1991 Vauxhall Carlton GSI 3000 24V project

I'm a fan of these. Liked them when they first appeared. Don't want to imagine the lurking crustiness though. chris y took on a basket case one of these and did a grand job. Unfortunately his thread has got the Photobucket lurgi.

Great car and project. I saw this one on Ebay, you got a real bargain there on both of those I think, maybe because few people are willing to take on a very rusty Vauxhall.

As düdo said I did some extensive rust repair on one of mine, the thread is here in case its of interest, you will need one of the Photobucket fixes to see it, I can still see it so hopefully it will work.

retrorides.proboards.com/thread/181044/scrapyard-dodger-24v-carlton-g624xme


I'm looking forward to seeing your updates.


Thanks for the link düdo, I've been away and might have missed this one.

I've read your thread a good 2 or 3 times aswell as another thread on the flawless restoration of a GSI 12v (Think its on here, MIGWEB or autobahnstormers?). Both of them are excellent reading and are hands down without question the best Carlton GSI build threads on the internet. Fair play to you for the end result, if mine ever looks half as good or is half as solid I'd be delighted.

I'm surprised I got them for the price I did given that a GSI 24V manual (in similar condition to my silver one) sold on eBay a few months beforehand for roughly £1500. Mad money given its condition imo.


8. Got them back to the yard. Only photo I have of them together on landing. You can see the front of the silver car.


9. The task then was to get the silver car running and driving to see what I had. Given she would need a bit of work the first job was to pull her into the shed. So in this photo we can see a Vauxhall in its element.. On the wrong end of a chain

Now I had a bit of bother establishing what was wrong when she wouldn't start as some of you may have seen in the ''Technical Section'' of the forum. Thanks again to all of those who assisted.
forum.retro-rides.org/thread/200232/1991-vauxhall-carlton-3000-start
It was my first time working with injectors or using a multimeter hence it took me awhile but I got there in the finish up. A small bit of diagnosing later I found that I had spark, compression, cams were turning, injectors getting power, fuel rail getting fuel but the plugs were dry. The injectors were found to be blocked completely solid so were changed for the ones from the parts car.


10. So while waiting to purchase a multimeter, I occupied myself with a few other jobs. With a battery in the car and the ignition switched on the digital dash was found to be down with a rather bad case of completely dead. I checked the digi dash in the red parts car which came to life the second a battery was put into the car. The digi dash was pulled out of the parts car and transferred to the silver car. Photo shows the job at the half way stage with the old unit removed.


11. The dash from the parts car installed. That concludes the guide on how to clock your Carlton GSI from 145k down to 112k miles, Just don't tell the buyer.


12. The injectors as removed from the rail from the parts car. I found it to be a challenge to get the injectors+injection rail seperated from the fuel rail. I had to make a device to push the fuel rail away from the injection rail out of a 17mm bolt about 3'' long, a random 1/2 socket and a 17mm nut. I'll try and explain it as best I can.
Thread the 17mm nut about 2'' down the bolt. slip the socket over the nut so it sits flush with the end of the bolt and covers the 2'' or so of threads. There is a 3'' gap or so between the injection rail and the fuel rail, insert the bolt into this gap with the head of the bolt pushing off the injection rail and the socket end of the bolt pushing against the fuel rail. Start to turn the nut anti-clockwise as if to loosen it. This will push the socket off the bolt and against the fuel rail. Keep threading it until the fuel rail pops off the injectors one by one.


13. I gave the injectors a rough clean. Blocked the inlet with one of the wee rubber bungs you get to cover the bleed nipple on a brake caliper. Cleaned the injectors externally with a tooth brush and some carb cleaner. They cleaned up alright. Not amazing but satisfactory for this job.


14. This is my 'backyard' injector tester and cleaner. Now by all means its nowhere near the same job as properly servicing/cleaning injectors by a specialist company but given its only to get the car going it will do just fine.
First off each injector was tested to see did it open using the battery. I had a random old 2 pin female plug that when modified a small bit with a bench grinder would fit the plug on the injectors. I plugged this into each injector and (Taking note which pin on the injector was positive) held the pos + end of the cable off the battery and tapped the neg - end off the neg battery terminal. Upon hearing a click of the injector opening/closing confirmed that each injector was working.
Next step was backflushing. Tools needed were said electrical plug from earlier, battery, said caliper bleed nipple bung from earlier, tin of carb cleaner and injectors to clean. Stab a hole in bung using anything sharp/pointed. Slip the small pipe on the spray cap of the tin of carb cleaner into the hole (no jokes now please lads), slip the rubber bung over the outlet of the injector. Plug electrical plug into the injector. Connect positive to battery. Connect negative and spray carb cleaner. Don't hold the injector open for too long for I'm fairly sure I read somewhere that they don't like getting held open using a battery in this fashion for too long.
Once backflushed, reverse the injector and repeat the process spraying into the injector from the inlet side.
I suppose you should also observe the spray pattern. I wasn't really sure what I was looking for. All 6 injectors seemed to me to form a fairly consistent spray pattern so I was happy enough.


15. The rail reassembled. Where I had to make a device to push the fuel rail off the injectors, this time I needed a G-Clamp to push the injectors back into the rail. Aside from that its a simple reassembly. Not shown in the photo is the injector wiring loom.


16. And roughly 30 minutes or so later we have the rail back in car. 12 or so manifold nuts, 2 bolts holding it at each side at the top, 3 ground wires near the bulkhead. A pipe to reconnect also near the bulkhead. 3 vacuum pipes to connect, both fuel lines and the injector loom.

Insert battery, check oil, check petrol, disarm immobilizer, ignition on...


17. My apologies for recording this video with a potato. My potato generally record decent videos in daylight but the same can not be said for night time videos.

And it runs. Does definitely does not sound very nice though. I think/hope that the knocking noise is stuck hydraulic tappets. They can be heard clearer in the next video.


18. Close up of the engine running. You can hear the knocking noise more clearly. Also you can hear her hunting through the revs when held at a certain rev an awful lot. Given that its her first start possibly since 2004 she can be forgiven. There's plenty of cobwebs to get blown out of her yet.

Shortly after I removed everything from the roof and took her for a spin. Shifted the autobox into D and she began to creep forward. The power steering pump was making unhealthy noises for the first few moments (seems it had to bleed itself?) but turning the wheels left to right cured the problem. Took her outside the shed and up and down the yard. Drive through first and second works, brakes work (Although I won't be trying any emergency stopping). Most lights,etc all were working.

So during the week I will take her for a much needed power wash, She will be getting a service shortly and I'll try to get a few of the teething issues sorted out. With a good service the tappets might come unstuck? I want to tell myself that for I'm not fancying the thought of pulling most of the top end of just to get at one or two stuck ones at the current moment in time. Will see what happens.

The main tensioning guide is the one to look at - the tension on the chain is then compromised and it has a lot of slack - the chain snaps when the slack allows it to jump a tooth on the sprocket - it doesn't have enough slack then so tears itself apart

this !

Time for a fairly small update.


28. I acquired a ''rust free'' passneger front door form a 1993 Vauxhall Senator 24v. This car was broke for parts during the year in England. Most of the panels were bought by a fellow as spares for his project senator. He then sold on the project with the spares to a mate of mine. Cue me doing some welding for said mate and getting said ''rust free'' door in exchange.


29. Upon further inspection of the door and removal of the bump strip and doorcard, I uncovered 4 different rust holes. So much for being rust free. Luckily all the repair sections needed were available on the old passenger front door on the Carlton. Some cutting and welding later, I had a rust free door.


30. And now fitted to the Carlton. Total patches welded in so far.. Four. Some more work to do now swapping over door looms, door handle, mirror, glass, etc. All the glass on the Carlton is etched with the reg and I'd like to keep it.

That's probably going to be the only progress unless I find some more parts in the next while. On the hunt for 2 rear doors, hopefully actually rust free this time.

Fantastic...

The GSI Carlton is a legendary motor!

Any updates on this one?