My New Zealand Shite - Yet Another Car Added

[hairnet]

shot of it outside the sheep building please :D

 

[Skizzer]

Must be extremely satisfying to be welcomed by that lovely new seat!

I can‘t remember if I’ve said so before but your Cavalier is just gorgeous. I’ve got a real soft spot for early mk2 Cavaliers, and the SR/SRi just looks so right. That’s a very classy colour for it, too.

[Bren]

Looking at the photos takes me back to 1992 when I got mine.

Alas, to feel like that again.

[stuboy]

very nice, stop forgetting us

[STUNO]

8 hours ago, hairnet said:

shot of it outside the sheep building please

 

Seems Jon did attempt a pic with the sheep, but it ran away, chased by the dog.

[hairnet]

Lol 

 

[Jon]

Thanks for the replies, gents! 

Anyway, we can all agree that the seats are now much better and if we ignore the badly cracked dash top (stick a carpet on it, mate) and the stained rood (don't look up), it's a much better place to be. But the outside still looks very sub-standard:

 

 

Not any more!!!

The incredibly charitable fellow struck again, sending FIVE centre caps in the post, too! As before, the packaging was excellent - each cap was strapped to a rigid piece of foam with electrical tape and four indents were cut out in each piece of foam, to protect the tabs of the caps, which is important - they're quite flimsy looking but are the only things keeping the caps attached to the wheels, relying on an interference fit at the hub to keep them in place. Which is presumably why so many didn't stay in place.

 

Up until a week or two before lockdown, I was busy working away from home most of the time, so it wasn't until a couple of days before Christmas that I finally got round to dealing out the old AS card trick:

This is at the etch primer stage, I think. Tell you what, in hindsight, it'd have been a lot easier to take the wheels off the car! Flipping dollar shop plastic coated cards don't half have a mind of their own and like nothing more than tumbling off an upright surface at the merest wisp of breeze and taking a few of their brethren with them. Ah well, you live and learn!

Eagle-eyed viewers may also note that the rear tyre is a Hankook Optimo - something else the Cav has been treated to is a new full set of boots. If I ignore the Land Rover, that means that all 6 of my cars have full matching sets of non-budget tyres, which makes me feel incredibly grown up and is a personal sign of having achieved true adulthood. 

 

And here's the final outcome, though minus the griffins painted black, nor the black Vs spruced up, either. It's safe to say that I regularly underestimate the amount of time a job is due to take but this one was a real ball ache. I have 'before' photos somewhere but in essence, most of the wheel rims were pretty crappy, which involved much filling and sanding for a passable outcome. Then I started making cardboard templates for the wheels, thinking I could reuse 4 master cut-outs on each wheel. WRONG! My cutting out was terrible, so necessitated masking tape, so in the end I felt it best just to mask them. But I'm a stickler for making a nice clean edge, so that job took all bloody day. Anyway, paint was finally applied but again, I think this would've been much easier to achieve a nice even coat if I'd just removed the flipping wheels. Bought a rattle can with the snazziest nozzle I've ever used, so can't blame the tools but I repainted at least one wheel more than once, as I'd bugger up a nozzle press and lay down a massive runny blob of paint. I honestly don't know how @trigger  gets such consistently good results with paint!

 

Nevertheless, I got the wheels done well enough to show them in public. My rushing to finish the job was because I wanted to drive it down to my cousin's for Christmas, rather than take either of the moderns we commute in (Mondeo is currently at 413000km). So here we are breakfasting overlooking the Tasman Sea on Christmas morning, after an early start to beat the traffic. Besides this stop, the only other stops were to periodically check I still had all the centre caps, which I did.

It performed well but I had to nick Mrs_Jon's Clio's battery that morning, as overnight the Cav's battery went from serviceable to stone dead. Still, the journey was uneventful and I even managed to overtake a few slightly slower cars, using 3rd gear to get to 100, before slipping back into 5th for cruising. I was also confident in doing this, as our local mechanic replaced the cam belt and water pump a couple of weeks before and I did an oil and filter change at the same time, too.

I'll admit that the gear ratios are high, so this may not be the original 'box. That said, it cruises well as a result and I have 2 working French hot hatches to drive if I fancy greater acceleration. 

 

The final cherry on the cake for now was to bosh on a standard, NOS grille:

I know some prefer the Hella driving lamp one it was most likely sold new with but to me, this epitomises how an early Mk2 Cavalier front end should look - barring the excellent early CD grille, of course. I've kept the grille and lamps and not snipped any wires (the lamps provided additional main beam btw), so it wouldn't be hard to switch back.

Oh yeah, that's the resident knob head neighbourhood massive cat that likes to bully our two. Ignore him, he's a dick.

[Skizzer]

Loving the proper grille!

And are you sure that’s a cat and not a lynx? Looks like he’d have your arm.

[hairnet]

how much to rent for a week m9?

love it

caps look good

 

[greengartside]

A shame the original UK registration can’t be found, as that would be nice to have had a set of plates made up for it for originality’s sake. Amazing looking car though, a read credit to yourself.

[dollywobbler]

I know I certainly found the gearing taller than I expected, so I did wonder if it had a non-SRi gearbox in it. Comments seem inconclusive, with some suggesting that close-ratio boxes only came later. 

Apologies for being a bit underwhelmed in this video. I think you saw how absolutely knackered I was at the time! 

[Jon]

There's further news on the Cavalier front, as it's playing silly buggers and being problematic again but I'll do a write-up some other time. Today's enthralling post concerns Mrs_Jon's 17 year old Clio and its non-functioning washer jets. I'd known this had been an issue for a while but had put off fixing it, as Mrs_Jon didn't seem too fussed by their lack of functioning and thus didn't moan about it. And since I rarely drive her car, I tend to forget that such issues exist...

 

However, we car swapped the other day and since it's winter here, the windscreen was starting to get mucky from road spray, so I tried the jets and then instantly remembered they were broken, the exact moment the wipers began smearing the grime all over the screen. A couple of oncoming trucks knocking up water spray helped clear it but frankly, I'm too old to be mucking about using this method to reliably* clear a windscreen - this is the type of trick I'd have to utilise on my £220 MkIV Escort 17 years ago when I was broke, not on one of our 'good' cars nowadays.

 

Symptoms were that the washer motor was making a noise but not flicking out any water. A suck/blow test seemed to show the issue at the pump, as the pipes were clear. At this juncture, I find it's best to see if someone has tackled such a job before and then posted a video of it on Youtube  - this can save time and effort scrabbling around pretending I know what I'm doing, plus it makes a great excuse for sitting down and drinking a coffee. Turns out there's a couple such vids and they both made the job look easy - remove the passenger wiper arm, peel back some bits of trim below the windscreen and then you can whip out the motor from the bottle, then ideally replace. Job done. Easy.

Here's an example:

Except these were on 1.2 Clios, with a single washer motor. Mrs_Jon's is a 172, which has headlamp washers and as such, has two motors - the easy-peasy-to-get-to one is actually for the headlamp washers and the buried, annoying one (which doesn't exist on a 1.2) is for the windscreen. Great. Also, I don't have a replacement, as it seems to be a less common part and not many 172s were sold in NZ. Most excellent! To rub salt into the wounds, the 1.2 washer motor just pulls out from the top, as the water outlet is at the bottom of the motor and it slots into the bottle, to form a seal. The one that I was trying to get out had a 90 degree elbow but barely any space to remove it.

 

I was using my phone as a torch to look into the dark hole to try and see what I was doing, so was able to accurately draw in some expertly rendered representations of the tools I was using to grapple this mother with - a screwdriver and set of needle nose pliers, for those of you with no artistic licence.

 

Here they are in action. You can see here that the washer bottle is buried beneath the wiper mechanism and I wasn't about to start removing that, just so I could access the bottle more easily, as the bottle seemed to have mounting bolts close to the bulkhead that weren't accessible. Note also the loom to the cabin, which the screwdriver is butted up against. this needs to be yanked as far out the way as possible, to clear a gap for the washer motor but of course, it hasn't much of a tether, so moves probably an inch, max.

 

After way too much farting about, I've got the bugger out! Red arrow points vaguely to where it's come from. Disconnecting both tubes and blowing down each hole reveals the blockage is in the bit between them, about where the red arrow points to on the motor.

 

One post on the Cliosport forum suggested that there was a piston which flips between each outlet, as the motor spinning one way provides water to the windscreen and the other outlet supplies the rear window, when the motor spins the opposite way. The issue lies with the rubber ends of the piston swelling over time, blocking both outlets.

 

A breakdown of the unit on my sterilised work bench revealed an unevenly swollen piston.

 

I therefore ground down the rubber on a file, as I thought this would give a nicer outcome than if I just lopped off the excess with a Stanley knife. Othesr on the Cliosport thread had commented along the lines of "LOL it's not worth trying to fix, just buy a new one, they're like £5, you miser" to the OP but it's an easy fix, saves a few quid and saves something being needlessly thrown away. Plus it's an instant fix, no sourcing of parts and waiting for them to arrive, which is ideal for me in NZ, a country not well known for it's embarrassment of obsolete Renault parts.

 

Anyway, the refitting was an ABSOLUTE WAR due to slotting the pump back into the bottle via the 90 degree neck in the tiniest imaginable gap, whilst trying to line up the neck and hole blind and then get it to slide in to the bottle in parallel. But just look at those jets squirt!! 

Apologies for the boring update but I have to document this somewhere for myself, as no doubt the piston will fail again over time and I'll have to fix it again, or replace the unit.

 

 

[Joey spud]

On 5/12/2020 at 5:01 PM, dollywobbler said:

I know I certainly found the gearing taller than I expected, so I did wonder if it had a non-SRi gearbox in it. Comments seem inconclusive, with some suggesting that close-ratio boxes only came later. 

 

I had the exact twin of this Cavalier in the mid 90's (A535NJN) and it was very long legged and was an excellent,quiet motorway car.

When they did the face lift in '85 the gearbox ratio's were changed and they became much more revvy but i much preferred the earlier gearbox.

[Jon]

Ah well, that sounds like this hasn't had a replacement gear box, then! It does make for a long legged cruiser but I need to investigate why it's seemingly down on power, as high gearing and relative gutlessness don't make ideal bedfellows.

Updates will be made, when I get round to fettling!

[STUNO]

Glad I didn't call into Jon's for a coffee the other day while he was doing the Clio washers. The welcome may have been subdued. Jon, maybe the Cavalier is down on power for the same reason I am, we are both old.

Renault type problems and parts supply were exactly the reason I unloaded the Citroen and bought a local Nissan. I can get anything I need locally and every garageman has already worked on a few hundred.

[Spottedlaurel]

Ever thought about a career at Haynes?

[Joey spud]

12 hours ago, Jon said:

Ah well, that sounds like this hasn't had a replacement gear box, then! It does make for a long legged cruiser but I need to investigate why it's seemingly down on power, as high gearing and relative gutlessness don't make ideal bedfellows.

Updates will be made, when I get round to fettling!

I bought mine very cheap as it was down on compression on the middle two cylinders and was struggling to pass the mot emissions test,i (wrongly) assumed it was valves or head gasket but once i pulled it apart everything looked fine and once back together it was still down on compression.

Mine needed reringing and the glazed cylinder bores honed slightly to get it happy again which was easy enough to do with the engine in situ.

They are only 115bhp but Vauxhall designed the new power unit as a low end torque (LET) engine meaning that a bit like a deisel max torque is produced quite low down in the rev range so reving the nads off them was pretty pointless.

Looking on the DVLA site my old one only lasted till 1998.

[Jon]

Mine's reading 140000 miles-ish on the clock, so could well require a bit of engine attention but I think the major issue relates to fuelling.

I need to get to the bottom of why the inline fuel pump/ fuel filter is so noisy, despite me having replaced both items. The story from the previous owner was that it related to the tank having been run dry at some point, so it could be a blockage somewhere? 

Sadly, these are the jobs I hate, as I find myself upside down staring blankly at something, hoping for inspiration and yet getting nowhere further, each step I take.

I guess that's about 90% of old car maintenance though, for many hobby car fettlers.

[Jon]

Well. It seems as if 7 cars isn't enough apparently, so I just had to buy one more. In fairness, it's one that actually works, so that brings the fleet percentage up quite nicely!

 

I'm going to admit that I picked it up last week, so herein is the story, in words and photos:

 

First, I whipped threw together a quick brekkie:

 

 

Then I abluted:

 

Once quelled, my taxi awaited outside, as our UK mates stuck in NZ were handily staying with us:

 

Off we tore along Highway 1 for around 45-50 minutes. Hark at our nice new 110km/h road, the first in the country! Hold on to your hats!!

 

With that, we arrived safely (having been watched over by a plaster cast icon), I handed over a sheet of paper to the trader and I was off!

 

Pez shot (car is just out of frame):

 

So, what did I get? Of the 7 cars on the fleet, 3 are hot hatches, 1 is a warm family hatch, 2 are station wagons and one is 4x4 ute. Two are overseas imports, 3 are metallic blue and 6 of them were built in Europe (with the seventh being an Australian revision of a Euro design).

 

 

 

 

 

 

So where the flip does this fit in?!

All will be revealed...

 

[Jon]

Here's the sales photos, as I'm lazy:

 

 

 

 

 

Handily, it possesses 4 sides outside. A good tip to look out for when buying.

 

 

 

 

I find doors quite useful, too. There's 2 others on the opposite side.

 

Amid the curiously presentable engine room hole is an engine. VVT-i is Toyota-speak for VTEC KICKED IN, Y0.

 

Interior is resplendent in blue and grime.

 

 

Despite being of Japanese origin, the roof has proven its credentials for NZ citizenship, by ridding itself of much of its lacquer.

 

Boot space is deceptively crap. However, it's very convenient if you're placing a small, very heavy item in it, as the floor is so high, so swings and roundabouts.

 

 

Here's why it's so high, though:

To leave space for the AWD system! That's right, it's a manual, AWD Yaris (well, Vitz), seemingly only a thing in the first generations. Later models were sold with AWD but with an auto 'box and switchable AWD. I believe this is permanently engaged, though have yet to test it out off the tarmac to confirm.

 

Details on this are pretty minimal online - it was a Japanes domestic market model only and other than a couple of mentions on forums and some foreign Youtube videos showing them not really getting up to anything impressive, I'm all of a blank. What I will say though is that in actual fact, there's a relatively straight car hiding under some rectifiable cosmetic issues and although I technically own a 4x4, it's been 'off road' for years; way before I bough it. 

 

The main reason for buying it was to get us to the ski fields; with Covid being a thing, there's far fewer buses shuttling up and down, as it was predicted we'd be on our arse about now. Fortunately, we're 83 days free of Coronavirus in the community but there's next to no overseas tourists, due to our locked borders. All we need is something to biff the skis in the back of and traverse a few kilometers of potentially icy roads, so there was no need to buy some lumbering great off roader, when this will be buttons to run in comparison. As it's a 2000, it has yearly warrants (MOTs) instead of pre-2000 cars, which are every 6 months. Plus, it'll be great as a loaner car to overseas visitors, when they're finally allowed back.

 

Most crucially of all, it fits on the driveway! But that's not to say that a cull isn't in order.....

[hairnet]

fix holden play woth french car

did ya git snow yit?

[Jon]

I was in Taupo on the weekend and saw a lovely, snowy Mt Ruapehu in the distance, so yes, snow is here. We're too far north and thus too warm* for snow. Am guessing your plans for a revisit have been somewhat scuppered?

 

Upon arrival, cleaning commenced:

Steering wheel was de-grimed with the aid of hospital grade wet wipes. This is a before shot but I'll have you know it came up quite well.

 

Toothpicks were deployed to get rid of others' skin remnants from the gear knob.

 

And the seat belt releases. Seen here is the work in progress.

 

Out back now and let's see what's taking up all that boot space. Nice JDM MDF shards.

 

Revealing the neatly arranged contents below: a proper scissor jack and a warning triangle.

 

 

Yes, indeed.

 

 

Sadly, beneath all that tosh is a space saver wheel. I'm not a fan of these mostly for the fact that I can't understand where the non-space saver wheel is supposed to go, when you actually have to use this?! Do UK Yaris's of this era have a full size spare?

 

Even more sadly, there was a rusty pool of water to greet me beneath the spare. It's certainly not the end of the world but I suppose it's best to get the rustoleum out.

[Mr Laurence]

That’s incredible! I had no idea there was such thing as an AWD Yaris. How is it to drive?

[hairnet]

1 hour ago, Jon said:

I was in Taupo on the weekend and saw a lovely, snowy Mt Ruapehu in the distance, so yes, snow is here. We're too far north and thus too warm* for snow.

Am guessing your plans for a revisit have been somewhat scuppered?

if they let other countrys people into yours its still gonna happen

just a question of when - cash waiting m9

no shit scooters this time

 

[STUNO]

As mentioned elsewhere this little gem came as a bit of a shock to me, but it was obviously just a bit uncared for. But everything seems to work as it should and a short drive showed the AWD to be undetectable round town, there is no badging on the car so the AWD fact is unseen. It will look much, much better when the white headlights are cleaned up, it was a surprise to me that they passed a WOF inspection, the test is probably that they work and not if you can actually use them to see things!

Just enjoy a trouble free JDM4WDVITZ for a while.

[STUNO]

Just came across this little gem of a video, I think it fits in here nicely.

 

[Asimo]

"Autoshiterist buys car from white-room!"       Is this the start of a trend?

This car reminds me of a small Mitsubishi saloon I once nearly bought, which also had an unexpected live rear axle for AWD.  

I think you should remove the front driveshafts, weld up the centre differential and work up those drift-skills. 

PS   That is a lovely petrol station!

[dollywobbler]

Wow. A bad case of the Vitz. I had no idea there was an AWD version. 

[Jon]

14 hours ago, Mr Laurence said:

That’s incredible! I had no idea there was such thing as an AWD Yaris. How is it to drive?

Me neither! I suppose that Subaru and Suzuki proved that a small AWD hatchback is of use to someone, somewhere. I've certainly seen a few recent model AWD Swifts, though I'm not sure if they're NZ new or Japanese imports. As STUNO has said, it's not too shabby but without sounding like a tit, I'm used to a bit more power in my small cars. This one's a 1.3, so apparently 87bhp, which isn't too shabby. Mrs_Jon is the arbiter of whether a car is acceptable or not and she drove it the other night and approved. She did tell me it gets to 100km/h quite easily, if you keep it in 3rd! I think she needs to remember that not everything has to be as rapid as her Clio 172...

 

2 hours ago, Asimo said:

"Autoshiterist buys car from white-room!"       Is this the start of a trend?

PS   That is a lovely petrol station!

I bought it from a company called Turners (turners.co.nz), who are a mix of a car supermarket and an auctioneer. I'd usually steer clear of them but the price was right and they had just what I wanted - I just didn't know it, until I saw it! I'll give them their dues though; that white room is an inspired way of them knocking out consistently OK images nice and quickly, which is important when they have such a big online presence.

And you may have detected a few library images in my report, one of which was that excellent petrol station shot. I've recently learnt about this most excellent online collection of US roadside buildings and attractions, which one man photographed for over 30 years and that's where I found it. Link here: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=mrg

 

1 hour ago, dollywobbler said:

Wow. A bad case of the Vitz. I had no idea there was an AWD version. 

If the cap Vitz, wear it! 

 

Anyway, I took it for a WOF (MOT) yesterday and it failed, but only on wipers, one tyre and an exhaust flange leak, which I think is not too shabby, overall. For some reason which even I can't even fathom, I had a bout of mojo and got stuck in to some fettling:

 

Hark at me and my TWO trolley jacks! One was £5 from Wilkos in Newcastle and the other had been left in the boot of a 505 GTI saloon I bought over here a few years ago. 

 

I'd wanted to get underneath to assess some rust which the WOF inspector found. He'd warned me that it was saveable but really needed seeing to straight away.

 

And here's what greeted me! Admittedly, it isn't great and there was a similar amount on the opposite side floor pan. But I'm not sure how he'd cope spannering on cars in the UK!

 

The fuel tank also has some surface rust too. I'm assuming this is AWD specific, as it has a big cutout in the middle to make way for the prop shaft. Therefore, I don't fancy my chances of getting another, so I treated it and the rust above to some cleaning up and some rust converter gel.

 

Here's another part of the floor, bereft of pretty much any protection from the factory. Weight saving, innit.

 

The leaky flange (guffaw) in question. I bought a fresh pot of Gun Gum for this, I'll have you know.

 

Pleasingly, both flange bolts undid without snapping or rounding off their heads, etc. although the second one fair put up a fight. The one above is shiny from the oily persuasion I gave it. Since I'm such a high roller, I bought BRAND NEW replacements. I know! Money to burn!

 

Then I got all attack mode with the wizzy wheel attachment on my genereic cordless drill, in a bid to make my wheels look a bit better on the cheap. I'd love to say that I frisbeed the two wheel trims this car came with into the sea, or threw them under a passing truck or other such anarchic scenarios but in actual fact, I placed them in the back of the Land Rover to get rid of another day. Maybe I should place them on an unsuspecting parked car with 13" rims one day.

 

Here's the Cavalier by the way, resting a while and awaiting its turn for some fettling. 'Our' fat cat who decided to come live in our house is not privy to the rarity of Cavalier parcel shelves in NZ, as she tramples it into the boot space.

 

And for my next trick! 

 

Here's an overview of the mess I can make undertaking simple tasks. I'm very much a scattergun DIY-er, that's for sure. Note the trusty Jondeo, which has served me faultlessly for 5 years and 130000km, yet I've fixed precisely NONE of its cosmetic issues.

 

Wonky rear plate.

 

Not wonky rear plate. I also took off the last remaining Japanese number plate holder and the naff plate surround. I'm really on a role here!

 

 

I also took a rubber mallet to the dented bumper and whilst it's very much less dented, it did crack the paint. Frankly, I was surprised that this bumper/valance bit was even metal in the first place. In fairness, it's not quite as terrible as it looks here. Honest.

 

Final bit for the day was applying a headlamp cleaner goop to the offside lamp and then wizzing the compound off with a buffer. I'm not sure if it's the approved method but for 3 easy minutes of 'work', it looks much better. Room for improvement but better.

 

Anyway, that was yesterday and I've carried on with more stuff today but these reports don't write themselves, so apologies for the time lag.

[chaseracer]

On 5/12/2020 at 1:36 PM, Jon said:

Oh yeah, that's the resident knob head neighbourhood massive cat that likes to bully our two. Ignore him, he's a dick...

 

On 5/12/2020 at 3:25 PM, Skizzer said:

...are you sure that’s a cat and not a lynx? Looks like he’d have your arm.

There's a lot of Maine Coon in that ginger bruiser!