Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[Zelandeth]

Maybe one for your collection Zel?
https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auct ... 5a00d683de

Of interest, definitely. Sadly I'd be very surprised if that doesn't go for many times what I can really justify throwing at a hobby. They're worth strong money these days.

Out of interest Zel, it sold for £260.00 !!

Yeah, I'd be game for up to around £100, but that's too rich for this hobby at the moment. Especially as due to lack of space it would probably have to wait a while before really getting any time spent in the spotlight. Same reason that I've not got a BBC Micro yet, the days of them popping up cheaply have passed by...which is annoying as having been an Acorn fan as long as I've known what a computer was.

-- -- --

Had the opportunity to have a very brief look over the Cavalier today. I'd not seen the car since the end of September if I remember rightly, so wanted to see how kind the winter hadn't been. I also hoped to get it running for a few minutes as I'd only had about 30 seconds run time before before we ran out of fuel.

Not too bad seemed to be the assessment. The interior I had expected to be mouldy and musty as I know there's a hole in the battery tray, but seemed absolutely fine.

The bulge in the nearside front tyre has evidently gone "pop" at some point over the winter so that wasn't holding air. Other three seem fine. Can't say I'm too surprised as it looked pretty nasty when I last saw it.

We dug the spare out for examination and it seems to be holding air just fine, so will get that swapped over shortly.

In retrieving the spare wheel I had to retract my comment about the interior having stayed surprisingly dry as the boot was a different story!



Well at least we know there aren't holes in the boot floor! It had been draining via the bung for the fuel line it looks like.

With bungs pushed out on both sides the water was convinced to vacate the premises.



Took an impressively long time to drain through two 1" holes.

With a bit of fresh fuel she started right up just fine, though we did find a fuel leak on the line from the tank to the plastic (nylon?) line under the car. Cutting back the end and stuffing it back on didn't sort it as the line has had it - attempting to do that resulted in me ending up wearing probably about a gallon of fuel. It tastes precisely as unpleasant as I remembered. Six hours, much scrubbing of hands, a hot shower and complete change of clothing and I still smell of petrol.

Will just need to replace that bit of flexible hose. All of it will want changing in due course anyway (including the plastic semi-rigid lines as I don't know what sort of plastic they are or whether they will play nicely with ethanol) so it's a good place to start.

Not properly checking for leaks after putting the first half a can of fuel in was a rookie mistake. Though in fairness I didn't realise the tank is tapped off the bottom until after I spotted the drip.

Didn't stop us being able to let the engine run for a bit though, just long enough for the thermostat to start opening - at which point I noted the (automatic) choke was still on a bit so blipped the throttle...and the engine cut out and refused to restart.

A little detective work quickly revealed that we had lost spark, apparently because the points were stuck open. Sadly I was out of time then so had to head for home. Right up till then though she seemed to be running happily, though quite tappety as I remembered from last time. Anyone remember if these have adjustable rockers, or do you need to faff about with shims?

I'll make a run over there in the next few days to get the wheel swapped over, replace that bit of dodgy fuel line and clean the points - that should be the car pretty much ready for transportation then I think.

I mean it could be moved now, but having four inflated tyres and being actually running always makes things easier.

[mickthemaverick]

I happened to be at Warwick university for a week when they launched the Cavalier to the press. They had put the car on a 45° canted ramp mounted on a turntable and slowly revolving to show off both cabin and underside. We were quite horrified when we saw the fuel line running from tank to engine bay right underneath all the chassis members, thereby making it the lowest point of the car in several places. I vowed then never to buy one and I never have. It also served to reinforce my prejudice against Vauxhalls instilled in me by the stories my uncle told me when I was still at school. He was a fitter in the Vauxhall plant in Luton and told some hilarious but terrifying tales about what the lads did to some of the cars on the production line!!

[Zelandeth]

Should be easy enough to get to for replacement then...

Just figures that the bit I was trying to get to yesterday was directly above the rear axle, with the exhaust also doing it's best to get in the way...

[Zelandeth]

Put together a bit of a to do/shopping list for the Cavalier. Very high level really at this point.

[] Sort brakes - unless they're hard to find figuring on just replacing both front calipers as at least one of them is thoroughly seized. Discs are shot too. I'll measure them, but there's a substantial lip so I'm guessing they're beyond refacing.

Rears I'll wait and see. Personally I've had pretty good luck so far with drums surviving disuse, but they'll need to come apart for inspection anyway.

All flexible lines will be changed, along with any rigid lines that look in any way suspect.

[] Replace all rubber and plastic fuel lines. No idea if the plastic section is ethanol safe, so it'll have to go.

[] Carb *at least* given a thorough clean.

[] Ignition system full service. We know the points are finicky as they caused headaches when it was being revived in the summer and have just dropped out on me again. It'll get an externally mounted polypropylene film condenser fitted like I did on the Invacar so I don't need to faff about with the modern automotive ones which last about five minutes.

[] Figure out where the ten gallons of so of water I just drained out of the boot got in and convince it to cut it out.

[] Try to come up with a more period correct looking solution for the centre console/gear lever as the bits of 80s Manta just look ridiculous.

[] Install a stereo. There's already been holes cut in the parcel shelf so I've no reason not to use them. Won't be anything daft don't worry.

[] Weld up the hole in the front chassis rail.

[] Replace missing exhaust tailpipe.

[] Try to get the worst dents out of the nearside doors. For the benefit of our neighbours that'll probably be one of the first things done.

[] Four new tyres (the spare actually looks fine, and having been stored in the boot hasn't been exposed to UV etc, so it will probably be left alone) as even though they generally look fine aside from the NSF they're 15 years old. Being probably the single most safety critical part of the car, just doesn't make sense to take chances.

[] Road test, see what that adds to the snagging list.

-- Borrow (or buy) a car roller so I can get at the underside better

[] Weld up the hole on the inner sill.

[] Thoroughly rust proof the underbody.

[] MOT.

... Hopefully enjoy driving it!


-- -- --

Got the new intake throttle body installed on the Caddy yesterday.



This is behaving very differently to the one I took off, so there was definitely something amiss with it. This sharply flips open/closed precisely in time with the EGR solenoid cycling - though you can only tell it's doing this if the intake hose is off. So the old one was definitely acting up. It used to close fully and then just twitch open very slightly (which was the surging you could hear). That's why it was smoking, as the air intake was basically being totally cut off.

With everything assembled as the factory intended we had a smooth idle and no smoke.

For reference, this part number looks to be used on a plethora of models in 1.9SDI, 1.9TDi and 2.0TDi versions.

Everything was then put back together properly and we went out for a longer test drive. Shown here just before I put the air intake hose back on for the second time as I got it misaligned the first time.



I did manage to launch the intake hose clip for the air filter end a good twenty or thirty feet straight up in the air while trying to compress it. I still hate those spring clips. Thankfully this one just went vertically up so I caught it. I did have a moment of panic where I thought it was going to land on the company car parked next to me.

That throttle plate sitting on the battery is definitely from the old throttle body, by the way...

Be interesting to see with it running the correct timing map without logging sporadic error codes etc if the economy changes at all, though it's managing mid 40s already which around here I consider to be pretty good anyway.

[Gibbo2286]

When did the Cavalier come on the scene Zel, I can't recall it being mentioned before?

[Hell Razor5543]

When did the Cavalier come on the scene Zel, I can't recall it being mentioned before?

Page 330.

[bobins]

-- Borrow (or buy) a car roller so I can get at the underside better

[] Weld up the hole on the inner sill.

[] Thoroughly rust proof the underbody.

[] MOT.

... Hopefully enjoy driving it!

Let me know when you want to borrow it and I'll dig it out and meet you halfway somewhere for a handover

[Gibbo2286]

Thanks James, I remember it now.
I always preferred the Cavalier to the Cortina although both were 'bread and butter' cars to the trade so I didn't do many, got better results selling odd ball stuff.

[Zelandeth]

When did the Cavalier come on the scene Zel, I can't recall it being mentioned before?

Back in September. I'd *deliberately* avoided walking anywhere near it when I was at a gathering over there because I knew I'd wind up asking "how much?" if I did, and had no desire for another project.

Then roughly 24 hours later he went and put it formally up for sale...I managed to ignore it for a few days but eventually gave in and went to look at it. The result of that was predictable!









The misbehaviour of the S123 kind of put things on a hold for a while, then winter arrived. The one slot during that period where the weather was favourable I was busy for prep for then attending Scotiacon...and literally the day we cleared our self imposed quarantine period after that the weather nose dived.

Don't know exactly when it will be arriving yet but it won't be massively far off.

[daviemck2006]

Is the cavalier a 1.3 Zel? As far as I remember only the 1.3 had the short straight gear handle. I thought the 1.6, 1.9 and 2.0 had the longer cranked gear lever that was further forward. Our 2.0gls sportshatch certainly had.

[Zelandeth]

Is the cavalier a 1.3 Zel? As far as I remember only the 1.3 had the short straight gear handle. I thought the 1.6, 1.9 and 2.0 had the longer cranked gear lever that was further forward. Our 2.0gls sportshatch certainly had.

This is a 1.6.

However it was originally an auto, that gearbox expired early in the life of the car leading it to be parked up in a shed for many years - probably the main reason it's survived as well as it has.

The previous owner was well into his Vauxhalls and solved this problem by installing the five speed manual from a Manta. However that required altering the tunnel as the gear lever is in a different place on that box. Which is why it's got a gear lever which looks about a decade too new to match the rest of the interior.

[Zelandeth]

Finally getting around to addressing one of the things which has been bugging the heck out of me in the Caddy since day one.



The gear lever gaiter has had it. It's shrunk so there's no way to get it to stay on the clip at the top and there are two holes in it anyway. It's just past it. The interior is generally really surprisingly tidy so this really sticks out like a sore thumb.

Used ones are generally all just as bad, yet eBay sellers still want £30-50 for for some reason.

So we've gone for a third party one priced at a more reasonable £15. We'll see how awful quality it is or isn't when it gets here. If it's hopeless I will probably just end up making a new one, it's hardly a complicated bit of construction. Basically just four triangular pieces of fake leather stitched together. Nothing I can't recreate with a sewing machine and a tatty leather jacket from a charity shop.

This is the other matter I need to investigate in more depth.



There's a bit of free play in the steering. This feels like in the column rather than rack or track rod ends. So I need to get the trim under the dash out so I can see the UJs down there while I get a helper to move the wheel.

I will do that checking the track rod ends first though as they're easier to get to!

I do need to check it's not something dead simple like the steering wheel being slightly loose on the splines too as there is a little fore and aft play in it.

I wouldn't say no to finding a leather trimmed wheel either, as the Caddy has the really hard plastic one which A: isn't that nice to hold, and B: Is really quite slippery. Shouldn't be too hard to find one at least given the amount of vehicles it was shared with.

[Zelandeth]

This arrived in the post this morning.



Given the state of the fasteners I opted to leave it soaking in penetrating oil for a few hours while I got on with other things.



After a few hours I returned to it. Took a lot of very careful backwards and forwards spinning of the nut to clean the threads, but it did come off without snapping or stripping anything.

What felt like an eternity huge of shaking and blowing through the housing with the air line then followed. There was a lot of crud floating around inside it and there's no way to dismantle it to really gain access. Eventually it stopped rattling or producing clouds of rust and was in a state I was happy enough to fit it.



Will want a bit of paint at some point but that's hardly a priority.

One last detail I needed to deal with was the support rod which should sit between a tab on the filter housing and an eye on the inlet manifold below it. My original filter didn't have this and it had rusted away to nothing on the replacement.

This doesn't need to be massively strong, it's mainly there I think to discourage the filter assembly from vibrating too much. After a bit of a rummage round the garage I opted for a bit of 10mm microbore copper pipe.



Couple of holes drilled to match the mounting points and that's a job done.







Engine bay looking a bit more like most people expect now.

Goes without saying that copper pipe isn't something to be used for anything structurally important, but for a small anti-vibration brace it'll be fine. The housing is clamped directly metal to metal on the carb, so it's not like there's any real degree of flex available anyway.

The support will get a coat of paint as well when I give the air cleaner housing a going over. I don't actually have any suitable paint in stock just now, so it'll just have to wait.

The end result though is the air cleaner assembly being robustly held in place, which is what we were after.

It was interesting to compare the original air cleaner to the "normal" Steyr Puch/Invacar one.

Well, *nearly* normal Steyr Puch one anyway. In pretty much all other applications the filter seems to face to the right rather than left. My guess as to why this was done is for packaging reasons. If it faced to the left it would make installation of the engine as a pre-assembled unit more difficult. The proximity of that brace I've got my fuel filter attached to would make changing the filter a real faff too.

The "stubby" filter I have does seem to be something of an anomaly though.



My gut feeling is that someone modified this housing sometime goodness only knows how many years ago. Possibly in the search for more power, given how much smaller the intake port on the original style housing is.





A lot of work to go to though...and if you're doing that why would you leave a ridge round the edge still shading half the filter element surface?

It's a lot of effort for someone to have gone to though. There is definitely at least one sign of differences to the standard filter assembly too, in the form of the filter retaining plate.

The original one I had (which made the successful break for freedom a few weeks ago) just sat in the centre of the air cleaner element, the outer edges were left exposed.



Whereas the one I just fitted completely covers the outer face of the filter element.



You can also see how much of the filter element was tucked away behind the housing before.

Would be really interesting to know if someone had altered the old filter housing, and if so to what end. We'll never know, but you have to wonder.

Suffice to say I *have* now fitted a jam-nut on the cleaner retaining bolt! Ensuring it isn't winding itself off will become part of the regular checks.

I will be curious to see if this makes any difference to behaviour when driving. Both in terms of power delivery and in helping calm the intake noise a bit as at speed that could be really quite obtrusive.

Time will tell I suppose!

[Zelandeth]

As I've mentioned before something which had been bothering me on the Caddy for a while was that something in the vicinity of the aux belt was quite noisy. The belt while only a year old was also looking quite tired, with a lot of scuffing on the outer surface.



It actually looked quite a bit worse in person than the photo makes it look.

My main suspect was the tensioner, both because the pulley looked really badly rust pitted and because it seemed to get red hot when the engine was running.



There's also a very distinct groove worn where the belt runs. I'm pretty certain it was sitting cock eyed too and that's not just a trick of the camera. I could never quite decide looking at it in person.

A new tensioner assembly, idler pulley (I figured if you're pulling things apart and taking the belt off it just made sense to do both) and belt weren't expensive, and were available within an hour from my usual motor factor.



I did take a look at fitting it myself, but with how limited access is I could see it being the sort of job I'd run out of patience with in a hurry. Especially given how stupidly strong the spring is. So that was farmed out to a local garage that was recommended by a friend.

That was fitted earlier today, and that area looks a good deal more respectable now.



It's made things much quieter...I hadn't realised there was a distinct rattle coming from that area as well as the whiney hiss of an unhappy bearing. I forgot to grab the box from behind the passenger seat to actually take a look at the old parts to see how knackered they were, that'll have to wait until tomorrow.

This did present me with a slight logistical challenge though as my intended lift to get back from the garage became unavailable at quite short notice, and it's a place that's just a random industrial warehouse in the middle of a farm, so not exactly well connected to public transport.

Helpfully a friend had a car in there that was ready to pick up having just had some work done, and they suggested I just swap them over and we could figure out the automotive Tetris to get everyone and every car back in the right driveways at our leisure afterwards.

Some of you who've been reading my waffling for a while may remember this one.



It's the rules that you're not allowed to show a photo of this car without the interior too...





That dash is utterly bonkers but actually works really well in practice.

Despite being really rough in a few areas, I absolutely love this thing. It's that perfect blend of having a lovely wafty comfy ride and nice squidgy seats, yet somehow the moment you present it with a corner just seems to dig in and grip like hell. Really has a surprising turn of pace too if you call for it - even despite this one having lost the original twin carb setup during its long hibernation prior to being resurrected a couple of years ago.

This Lancia visited me a year or so back to try to address a running issue and to replace all the instrument panel illumination bulbs as only about 20% of them were working.

The illumination issue was easily sorted, but I never did fully get to the bottom of the running issue, which I had assumed to be carb related. I did get it running *better* but not right.

Turns out I had been a complete and utter idiot in fixating on the carb. For no particularly good reason my brain had just decided that someone must already have been through the ignition system, but the carb was known to have relatively recently been dragged out of a long hibernation in a box in a garage...yes, you guessed it...we had an ignition problem.

This was mostly fixed by someone working on the car after me. I noticed pretty much as soon as I set off from the garage today though that it still wasn't quite right. It would pull like a train if you gave it a decent press of the throttle, but was really lumpy on light throttle and was obviously still missing erratically at idle. Nevertheless, it was more than driveable...and I was quite enjoying wafting about for about an hour.

Right up until about 30 seconds away from home, at which point things went all Lancia.



The engine cut out. No stuttering, just off as though I'd turned the key. Conveniently I was heading downhill at the time so just rolled the last 30 seconds or so and slotted into the driveway under gravity.

My hunch based on how it felt was that we had lost spark. A quick check confirmed this hypothesis as correct. Absolutely nothing. The question of course then became *why* there wasn't any spark. Didn't take long for me to find a prime suspect as touching the ignition coil resulted in me just about losing my fingerprints as it was absolutely roasting hot (I hadn't left it sitting with the ignition on or anything). Time to grab a meter and see what it could tell us about the condition of the coil.

While it varies depending on the exact setup, as a rule the vast majority of 12V ignition coils will have a primary winding resistance of less than 5 ohms. For a basic go/no go test the exact number isn't important...just a number in that sort of ballpark.



Our suspect coil here had a primary resistance of 95K ohms...as in 95,000. That's rather a lot more than 5. Pretty conclusively dead.

It's no big secret that my garage is full of junk. As such I was pretty sure I still had a spare coil floating around from back from when I did the fuel injection conversion on the Lada (I mean, who doesn't?). Question was whether it would still be where I thought it was after three or four years...



Drumroll...



Yay!

No idea precisely how closely matched to the original it is, but they're both from cars with hall effect and amplifier based systems so should be close enough for testing purposes anyway. Given the shared Fiat DNA I'd be surprised if they're not pretty much a direct match anyway.

Cue a bit of improvisation to find a convenient bolt to secure it to (the secondary winding grounds through the case so that's important) for testing.



This had indeed restored spark, albeit not a very strong one. The car did now run, but very roughly. What was getting to the plugs seemed far worse than what we had from the coil though...so a bit more investigation was needed.

Few things were found to be an issue right off the bat.

Firstly, the distributor cap terminals aren't the right type for these HT leads.



Secondly there's clearly damage to one of the wiper contacts in the connector to the distributor pickup.



This doesn't actually seem to be affecting it, but if I can lay my hands on the bag of random scavenged connectors and wiring "misc" in the garage I'll replace this. While it's working now that sort of thing is just asking to be a liability longer term. Especially as it no longer securely clips together in addition to the damaged contact.

I very nearly wasted a lot of time then...but just caught myself and told myself to check the basics first...and actually pull the distributor cap off for a proper look. Just because it's nearly new doesn't mean it can't be faulty.

Anyone see something wrong with this picture?



Uuuh...



Well that won't be helping anything. There should be a spring loaded graphite contact post in the middle there, like the one in the original cap which helpfully was in the boot still.



Comparing the two caps side by side shows the new one to be a hair taller than the original (though it's possible that is just in the external moulding), and the new rotor arm was a good 1mm shorter from the contact point to tip.



The old cap also has the correct terminals to receive this type of HT lead.



Swapping these back over resulted in the car running the best I've seen so far, but still not right. Especially at lower engine speeds the spark is still slightly intermittent, and just generally seems weaker than I would expect from this type of system. I did try running without the coil ballast resistor in circuit and that actually made it worse if anything.

My suspicion now lays pretty evenly between the ignition amplifier module or the actual pickup in the distributor. HT leads are near new, I've verified we have solid power to the coil etc, so it's not something that simple.

We're going to try to track down a spare ignition module. Even if it's not guilty in this case it's a good thing to have a spare of.



Looks to be a Bosch 0 227 130 014 if I'm reading it right from the photo. Will have a look in better light tomorrow.



If it's not that it doesn't leave much but the distributor itself...which will be a barrel of laughs to change I'm sure as access to it is absolutely horrible.



So looks like it will be staying on for slightly longer than I'd originally planned. Just makes sense to get the parts sent here so I can try swapping out the ignition module at least.

If that and sorting that dodgy looking connector don't sort it, it'll likely be time for someone else or a garage to get involved...but that's a last resort. This car bested me once, there's a certain degree of pride (or stubbornness!) involved in being determined not to be beaten by it twice. Will update on how we get on as and when it happens.

[xantia_v6]

My two tips would be to measure the value of the ballast resistor (or substitute a known good one). Put a dwell meter on the the coil, the results will be nothing like you get with points, but you should get a reading that increases with RPM, until reaching about 90% dwell, and at any RPM, the reading should be fairly steady. I have seen amplifier modules which caused the dwell to drop to almost 0 at low RPM, and one that bizarely performed perfectly at idle and above 3000 RPM, but had 0 dwell anywhere between those two speeds. It made driving interesting.