Mk1 Cavalier

It's looking really good so far, bundles of space for a turbo/Supercharger further down the line when you change your mind

I quite like the red.

Got the fuel hard line done today. Pulled the old one out from underneath, being a carb engine it was just a plastic looking hose from back to front, definitely wouldn't have been good enough for the pressure of an injection system. Plus it was over 40 years old, so it's good to get it replaced.

All done now:



I followed the OE routing exactly, and used all of the existing OE mount points, with rubber sleeves over the pipe on each mount. I was glad the routing was far more simple than the brake line also in the photo above. 5/16" cunifer isn't quite as malleable as the 3/16" copper was. It's all on nice and securely, and I have flared the rear end and attached it to the new rubber line that comes from the fuel pump/filter:



It's all tucked up quite nicely. I want to protect both the new lines from road salt/water, but don't want to underseal them. I may just give them a spray of some clear underseal or maybe some ACF50. Just to give them a little protection, I don't want to just smother them in black underseal as it'll look like an MOT bodge to hide corroded lines.

I've now got the quick connects removed from the tank, got the fuel pump unit sealed and bolted in, and attached all the lines with the good quality jubilees. Also gave the tank a bit of a spray with some black, just to make it look a little better. It'll be hidden anyway, but it doesn't hurt to make it look fresh.



Pretty happy with the fuel setup now, just need to flare the end in the bay and attach it to the original rubber hose that goes to the fuel rail and that should be it! Good to have it all refreshed.

This week I'm going to try and focus on the pedalbox and master cylinders, and front brake lines. Lots of different bits of work going on at once, but I'm still hopeful to have it all finished in the next few weeks.

The 323 had a turbo and was a daily driver


I would LOL at rent-a-badge 'lifestyle' products being shown up by a sideways 40 year old vauxhall with wastegate chatter


How much do you think you might want for it when you sell it lol

Got some more stuff ticked off the list the last few days.

Mate gave me a hand again with the gearbox mount this time. I bought some rubber mounts/bobbins with M10 studs on either side, they screw nicely into the OE gearbox mount holes on the chassis. Then my mate got to work with some box section and we ended up with this:





Nice and simple, but plenty sturdy enough for a box mount. Fits nicely onto the rubber mounts:





We just need to drill another hole in the mount for the 2nd bolt point on the box. We've used the holes in the 5 gearbox that the PPF bolts went through. It looks like it hangs fairly low, but is above the chassis rails on both sides of the car, so I'm not concerned about it getting hit.


With this sorted I got to work on the loom. I'm going full MX-5 loom. Is it the most simple solution? No, not really. I can do a bit of wiring when I need to, but making an entire custom loom up, not really my area of expertise. The MX-5 loom is sat there, I know it works, it seemed a good idea to me. It's a lot newer than any of the loom in the Vauxhall was, also has a factory immobiliser built into it, which seems a good security upgrade. So I got to work with it, working out what's what (I didn't label all the plugs because I'm an idiot). It looks horrific right now haha:



This isn't even all of it, the main power loom and the boot loom aren't even in this photo, so there's a fair bit!

I got the main power loom in first. It contains several plugs for the gearbox, so it has to run down under the car, and then back inside. The fuse box, starter wires and alternator are going to be in the perfect place, I just need to make a bracket up for the main fuse box:



It runs under the car, on the MX-5 it is attached along the length of the PPF, so is up fairly high. On the Vauxhall it'll run alongside the gearbox and then briefly under the floorpan and then into a bung under the rear seats, and then routes into the boot where I'll be mounting the battery.



Obviously it won't be like this, I need to make up some mounts on the chassis to secure it with. It won't sit below the chassis rail at any point, I'm still working out a solution for that, I may holesaw out a couple of sections to feed it through. I'm also planning to buy some additional insulation to wrap the entire underbody section of the loom with, just to keep it protected from the elements.

Should have the main section of loom installed this week, I just need to sort my clutch pedal situation out first.

Speaking of which I started cutting today:




I'm essentially extending the boxed section of the firewall to accommodate the clutch pedal assembly. It'll sit a little higher than the brake pedal assembly does, as I need to keep the transmission tunnel as it is, but I placed it roughly where it'll be mounted and the spacing to the brake pedal is ideal. I will just need to extend the clutch pedal itself slightly when I'm done, but other than that it should be fine. Of course the clutch pedal being longer may make it slightly softer in terms of pressure needed to engage the clutch, but I'm sure it'll be plenty useable, that's a problem for another day. I have some plate to make the extension with, I just need to get a new master cylinder that doesn't have the exit line jutting out to the left, as the current one will contact the VVT bits on the back of the engine.

Got a load more done on the pedalbox the last couple of days.

After cutting out the firewall I measured up and cut out some decent thickness plate and got the side and top walls of the extension welded in:




The front plate was a bit more difficult but it all went quite well and I'm happy with how it turned out:



Got some holes drilled out for the master cylinder and got it test fitted:



Not bad but it was a little bit tilted to the right which was annoying, so I did some more work on the holes and got it a bit straighter.

Wanted all this pedalbox stuff done this weekend, so I went to Halfords to get some red spray paint. It's only for the firewall, so I'm happy with it being rattle canned. They only had Vauxhall Flame Red or Power Red, neither of which are the right paint code for this, but I chose Power Red and once dry it's actually not a bad match to be honest! I seam sealed the welds, coat of primer, then got the red on. I'm quite happy with it, doesn't quite look OEM but I don't think it was a bad effort:



I didn't realise the word nonce was visible on the windscreen when I took that photo, can't let anything get dusty at the unit or someone will always do that haha.

The clutch pedal fits nicely into the extension I've made, it sits a little crooked but once I have the top bracket bolted up it should be fine. I have welded some box section to the top of the clutch pedal assembly, and welded a captive nut to it. A large M12 bolt will thread into it from above. You can't quite see in the photo above, but I have drilled a hole for the bolt to go through in the roof of the extension box. I test fitted the bolt into the clutch assembly tonight and I just need to enlarge the top hole slightly and it'll be perfect, and should be plenty strong enough to hold the clutch pedal in securely.

I have also done the same sort of thing with the brake pedal assembly. I've welded some thick box section to the top of the brake pedal and drilled a hole into it, a bolt goes through this into the original captive nut in the firewall that the Vauxhall brake pedal used. Haven't got much in the way of photos of it, but I'm happy with how it turned out.



I've done an initial extremely scientific strength test by violenty shaking the brake pedal assembly. The entire car shakes with it and it has no visible flex at all, I'm happy that it will be strong enough.

Need to do some work on the actual pedals themselves to get them all sat level and spaced how I would like, and then I can get on with the loom.

Hahaha, I don't think that'd be a good idea.