Roffle GM dizzler Mk3 Astra - £4 a ticket

[stripped fred]

Excellent news, in that case, I won't! It's clearly been well looked after.

 

I don't suppose you have the original stereo knocking about? I got mine powered on (a spare Pioneer one, one of the power wires had come loose) but there's no sound. There's 3 plugs on the Astra's loom and the stereo only uses two of them so I'm assuming the third one has the speaker connections.

The stereo in it was a sony and I took it out to put in my mr2 as it's better and has an aux in so I can connect my phone. I haven't fitted it yet so it's still in the shed somewhere. I'll have a look tomorrow and let you know what I find.

 

Is this yours now or are you just looking after it? I lose track on here as cars seem to swap owners quite regularly!

[phil_lihp]

Thank you, don't worry too much though, I'll try and work out what's on with the wiring on mine, must be something simple (probably me) as the stereo did work (albeit briefly) in the Dopehead Castoff SEi.  Probably cursed from being attached to its wiring loom, mind.

 

It's still RobT's, I've got it on loan for a little while, worked out very nicely, I am short of a reliable car since the Puma burst its PAS pipe and went up for sale, needed something larger anyway and Rob had one too many cars.  I will be repaying him with a couple of little improvements here and there though if I can while it's in my custody.

[Rusty_Rocket]

The third plug on the car loom is actually for the LCD display.  When the original stereo was switched on, the date would disappear and show the radio station etc.  Proper bo for 1992, I'm sure you'll agree!  If you fit an aftermarket stereo, cut the red/grey wire and the date will stay up all the time.

The unused plug will have no effect on the speaker output, so I'd say the fault lies elsewhere.  Incidentally, any DIN-sized Vx stereo will plug straight in and work properly, including the the CDR500 (single cd player).  I bought a CAR400 (Vectra) one a while back, with code, for £5.

You'll need the black cage too, but these should still be plentiful in scrapyards!

[RobT]

Glad to hear you enjoyed your trip home Phil, and thanks again for the bottles of beer, much appreciated!

 

I meant to post a photo of that date display stuck on 1992, as I reckon it should be left as it is too.

[RobT]

Is this yours now or are you just looking after it? I lose track on here as cars seem to swap owners quite regularly!

My initial plan was to roffle it once Phil is done with it, but I've grown quite fond of the old thing so may keep hold of it for a bit longer. It's good for both motorway work and mooching around town in, which has surprised me as I normally prefer pez autos for relaxed urban driving.

[stripped fred]

Rob, I would think it's quite good for city driving as it's engine torque is best below say 50mph and still small enough to nip through gaps in traffic.

[stripped fred]

I will be repaying him with a couple of little improvements here and there though if I can while it's in my custody.

Entirely up to you of course but my next jobs were to try and rustproof the underside at the rear so under the boot floor and rear wheel arches as that's what's likely to kill it in the future. Or to fix the headlining and get a new driver's side sunvisor clip. Or fix the central locking. Depends on where your skills lie and how much time you have I suppose.

[stripped fred]

Oh, and I've found the Haynes manual if anyone wants it. It was given to me by icf63 for free, well a small donation to the forum, so if either of you want it then just let me know the address.

[lisbon_road]

That display is the only problem I see with running one of these cars.  When you take the battery off, it takes ages to toggle through to the current year.  That's 1992-2017, a lot of clicks.  I'm not aware of any other issues with them.

[fatharris]

Looks a beaut, and will go on forever, well saved!

 

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

[phil_lihp]

I have a cunning plan for the central locking, watch this space.  Ditto for the headlining (with Rob's permission, I might temporarily pull the old stuff out and leave it with just the backing until I can sort a more permanent solution, it's mostly detached now anyway!).  Sunvisor clips have been sorted.

 

I had a minor FTP in it yesterday morning - flat battery.  I think my ropey old stereo was to blame though, there's two ways around for the power wires to go and I've probably got them the 'wrong' way around so I've unplugged it for now; it was fine this morning so that's the likely culprit.  Fortunately it was facing downhill and I got a bit of churning and glowplug cycling in before it went completely flat so it bump started easily.

 

It's already been useful carting my bike about - with the seats folded flat, it takes a full-sized road bike with no problems.  I'm warming to it quite well, it's a charming old thing really.

 

I do have a lot of old engine oil knocking about in the garage so I may see if I can persuade myself to spend a couple of hours brushing it onto the underside before it goes back to Rob.

[JohnK]

I can see you buying this Phil. You do talk very favourably about it.

[paulscavalier]

Does the central locking need a new module black box thingy.? I think I have a spare one in my cavalier stash

[RobT]

I can see you buying this Phil. You do talk very favourably about it.

 

Trouble is I'll probably want it back John, as I'm fond of it too!

 

Happy for you to do whatever Phil (just don't go to too much trouble) and glad to hear it's proving useful already.  

[phil_lihp]

Yes, no room or funds at the inn and once my van's finished I won't need an estate so much, it will go back to Rob.  A couple of little cosmetic improvements here and there are fair recompense I reckon for Rob giving me the car to use but I won't be going too far with it.

[phil_lihp]

Does the central locking need a new module black box thingy.? I think I have a spare one in my cavalier stash

 

Not sure at the moment what the problem is but I do have a plan for it, watch this space...

[lisbon_road]

I have a door off another estate, K reg so similar enough.  If it can help with central locking parts, let me know.  I think my 'Astra fleet' is all too young as I think they made some changes. 

[stripped fred]

Hopefully the battery is OK. The car was stored in my parents garage for probably 9 months but I charged it a couple of times over that period.

 

One of the rear door panels isn't fixed properly so I assumed someone had been in there to try and sort the central locking before I had it.

 

Another thing I never got to the bottom of was the need to put the glow plugs on for 5 times or so. I replaced all the glow plugs and it was still the same. I think there's a relay that could be at fault but I didn't get that far.

 

I can confirm that with the seats folded down you can sleep in the back diagonally if you are 5' 10" or under as I did so at the last shitefest. There's probably some photos of it knocking around somewhere taken by other shiters.

[stripped fred]

Took a photo of the connections on the stereo. Not sure if it's any help?

[phil_lihp]

Ace, thanks!  When I have some spare daylight I'll have a look at mine, I'm sure it's something simple.  The driver's door panel is loose as well so I reckon you're right, when you lock it there's a small noise from the rear driver's side door but nothing when you unlock - I would like to think it's just that something has come loose; again, given some time I'll have a quick poke around but there is a plan B.

[phil_lihp]

Apparently valve clearances being out of whack can make the 1.7TD hard to start when cold but as far as I know, that's not the same engine.  This one has the GM unit I believe and the TD is an Izuzu lump, no idea if there's much similarity between them but as Rob showed me, it starts easily enough once you have the knack.  Could be air getting into the fuel lines perhaps?  No idea really, I know slightly more about diesel engines than I know about investment banking.

[RobT]

Not sure I totally nailed the starting procedure from cold. But I find leaving it well beyond the glow plug light going out, giving it a few bursts on the starter, then doing the process again gets it started OK most of the time. A few occasions I had to churn it over five times before it started, but that was me being impatient. The old girl needs time to gather herself before she bursts into life!

[stripped fred]

I always managed to start her up using the 5 glow plug light procedure. Think i may have pumped the accelerator a couple of times too. She does take a bit of waking up in the morning!

[phil_lihp]

This is scheduled to return to its rightful owner next weekend so time to round up my time with it.

 

It's been a useful little runaround and, battery issues aside, totally reliable although it hasn't done many miles with me.  The original battery died completely after being sat for two weeks while I was away, it would take a jump start but, as I discovered in a Wickes car park, wouldn't charge.  Fortunately I was inundated with jump start offers and a nice old bloke with a Hyundai i10 came to the rescue.

 

It now sports a decent secondhand Yuasa battery, which has the bonus of holding a charge for days at a time and also spins the engine over faster than the old one ever did.  Still takes 6-7 goes on the glow plugs to start but it still an improvement.

 

 

No joy on the central locking, I'm guessing it's probably the module, all it will do is 'lock' the boot, which is therefore permanently locked unless opened with the key, none of the side doors respond at all.  Therefore, I turned my attention to the headlining, which resembled something Miss Havisham would wear.

 

 

 

 

 

Yuck.

 

The foam backing was brown, flakey and powdery, explaining the material's desperate attempts to abandon ship.  Several years of inadequate glue and pin 'repairs' had not improved it, it was stained, torn and generally gross.  I had a can of high-temp glue left over from my van's interior remodelling so had a crack at replacing the lining.  

 

Bit of a war getting the old one out, which resulted in a lot of brown powder shedding over the interior and my hair, then all it needed was scraping the remainder of the foam off the fibreglass backboard and gluing on some new material sourced from eBay.  

 

Topped it off with a thorough hoovering out of the interior and some new sunvisor clips, job done.

 

 

 

 

I still need to sort the sunroof rubber edging as it's not quite on right but otherwise it's finished.  

 

Not my finest work to be honest, the material isn't quite what I was expecting, it needed to be a lighter grey and stretchy rather than rigid, resulting in a couple of rough edges and a few wrinkles and I'm not overly keen on the pattern in real life but I reckon it's still an improvement.  I've bundled up the original lining material to stay with the car so it could be used to match some new stuff, I probably should have done that to begin with.

 

Next weekend it's going home to Rob, it's been a pleasure and it was ace of him to loan it to me, cheers fella!

[RobT]

Thanks Phil, it looks loads better. The pattern looks suitably 90s with a warm furriness to the material. I shall look forward to giving it a stroke!

[egg]

Looks a good job in the photos, not something that's easy or fun I'd imagine!

[stripped fred]

Great work there, a big improvement.

[phil_lihp]

It's a job I quite like doing actually, the only pain was unclipping some little trim pieces held on with push fixings and working out how to get the thing out in one piece as it snagged on everything. Reassembly was a lot quicker and I could redo the whole job in half the time now.

 

The car seems very well built too, lots of chunky screws and more of them than strictly necessary, most of the plastics apart from the sun visor fixings aren't brittle yet either although the grey plastics on the doors is discolouring.

[stripped fred]

Now that the weldings been done I think it's quite a solid motor which will hopefully go on for a while yet. These improvements will only add to it's appeal.

[paulscavalier]

Definitely. Great work