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Corsa C 1.7 CDTI SRI

16K views 40 replies 11 participants last post by  ayresyy 
#1 ·
I can't help myself but feel sorry for an underdog. Enter current car number 6, of a running total of 31!
Some of you may have noticed this in the classifieds since June I think! Looking a bit sorry for itself, but basically sound, plus I knew the seller. A motorbike clipped the front and dented the wing and bonnet and pulled the bumper off. But it was about 85 miles away in North London. No MOT, not insured obviously, no rent. I don't have a vehicle with a tow hitch nor a trailer. So enter Southern Self Drive!



OK it's French, but in its defence it drove OK, did about 35MPG and wasn't limited to 56 which was nice. It wasn't cheap at £130, but my word it was so easy. Came with an electric winch and proper tie down straps. Picked up Dave on the way and we had ourselves a little road trip!
Got to London easy enough with not too much traffic and Found the house I'd been to a few times. Found the car sitting forlornly sitting in a bush:



A quick boost from who's ever car it was parked next to it with my awesome jump leads and it burst into life instantly!



Then drove it up onto the wagon with no hassle at all.



Love the Irmscher back box!



A smooth drive home followed, the truck driving even better with a weight on the back, sort of like a hard top after a convertible. Back home I got Sharon to experience the unloading:



She loved it of course, although the car was a bugger to jump off the poor old Mk2.
Next up a quick damage assessment:



Bumper is hanging off, but a closer look reveals the bracket, not the bumper has broken.



Nice! Front fog is goosed, as is the headlight and a ripple in the wing. Headlight and a wing in the right colour (78U0 sourced from eBay, along with a new wing brackut. Offered it all up for trial fit, looked good! I'd also got the original nearly new wheels th previous owner has just shod with a pair of Pirelli PZero Neros!

Next up Peter very kindly vacuum tested the AC. It had no gas in it at all. Details of the cars previous life were a little sketchy at this point, but I did find out it had a new alternator fitted whilst the owner was away at university an she was horrified to find on a visit to the garage to see the car with the entire front end missing. This kinda makes sense as the alternator is down low at the front of the engine. So since the system held vacuum nicely, we assume the AC condenser was simply removed during the repair. Pete chucked some gas in and the compressor duly kicked into life!



Boom! Works lovely now. Then Pete broke out the mop and buffed the arse out of it!



Not so flame pink now.





Next up, cambelt. The interval for a post 2003 1.7CDTI is 100k/ 10 years. Car is 10 years old, 109k. Gates kit (two rollers) along with oil and filter sourced from Benn's place. Thanks!



It's quite a good system, lock the cam pulley with a M6 bolt, the fuel pump with an M8. The tensioner also has a spring so it self tensions too. So bung belt on, turn it over a few times, tighten tensioner bolt and job done. Fair bit to remove including the now obligatory engine mount.
Whilst I was doing that, Dave fitted a new battery (old one was original and totally dead) and found the wiper linkage came out with just two bolts as the scuttle panels need to come out to swap tha battery in a C, especially one of this girth! So he stripped it down, cleaned the spindles and applied some fresh grease.



Thanks Dave. So now the engine starts easily on it's own, I can move the car and not worry about the belt letting go. It's getting near to being on the road! But next I wanted to swap the springs as the previous owner had fitted -30mm Eibach springs due to rear one snapping. Personally I thought it was too low, so got some standard ones from Benn's place. Strip down is easy as most cars are these days. I found it prudent to unclip the speed sensors so the weight of the knuckles doesn't strain them.



Old and new:



And how it sits now:



A tiny bit higher maybe, but then I'm totally unfamiliar with Cs, and a lot of cross-referencing confirms they're right for a the 'heavier engined' Corsas, so we'll see how it goes.

Next on the list is the broken front fog replacement is supposed to arrive tomorrow (!), then find a rear wiper mechanism as someone thought a stupid grommet is much more use than a rear wiper in the boot lid. And find some rear head rests. And a radio.
Then insure it somehow, then er, dunno. Anyone want it? I may have done a deal with my Dad to sell him my Mk4, so I will use this, but not 100% yet.
 
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#3 ·
I was looking at this and really really tempted for daily duties. Will be following this with a eagle eye
 
#11 ·
Bit more mincing today. The new front fog did indeed arrive on christmas eve! I fitted it today so the car now has all it's eyes!



Finally got round to servicing the rear brakes. Been putting if off because neglected drums are always a pain in the arse. Something was sticking and rear drivers wheel had a habit of binding on and dragging. I hoped the setup was like the later Mk3 Astras where the hub is fixed and the drum is held on with one screw. I noticed it's not, just a single nut with a parallel bearing.



Came undone easy enough, and a quick loosening of the shoes freed them up to get the drum off. Looked fairly crusty inside.



The handbrake cable was in good condition, it was the handbrake arm had totally seized onto the trailing shoe. So much I had to take the shoe to the vice and work the arm free with WD40 and carb cleaner, till it would fall under its own weight. Put it back together with plenty of high temperature copper grease and adjusted the shoes back. Took the n/s apart next and did the same. Handbrake works a treat now!
Car is now ready for a MOT when I figure out how I'm going to insure it. It still needs a rear wiper setup and the rear headrests are missing. Then some sort of stereo setup.

It has this connector; I assume this dictates what factory headunit will fit.

 
#21 ·
Of course this has the double din style radio doesn't it?

therefore you may need to go for something like a CD30 half can as you rightly say - the full can ones have quadlock which is a square connector.

It would be work searching for a paired set of radio and display.
 
#22 ·
More today! Goodbye stupid grommet:



Hello much more useful rear wiper:



Removed the power sounder as the hazard light flashes on locking and Op-Com reports it as dead:



Clearly the original. Hopefully just the batteries are dead:



Pollen filter was very neglected as usual:



And removed a good couple KGs of stereo wiring:



More to come! Very nearly finished now.
 
#23 ·
This is the ride height now. I've swapped the 'lowered suspension' standard springs for the non lowered type. Also painted the wheel centres (they were white):



Much, much better. Even after it settles a bit I think it'll be perfect.

The dash around the vents had a bruise from what I think was an air freshener rubbing on it. The single-din radio adaptor was in poor condition and someone had filed a hole in it for I guess an aux-in lead. Luckily whilst in the scrapyard getting the head rests and rear wiper I found another one sat on the floor! It was black so I painted both bits:



Also the handbrake lever cover was grotty so I daubed that, too:



Whilst the dash was out, I cut the display/ steering wheel connector off the top of the two ISO radio connectors, and removed the pin for the display from the power connector so it constantly displays the date, even with the radio on. I also swapped the 12V and ignition switched 12V so I can plug straight into the radio from the car loom. I used the radio I had in the Saab. It's a lovely little unit with bluetooth, front USB and aux but most usefully a SD car slot behind the front panel. No CD drive so it's very small, about 1/3 as deep as a normal radio and it was about £35!



Handbrake:



So that's the car pretty much finished. I'm going to try and insure it this week, although I've not figured out how yet. Probably swap over the Saab's policy as I doubt I'll get that back from the bodyshop this side of February. Then MOT time.
 
#28 ·
We have an MOT pass with one small advisory on a split exhaust and a year's tax! Absolutely sailed through the smoke test which worried me a tad due to the time it spent off the road.
Drives very nicely, plenty of poke. Brakes have bed in well. All good!

£1500 anyone?
 
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