Mk3 Cavalier Owners Club | Vauxhall Cavalier Dot Com

Lowrider Dave wrote:Good job on the cleaning front! Soon you'll be back together again.

Is that with the wife or the Cavalier? - lol
The Cavalier has been in constant use for work since it passed it's MOT in mid-March.
Apart from today, because the front seats were not bolted in.
Had to use the wife's Vectra-C for one day.

As for the wife, she has not had much of a break from me in about 10 years - ha ha.

So - arrived home early from a day of patient domestic visits.
Spent about an hour stripping the drivers side front seats to get the best cushion parts.
That was mainly strip off the old back rest and fit the newer donor back rest.
The old back cushion had a heavily holed bolster.

I noticed that my passenger side chair was in better nick than the newer one, so that saved me a job. Just refit the original SRi seat.

Fitted the front seats and centre console.
Now have a car with matching interior.
Woohoo.

So here is the interior as it now stands...
Initially I wasn't sure about the door winder handle colour

Grey to match the lighter fabric or black to match the vinyl.
I am thinking that the black looks better.

Black Door Winder



Saggy Cushion and Grey Winder

]

The Front of the Cabin.



Them back seats look a bit saggy and in need of TLC. Will have a thorough valet in due course.
Still have front passenger door card and all 4 door opener handles to swap to black.

That will then mean the cabin area is complete.

And today's "d'oh" moment was -
The battery was flattened by having the hatch and doors open for about three hours, whilst I worked on the interior yesterday and today...

So the battery is now on charge ready for my early start in the morning.

Looking very nice indeed Rob.
I'd say the black door winders look the best.

So the job list for Sunday (fingers crossed) will be.

1 - Refit both front wheel arch liners.
Front end then complete.

2 - replace rear washer hose in hatch.
That is the last of the "must do" jobs.

Then optional jobs are

3 - finally plumb in the 3rd brake light wiring.

4 - install and fit wiring for the cd changer.

Long term job is -

5 - Install cruise control.

Engine bay work currently stands at -

6 - replace timing belt, tensioner and water pump.

7 - Carry out engine oil and filter change.

8 - replace or re-adjust the bonnet release cable.

9 - Investigate heavy clutch. Perhaps replace the clutch with a new one.
Clutch gets very heavy and the pedal sounds graunchy especially when the engine is hot.
Even after 1400 miles of use since March, so no sign of usage freeing things up.

Well here I am 50-odd miles from home, waiting for the AA man to arrive.

It looks like my battery is terminally ill.
Dropping a cell or two.

Turning the key shows about 10 volts on the gauge.

Oh dear! I think 'modern' batteries tend to just die, years ago there was a bit of warning with slow cranking.
Hope you get recovered soon.

Alan

I got the car looked at by the AA man.
Really nice chap.
He loved the Cavalier and it's shiny coat of paint.
Very impressed apparently.

Anyway - he agreed with my diagnosis.
Battery only kicking out 10 volts.
Test meter thingymajig reported "bad cell".

So as thought one of my 6 cells has died.
A jump of his heavy duty portable jump starter got the car to start.

With the alternator kicking out 14.3 volts, it was enough for me to get the old girl home.

Stopped the car when I got home, and zilch...
Battery failed despite a 2 hour drive along the M53, M56, M60 and M67.

Can't complaint - it was a 5 yr old battery on a 4 year guarantee.

18 months without any charging etc whilst the car was laid up.

So - more outlay on the way to work tomorrow - pffft!!

In my experience, modern batteries do not recover well from periods of inactivity or drainage. I killed two batteries in the V6 by both methods. In contrast the older style battery (where you topped it up yourself) in my Escort lasted years and had all kinds of abuse from teenage stereo systems, faulty alarms, frosty starts, etc! That's progress for you! Sorry to hear about getting stranded, never much fun especially when you are working.

Thanks chaps...

I cannot really say that I was stranded. It was at my "other work's" car park in Birkenhead.
Several of my colleagues offered to help, however I sort of knew that only a new battery would fix the issue.

Most of them have very modern cars, which would not take kindly to voltage spikes caused by giving my car a jump start.

So, I just relaxed in the baking sun waiting for Mr AA man. Not a particularly long wait considering it was between school mayhem and tea time rush-hour. Just 40 minutes.
Within an hour of the call-out call, I was back on the motorway home.

So today, for the third time in two months, the commute to work will be in the wife's Vectra-C.

I will get a battery either later today, or tomorrow on the way home. - pah!!

As a side note - he advised that my heavy clutch would most likely be the clutch diaphragm... oh well - not really a surprise.
I was expecting that the clutch will need doing in the next 6 to 12 months for one reason or another.

UPDATE - Yuasa 063 battery purchased and in the boot of the Vectra-C ready for fitting later.
Only £60 with a 4 year guarantee.
About 1/2 the price of Halfords silver range.

FURTHER UPDATE - Now fitted. Yayy!!

Yay!

Where did you get the sri interior from ? Was it troy ? If so its the interior i was going to bin but took to troys unit i gave it him for free.

It is indeed the interior you gave to Troy.
He in turn offered it to me free of charge - "If I was interested", long before you dropped it off.

In my usual mind-set, I was not fussed either way.
As it cost me nothing, and my old interior had gone moldy from storage, it seemed like something worth trying.

After a bit of swapping component parts and a fair few repairs, I was able to make a moderately tidy interior from it.

The front passenger door card was particularly in need of a lot of tlc... lord knows how it got to be so badly damaged.

A bit of evostik for the plastic rivet mounts and a damn good clean and polish and it looks like a different part altogether.

The interior as a whole isn't concourse, but looks very reasonable.

The anthracite trim does lift the appearance of the car compared to the original 82i (Grey) Tracs LS interior.

Black internal handle pull- mechanisms completes the look.
And a doddle to fit.

I thought that I would do a bit of summing up, as I know the car damn near bankrupted me over the past 2 years.
A thorough restoration would normally cost £10k and upwards... I have seen one or two about 4 times that...
So on reflection, I got off lightly.

So here is a breakdown of the costs so far.
(In a wheeler dealers kind of listing...)
General electrical items including lights, switches, wiring and connectors and an Airbag Module = £330
Brake parts including discs, pads, pipes, cables and flexi hoses = £125
Trims and various bought parts = £270
Steering and Suspension parts including dampers, springs and a whole rake of bushes and linkages = £830
Transmission Parts ( Astra-G Gear stick and new knob) = £ 12
Exhaust - full system with cat and labour £230
Engine and Ignition Parts including timing belt kit, water pump and sensors = £225
Garage supplies, welding, shot blasting, powder coating, labour and paint, MOT etc. = £ 4590
Materials, body panels and various sundries = £530

So for a modestly cheap restoration, it comes in at just under £7k.

In my stupidity or general naivety, I was originally thinking a few welded on panels and make it road worthy for £2k.
But it is like an addiction, and once you get so far, you just have to keep pushing on to the end regardless of what it needs or what it costs.
The true comment I used was "I have spent this much already, I cannot just throw it all down the pan and scrap it this late in the game"
Although there were times when I wished that I had. I went through all kinds of emotions.
Happiness, excitement, annoyance, anger, frustration and general periods of "who gives a £&@#"!

Would I do it again, if I knew what it was going to cost? - both financially and emotionally.

I have to say no. £7k is a lot of money - more than I could have justified on a very rusty old wreck run-of-the-mill LS hatchback. and also considering that my wife has become all but a Cavalier widow, as that is all that seems to have been on my mind since new year.
All that hassle considering that Troy had said 18 months ago that this was the 2nd worst rotted Cavalier that he had ever seen. The worst one was sent to the crusher.

I still have a job sheet with thirty odd items still to do.
All of these are now free of charge to complete, and most are optional... Only about 5 are essential.

Saying that though - now that the interior is all but done, and there is a new battery under the bonnet, I am about 95% happy with it.
The other 5% being the heavy clutch and this never ending list of faffy tasks to work through.

Hydraulic clutch assembly time

Nice idea Gary...
Sadly the funds have been beaten into submission, so for now I will just have to persevere and build up the muscles in my left leg.

It will get there in due course.

Robsey wrote:Nice idea Gary...
Sadly the funds have been beaten into submission, so for now I will just have to persevere and build up the muscles in my left leg.

It will get there in due course.

It will, I know my clutch used to be an absolute git before I took it out of k109xdb and chucked it in fogs when the auto box and engine was swapped out. The pressure fork was pulled out and everything cleaned up. It made a massive difference to the point where I couldn't believe it was the same box.

Sound like I am making excuses -
I have the F18 gearbox and pot flywheel.
Both of these mean that it is a box off job.
Pah!!

And it makes sense that if the box is coming off, then I may as well fit a full clutch kit at the same time. Alas the clutch has only done 32,000 miles in the 5 or 6 years since I fitted the C20NE engine.

As the car drives fine for the most part, it doesn't make too much financial sense to throw money prematurely at a clutch swap.

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On a totally sideways shift - I have thought a few times about converting to an auto box.

Auto box and cruise control - wow that would be lazy driving - ha ha.

But it will never go beyond the thought process.
I am long past the days of faffing under cars.
(Nearly 50 years old and creaking more each day - ha ha).

Oh to be 50!

Alan

Robsey wrote:Sound like I am making excuses -
I have the F18 gearbox and pot flywheel.
Both of these mean that it is a box off job.
Pah!!

And it makes sense that if the box is coming off, then I may as well fit a full clutch kit at the same time. Alas the clutch has only done 32,000 miles in the 5 or 6 years since I fitted the C20NE engine.

As the car drives fine for the most part, it doesn't make too much financial sense to throw money prematurely at a clutch swap.

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On a totally sideways shift - I have thought a few times about converting to an auto box.

Auto box and cruise control - wow that would be lazy driving - ha ha.

But it will never go beyond the thought process.
I am long past the days of faffing under cars.
(Nearly 50 years old and creaking more each day - ha ha).

Don't do it! Not unless you're using a more modern box.
But as for the clutch I am wondering if there is a way of using graphite grease round the clutch arm insert for now?

Don't worry Gary.
I did say that it was a thought that would never become reality.
I have next to no experience of an automatic, and what experience I do have has given mixed opinions. I have stalled an auto before now (but that was a Panda that I had worked on for a relative). Hideous machine.

I am considering my options with the clutch - just watching the pennies at the moment.

As I've got athritus in my left leg I've tried automatics, 2 Sri vectra v6 tdi's and in both the sprag clutch failed. I've also had a Volvo C70 auto, which the gearbox was fine but only used to get 18mpg out of it, so have gone back to manuals. To be honest with you I prefer the way in which you can control the gear changes in a manual, so definatley stick with it. I found that the older cars without a dual mass flywheel can often be limped along for months and even years after the clutch starts to play up, so hopefully you will get time to save up for the job.

My 'daily' is a 1.8 automatic Astra Estate (1998) and will regularly get over 40mpg and when it comes to creeping along in traffic jams can't be beaten.
It's better than some auto's I've driven in that it can be tickled along in a high gear on a light throttle where a lot will change down.
My manual Cavalier however if find I can change up quite early and with a light throttle again can stay in higher gears well. I like being able to decide when to change.
Each have their benefits but if I was given only one to choose ----- manual!

Alan

I get the idea - ha ha.
Thanks for all the input.

I have lots of ideas - usually it is the easy or daft ones that get pit into action.

In the mean time - just waiting for time and decent weather to do the essential stuff.
1 - Wheel arch liners.
2 - Timing belt, tensioner and water pump change.
3 - Reseal the tail lights.
4 - just added - lubricate clutch cable and pivot arm.

The rest is cosmetics and play stuff (electrics and gadgets) which can be done any time.

So I dug out some plastic panels that need fitting between the wheel arch liners and the front bumper.

But there is one part that I cannot identify.
It says something on the lines of bracket plug housing - huh?
Any ideas?
Item 18 in the exerpt