Mk1 Cavalier

[Bilbo]

Aug 16, 2022 10:30:51 GMT wannabe said:

Definitely do bushes - a system is only as good as its weakest link, and sloppy bushes allowing a lot of movement will make it feel like a total handful lol

Poly on the 5 is fine IMO - great granular steering feel but slightly wince-inducing over speed bumps and potholes, but your planned balloon tyres will take most of the hits!


Do you need to do Top mounts or do they come with the shocks?


Thanks for the info on the welding I fear it will be like art - it's all good in my head but on the journey between brain and hand it all goes wrong... lol

Yeah I'm just looking at bush options, I kind of wanted to just replace with rubber but I can only really find old stock rubber bushes for the panhard rod and rear trailing arms. Only full kits I can find are poly, which is ok I guess, there's about 3 different brands I can see that have options available.

Yeah I have mega cheap FloFlex polys on the 5 and despite the incredible amount of negative reception they get on the 5 FB groups, they've been spot on (apart from the ARB ones which didn't fit haha).

Not sure about rears, but the front have these really weird small pointy strut towers that don't use top mounts like a 5 does. It's a very small hole, I believe with a bush and washer on either side and a simple nut on top. Looks very simple to do.

Welding is fine tbh, once you have the welder set up right and the surfaces are properly clean and you have a good earth point it's not so bad. I've done a couple of bits with poorly prepped parent metal before, and it's just a horrible experience with a ton of spatter. Much like paint I guess, 90% of it is the prep.

[Bilbo]

Small update this evening. I got the sill end in the arch well cleaned up for welding. Grabbed an extra long 360 degree cavity wax nozzle from an old can of Dinitrol and it fitted perfectly onto my can of zinc primer, so I stuck that deep into the sill and gave everything another decent coat of primer, completely covering all the welds I have done from the inside.

Then I got on with welding a new sill end plate on, which went pretty well I think:



Got everything tidied and seam sealed up:



I'm going to holesaw a small hole in the sill end plate, just like it had OEM, this will allow me to properly spray cavity wax into the sill, and also can be used in the future as an inspection hole to monitor any corrosion. After having some minor issues with welding and cavity wax being present in the past (fire, very quickly there was fire 😂)I thought I'd leave that bit until the welding was done. Once done I'll get an appropriate sized rubber bung to fill the inspection hole.

Really happy with how this is going. One more floor hole to deal with near to the front on this side, and then it's on to the other side. Stuck my index finger through the rear of the driver's side rear sill this evening, it looks a little sad in there, but nowhere near as bad as this side was, so it'll be light work. 

[Bilbo]

A couple of bits of floor patched up this evening, all went quite well:





The grotty looking bits under the second photo aren't rust, it's that nasty insulation stuff you have to chisel to get off. Horrible stuff so I just chiseled off enough to do the repair without melting/setting fire to the rest. The minor orange patches to the right are only superficial and I'll get them buzzed back soon.

A bit of chassis rail underneath the repair in the second photo appears to be gone too, so I've added it to the list of bits to sort. Left side is now all done, and I've cavity waxed the sill and all inside the rear arch tubs (which are absolutely mint!).

[howardb66]

Woweee, hats off to you for not giving up on the rot. A 1.8vvt in this would be great fun👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[Bilbo]

Aug 18, 2022 11:09:55 GMT howardb66 said:

Woweee, hats off to you for not giving up on the rot. A 1.8vvt in this would be great fun👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Yeah, getting there with it.

Mate is picking up the mk2.5 tonight so might have engine out tomorrow eve and give it a little test fit into the bay, see what we're dealing with.

[Bilbo]

So gave myself a break from the welding for a day and made a start stripping the front end down. Everything was pretty crusty, but it was mainly really thick cracked old underseal mixed with surface corrosion on everything, looked far worse than it was.

I'm used to MX-5s so no stranger to annoying seized nuts and bolts, had some truly awful experiences with that in the past. I was really surprised that some of the most horrendous corroded nuts actually came undone on this. Even the tiny 10mm bolts on the super rusty brake dust shield came off with no problems.

Of course some stuff needed cutting off, the stabiliser links are a sleeve design with big washers either end and a bolt through the middle. Time had not been kind to it, so that needed an angle grinder, as did the bolts on the upper ball joint. Lower ball joint took some blow torching and some big old lump hammer swings, but eventually popped out.

Didn't get before photos of the passenger side, so here is the driver's side:



The side I have done tonight looked much worse than this. Being the nearside I suppose that makes sense, usually seems to be the case.

A ton of grime, underseal, bits of flaky surface rust, and chopped off parts covered the floor, it was rank:



With everything removed from them I gave the arms/hub/dust shield, and everything on this side of the car a really good wire brushing, and then a decent coat of Bilt Hamber Hydrate80. I've used this stuff for years, it's a great rust converter for surface rusted parts.





Goes on lilac, this was after about 10 or 15 minutes ish. I'm leaving it overnight to do it's thing, they will be far more black in the morning. The I will prime and paint and get them prepped to go back onto the car. All my stuff has arrived now, so I should be able to get this side finished tomorrow morning.

My mate has just picked up a mk2.5 MX-5 breaker as well. Ideal timing, I am having the engine, entire loom, and various other parts off of it. It's already at the workshop, and still runs, so will check the other engine out tomorrow and pull it out. Really excited now, it's all coming together.

[Bilbo]

So, got some more bits done this weekend. Put together the front left with all the new parts, which is pretty satisfying. All the parts so far have fitted, which is great. The eye on the lower shock mount was marginally thinner than the original, but with a couple of spacer washers on each side it all went on fine.





New ball joints went in nicely and the lower felt like it pressed in tightly with our 12 ton press we have at the workshop. Annoyingly I ran out of underseal spray, so I need to finish a couple of bits off. Also overlooked ordering wheel bearings, the ones I took off inside the hub were perfectly sealed behind the cover cap, and looked brand new. But it's been sat for an awfully long time, and while they seem to spin fine, for the sake of £10 or so per side I may as well replace them.

Overall pretty happy with how the refresh is going on this side, though I won't know if these lowering springs sit nicely until we have the engine in.

Speaking of the engine, here it is:



1.8 VVT engine out of a mk2.5 MX-5. 86k miles on the clock, it started and ran fine when I moved it into the unit this afternoon. Good stuff. So I started stripping the loom off first. The engine side is easy, just unplug everything. But removing an entire MX-5 loom out of the car I have never done before, and my god I don't want to ever have to do this again. It's not horrendous, just very laborious, and literally everything has to be removed for you to get to it all.



This was the scene earlier. Got the dash out and started feeding everything out of the bay through the holes in the firewall. Tedious work but the main loom is now completely removed, and fully intact (well apart from the ABS plug wiring which was being a pain and I don't need it, so I just lopped it off completely). I have added named sticky notes to various plugs and sensors to help me make sense of the loom when fitting it into the Vauxhall.

There will be a load of this loom I don't need. Various features won't be required, off the top of my head things like central locking, electric windows, ABS, airbags and seatbelt sensors will be removed where necessary. I'll have a sit down with a full wiring diagram and see how much of this loom can be taken apart, as there's no point installing things that won't be needed. But I decided to take it out whole so that I didn't accidentally chop something off I actually needed! I'll get the rear part of the loom out of the car tomorrow, which mainly comprises just of rear light related items, fuel pump stuff, and the main battery terminals. I am planning to run the battery in the boot of the Cavalier, so the MX-5 loom is ideal, it'll just need extending a bit due to the longer car it is going into.

Should also hopefully have the engine out tomorrow as well. 2 weeks in to the project today and it's going pretty well I think!

[zoona]

Aug 21, 2022 23:54:22 GMT Bilbo said:

But I decided to take it out whole so that I didn't accidentally chop something off I actually needed! 

having struggled with looms and wiring recently (due to a fair bit of cocking them up by removing things and other 'improvements') i was just about to shout this at you...

Good move. Put it all in, and then remove stuff if you absolutely have to. Sounds like you have done all this before though...


This looks like an excellent project. Ive been trying to get something like this through the financal controller in my house, but failed miserably.

You just need to add a turbo...

[Bilbo]

Aug 23, 2022 22:23:02 GMT zoona said:

Aug 21, 2022 23:54:22 GMT Bilbo said:

But I decided to take it out whole so that I didn't accidentally chop something off I actually needed! 

having struggled with looms and wiring recently (due to a fair bit of cocking them up by removing things and other 'improvements') i was just about to shout this at you...

Good move. Put it all in, and then remove stuff if you absolutely have to. Sounds like you have done all this before though...


This looks like an excellent project. Ive been trying to get something like this through the financal controller in my house, but failed miserably.

You just need to add a turbo...

Well I got the entire loom out of the 5 now, was a laborious experience, not a fan at all haha.

I have never done this before, this is the first time I will ever be working on a full loom job haha. I have a wiring diagram for both cars. I'll go slow, check everything twice before cutting, make notes. Should work out ok hopefully!

It's a lot of work but I'd recommend it, feels great to save an old car like this!

And haha no way on the turbo, this will be a daily! And if I did anything like that I'd definitely go ITB, seems more of a fit in a retro car I think.

[zoona]

Aug 24, 2022 1:59:42 GMT Bilbo said:

And haha no way on the turbo, this will be a daily! And if I did anything like that I'd definitely go ITB, seems more of a fit in a retro car I think.

i just like the idea of trev and dave in their hot hatch getting blown away by some 70s/80s prarrie canoebox (not that yours will be prarrie canoe obviously)

[Bilbo]

Aug 24, 2022 11:45:42 GMT zoona said:

Aug 24, 2022 1:59:42 GMT Bilbo said:

And haha no way on the turbo, this will be a daily! And if I did anything like that I'd definitely go ITB, seems more of a fit in a retro car I think.

i just like the idea of trev and dave in their hot hatch getting blown away by some 70s/80s prarrie canoebox (not that yours will be prarrie canoe obviously)

Hahaha you over-estimate my skills I think. But yes, that would be hilarious. The weight of these that I can find online is, surprisingly, lighter than a mk2.5 MX-5. So I'm hoping it won't be too much of a slouch with the VVT in it, will certainly have the balls to take on the not so hot hatches. If it's the same speed as a stock mk2 I'll take that as a win, plenty quick enough for what it is I reckon.

[Bilbo]

So I got the auto box and old crusty engine mounts out this evening. My mate got the MX-5 engine and box out last night, along with various other bits I wanted. I finished getting the loom out of the 5 the other night, I have absolutely every wire, plug, relay, and fuse box out of the entire car, so I have everything I need (and way more) to get the engine running.



The auto box and shifter will be for sale, as will the 2.0 engine (will come with full gasket rebuild kit and brand new water pump). I have no proof either work but neither are seized up and the ATF in the auto box looked good considering it's age. Only 45k miles on the clock, so they might just need a refresh and they'll be fine, I honestly couldn't say! I'll likely sell both as spares/repairs, if anyone is interested PM me.

So with the box out the way I could test fit the VVT engine. This is as close to an "it's in" photo you'll be seeing right now:



I left everything on the engine. Some good news from doing this, but also a few challenges.

Good bits:

The engine will for the most part fit in the bay. I already knew it would as the bay is huge but still good to see. All the ancillaries will be fine, which is great news.

The box fits inside the tunnel with ease.

Custom engine mounts should be fairly straightforward to do.

The engine will be so far back that a radiator, fans, and all the intake stuff will be easy to fit with tons of room.

A slimmer brake booster *may* fit. Don't know for sure yet, but read some stuff about mk2 Polo/Golf one being a good swap in these/Mantas as they're basically a straight fit. We'll see.


The challenges:

The original heater box obviously has the pipes on the wrong side for the 5 engine. It's also massively in the way of the back of the engine/VVT bits. Will need ripping out and an alternative solution being put it.

The sump will sit behind the subframe but the engine needs to go back about 6" in that photo. I have maybe 3" space behind the engine to the firewall/bulkhead, so I think we will be cutting and re-shaping the bulkhead to get it sat in. Not the worst job, but I was hoping I wouldn't have to. Won't be any more difficult to weld up the new metal than the front corner was, so I'm not worried.

Standard 5 manifold/downpipe fits in the bay, but unfortunately hits the tunnel. Hence why the engine is wonky in the photo above. Downpipe is hard up against the tunnel. Good thing is that there is a good 2 inches between it and the box, so we will adapt the pipe so it sits closer to the box, and further from the tunnel.

The shifter will be too far back, as you can see here:



Bare in mind the shifter will be approx. 6" further back than it is in the above photo when the engine is sat where I want it. Luckily the MX-5 boxes have a long shaft that attaches to the shifter, and you can cut the shaft down, adapt the top of the box and move the entire shifter piece further forwards by a few inches. I may also make an adapter piece so that I can have the actual gearknob further forward in the car when it's all in place. I'll try and use the standard auto shifter hole if I can, just so I don't have to cut more tunnel than I already need to.

Overall a fair bit of work for sure, but it's really not that bad. I'm just pleased it's now a known quantity, I know where I stand with it, and we can get on with getting the bits done to get it in there properly. Loads more to do, but cannot wait to see the engine sat in the bay properly, I'm so excited to get this car going.

[Bilbo]

So after the initial test fit attempt of the 5 engine I needed to remove the original heater. Bit of a ballache job but not too bad. One good thing is there are zero rust issues at all on the bulkhead/firewall. Behind the heater and all the rubber insulation everything is as red and decent as when it was brand new, which is great. While I was there I decided it was probably worth just taking the entire dash out to just get all the things out of the car I didn't need anymore.

So out came the instrument cluster, all the plastic trims, and the upper and lower dash, and all the internal heater vent pipes. I was left with the wiring loom, which I have also taken out, cutting the wires for every single original plug/stalk/switch so that I can wire all of the original stuff into the MX-5 loom.

The main loom for everything is tiny compared to the MX-5 one, this is literally everything from behind the dash and most of the stuff from under the bonnet:



Everything is now out and I can work on loom routing and ECU location options etc. for the 5 loom:



There is actually not a lot of room behind the dash, the firewall on these is like a shelf in the engine bay to house the heater unit mainly, so inside the car there isn't actually a big area under the dash. But it should still be fine.

One job that is now done and was very simple was the ignition barrel. I noticed after some finger and thumb maths (literally wrapped my index and thumb around this column and the 5 column haha), that the 2 columns were incredibly similar in size. So I cut the Vauxhall ignition barrel off as the security bolt was being annoying and all of my drill bits are blunt. I cut into the MX-5 barrel security bolts with a grinder, and added a flathead slot into them, and got them out with the barrel intact. Offered the barrel up to the Cavalier column and it is literally a perfect fit. Got the bolts on and clamped it onto the column with no modifications at all which is great. Only thing to note is that the lower plastic cowl likely won't fit now, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Here it is test fitted in its new home:



Ignore the birds nest of wiring in the background, this is now all gone.

I also removed the exhaust manifold from the 5 engine for an easier test fitting next time. We'll put it back in and measure exactly how much bulkhead will need cutting. After some basic measuring I think around 2" of the very front of the tunnel/bulkhead will need cutting back in the middle, so not an awful job, should be simple enough to weld it back up after so I'm not concerned about that.

I'm off to Italy for a week, so I'll be taking a break from the car until I'm back. Got 3 days booked off work after I return so I'll be cracking on with this as soon as I'm back.

[dadbif]

Those old fuses trigger a few memories..

[Bilbo]

Aug 29, 2022 7:16:34 GMT dadbif said:

Those old fuses trigger a few memories..

Yeah I don't like the look of them much, so they're all gone and 5 fuseboxes will be used haha.