cavalier gsi 2000 4x4 jigsaw

[davie_16v]

hi there guys, been a user for a while and yet never posted a project on the site and thought id do one to show you what im up to, at the moment im putting together a jogsaw puzzle of a cavalier gsi, it was getting stripped by my mate and i thought it was to good a base to ruin so ive started to put the car back together.

this is the car away back in the day, after falling in love with the car on ebay it was bidded on and promptly bought and brought to sunny scotland, really not looking its best with its fibreglass spoiler and horrid subaru scoop badly fitted to the bonnet



well the story goes it came home and heart ruling over sense the car was looked at rather quickly when it was pciked up and when it came to scotland it was looked over a bit more carefully to find it needed a fair bit of welding, but not wanting to cut the story short the car was welded and given a nice new coat of underseal, woo hoo i hear you shout lol, the cavalier now getting old hit 140k and bang went the compression, so out came the sick old xe and a new 70kish xe was fitted from a calibra, so yeah its was on the road again but being a car with dodgy seats the onlt time the world looked right was when you were on a really steep hill, so out came the standard interior and a diplomat interior was fitted, other the that the old school oz rims were flogged for a rather unhealthy looking wheels that would look better placed on a chav'd up corsa c :P

so here the story starts






after sitting arround in the street for a while and with the road tax ticking away it was crunch time, fix or break well not wanting to add another cavalier to the great carpark in the sky it was desided that it should be repaired, so all we had to do was find some parts, well going down the route of finding lots of seperate bits was on the cars till this appeared, now im not a caalier fan but there not a bad looking car and would never kill a good one but see for your self i think you will agree it was dead

the day it was dropped off




after a wee inspection and making a list of the parts wee needed it made sence to but the car and strip it and after it was delivered we found out why it had been registered as scrapped

drivers rear


passengerside rear



drivers inner arch

passengers inner arch


i know alot of vauxhall lovers but doubt many good have saved it holes holes holes everywhere

with the grey one ready we started, first thing that had to go was the bonnet, it just doesnt do anything for the look of the car, so with the car sitting on pallets for a bit the bonnet and tailgate where removed and replaced with the standard grey panels, was going to leave the black grill no but on closer inspection it had been cut and had knightrider lights fitted which just aint cool


so now we had started the grey car needed to be stripped and rebuilt on the black one so it was stripped of all its goodies and to get the rooflining out in one piece i thought id break the back window only to find out you can get it in and out without breaking any windows, duh!




being in a tidy mood all the old bits where fitte carefully to the grey cavalier so that when it got scrapped all the old bits went with it who could tell lol


now to add to the grey panels parade a door was needed rear passengerside door under the moisture trap of a bodykit sported this very sleek speed hole


now after being told the grey gsi was to go to the bin the next day i had to get the door off in a hurry, after trying the pins it was no good,drastic action was needed so off came the while post




4 pictures not that interesting i know but i was amused by it

davie

[davie_16v]

the biggest job in the black car being to remove the whole interior, headcloth was sagging, dash was cracked, door cards were all sagging with no kerb lights, carpets were bogging, seats were boggin and generally in a right state, to be fair the grey car was so much cleaner in side

first major job was the swopping of the engines, now the engine id fitted in the black car a year ago had full history and was well looked after, the engine i fitted had no history and no one had seen it running( in time i see tears) but because it had a coscast head it was seen to be better lol dont see the fasination myself lol

so out this came

and into this it went


so on to the interior which to this day is still on going, its the usual story where to start well i started by removing the leather


but its the where to stop i had the problem with



so with it all out i went on with my merry way to do some wee jobs that really needed done
first was this, now being the proud owner of many vauxhalls in the past and seen many bodged jobs i still managed to be shocked by this

now theres a reason the steering coloumns missing, when i was removing the dash i popped the centre of the steering wheel off to be faced with this
now there was no bolt holding the steering wheel on and no way to get a bolt on it so the whole thing had to be changed
old vs newish

all fitted and bolted up securely


while doing all this i had to remove the old alarm, and when i took the old doorcards off all the rods going to the locks had been removed which answered the question to why you couldnt get in the doors with the key so when i removed the coloumn i fitted the front locks as well so now the one key fits everything on the car and its all put together right as it should have been

with the locks on and fitted the door cards started to go back on and so it started to look like a car inside again, with a newish roof lining and some door cards fitted there was smiles appearing and then with the leather starting to go back it started to make the spares collection smaller equalling more space in the garage




Mmm mouldy seatbelts yummy :P

heres how its sitting at the moment


still undesided what bumper to fit, theres a black one , burgundy one, grey one and a horrid kit bumper that ill show you lower down :P

heres how the parts selection was looking




we got £20 for the spoiler woo hoo sadly its been modified to fit a 3series compact while i write this ;(


dash boards lol

the door and its door post waiting for me to remove the old door pins and get it fitted


and in the RED corner

the grey corner


and the flippy yucky colour corner


for those who remember the chameloan cavalier, here its kit lives in its own corner and here it will stay cause i aint fitting it (gutted :P)

the rear of the car just now

and ill return to this pic for the spot the difference lol thats right the m3 mirrors got binned


bit slow at the moment as the weathers not to hot but ive got a wee valver corsa that sits right outside my front door which means i can play with it when its not raining and work on the cavalier any other times

what you think?

davie

[danwileman]

Nice to see a cav being put back together rather than stripped. Is the 4x4 working?
What wheels are you planing, just a set of gsi ones?

[davie_16v]

not sure about the wheels, ive got a wee corsa that im making 5 stud and considered putting the parts on the gsi and making it 5 stud but id have for it to be mistaken for a turbo lol

davie

[MSG]

lots of hard work there.

[davie_16v]

and so much more work to be done, waiting on an auto electrician to come, when i removed the clifford alarm it was wired directly into the ignition wiring so i cant solder and i need him to solder the 2 wires together so that i can then get the dash in and built up

davie

[Fow16v]

good work, was it not posible to simply apply a bit of fiber glass and filler to the arches of the grey one? lol

[Brett]

loving the grey ones plate. For ****s Sake

[CraigGreen]

Nice one matey! Pat on the back for reviving a classic.

Takes me back to when we stripped my GSi after it was stolen & recovered. We cut the roof off & all the pillars. The ddors wouldnt close because the pillars just flopped outwards. So much wiring & gubbins under the carpets on these too.

I'll keep an eye on this thread. Liking it so far. Needs turbo leather fr seats though.

[davie_16v]

fow16v, yeah but a bit more fibreglass and filler than i can afford prob cheaper getting another gsi lol

Brett, it took me 10mins to work out what you ment but i finally caught on :P

CraigGreen, the seats that were in it the backs where broke so you constantly sat miles back, so the diplomat leather came up cheap and it got tossed straight in

davie

[davie_16v]

thought id go for another update but not for the cavalier, thought id add in the car i play with myself

my budget corsa, when not working on the cavalier i work on this, and the reason its a budget car is that all the below parts i got given

the car, the engine.the wheels, the seats,afm,throttlebody plate,ecotec pipe,induction kit,and a few other odds and ends


wee r plate 1.0 12v merit, given to me for free which i couldnt grumble with


wow i hear you say bet you cant wait to see the engine well here it is all 3 cylinders of it


the wee car had been ran without oil for to long and the engine had died gutter :P

so being that there was a spare xe on the go i desided to go and build another xe corsa, so after a wee trip down to ayrshire i had my mounts and a few other bits which ill get to later, so in the van the spare xe went and on its travels it went to my own driveway where it was lowered in


being that it was raining and i didnt want even wetter i left the rear mount off till a warmer day so when i got the mount on i set about the engine with a can of gunk and paint brush so not only did i have a nice level engine i also had a clean engine lol spot the difference?


shiney mounts good quality ones as well


next job was to get the engine loom pulled through, with that done my mate came and soldered all the wired in the car for me so got it all tped up and just the ecu to fit


for now im doing all the small bits and keeping busy with it but ill be the first to admit ive no idea what to do with the car, but one thing i did desided was that i didnt want the interior so out it came which distrupted my store room :P





with everything moved to the front and lots of new room at the back i had to have a tidy up


one thing i hate is mouldy grey seats so out they came and i fitted the spare gsi cavalier seats for now and a spare steering wheel that was a bit better looking then the standard one



got these last night for free still waiting on my throttle body plate but silly me forgot to collect it

i als made some smaller plate for the corsa, there smaller but with standard font in the vain attempt to make them look less illegal lol


also bought these when i was getting the mounts, plan is rear disc conversion and have the front hub flanges machined to fit corsa wheel bearings



and the wheel of choice, well not first choice but i got given 5 of them for free so once there refurb'd i hope they look good, one problem is when there on if i fit the centre caps all my hard work goes to the bin cause they will just look like the 4 stud version

trial fit :P


plan with the corsa is to make it lightish, ive went to halfords and bought blanking grommets so the nest thing to go is the rear wiper and washer then after that god knows lol

davie

[CraigGreen]

Blimey chap! One project at a time!!

[davie_16v]

just cant help it mate, vauxhall mad, im actually on my way out to get my vauxhall tradecard just now for a cheeky wee 10% off :P

im that bad i let these wee people live with me free of charge :P


davie

[davie_16v]

as far as the cavalier goes its looking likely to be getting a colour change, from the black to the grey that the other cavalier was

davie

[MSG]

Originally Posted by davie_16v

just cant help it mate, vauxhall mad, im actually on my way out to get my vauxhall tradecard just now for a cheeky wee 10% off :P

im that bad i let these wee people live with me free of charge :P


davie

LOL! One of them wee people is dangerous, he has a weapon, and could stab the others so watch out. !

BTW, nice very motivating project.

[davie_16v]

PMSL i didnt even notice the one had the end had sissors lol need to watch him or take them off him lol

both projects are coming along slowly, theres actually another valver corsa im doing but its for sale due to just not enough time

davie

[bowman]

throw then fibreglass abombanations in the skip!!!!!! gsi kit suits the cav perfect....

[lenbeach]

Good projects there.

I don't suppose you have the air flow meter from that original corsa engine?

[davie_16v]

when i got the car i hadnt heard it running so i binned it cause i didnt want to pass it to someone else

davie

[davie_16v]

wit the snow and bad weather nothing has been done, well the corsa has its throttle body plate,ecotec pipe,afm and induction kit but thats about it

davie

[Stephen SRi]

hows the cavalier going m8

you selling the camelon kit

[davie_16v]

ive been offered a swop on here for the cavy as an unfinished project if he takes it ill make sure and let him know your interested in the kit, other wise everythings for sale

davie

[*Adz*]

Looking good mate!

[CortraGTE]

Looking good mate, hell of an improvment on the cavvy already!

[Jack]

The best way (I've found) of removing door pins is to get some mole grips on the exposed end of the pin and then hammer the grips.

Just in case you were wondering.