Bilbo's mk1 Cavalier

loving this!

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Well it's been a while! Some car stuff has been going on, but life has been busy as per. Events (mostly non-car related), work, cat getting ill and sadly having to be put down, it's been a mixed bag. Coupled with not much free funds I haven't been able to do too much lately. But I'm getting myself in gear now and sorting out some fairly important bits!



First off I changed my backbox. My mate had the backbox from my old mk1 MX-5 on his mk2, as it sounded really good. Unfortunately it started rattling badly so he cut it off and fitted a new one. I found the baffle rattling and tack welded it up, and decided to put it on the Cavalier in place of the Jetex silencer and cherrybomb-esque setup I had at the back before.

Went with an upswept tip, just had some pipe lying around and thought why not, it might look more retro. I kind of like it, though the backbox does look a little big sat there, but it's kind of grown on me. I quite like the tip, I cut the end at a slight angle to give it a more finished appearance, kind of a slash tip sort of thing. I think it looks alright.





Sounds nicer than the old setup I think, sadly not got videos yet, my bad.

With that all done, I was driving with a mate, and as I did a rather spirited rev limiter 1st to 2nd gear change the car let out an enormous flame and bang on gear change, and I genuinely thought I'd blown the engine up. Sounded like knocking. Anyway turns out that the oldest portion of my now wrapped Frankenstein manifold decided it's time had come, and promptly split almost the entire way around 😂



The most disgusting blow noise ever as you can imagine. I've now cleaned this up and have welded it back together, all sorted. Not ideal though 😂



Anyway, onto more important things. The diff and gearbox whine are now at a point where I am just hating it haha. Since the prop issue (prop has been good since UJ replacement touch wood), the gearbox whine did worsen. The diff appeared to stay about the same, but it was clearly not happy. Pinion seal has started to weep now so it's definitely the pinion bearing on its way out.

So I grabbed one of my spare gearboxes and a mate gave me a hand to change it over last week. I hadn't realised as my spares were mk1 MX-5 boxes that the top cover section that I have my shifter relocation welded to doesn't exist on these. Luckily my mate has a couple of mk2 5 speeds knocking around at the unit, so we just used one of his ones instead.



Dug out the original 1.6 flywheel and my Exedy clutch that I took off the MX-5 when I broke it (only got about 20k on it so I'm using that now). The flywheel had been sat against the wall and had got a bit rusty, but he cleaned up the contact surface for me, and the spigot bearing felt ok, so we removed the damaged box and got it on.



The 1.6 flywheel is a couple of kg lighter than the 1.8 one that was on it. Clutch disc is a little smaller, but at this power level it's not a concern at all.

We then stripped apart the damaged box and he cut the input shaft off, so we now have a purpose-made MX-5 clutch alignment tool for free! Ideal. Anyway, replacement box went on no dramas, put prop back on, new oil in it, and it's much better. So that's that, and basically cost nothing other than 2 bottles of 75w90.

Notice inside the V banded exhaust, a very odd round portion of material. My flexi pipe appears to have done something a little odd, and is probably causing a bit of a restriction in there, so I'm going to cut it out and replace it with another I have soon. No idea what's happened there in all honesty 😂 And yes, that is an old Celica in the background. My mate has brought it back to the unit to get it roadworthy. Handed down to him from his grandad 9ish years ago, hasn't seen the road since the mid 90s. Very cool car!



I asked around about an axle and finally got offered one from someone very reputable in the Manta scene, which was ideal. My mate lived a lot closer, so he picked up the Manta axle and brought it down to me.



It's been sat for some time, but the corrosion was nothing to be concerned about, spring seats both look absolutely fine, nothing of concern on it. Took the brake lines and cylinders off, gave it a good old wire brush and conventional brush afterwards to remove any loose rust, dust and cobwebs etc. and it was looking a lot happier already.

Gave it a good coat of rust converter on all the surface rust and it was coming out real nice



Once that was dry I gave it a couple of coats of engine block paint, I thought as it's hard wearing, oil/chemical resistant, and temperature resistant it'll be ideal.



It's looking a lot healthier now. I've spun the shafts and pinion by hand and they appear to feel nice enough. I will take the cover off to inspect it before fitting just to be sure, but so far so good.

I have a brand new cover plate gasket, and a brand new pinion seal to go on it. I also have just bought the rear axle hardware kit from TJ Motorsport. It was relatively inexpensive really, so seemed a no brainer to replace the hardware when I put it in rather than using the old nuts and bolts, certainly won't hurt.

Hoping to have this diff in this weekend! And hopefully my whiney drivetrain woes will be over, and I'll no doubt be able to hear some other bad noise from something else 😂

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So, shifter v3.0 decided to finally throw in the towel. The weak point, the threaded bolt under the shifter that connected to the vertical rose joint snapped. My welds never failed, but the bolt itself sheared itself off. It was a weak point, it worked for a fair while though, so it did alright. Unfortunately it happened during a 4th to 5th gear change on a dual carriageway, which wasn't ideal, but it is what it is 😂

Now re-done again, This time I have welded the rose joint directly to the underneath of the shifter. Got it absolutely belting hot, it is well and truly welded on this time, no weak threads to worry about. Also while it was off I had bought some more little rose joints, so made the top section double rose jointed on both sides, not just one. This is far superior, when it's all bolted up the motion of the shift is almost identical to an MX-5 shifter in the standard location, with no side to side movement in the joints at all

Shifter 4.0 is officially the best version yet. I'm sure something will occur and 5.0 will appear at some point 😂

 


In other news, I made a discovery. Rear shocks. Spent some hours trawling various forum posts, discussions etc., and looking on parts websites at what was available.

My right rear KYB shock has blown. It's not horrendous, but it has been leaking for a little while. It's a standard length shock on a fairly lowered car, we all know this does happen. I could have just replaced it as they're not exactly pricey, but I didn't want to. I wanted shorter shocks, to reduce axle droop and keep my rear spring properly captive even when on the ramp.

The only shortened rear shocks I could find for a Manta/Cavalier were KONI ones. The Bilstein B6s might be too, but annoyingly they don't list these length specs anywhere, plus they're quite expensive, and non-adjustable. I don't really have the budget for £130-£150 a shock right now, despite that people do rate them.

So I started looking at other options from different vehicles. Rear shocks from similar cars with a bottom eye and a top pin setup. A fair few options out there, mostly all too short. Then I came across these:

www.autodoc.co.uk/bilstein/637572

Mk3 Cavalier rear shocks. Bilstein B4, not the sportiest option, but they seem to be widely liked across many different model owners as a decent OE replacement shock.



My KYBs were 610mm long fully extended. These are approx. 560mm fully extended. The top pin is the exact same diameter and thread as Manta shocks.





The bottom eye uses the same shank sized bolt to secure it, and the width of the bottom eye is basically identical to Manta shocks.



They also come with 2 rubbers and large washers for the strut mount at the top, exactly the same as a Manta shock.

Literally the only difference is the thread on the top pin is longer when fitted, so a bit more work with a spanner to secure the nyloc down, that's it. I now have approx. 2 inches less axle droop when raised on the ramp, my springs are happier sitting in the spring perch securely, and the shock is under way less compression when at resting ride height than the old ones. They should last longer as a result. They feel a tad firmer, which I actually wanted, the rear was super soft on the KYBs for my liking, but it isn't overly stiff now either.




It sat a little higher at first but settled a bit after the drive home. £33 each, I really can't complain.


Also AutoDoc have brand new Hella handbrake cable for Mantas, arrived today and all the ends, and centre bracket piece all look the same, so I think it's correct. Only £10, ideal. Will fit it later this week.

Overall super happy with the mk3 Cavalier shock discovery, it's nice to have a budget shorter shock option that works well and is easily available.

I will be changing my fronts soon as they're just cheap Ridex ones and are too soft. Seen several people mention classic Mini rear shocks fitting, so I might order some GAZ adjustables. Mini owners seem to comment how hard they are on the very light Mini, so I reckon they could be ideal on the front of this. Super cheap too so will give them a go I think!

So the Gaz Mini shocks arrived:



£58 each plus postage from Moss, not bad! They look pretty snazzy, and the adjustor has a really nice satisfying click to it as you twist it.

These are classic Mini rear shocks, the "Lowered" version, which are shorter than normal Mini rear shocks. At full extensions they're 350mm long, which is 27mm shorter than the KYBs I had fitted, and looking at some specs for other OE replacement shocks the KYBs were actually a bit shorter than some brands anyway. So these are pretty tiny.


Anyway, some small modifications were required to get these to fit.

The original lower shock bolt does not fit through the eye of the Gaz shocks. It is so close, but it doesn't go through. The bolt is an M10 shanked one. I tried an M8 bolt but this was clearly too small. We concluded that the Mini bolt for this eye was likely an imperial size, which we didn't have. So I put the shocks in the vice and gently drilled the metal bush inserts out to 10mm, which was pretty easy, as they only needed a very small amount of material taking out of them to fit the bolt.




All sorted.

The bottom eye is not very wide, even the KYBs I had to add a thick washer/spacer either side to hold them in the bracket. These needed the thick washer and another small washer either side, and then they fit perfectly snug and bolted up nicely. Sadly I didn't have new nuts and shanked bolts for these, so the old ones we re-used.



As for the tops, the rubber pieces and metal washers that came with the Gaz shocks weren't really right, so I used the ones I had fitted previously instead. The lower washer that goes on the shock I had to drill out to 12mm, as the piston rod on the GAZ shocks is actually bigger than the Cavalier shocks were. After that it slid right on (the rubber was super tight fit but went on with a little persuasion).



The rubber piece above has a smaller part that goes through the hole in the strut tower and holds it in place, so I think it is important to use this one.

As for the engine bay side, no modifications were needed, I just used the original rubber and washer with the new GAZ nut (different thread to original shocks).




Not got any photos of it back on the ground, but the front is a little higher than it had been. This is a good thing as the old shocks had clearly slowly deteriorated from the heavy compression they were under with it being lowered, and the front was sat noticeably lower than when I first got it on the road.

We have set them about half way between full soft and full hard to start off. I was a little concerned being for a very light Mini rear end that these wouldn't be hard enough even on full hard, but actually I might need to back it off just a couple of clicks from where it is now, which surprised me.

Overall pretty happy with this, the modifications really didn't take long and they fit just like an OE shock would.

Next up is sourcing a replacement rack, think my pinion is worn, the play is getting worse and I'm not a fan at all.

They seem pretty good quality I must admit, and for the price I can't argue at all.

good catchup. i cant think of anything constructive to say other than B6 are standard length

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Right, the new springs turned up. Exact same ones as before, only they were cheaper this time than before. £80 on eBay (listed as Manta B springs) for a set of 4 lowering springs. Must be terrible right? Well they're Kilen springs, I don't know much about them but apparently they're a Swedish brand, and from some Google searches the Volvo and Saab owners seem to really like them, so I guess it could be worse.

Anyway they're 40mm springs according to Kilen. So I split the front ball joint etc., got the old ones out (obviously rears on the front and fronts on the rear as I explained before 🙄), and I got the new fronts fitted. Finished that off and the rears were super easy, just undid the shock bolts and swapped the old for the new.

Also re-fitted the Mini Gaz shocks, and got it all back on the ground:



Sitting a bit high! So I gave it a drive, it was very comfortable to be fair! Let them settle, which they didn't do too much of in all honesty.

So yeah this is too high for my taste, and also the Mini shocks being the "Lowered" variant were very close to the top of their travel which I didn't like the idea of, so I modified the springs to suit.

Obviously fronts and rears are both pigtail end springs, not flat end ones. So cutting them is no different to how they come out the box, so I cut exactly 1 coil off all 4 springs. The springs rubbers slot back on perfectly, and they all went back in fine. All springs are perfectly captive, even with the rear axle on full droop (thanks to my new shorter rear shocks mainly).



Drove it home this evening and it is almost identical height wise to before (just a touch higher which I don't mind).



The Mini shocks are only set 10 clicks from full soft, I believe they are 20 or 22 clicks adjustment, and the ride is pretty firm on the front, but not too harsh. Honestly I'm a little surprised, as they are for a very light Mini rear, I was expecting to need to crank them up close to full hard to make them effective, but honestly I may even back them off 2 more toward soft, they are plenty firm enough. Which is great news as I no longer get harsh ducking and subsequent scraping on less than ideal bits of road now, these shocks seem much more up to the challenge, and of course having the correct springs on the front has certainly helped too 😂

 

In other news I had a search for a replacement rack. Found a couple of used Manta ones on eBay, but after searching for literally 30 seconds on Marketplace I found a Peter Lloyd quick rack (2.5 turn), never been used, and only 15 minutes away from where a mate of mine works. And for a really decent price too. So he picked it up for me this week. Will be fitting it next weekend. I would prefer less turns lock to lock, and the rack play is becoming very undesirable now, so 2 birds with 1 stone, ideal.

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Cheers for that mate. I got my mate to send photos of it, as I haven't got it off him yet. Luckily it has the rubber coupling and female "Double D" style attachment for the OEM shaft to go into (that's a ridiculous sentence without context 😂😂). So hopefully it will be a like for like replacement of the current setup.

So after a bit of a fiasco with AutoDoc and Evri I finally got my new inner tie rods and track rod end delivered. In the meantime I found someone selling a single NOS QH inner tie rod on eBay, so I grabbed that last week.

When I pulled it all apart and really looked at the inner tie rods and track rod ends it's clear there were some issues. Overlooking the old grease in my original rack had cause the mud brown gritty grease to go all over my inner tie rods, and the driver's side one had developed a very noticeable amount of in and out play (this was brand new when the car was put on the road last January). This was the main source of my 9 and 3 play in the wheels, as well as the old rack having a little itself.

The track rod ends themselves had also developed an issue. I can't recall what brand they were, but it appears the clips/ties for the rubber boot had come away on both sides at some point, leading to the joints becoming dry and dirt getting into them, despite both boots still looking perfectly fine on the car.

Anyway all of these have now been replaced, with new MOOG inner tie rods and track rod ends fitted this evening.





The gaiters were both in perfectly good condition, so I just cleaned the inside of them an re-used. As you can see I did add a thick cable tie both sides in the grooves on the inner tie rods though. These boots are a harder plastic type boot, and I noticed even with clamps on the outer side, when compressed they would sometimes slide a bit over the tie rod as they resist compressing much more than a soft rubber boot. The cable ties stop this from happening, so the boots stay exactly where I want them, meaning they can't collect dirt inside them by dragging over the exposed tie rod over time.



The steering is so much better now, there is no wheel play, and absolutely zero free movement in the centre of the steering at all like before. The rack feels tight and it is much nicer to drive. Its heavier, but the decreased turns lock to lock is very noticeable, especially when needing to go to full lock when parking etc. Also got some new Toyos fitted to the front, and I did put on my new cam cover a while ago but forgot to show it:



Engine bay is looking a bit grotty, I should probably give it a clean soon. I'm a little disappointed with the cam cover, while the red lettering came out well the metallic black high temp paint I used is more of a matt grey, But it's still better than the oil covered original one I guess.



Next up I have a brand new Hella handbrake cable to fit, a couple of little rust areas to attend to, as well as a couple of bodywork issues that have been bugging me. The car has also had a couple of minor running issues, I think this is potentially related to my wideband sensor reading, perhaps an intermittent earthing issue somewhere. I'm also going to check the exhaust pre-sensor for any blows, as sometimes the AFR readings the last few days have looked oddly lean at idle sometimes, so maybe some fresh air being drawn in. Will get the laptop plugged in and see what's going on.