Mk1 Cavalier

Awesome, saw the vids on Instagram of it running and it sounds good. At least it's running and driving, hopefully the weather starts to improve so you can use it.

Woohoo, fantastic! Must be great to have it on the road (even just around the estate) after all your hard work

Looks like your 5 could do with a wash too haha

oooh. the economy (& soundtrck / heater / comfort etc.)

Rich.

Been busy with life, work, and I was up in London watching the Dropkick Murphys and Pennywise on Saturday (great gig), so not had time to update the thread.

We decided to clear the last few bits up to make it fully compliant. My mate found a brand new horn, the old ones were super crusty, so we got that wired in and working.

Then it was onto the hazards. Had all sorts of annoying things with the hazards. The original button on the column didn't work with the 5 loom, and the light in the dash stayed on permanently when wired up and switched on. I mentioned previously I put a switch panel in, so I got that wired in, with a tell tale light next to it.




It's not that neat but it does the job. Additional hole on the left if I want to add another switch for something.

Anyway, I had to find a way to power the tell tale. I needed it to only come on with the switch, so I wired the earth of the bulb into the switch. Then I grabbed one of the unused side indicators, and wired the power wire to the bulb. Worked perfectly, flashed with the hazard switch on, but I had overlooked that it also flashed whenever the left indicator was activated haha. Begrudgingly admitted defeat on that. Had to work out a way for it to flash, but only when the hazards were on, so I checked the wiring diagram for the flasher relay. That was no good as there was no wire I could use that would give me a power wire that only activated when hazards were on.

Anyway I came up with a solution. Took a basic relay, and took both of the power wires from the unused side indicators. Wired 1 pin to ground, 1 pin to the bulb, and the other 2 to the indicator powers. Basically the idea was the relay will power the bulb, but only when it receives power on the pin from 1 of the power wires. As the 2 power wires I attached power at exactly the same time as they are from the indicators, the relay activates and flashes the bulb in rhythm with the indicators.



A bit convoluted, but whatever. I have a working tell tale, and it no longer activates if I use the indicator stalk. Might change the bulb though, it's ridiculously bright haha.



I've marked it with "Hazard" now, so that's legal as far as I'm concerned.


Sorted some other bits out, got the rear brake line sorted that was weeping, handbrake is adjusted nicely and no longer too tight, and I fixed the handbrake button so it doesn't get stuck in anymore. A few other little bits sorted, tidied a few wires, and actually re-fitted the original steering wheel. So the wheel I chose to use on the MX-5 hub was fine, but there was one issue. It wasn't that dished, and I realised when I went to pull the full beam selector on the stalk, it hit the wheel haha. So we got that swapped back for now until I sort another wheel.

After the initial drives I drained the diff again, just wanted to flush it out as the original oil had been sat for so long. All looked fine, no metal shavings at all, so filled it back up with more fresh oil. Also remembered that I had forgot to bend the locking tabs in on the prop U bolts, so I checked the nuts were still tight, and got the tabs tapped in against them. All sorted. Kept checking under the car and there's absolutely no engine oil, coolant, box oil, diff oil, brake fluid, or fuel drips. Everything seems sealed and as it should be. Very pleased.


So we had a chat with a local garage. We were going to get it MOT'd there. All seemed fine but when we he saw it the old boy who was going to be testing it got pissy about the ground clearance on the exhaust. Admittedly it's a little low but it's not exactly on the floor or anything. Wouldn't try and get his sliding jack past it on the ramp, and it honestly would have got past it. He sent us on our way and said he'd test it after the exhaust was raised. We actually got an apology from the other guy at the garage, "sorry he's in a bad mood today". Really annoyed me to be honest, I won't be going back there.

Anyway I was chatting to some mates who are mechanics for a living and into their classic cars, and we had discussed MOT exemption previously. Having looked through all the legislation surrounding it, the Vauxhall is definitely an exempt vehicle. If it has had "substantial changes" in the last 30 years it is not exempt, unless the changes meet certain criteria. In my case "axles and running gear have been changed to improve efficiency, safety or environmental performance". This is precisely why I did the engine swap in the first place, to have a more efficient, reliable modern setup. It's also far more environmentally friendly on emissions than the original setup. All the axles, suspension setup, steering etc. are all original spec so no worries there. So I went down the Post Office and got the V112 signed and sorted, and got the tax exemption sorted at the same time. Just wanted to take it home, I have an MOT garage I have near me that are good with lowered cars and won't be "in a bad mood".






It's bloody lovely! It starts on the button, it cruises beautifully (few rattles and vibrations inside from all my interior work, but I'll sort that). Prop and diff are basically silent, no dodgy noises, bangs, knocks. The gearing is hilariously long so it's hardly a beast off the line, but it's a lovely cruiser. Pedals feel good, brakes feel nice, and the handbrake is nice and sharp. No leaks underneath after driving it home, and the temp sits bang on where it should, engine is very happy.

HOWEVER this isn't a cop out. Following all .gov guidelines it's still a perfectly acceptable exempt vehicle, and I will still be taking it for a voluntary MOT asap. It's parked up at home, and I'm really not driving it a lot as I've got a load of work on at the moment and not much time spare. I just didn't want to be forced to use the garage local to our unit, as it just put a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. After all the work and all of my experienced mates who have helped and looked over it, we know it'll breeze an MOT as everything underneath is basically brand new, every bulb works, and it's a nice clean car structurally now as well.

Anyway, there we go. To my knowledge the only Cavalier/Manta/Ascona in the world running on MX-5 power, I know of one Ascona project I can find online that had one, but I've spoken to the guy and he never got it running and driving. But if you know of one please let me know, I really want to see how they have done it, I can't find anything!

Cheers mate, it is a great weight off my shoulders haha.

That's a great question, and of course .gov has no actual useful information on that. From the discussions I've seen from people regarding that, which I completely agree with, is it will still flag as an exempt vehicle, but the fail will show. So in terms of the police, if they pulled you they could question it's general roadworthiness regardless of the exemption, which they're well within their right to do. And in terms of insurance, well I'm sure when they saw the fail during a claim process they'd go over the car with a fine tooth comb to not pay out due to it being unroadworthy.

Again I can't actually find anything about that scenario, but if mine does somehow fail the voluntary I will likely treat it as I would any other failed car until it was sorted.

Ace!

Magazine feature??

Although I'd blank the plate out for privacy / security reasons.


I know an MOT man that does a pre-MOT check on everything it will look at, in order to ensure there are no issues... lol