'89 cavalier SRi rolling project

[Asa-James]

first things first, i dont particularly like this car, so dont be surprised if some of the updates are a little "unusual"

anyway! after aquiring this last year and saving it from the scrap heap, i was at a loss as to what to do with a little blue, four owner, 130,000 mile Cavalier SRi, so i put it in the garage and forgot about it. Christmas came and went, i started it once or twice, and forgot some more.





i finally decided in May to at least get it MOT'd and see what was up with it, so that if i planned to sell it, it was tested, or if i planned to use it, it was one less thing to do. it was also the first time i'd driven it on the road, and it was definitely interesting (the resulting MOT fail of three ma-hoo-sive flat spots on each front tyre explained why - the flat spots were below 1.6mm, the rest of the tyre was 6mm...)

so i threw a little bit of cash at it, as well as my dad's old LS alloys, and hey presto it was tested! something to add to its comprehensive service history




shortly thereafter, my other cav was written off, and so the SRi has been pressed into service as a daily, still ironing out some issues but its getting there (and i might be getting a bit softer with the rot-rod)

near future plans now (and i'm only putting these here so i remember them) are a full interior swap from the Cesaro, including front leccy windows, leccy sunroof, and headrest parcel shelf with the brackets, redo my full soundsystem from the Cesaro, swap some engine bits off the old one (downpipe, CTS, 2 month old spark plugs, sucks being broke ) clean and polish it.

future plans include suspension swap off the cesaro, probably wheel swap, but i'm stuck on two sets, and try to enjoy it as much as possible.

[Asa-James]

update!

been having some wonderful running issues with it, that i *think* are now sorted, just one small issue left to solve to get the eml light off.


so after stripping the black interior out of the donor over the weekend, i decided tonight was a good time to start on the daily (bearing in mind i need ot to get to work)

started by emptying the car of all the previous owners garbage, found 6 pens, 32p, four keyrings of various designs, a cig lighter, two empty fag packs and a bluetooth earpiece. noice. onto the stripping...

started from the rear


no rot round the inner wheel arches, or anywhere else ont eh boot floor, which was nice to see, and also found two small water leaks into the boot i wouldnt have otherwise found

after the pic, i stripped out the b pillar trims and bolted the seatbelts back up, then started on the dash, first to go was the casette player that didnt work



i wonder of the warranty is still valid...


managed to get it mostly stripped bar the essentials to drive it tomorrow, and found my favorite thing in the world...


**take me down to the choccy block city where the wirings crap and its far from pretty**

looking at how many additional connections have been made i might be using the dash loom out of the donor, its horrific!

so anyway, my dash for tomorrow...


and i also found a nifty hidden kill switch that i'll be using from now on whenever i park

thats all for now, hopefully get the dash's swapped over tomorrow night

[Asa-James]

Felt guilty after doing nothing on the cav last night, so during my lunch hour I decided to sort out the tailgate rattle. Adjusted the striker in the boot but it was no different, so I took it off and found that after 23 years it had worn a groove (forgot to get a pic)

Dragged the welder out




And after a quick bit of fine tuning had it looking semi respectable



Refitted, gave it a shake and it seems to have almost gone, at worst it's a damn site better than it was.

Shekshy new rivnuts for the parcel shelf brackets




Nasty GB sticker gone, after a good buff and polish the outline should go




I'm keeping te original dealer sticker on the other side for now, I like stuff like that

Knackered aerial stump removed (just looks odd without it)





Dash out



A lucky escape in the past...





And now this evening I shall mostly be rebulding the stereo loom

[Balley]

Good work pal.

[Asa-James]

up early today, and i started by ripping the carpet out, only to find all the heavy sound deadening was smelly and a bit waterlogged. so i put my Colin Chapman head on (to get speed, add lightness) and ripped that out as well. couldnt see any obvious water leaks, so i'll just keep my eye on things for now



i then spent a good couple of hours removing the old central locking loom, and putting in the one from the donor, as well as door looms and then checking everything, including the new electric windows, still worked. then began the wonderful process of putting everything back





and then i got bored, so as it stands...



at least i can drive it to watch the BTCC tomorrow

[hotrod]

Good work mate hope you get it all sorted!

[mowgli]

that wiring reminds me of my stepbrothers golf... when he appeared at the end of each college term, me & dad would prune the various bits sticking out of the dash.....this was repeated about 4 times a year.. all of the wires were add ons & we never found out what they fitted..

[Asa-James]

bored at work yesterday, so i pulled the downpipe off as it was blowing its nuts off (been meaning to do this since the MOT)

started off as...


two minutes later...




and then another five minutes...


now its as quiet as a 23 year old car with a noisey buzzing centre box can be

and a couple of hours spent today with this

[brownbear]

Looking well that is.

[pie]

looking good dude