humbucker's 1993 Vauxhall Cavalier Turbo 4x4

So this was originally posted October of last year:

Well it was only a matter of time I guess... I’ve been thinking about adding a Cavalier Turbo to the fleet for a while now. It had to be Satin Red (I love this colour!), and it had to be near-standard. Oh, and relatively unmodified. The lower the mileage the better, and obviously free of the dreaded rot. A tall order you might think, and you’d probably be right. I decided to put it to the back of my mind while I started to get my V6 roadworthy again.

Then this one came up for sale. It had been in the custody of a member of the owners club for the last twelve months or so, who in turn had bought it from fellow member Bennymac. Benny had bought it to break, but changed his mind once he had it home and saw how solid the chassis was. Instead, he ran it for a while and then sold it on so that it could be looked after by another enthusiast. Knowing it was a good low mileage example, and ticked all the right boxes, I promptly booked my train tickets.

Anyway, I figured I should put a WIP up. Here’s a snap or two that I took today following a quick hose down (the car, not me):







Near mint Turbo leather:




"Probably the most desirable engine Vauxhall have ever produced"; the C20LET:


More or less as it stands:

1993 Satin Red Vauxhall Cavalier 2.0 16v Turbo 4x4
6 speed Getrag F28 gearbox
Standard 16” light alloy wheels
Recent respray
Koni adjustable shock absorbers all round
Lowering springs (not quite sure how much lower atm)
TX Autosport alloy radiator
Renault Laguna splitter
Magnecor KV85 HT leads
Samco / Roose Motorsport silicone hoses
Collins dump valve
Head skimmed and pressure tested
New valves and lifters
New gaskets
Metal head gasket
Helicoils reworked
Recent water pump and timing belt
Toad alarm, immobiliser and locking system
Delocked with Vectra door handles
Uprated door and rear shelf speakers
Dash mounted boost gauge
Complete Mongoose stainless exhaust system from manifold back (decat)
Courtenay Sport cool running thermostat
Relocated door and boot badges
Smoked side repeaters
Vauxhall tailored mats
Alloy door pins

This particular Turbo also has air conditioning, airbags, and wipers for the headlamps (although the air con is currently inactive as it needs an air con rad fitting). The car came with a great deal of service/parts history too.

The car has been very well maintained by its former keepers and it’s rock solid underneath. It’s in need of a new set of tyres which I’ll be sorting this week, a head unit, and I have already spoken to Mike Hayward about sourcing a locking kit for the transfer box. I’ll have it up on the ramps tomorrow so will post some pics of the underside then.

The intention is to maintain the Turbo to a high standard with some sensible / subtle mods, building on what’s already there. In case you were wondering, my other Cavalier, the V6 project, isn’t going anywhere; that’s still a long term restoration project. I’m looking forward to having both cars running side by side

Funnily enough I was stood around the car at Billing this year; Dent Devils were pulling a small dink or two out of the bodywork and I was stood around watching them work their magic. I took pics of (almost) all of the Cavalier Mk3’s to post up on Vauxhall Cavalier Mk3 Owners Club for the benefit of all our members who couldn’t make it down to the event, and this is the snap I took of what was soon to become my very own Cavalier Turbo! At this point it was sitting on the Dare rims:



The pics of all the other Cavalier Mk3’s from the weekend can be found here if you’re interested; I’m sure you’ll recognise a few:
Vauxhall Cavalier Mk3 Owners Club | View topic - The Mk3 Cavaliers of VBOA National Day, Billing, July 2011

"If I were you i'd do some nice little touches to it just to bring it upto date abit, nothing too much just a few bits here and there. Thats the way I wanted to go with mine. Have you got any more pics of the inside? It does look like its in good nick in there."

Yup, here they are. Gave the car a bit of a hoovering out so took the opportunity to take some interior snaps. Near mint Turbo leather, obligatory ‘Vauxhall’ tailored mats... but no head unit! Will sort one out at some point but otherwise very tidy indeed:









I’ve never really understood why Vauxhall had ‘16V TURBO’ printed on the fascia of the dash clocks on these cars. Did they think that people would forget what it was that they were driving?



Boot carpet could probably benefit from a steam clean at some point:



None of that space saving nonsense here thank you very much!:



Boot floor is in fantastic condition, bit of a wipe around and it will be as good as new (almost!):



Am now awaiting delivery of a few bits and bobs for jobs that I will do on the car in the coming weeks. Service parts, 8v sump and replacement bolts, new badges, headlight trim, a few other odds and sods and that all important 4x4 transfer box locking kit. Tally ho!

And now, a history lesson!

After a fairly low mileage and uneventful life in the hands of four previous owners, my Turbo was tucked up in dry storage somewhere in deepest darkest Saahf Laahndaahn. In seven years the new owner did an approximate 5k miles and in this time decided to SORN the old girl. This long period of dry storage is surely the reason the chassis is in such amazingly solid condition (touch wood!).

After buying and replacing parts ready for its release back into the wild (all OE parts including clutch, cambelt, waterpump, donut rubbers, as well as a Regal downpipe, Koni adjustable shocks, Avo lowering springs and a Scorpion full exhaust) it seems there was a change of heart and the car was advertised for sale. The car’s exterior wasn’t in the best condition though with a surprising amount of lacquer peel and parking dents caused by its previous owner(s). To add to this, the driver’s door was missing the Turbo trim panel, the door itself was the wrong colour, and the front bumper was hanging on for dear life! Keen to find a donor car for his own Cavalier Turbo project, our very own BennyMac bought the car to use as a breaker in the summer of 2010.

After the long trip home from London to Scotland (hauling the equivalent of a GM parts warehouse full of spares behind him) Benny decided to replace the car’s handbrake cable. It was while he was working under the car that he was amazed at just how solid she was underneath, despite the impression given by her ropey paintwork! With this in mind, plans to break the car were shelved and it was used as Benny’s runabout for a few months. Some pics after he got the car home:







The ever enterprising Benny had a cunning plan. Some shiny wheels! Nobody will notice the dodgy paintwork then! Mwahaha!



(well, providing they don’t go round to the driver’s side hehe!)



Benny drove the car to Billing and back in the weeks that followed and it featured in the owner’s club Rolling Road day where it made bang on 205bhp. Not bad for a stock setup which is supposed to have left the factory with only 204 almost twenty years ago!

So the drivers door was sorted but a few months after the initial run ‘north of the border’ it was time to part company. The car, now well known in the owners club and on some OE Turbo alloys, was bought by club members Heath & TurboNic who set about righting a few wrongs:



The car wasn’t running quite right, and so after initial investigation a strip down and rebuild was in order for the head. Cue replacement lifters, valves, skim and pressure test, metal head gasket, reworked helicoils and a TX Autosport alloy radiator. The engine is now ridiculously quiet, no tapping whatsoever (even from cold) and she really purrs.



Then after some minor repair work to a spot of rust on the rear panel it was time for some prep and a long overdue visit to the bodyshop!



I think this qualifies as air conditioning:





Off to the paintshop!



By this time some 17” Dare alloys had made their way onto the car (which are currently for sale if you’re interested):





















Lacquer peel? What lacquer peel?!







Reassembly begins:



By now the car featured a Renault Laguna front splitter, some blue Samco / Roose Motorsport silicone hoses, all door locks and handles replaced with Vectra B items, a nifty DVD player, Mongoose decat stainless exhaust system, repositioned boot badges, a near mint replacement Turbo leather interior, Magnecor leads etc etc... all set for another trip to Billing! Hoorah!

...and that’s pretty much where the history lesson ends. I had been casually looking for a Turbo for some time and this one became available, ticked all the right boxes and had the vote of confidence from everyone in the owner’s club who knew her. So after a horrid three and a half hour train journey up to Stoke-On-Trent I was driving the car home!

She’s more or less the best example I could have wished for, but like all second hand motors she’s not without her niggles/teething problems. I’ll be picking up bits in order to work on her and pick up where others have left off in the coming weeks (expect to see some progress in the not-too-distant). I’ll be keeping her as near to standard as I can while I play with my V6 project.

Here’s some more snaps taken when I’d got the car home:





Looking back at the pics at the beginning of this project thread it’s amazing how small the tyres look compared to the new ones that I’ve fitted (the new ones being the correct size). Anyway, there you have it! A brief history of my Turbo! Thanks to Benny and Nicci for the pics.

On with the show... :cool:

Throwing all my cleaning products into the back of the car turned out to be a shrewd move. Having spent 24 hours cleaning the car I arrived at the shoot and was led down a dirt track into a mudbath. Hoorah!



I was able to wipe the curse word off of the outside of the car but the interior proved a little more tricky. Anyway, as soon as we came to a halt I got out the cloths and started cleaning the mud off!

The location was a wind farm at Burton Latimer in Northamptonshire and the turbines for the windfarm were the perfect backdrop for a fleet of turbocharged cars. The cars in attendance were my Cavalier Turbo, a Fiat Uno Turbo, a Mk3 Supra Turbo and a bonkers Citroen CX Gti Turbo 2 complete with a humungous louvered full rear windscreen spoiler. A bit of an odd mix of motors but I guess that was the point. There was also supposed to be an MR2 and a turbocharged TransAm but the latter wasn’t available in time and there didn’t appear to be an unmodified MR2 on the road at the time of the shoot so it ended up being just the four cars.



I only took a few pics on the day as the light faded fairly rapidly and most of the shots were taken at night with us driving down the dual carriageway in hot pursuit of one another. They’re going to make great ‘action shots’ so I look forward to getting the DVD of images and popping a pic or two up here.









It was a great day and the photographer took some amazing snaps which I can’t wait to get hold of. The feature (and cars) should be on the front cover of Practical Classics at some point in the first quarter of the new year. I think it’s a six page feature so it should have plenty of room for the detail on each car, especially as so many photos were taken inside, outside and under the bonnet. It wasn’t until I looked back at the pics that I noticed that my 18 year old Cavalier Turbo was the newest car there!

Got back late Saturday night and hit the sack. First thing Sunday I went out and washed the car again(!), this time just to release it of all the cak that had built up during the shoot and on the way home. The Meguiars Techwax stuff that the kind folk down at Total Vauxhall had sent me a little while back made it easy enough to wipe clean, but that didn’t stop me from spending another three hours out there.

Beads mutafukaz!





Dried the car down and put her back in the garage where she will now be tucked away for the winter. I’ve got a list of jobs to do in the coming weeks so will crack on with those during the cold snap. Will report back soon.

I thought I'd posted this update earlier but I must have forgotten. Oh well!

A really exciting weekend for the Turbo recently (which I have no doubt has resulted in some stone chips/war wounds!). Despite not bringing myself to inspect the paintwork in any great depth, these are battle scars that I won’t be losing too much sleep over; the cause of them will keep me smiling for a long time to come.

A while back I suggested a feature on legendary DTV racing car Baby Bertha for Total Vauxhall (I write for a number of motoring magazines). To cut a long story short, the shoot took place a few weeks ago and my Cavalier Turbo earned it’s right to be called ‘photographer’s assistant’ and perhaps establish the Cavalier as a Multi Purpose Vehicle!

Having taken over one of the runways at a local airfield, I strapped our trusty photographer into the boot of my Turbo so that he could obtain the action shots we needed. Seeing Baby Bertha roaring up behind in my rear view mirror as we hurtled along the runway was incredible and the resulting photographs look fantastic. You can check them out in the latest edition of the magazine but in the meantime you’ll have to settle for my paltry efforts below hehe!

Humbucker’s Vauxhall Cavalier Turbo 4x4 MPV aka ‘The Photographer’s Assistant’:



It was a fantastic day and a dream realised to play with this legendary racing car. The thrill of drifting at warp speed in this thing is something I certainly won’t forget in a hurry, let alone the deafening noise of that V8 from inside the cockpit. Here’s a pic I took of the two cars together. Mine's the one on the right in case you were wondering :lmao:

Enjoy!

Well in the run up to PVS I thought I had better make a start on some of the bits that I want to get done in time for the show. I’m not exactly rushing things, so the major jobs (transfer box and engine overhaul etc) will be done at some point later in the summer. For now I’ll be concentrating on service and cosmetic jobs. In the meantime, the weather cleared a bit enabling the car to leave the garage where it has been hibernating for the past few months. She’s been out once every few weeks or so (the Baby Bertha shoot for example) but that’s about it. Nevertheless, that was enough for a nice coat of dust and muck to form and so I’ll be getting busy with the AutoGlym over the coming week or so!

As if I needed any more prompting, PVS tickets and the Total Vauxhall ‘Rare and Iconic’ stand pass arrived at the back end of last week. I believe this qualifies as some kind of deadline:



The tried and tested caravan dehumidifiers have been working well while the car has been under cover and tucked away. I couldn’t recommend these enough and use them in all my cars. They fit perfectly in the storage compartment behind the handbrake of a Cavalier too:







Like all good Cavalier Turbos, mine came with a number of niggles that are in need of some attention. As the car has been a ‘garage queen’ over the winter, and as I’ve been busy on other projects, I haven’t troubled myself with getting around to sorting any of them out. Nevertheless, as the MOT was due I thought I might as well run it up to the test centre to see what I’m duty bound to look at in addition to the non-MOT bits I want to play with. As it transpired, the car needed headlamp adjustment and a small patch of welding on the back of the passenger side sill. Thankfully it was a small area that was in isolation and didn’t cause too much of a headache:







And a liberal coating of sealer/guard:



We then nipped back up to the test centre and the car passed. Hoorah! I would say the car ‘got a green ticket’ but obviously these days the MOT certificate is more like something your mate knocked up in Excel than an important piece of paperwork from the Ministry of Transport. This must be the easiest document in the world to forge. Oh well.

So we were now road legal for another twelve months and what better way to celebrate than a trip over to my mates bodyshop to sort out a couple of minor annoyances (with the car, not him!). At some point in the recent past the car has had a very light knock on the back end; perhaps the ol’ reversing-into-a-post routine, or maybe one of those irritations referred to as ‘other drivers’?! Who knows, but I noticed it when I first went to look at the car. It’s nothing major but unfortunately the knock had resulted in a slight dink at the top of rear panel behind the bumper. You can probably see the slight change in shape in the gap between the bumper and boot opening on the driver’s side in the pic below:



Now ordinarily this is entirely hidden from view, but the resulting dink meant that the driver’s side rear light didn’t sit as flush with the Turbo boot panel as I would have liked. It looked like the boot panel was sitting slightly proud, but in fact it was the light cluster slightly further back than it should have been. Furthermore, the boot panel reflector had a slight crack in it and the light cluster itself was marked, presumably both as a result of the now infamous dink. This was one of the reasons I got hold of some new rear lights (the ones that I promptly de-tangoed in an earlier post):



Original lights:



With the panel straightened, the light cluster lined up perfectly which put a smile on my face. After a quick adjustment to the bootlid our work on the rear of the car was done. Next up was a small dink on the front end near the headlight (forgot to take picture of that). It was barely noticeable but was worth sorting anyway. With that completely gone, we turned our attention to the bonnet which has been removed at some point or another but not put back on 100% straight. We soon found out what was causing it to feel sloppy when it you dropped the hood haha!



I also had another good look at the condition of the inner arches and boot floor to see if they were still sound and was pleased to see you could eat your dinner off of them (well, almost...). Will give this a proper clean at a later date:





I bought a replacement Turbo boot panel from our friend Cavalier-C20LET which I think originally came off of Cavhopper’s car before it went to the great scrapyard in the sky. There isn’t a single mark on the reflectors, not even the suggestion of a hairline crack, and it is already Satin Red so this makes the ideal replacement for my original panel without me having to use the brand new one I have reserved for my V6. This will be going on the car shortly:







With the car back in my garage it was time to get her up on axle stands and prepare some bits for a trip to the powdercoaters. I picked up a bargain LET timing belt and cam cover on the ‘bay, complete with plug cover and oil cap. The cam cover had a very bizarre paint job, as though it had been mock-polished and then someone had tried to paint a gradient of colour around the edge. It was ideal for stripping but a baffling choice of finish:







‘Muppets’ may well be appropriate...



...especially as one of the breathers was actually sealed shut with paint!



Having removed the blockage I thought I’d strip it and apply the SBD insipired breather mod before it goes away for media blasting:









...and remaining part ready to be cleaned up and refitted:



With the wheels off I checked the condition of the discs and wishbones etc, mainly because I’d just had to fit new arms to the V6 so figured the Turbo might be in need of some attention in that department too. Thankfully the discs looked healthy enough and the CV’s and suspension arms look like they’ve been replaced in the recent past. Bingo by jingo!



The wheels are also off to the powdercoaters where they will be receiving an acid bath, a media blast, remedial work and colour etc. The one thing that foxes most of us with Cavalier or Calibra Turbo alloys is the centre caps as the centres are an odd size (not quite the 55mm found elsewhere iirc). As I had some spare Astra Mk4 centre caps I thought I’d play around and see if I could combine the two.

I’ve amassed quite a few of these so dismantled the worst four:







The Astra griffin emblem is clipped into place, whereas the Cavalier centre is glued on. The Astra item is also smaller and the bit of the centre cap that shows through the badge is unlikely to be completely smooth on the Cavalier so I decided to order some alu-vinyl centre cap emblems off of the ‘bay and see what I could do with them. I will report back when they turn up.



The Cavalier centre caps were thrown in the box with the cam cover and timing belt cover ready for some rubbing down and colour. I did try and fit the Astra Mk4 centre cap as it is but it’s just too small. A shame as it looks pretty neat:



I recently bought a spare set of wheels so these are on standby to help roll the car about while the ‘proper’ wheels are at the powdercoaters. These are Cavalier Turbo alloys again, but have been painted black. One had a slight air leak so I whizzed it down to the tyre centre and had it repaired. The tyres aren’t brilliant but for what I need them for at the moment they’re just the ticket:



I came across some red strut tops in a box of bits which were intended to be placed on the V6. They were nice enough but not what I want for this engine bay so they’ve been sent to the powdercoaters too and will be put on this car instead. I also removed the bonnet stay and threw that in the box! All the parts, including the wheels, are being powdercoated in the same bright silver with a slight sparkle added to them. They should look pretty good.



Anyway, next up it was time to drop all the fluids starting with engine oil and the F28 transmission oil... and not before time:



The contents of an F28. Yuk:



In the process my ratchet's directional switch thingy broke, so off to Halfords for an exchange. Keep your receipts folks; this one was four years old! Apparently ‘lifetime guarantee’ means exactly that:



..and the shiny new replacement!



A box of joy arrived; lots of gearbox oil, diff oil, gaskets, bulbs, new header tank, screws, bolts etc and a LUK clutch kit for the F28. My release bearing is starting to complain a bit so that’s one of the jobs destined for later in the summer:



More to follow as I'm suffering from tea deprivation right now.

Nice thread dude and good to see you over here on R&R. Is this the same car you came to pick the gsi kit up from me in Beverley? Couldnt believe you got it all in the car!!

Saturday night ended up being another ridiculously late finish, especially as I had to be up at five in order to leave for PVS. At half one in the morning I decided enough was enough and so didn’t have time to post any updates before the show. Fret not, for here is that update in full!

The headlamp wiper arms were in a poor state on the car so the replacements were ordered (see previous update). They showed the usual stone chips but the passenger side arm had a chunk missing from it so it’s not as though a quick spray would have sorted them out. Anyway, before and after shots:





It was then time to start preparing the new cam cover. Breather mod in place, a brand new genuine cam cover gasket fitted and a set of shiny stainless bolts and washers to replace the old black ones:











Gave the leads a good wipe down before they went back on. This pic is for Benny hehe:



I’ve been slowly replacing all the blue hoses under the bonnet with red ones as they have been popping up for sale. There was a tired looking red hose going from the cam cover to turbo breather so that was replaced with this nice new Roose item to match the others. I gave it a good clean and fit it complete with new jubilee clips. It came with red amal valve pipes too which is handy as the ones on the car are blue at the moment. I’d already put the airbox back on without thinking so I’ll plumb in the new ones later (the existing ones are routed underneath the airbox):







I also have a matching coolant to turbo hose to replace the black one but as I wasn’t planning a coolant flush before the show this will wait until another day.

Before putting the new oil in the car I stuck a Satin Red(?!) magnetic sump plug in place of the OE item. With this item proudly in place I then dumped all the oil in. As I was sorting the next job out it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn’t put the new oil filter in place! Doh! Rushing under the car I screwed the new one on cursing at my schoolboy error and thankful that at least I didn’t try and drive it out of the garage and THEN realise!





USB power now in place to help stop my phone from running out of battery when I’m using the onboard SatNav. Proved useful on the way to PVS. The cigarette lighter was redundant anyway:



This was the crack in the rear reflector (drivers side). It let the backend of the car down so I removed the panel in advance of cleaning the car with a view to putting the replacement panel on as soon as everything was cleaned up properly. You can also see in this picture how the boot panel and rear light line up properly thanks to the adjustments at the bodyshop:



Another schoolboy error; with the boot panel removed, and therefore a very loose boot lock, I slammed the boot shut only to realise that as soon as I pressed the boot lock button it popped straight through into the boot itself! Thankfully I was able to retrieve it so I gaffer taped up the bootlid to prevent anything getting in when I chucked water over it! The original rear lights were back on while I cleaned the inside of the detangoed ones. The layer of grime you see on the car was achieved just from the Baby Bertha shoot for Total Vauxhall a few weeks back (the car hadn’t been out since):



It was now starting to get pretty late and I hadn’t even washed the car yet, so at around 9pm I got the powdercoated wheels on and filled up a bucket ready for the rub down. Light was fading fast so I did as thorough job as I could and then chamois’d the car down whole resigning myself to the fact that a deep polish was going to have to wait until another day.



With light now a thing of the past it was back into the garage to fit the plug cover and a sparkly new heatshield, again with brand new stainless bolts and washers. Turbo tophat cover was also back in place, although I ran out of stainless bolts for that. Made a note to self to pick up some more. I was hoping to replace the short breather pipe with a new item too. I’d held out for ages for a Roose one to pop up on the ‘bay or on the forums but nothing turned up so I bit the bullet and bought a brand new one. Sadly it didn’t arrive in time so that can go on when I get some time to work on the car next. Anyway, it didn’t make that much of a difference as everything was starting to look pretty tidy:



Brand new badge for the front grille as the old one had a few stone chips and general age related battle scars:





I didn’t have time to faff around with all the badges on the bootlid so I just worked on the Griffin badge; when I cleaned the car up for the Practical Classics magazine shoot (publish date has been pushed back again, perhaps September now) I had a nice new badge to replace the knackered old one on the spoiler. I removed the badge with such force that the backing plate snapped into three bits which was unfortunate as the replacement I had for it turned out to be the non-spoiler version which is quite a bit bigger. In the end I had to superglue the old badge back together and as the lugs had snapped off I superglued them in place in the spoiler itself. Less than ideal but better than no badge at all. I did ask the snapper on the shoot not to take too many pics of the rear end for this reason but we’ll see what ends up in the mag! Anyway, to cut a long story short, I prized the bodged badge back off of the car and then had to drill out the superglued lugs so that the brand new badge could sit in its place comfortably:









Tadaa!



Missing windscreen wiper bolt cap robbed from the V6:



8V polished oil filler cap to replace the yellow/black 16V item:



Previously I mentioned the alu-vinyl centre cap emblems that I was going to try out in the absence of readily available OE centre caps. I had the original centre caps sans badges painted up at the same time as the wheels and then I added these new vinyl emblems. I’m quite pleased with them to be honest. The purists among you will send daggers my way for the fact that they’re the latest edition of the Griffin logo instead of the mid 90s version but I like them and I haven’t seen any others on a set of Cav Turbo rims yet so why the hell not eh?!



...and that was it! It was time to hit the sack or drop dead so I took advantage of the three and a half hours I had left til it was time to get up and leave the house. A brief nap later, it was five in the morning and the sun was already beating down. When I rolled the car out of the garage I realised I’d left the bonnet open from the night before. Just as well that I looked as the 8V oil filler cap isn’t as tight as I thought it would be and it was spitting oil all over the cam cover. I put the black 16V cap back on and cleaned it all up. While I was at it I took a quick couple of snaps as in daylight the engine bay looked really nice after the long night that had just passed:



Now running late it was full steam ahead to pick up teamSlinky and then on to meet Maracus and others for our convoy to the show. In the words of Mr Manilow, looks like we made it!

More pics to follow.