paulscavalier

It’s always the little bits that are the problem, good work sourcing the switch. I have used dishwasher tablets to clean out washer bottles before which has worked ok

Awesome drag race action!

Laziness and ignorance by people how much scrap goes for. It’s our good fortune people are not bothered about getting the best price. Nice little car for the money

sills fine,just the rather rusty,holy front crossmember,new one ordered on fleabay,22.00.heater on steams up like turkish baths,time for new pollen,wix filters air,pollen 7.00,5.00,removed glovebox,one very manky filter.no more steaming up.i will not clean the interior,sod that,yes it does have curry hook,my usual sticker will go on soon,

@DodgyBastard you've been pricing your Peugeots incorrectly by a factor of 10
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F114078036064
 

Bini for sale.
The state the thing's in, even £250 would be pushing it, never mind two bags

Matchbox Corvette is done. Video and pics don't do justice to the vibrant red/gold/green flip 



20200120_113909.mp4

Yeah, my understanding wasn't so much that the Camira was a bad car in and of itself (after all, GM's 'J-Car' notched up plenty of sales worldwide), but that the build quality of Holden's first locally assembled FWD car was pretty piss-poor, with angry customers coming back again and again for warranty work - not unlike the same issues that had beset Leyland Australia really, and (let's be honest) many Fords weren't brilliantly screwed together either - Falcon EA, anyone?

But the JB series Camira seemed to burn through a lot of goodwill very quickly - the fuel crisis at the time made many Australians reconsider whether they really needed a big six-cylinder Falcon or Commodore, and the enthusiastic press response to the new FWD baby Holden sedan brought in to replace the old Torana (and voted 1982 Car of the Year by Wheels magazine, no less) must have encouraged many try their luck with a smaller, four-pot motor.
Before long, quite a few buyers were fairly vocal that they'd sooner pay the fuel penalty for a large, lazy cruiser with plenty of low-down torque than drive around in this cramped 1.6 litre screamer that overheated when the aircon was switched on, and bits fell off when driving along unpaved roads. Especially once the price of fuel dropped again.
It also gave Holden a massive headache when their market research showed that nearly every buyer of the Camira had done so in preference to their similar-looking, larger, and much more profitable VH Series Commodore (effectively a Vauxhall Carlton with the Senator front end grafted on).

Frustratingly for Holden, they were carrying the cost of building two separate car lines to garner almost exactly the same number of sales they could have managed with a single model - while generating less profit per unit, to boot.
In a final act of corporate self-sabotage, Holden stylists were given the unusual task of making the Camira look smaller and less attractive, while making the Commodore look bigger and more impressive. They succeeded admirably - on one project anyway.

As taglines go, this 1984 ad for the JD Series Camira kind says it all. The new Camira now came with a marginally less frantic 1.8 litre unit, plus a front end that looked like an alien come to probe your arse.  And it appeared three years before the facelifted Ford Sierra, note you well.
At the same time Holden modified their familiar Carlton/Rekord-based bodyshell for the Commo in-house, drawing heavily on the three-window European Senator to come up with the new Commodore VK - available with a somewhat meatier 3.3 straight six or 5.0 V8 donk.

By the time the Camira was pensioned off in 1989, Australia had adopted the Button Plan and so Holden were obliged to look east for its replacement, rather than to Europe... enter the rather familiar-looking "Holden Apollo".

Toyota had already developed a wagon version of their Camry, so that saved a lot of faffing at Holden's end - but this decision made on the other side of the world did perhaps keep the Mk3 Cavalier estate from becoming a fixture on Britain's suburban driveways in the early 1990s.

Mind you, the Mk3 Cavalier might never have made it to Australian shores - but it got pretty close, selling in New Zealand as the Opel Vectra, and later badged as the Holden Vectra.

The Aussie-built Camira had been just as much of a flop in NZ due to the same build quality concerns, so it was completely pulled and replaced with a badge-engineered Isuzu Aska - another J-car - but now with a choice of 1.8 or 2 litre engine. It also came with different front end styling again, which I believe were locally built using CKD kits shipped from Japan.

Confusingly though, despite the negative connotations, Holden NZ contined to call this new car the Camira (now referred to by dealers as the JJ Series) - while at the same time importing the similar-but-different-again Australian JD Series Camira in wagon format.
So yeah. The Camira could have been the car to make Australians realise that they didn't need to squeeze 5 litre engines into small Euroboxes in order for them to function as transport - but, for want of a horseshoe nail (or maybe just better glue), Holden stuffed it up. Definitely a tragic near-miss if ever there was one.
Full disclosure: I nearly bought a last of the line JE series Camira back in 2005, but ultimately decided I just couldn't live with that pursed, lemon-sucking front end (or indeed the red crushed velour interior) and went for a Toyota Corona instead...

Scanned the Matchbox '89 catalogue. It's a big one!
 
Matchbox 1989 01 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 02 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 03 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 04 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 05 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 06 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 07 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 08 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 09 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 10 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 11 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 12 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 13 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 14 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 15 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 16 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 17 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 18 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 19 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 20 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 21 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 22 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 23 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 24 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 25 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 26 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 27 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 28 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 29 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 30 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 31 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 32 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 33 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 34 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 35 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 36 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 37 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 38 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 39 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 40 by RS, on Flickr
Matchbox 1989 41 by RS, on Flickr

I haz bin acquiring a few more 1/43’s. 
Russkie's first!
SSM ZIL 157 flatbed.

GAZ 14 limo.

IXO models GAZ 12 

And lastly an impulse buy. Another GAZ 13, but a much older diecast model from ‘Yanka’ made in USSR. Never heard of them before but it’s a nice casting and has opening doors and boot.


 
Now a capitalist pig dog automobile!
NEO Volvo 760 GLE. Really nice model and the interior looks spot on too.


 
Ive also got a Volvo 780 coupe and Volvo 244 coming from France & Germany yet to arrive. And a ZIL 131 military mobile generator set and URAL 375 command truck coming from Russia...
I also decided to get a couple of cheapo display cabinets for my 1/43 stuff. I’ve been buying them and then they just sit in their boxes under beds or on top of wardrobes etc, not really being seen. Now I can put them in these and appropriate them a bit more!

I got this just before the Christmas break.
The owner is a young fellow that's a friend of my one of my daughters at 6th form college.
His story is that one of the fobs stopped working some time back, and the other was dropped down a drain and retrieved but then also stopped working.
However he had only one key and fob and it isn't clear in my mind which one it is.
His dad claims to have spent over two hours trying to make the EKA work, and I also had a go.
I then had a go at getting the car running the car myself by coding a spare 5AS into the engine ECU, which I successfully did but I stupidly forgot that the Pektron SCU in these also controls the starter motor and fuel pump.  I have a spare Pektron which I could have plumbed in just to try the car out but at that point the dad said he wanted it gone off of his drive as he had been offered £150 from a scrappy who would take it away for him.
The boy seemed to want a bit more than £150 so I offered him £200 if he would help me to tow it to my house and get it on my drive, so after his first go on the end of a tow rope that's what happened.
Here it is


I wasn't too happy about this:-

and I'm not too sure about this,

it was difficult to tell in the dark if that's a bit emulsified or not.  The fellow swears that the car ran fine and that he drove it to Reading and back no problems.
Anyway today I started it up and ran it for 1/2 hour or so.  Fiddling about with the battery in the fob seems to have revived it.
The heater doesn't seem to get even warm, but the engine does, and the fan comes on occasionally.  It doesn't push all of the coolant out either.
I found the bleed screw in the coolant pipe above the gearbox and removed it, coolant came out.  I squeezed the top hose a bit.  I revved up the engine a bit.
But still no heater.
Also I tried all the gears (though didn't actually drive the car, no tax/MOT) and tried the biting point of the clutch.  It all seemed fine.
It has a damaged passenger door and I think that the front wing has seen some rattle can action but it's nothing too bad and I bet panels from these are dirt cheap.
If this car is good then it's useful for a couple of reasons:-
It's a 1.6 petrol and it is ULEZ compliant, I need to go into central London two or three times a week and next year when this goes out to the North Circular my current trick of parking in Regents park is finished.
Both my wife and me can use it as a spare because neither of our cars are spring chickens and I won't care too much if she knocks it.
My youngest might like to learn to drive this year and I have two others already with provisional licenses. Apparently Rover 25s are relatively not too bad for teenagers as they are off their normal radar (i.e. not a Corsa or other "cool" or "sick" car).
Tax and insure it now?

Same spec as mine late corsa b. It’s been great to buzz around in. I will miss it when my daughter passes her test

Been a bit quiet on this because I have been occupied elsewhere, but I have machine polished it and tidied it up. I have had to replace the mass air flow sensor , outside temp sensor and the reverse light switch and 2 front tyres. It looks a lot better with tlc

Mrs Cav has bought a Lupo locally, she wants a car for our eldest daughter. She hasn’t. Done too badly a bit of haggling and £600 and she bought this.
i haven’t had chance to properly look it over but I have noticed it has a door check strap missing, and needs a good clean inside as it smells a bit. 

Thanks but circumstances beat me too it. Mrs Cav found a nice genuine gaffer Corsa with 32000 miles on it so the Lupo has been moved onto pastures new and she has..

@paulscavalier's shiny Corsa