1994 Cavalier LSi C20NE (was C18NZ) Work-horse

[Robsey]

By his own admission...

Troy showing off his ability to replicate repair panels...

[TurboDan]

Love that

[Lowrider Dave]

Fantastic work!

[Envoy CDX]

Fantastic, very envious.
Very good skill set there Troy.

[James McGrath]

Nice updates.

[Robsey]

Thanks dear chap.

I had a look at the Cav on Friday evening.
No photos this time.

Passenger side sill nearly finished..
Appears a lot more solid than the driver's side.
But it was by no means rust free.

Troy reports that the front of the car is reasonably solid...
Not surprising as it has had two or three bumps on the front end, so some panels will have been replaced more recently.
1998 to 2005.

None of them my fault I hasten to add.

The next post will probably be the last before the car is collected in it's finished state.
I have delivered the last part to him - the passenger chassis leg, along with much needed tea bags, biscuits and cake.

The poor lad gets nothing done, when I turn up for a chat.
So I am leaving Troy to carry on undisturbed from here on.

[Robsey]

The passenger side rear foot-well.
Looks not too bad from this picture



But once the sound deadening stuff is removed, obviously a lot more rot is found.
So here is the hand made repair section behind the cut out rotted section.



And then more welding and dressing in magic to leave an "original" look.

[Envoy CDX]

Looking good

[vauxhallnutter]

Havent been around for a while so have missed the progress on this, Just been looking through the thread and i have to say that there has been some amazing work completed here and it should inspire other owners to save rather than scrap so well done that man for getting all this work completed. You will have a car to be proud of Robsey when Troy has finished working his magic. I doff my cap in both of your directions. Look forward to seeing the finished car.

[Robsey]

Thank You dear fellow...

The pat on the back goes to my missus, who told me to get the car repaired, when I had all but given up on the old girl.
(The Cav).

And apparently the rot was that bad, that the whole chassis was flexing down in the middle when I was driving along.

So I have Troy to pat on the back for building the chassis up from the rust equivalent of lace cloth.

Progress on my side has been quite slow,
although I have started to re-shape the display surround, so that it suits the colour display better.
A bit of cutting on the heater surround is also required to allow everything to fit and line up a bit better.

Then the big task - The main centre section where the radio will sit.
If I refit my sat nav, it will be a smaller hole than for either of the other radios.
I trimmed the width down of the facia a little on the sat nav radio.

Everything else is more or less a matter of refitting in reverse order of removal when the car comes back.

Just wondering if I should revert headlamps to standard, from the angel eyes currently fitted.
(Unless Troy has whipped them out too for the body repairs - ha ha).

[Lowrider Dave]

Nice to hear things are still progressing. With the dash out you at least have the opportunity to design things to fit and look like they are supposed to be there, as well as what to include and what to reject.

[btcctroy]

the last month has been pretty slow in the way of progress.
in the next few weeks i'm hoping to have the car almost complete.
again thanks Robsey for being utter most patient with me. well i did say it takes as long as it takes lol

least its spending the winter in the dry for a change, in fact i bet this is the longest period its ever had out of the rain.
lol

[Robsey]

Aye it will be feeling warm dry and pampered in your unit.

It will be a shock to it's system when it goes back to working on my daily commute again.

Ah well - the longer it is with you Troy, the less I need to worry about road fund license (V.E.D.) for a while.

[Robsey]

Reached another milestone of sorts...

On the 5th December 2015 we celebrated 20 whole years of ownership of our Cav.

I am hoping Troy had an extra custard cream or two with his cup of tea to celebrate.

[Robsey]

Some more pictures... the near side rear sill membrane this time....

Troy tells me that we are getting very close to the end of the welding stuff...

Woohoo - very exciting.
I have got some Upol Raptor on order for a bit of extra protection.

[vauxhallnutter]

Its coming along well now, you will be out driving this in no time Robsey! Your interior plans sound interesting, look forward to seeing some pics.

[Lowrider Dave]

Looking good. Curious about the interior plans...

[Robsey]

I have a full CANbus dash loom in the hall.
So I can make up a reduced down OEM loom.
I am still not sure whether to go future proof and fit the DAB CD multi-changer radio,
(Reported to be the best for sound quality of all Vauxhall's radios made between 2002 and 2008)
- or
Keep the current sat nav which plays mp3 CDs
-or
fit an older sat nav with CD changer.

Cosmetically they all look the same...and they will all take my blue-tooth car kit.

but if you look at any of my dash pictures from 2009 onward, then you should get the general gist of what it will look like.

The original look of the CD70 with mono chrome graphic display.


The CD70 fitted with colour map screen.
The CDC40 DAB will look much the same as the CD70.


The older NCDC Sat Nav headunit.





The older colour display.

[Lowrider Dave]

Interesting! What did you do with the heater controls?

[Robsey]

Moved them to where the ash-tray was.

Just needed the longer air-con bowden cables for the levers to operate the flaps.

Still had the lighter socket next to it though.

And my phone cradle out just to the left of that on a purpose built mount with inbuilt charge socket and hands-free connectivity.

[TurboDan]

Definitely the cd70 with coulor screen although does need some work to make it all fit nice.

If it were me I would either do it 2 ways but both involve ditching the original trip computer as I don't think you need that anymore.

One way is to remove trip computer and re arrange the display over abit, trim the heater controls right down and fit them next to it.

Other way which is what I would do is to remove the top vents and the trip computer. Cut the bit of dash away that's under the top vents. Arrange the radio, screen and heater controls up the top where you want it. Cover everything in cling film, wedge everything where you want it and then fill all gaps with some expanding foam, once set trim it all nice into one big center piece. Then remove the foam in one piece and coat in fibreglass till smooth, paint it, fit it all back in and job done. (in theory lol)

[Robsey]

The trip computer is indeed still needed, as none of the Vectra-C displays are able to communicate with the engine ECU kwp serial data signals.

They all operate using CANbus data streams.

A colour screen from an Omega-B would speak to the NCDC radio and to the engine ECU. But they are rare as rocking horse poo...
Unless you are Humbucker who probably has three.

[Lowrider Dave]

Unless you are Humbucker who probably has three.

[Lowrider Dave]

Moved them to where the ash-tray was. Just needed the longer air-con bowden cables for the levers to operate the flaps.

Thanks for that, good to know. I've been mulling over adding a sat nav to the dash but unsure how to go about it.

[Robsey]

It would be far easier, tidier and cost effective to get an after-market single din radio with a flip out display.

No dash modifications required.