42 pm
Location: East Manchester

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Robsey »

Not much progress yet, but my LEDs have arrived, so looks like fun later...

After finishing work tonight, I had come to the conclusion that the clutch was getting heavier and gear changes more difficult when the car was hot.

So I decided that a clutch adjustment was well over due.
So got my measures.
Steering wheel rim to top of clutch pedal at rest = 610mm.

Steering wheel to clutch pedal pressed to floor = 715mm.

Hmm - now I know that is wrong.
(My steering wheel is non adjustable by the way, so your at rest height will be different).

So to complete the sums -
pedal travel is 715 - 610 = 105mm.
Recommended travel is 134 to 141mm.
I always set mine to 137 as a happy medium.

Cable adjusted up to create an at rest measurement of 577mm.
(715 - 137 = 578) so near enough.

Took the car for a short spin - much easier gear changes. In fact the lever moved so easily at times that I thought that it hadn't selected properly. Just feels like the biting point is now very high - I will get used to it, I am sure.

Oh and to celebrate it being Wednesday (couldn't think of another reason), I cleaned and polished the car -
again...!! :shock:

What else?...
Oh yeah, I wrapped my radiator fan wires and lambsa sensor cable in the split corrugated plastic trunking to protect them from chafing and damage.


Thursday night (20_4_17) saw the panel switches modified as per my image above.

So just need to make up the additions to the dash wiring loom.

Simple enough, I suppose.
I have the led wiring ready for soldering and sleeving.
User avatar
Robsey
Club Admin
Posts: 10568
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:42 pm
Location: East Manchester

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Robsey »

A partial success - too yellow but hey ho...you get the idea.

The start of a stripped heater panel.

Image

Image

LEDs loosely installed.

Image

Image

Soldered, sleeved and assembled.

Image

Image

Yellow Fever!!

Image

It is hard to find a happy medium.
Both standard white and warm white are too stark for the Cavalier dash.
And yellow is too orangey.

I think best compromise is to remove the top centre LED, and replace the other two in the top row with a blue LED on the far left and a red on the far right of the top scale.

More thought required...
User avatar
Robsey
Club Admin
Posts: 10568
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:42 pm
Location: East Manchester

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Robsey »

Wire routing is the most important consideration.
I have bought pre-modified panels before, caked in hot-melt glue and invariably, I have noticed that the sliders knocked the wires.

It isn't that hard to drill routing holes in the centre section of the slider panel.

And I must admit that fitting pre-assembled LEDs with resistors, colour coded wires and heat shrink sleeving in place is so much easier to work with.
As the LED legs are pre wired, there is no chance of getting the wiring the wrong way round. - unless you are electrically clue-less, in which case you would not be doing your own conversion.
User avatar
Lowrider Dave
Club Admin
Posts: 2993
Joined: Wed Dec 22, 2010 10:00 am
Location: Southampton
Contact:

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Lowrider Dave »

Just getting the header panel out fills me with dread, let alone trying to put LEDs in! But you know what you're doing so that makes these posts interesting! Good on you for working it all out.
Lowrider Dave.

Archer 2.0 GLS
User avatar
Robsey
Club Admin
Posts: 10568
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:42 pm
Location: East Manchester

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Robsey »

The heater panel is more awkward than difficult.

Once you've got the instrument surround removed, the next trickiest bit is the bowden cables.
They restrict how far the heater panel can be drawn out from the dash panel.
User avatar
Robsey
Club Admin
Posts: 10568
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:42 pm
Location: East Manchester

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Robsey »

Getting a bit more done today.
Finally wired in my bluetooth and alarm LED wiring.

Fitted my bluetooth module where Vauxhall recommend that you mount all retro-fit modules, such as a 901 alarm etc.
This is on top of the shelf at the rear of the glove box.

A nice bit of velcro gives a nice secure rattle free attachment.

The bluetooth status LED and call / hang up wires were plumbed into a spare heated rear window switch, as it is the only non-latching dash switch other than the "TC" button.
I changed the switch cap for one of the air-con switch covers.

Then I plumbed the alarm status LED into the other air-con / recirc switches.

So it all looks integral, and not an ugly after-thought.

I will post up pictures in a few days, when I have fitted the correct LEDs into the heater panel.
User avatar
Lowrider Dave
Club Admin
Posts: 2993
Joined: Wed Dec 22, 2010 10:00 am
Location: Southampton
Contact:

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Lowrider Dave »

Sounds like good progress!
Lowrider Dave.

Archer 2.0 GLS
User avatar
Robsey
Club Admin
Posts: 10568
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:42 pm
Location: East Manchester

Re: 1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

Post by Robsey »

Ah - now that looks better

Image
"Image care of postimage"
Post Reply