James' 1993 Cavalier LS

[Lowrider Dave]

Excellent work!

[Envoy CDX]

Nicely done!

Order up a few more of those hoses (dipstick tube to cam housing) I'll take a couple if the price is right

[iangsi]

Scary, huh?

You wait till they all read 6's

[James McGrath]

You wait till they all read 6's

That will be a scary day indeed. If I do the average of 10,000 miles a year it will be the year 2064 when it happens. I'll be 72!

Nicely done!

Order up a few more of those hoses (dipstick tube to cam housing) I'll take a couple if the price is right

Unfortunately buying old Massey Ferguson tractor parts isn't cheaper than buying Vauxhall ones. it was £5.80. I only bought it because I couldn't drive and go anywhere else.
On the up side it is of study construction and after cutting it to size you end up with a useful L shaped right angle off cut. Which I'm sure will come in handy one day.
I'll get a few for you if you want but I'm sure you can find a suitable replacement for less.

[cavboy180]

Fair play to you, i had to change the hose from the camcover to the dipstick and cleaned out the dipstick tube and the car ran totally different, plus i just threw away the gauze out of the cam cover - something i always do as they are always blocked...

If it helps the part no for the bit of rubber hose is 90499500...

[planetc]

If it helps the part no for the bit of rubber hose is 90499500...

Wow, the number is still the same as it was 10 years ago, that makes a change!

[cavboy180]

Surprisingly, someone had the sense to keep the number the same, as you very well know, as soon as you know a part no they change it!!

[James McGrath]

She reached that next great milestone today, yep that's right 170,000 miles on the clock and still going strong!



All that on the original clutch, gearbox, and water pump, which to my knowledge have never been replaced.

[cavboy180]

It just goes to show that mileage don't always matter, mine has done 92,000 and the gearbox diff is noisy!!

[cavboy180]

hi james, sorry to sound cheeky, but would you have the part no for that daewoo blanking plate as I have blocked the pipe off and it seems alot better but I would like to do away with the valve as I have to say yours looks really good

Cheers,

Paul

[James McGrath]

hi james, sorry to sound cheeky, but would you have the part no for that daewoo blanking plate as I have blocked the pipe off and it seems alot better but I would like to do away with the valve as I have to say yours looks really good

Cheers,

Paul

Unfortunately not. I don't think it has a part number. The blanking plate I have was bought off eBay and looks as if it's been made by hand. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help on that.

The only advice I can give you is keep looking on eBay and when you do find one make sure you have a spanner or ratchet that can get to both the bolts holding the EGR valve in place, especially the one on the left. If you use a regular spanner you have no room to turn the bolts and it takes ages to get the dam things out. You'll also need a new gasket. New bots are optional but it looks better if you get new ones obviously.

If you haven’t read the how to then the part number for the genuine Vauxhall parts are:
Lock plate: 92065430 (The only Vauxhall parts dealer that was selling this had a minimum order of 20)
Gasket: 92061674
Bolts: 11051927

[cavboy180]

Thanks for that James, I will keep going, I blocked off the pipe to the egr yesterday and tied it back and my god it's a different car... unbelievable how much smoother it is, and I see what you mean about the bolt!!

Anyway, i appreciate your help as well as everyone else's!!

Paul

[James McGrath]

I need to fix this problem next.





I believe it's the wiper linkage that has broken causing the wiper arm to rise up and rest against the bonnet. It's been like it for a while, I've just been putting it off due to the difficultly involved, but now I’m completely fed up with it. Every time I open and close the bonnet I have to push it down and as the wiper arm is raised it means the wiper doesn’t rest evenly on the glass so it squeaks like hell. Not to mention the fact that its now causing my bonnet to rust.

What I'm having trouble with is finding the right part. Dose anyone have one that can sell or dose anyone know the right part number?

[James McGrath]

Just a small update.
I fianlly managed to find some under dash trim clips of my bestes best friend, eBay!
I've been searching for them for years. I belive they were one of the first tings that broke on the Cavalier. (Well, they either broke or they were stollen by a mechanic)
I even went to a scrap yard once looking for some of these but couldn't find any Cavaliers!

Any way here they are:


If you're interested I belive the part number is: 90218614
But I don't know if it's up to date or not.
Here is the eBay link anyway:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GENUINE-VAUXH ... 2eb62c033c


Before:



After:



It was a similar story on the pasengers side too. I ended up needing 4 clips out of 6 in total so I think they probably were stolen rather than broken because they are pretty sturdy things and if one clip managed to hold on the entire underdash up for god knows how may years and not break then 3 should have been able to do it easely. Blody mechanics, I sware that my petro cap was swaped for a more tatty one once.

Oh well, I shall leave you now with some pictures that I took yesterday after I gave her a good AutoGlym wash and polish.







The headlight rubbers do actually make a surprising amount of difference as you can see in this pic in particular.

[cavboy180]

I have to say it's looking really nice, those clips were a common problem with them breaking - sold shitloads of them, need to do them on mine, but they have been broken so long the padding has got distorted above the footwell...

[planetc]

I have to say it's looking really nice, those clips were a common problem with them breaking - sold shitloads of them, need to do them on mine, but they have been broken so long the padding has got distorted above the footwell...

Clips break as you twist them to fit.... if they are not central in the hole, very easily broken and very common as said.

[James McGrath]

I have to say it's looking really nice

Thanks!

they have been broken so long the padding has got distorted above the footwell...

Yeah, as you can see mine is pretty beaten up too. The whole thing is bent on the right corner because it's been hanging down on the left for so long.

Clips break as you twist them to fit.... if they are not central in the hole, very easily broken and very common as said.

Strange, these ones seamed really quite sturdy.

[cavboy180]

Ahh, another job for me to do.......

[James McGrath]

Forgot to mention, new shiny cam cover bolts and new cam cover gasket.

I fitted them both last Tuesday (11th October).

[James McGrath]

I managed to replace the light bulb behind the heater controls on Saturday (22nd of October). It's not as difficult as I thought it would be. Then again I did cheat; I didn’t bother removing the passenger side footwell trim and disconnecting the heater control Bowden cables. Instead, after I removed all the drivers side trim panels etc I just pulled the heater control panel out as far as it would go with the cables still attached (about 2.5 inches) and used a pair of Needle-nose pliers to remove the bulb holder and then replace the bulb.

The results are a bit difficult to photograph, this is the best I could do:

[planetc]

after I removed all the drivers side trim panels etc I just pulled the heater control panel out as far as it would go with the cables still attached (about 2.5 inches) and used a pair of Needle-nose pliers to remove the bulb holder and then replace the bulb.

Well done, you figured out the sensible way to do it!

[cavboy180]

Just the way i did it.... was worried i would break the trim but i got away with it...

[humbucker]

ouch i hope you are able to get that sorted before the bad weather comes and does any more damage

[James McGrath]

ouch i hope you are able to get that sorted before the bad weather comes and does any more damage

I'm lucky that it’s the passenger side one that’s broken rather than the drivers side, so it's more of an annoyance than anything. But yeah I want to get it done before the cold weather sets in.

I'm still looking for the part number, could anyone help me there?

Also could anyone tell me if I could use one from a Calibra or not. I seem to be able to find plenty of those just no Cavalier ones.

[James McGrath]

I had a bit of an n incident today.

On the way back from my routine journey to Canterbury this happened just as I was pulling up for a set of red lights in Ashford:




Yep, the clutch cable broke!!

Not very nice when your stuck in 4th gear pulling up to a set of red lights.

Anyway, after about 40 minuets stuck on the side of the road embarrassingly holding everybody up, the AA man turned up and towed me to safety.

Luckily this particular AA man had previously owned a Cavalier so he knew exactly what he was doing and thus managed to put on a new cable fairly quickly. Unfortunately though he didn’t have one of the right thickness (this one is slightly too thin) and therefore I now need to take it in and get the right one put on before it snaps again.

This can be noted as the first time my Cavalier has broken down in its 18 year history. So I can no longer boast about that.

Oh well I suppose it could have been worse. It’s just another thing to add to the list of things to do.