Calibra Turbo LE

[tiff_lee]

Finally the calibra thread I mentioned several times in my GTE thread for those who have read it, again it is copied over from various vaux forums so may seem a little disjointed.

Hi all just a wee thread on my calibra LE I picked up late last year, I was hoping to have a quick turnaround from purchase to getting it on the road but have since had a couple of setbacks.

Anyhow onwards.... first up a couple of pics of the car






When I picked the car up the work it required mot wise was fuel lines replacing (I have since done with nylon tubing) and the calipers/brakes sorting.

After removing the old seized calipers it was quite obvious the brake lines would also need doing when this happened



after further investigation it looked like the steel lines corroded around clips and corners so I removed all the lines and plan to replace them with cunifer pipe, I also ordered some goodridge braided hoses to replace the worn rubber flexible s.

The car did come with a replacement set of calipers removed from a cally in the scrappy however I am tempted to just replace everything now and just get some reconditioned ones. If I had aspirations for 300bhp in the future would standard stoppers do the job or would I be better off putting the money away for an upgrade?

One of the seized calipers



the spare ones



I'm also considering replacing the bottom wishbones, track rods etc just as a matter of course as at least one ball joint is split and it all looks somewhat scabby anyhow, any advice on what I should be looking to renew?

I have missed quite alot of photo opportunity's as it was only suggested today I make this thread but I will be under the car again soon.

UPDATE
Took a few pics today with the wheels off, its kind of scary how scabby it really is, check out that crank pulley!






and the other side




Like I said before I was just planning on replacing the lot, wishbones, track rod ends and ARB links

UPDATE
As far as i'm aware it has been stored in a garage in Newcastle for years so whether the floor has been constantly damp or something I don't know.

I just got under the car for a few pics sorry about the bad angles









from what I can see the floor is solid with the odd surface rust here and there where the paint/underseal has been scraped off, it just seems everything else that has been bolted to the car has rusted away?

UPDATE
Ok so very little progress on this car, well in fact pretty much zero progress! With me living/working away from home alot of the time (and having a separate R5 project) i'll be cracking on with the majority of work on the cally mid/late march when I finally get a good chunk of leave.

Meanwhile I have had a few goodies turn up at home...



Not sure what everyone else thinks to these lights but I thought personally they would look quite smart but I guess we'll see once fitted.

Also got some replacement brake calipers and LMF carriers, all I need now is the discs and pads which i'll be ordering come payday



I have considered painting the calipers possibly yellow to contrast with the black and go with the yellow DTM flashes and was going to do a similar thing under the bonnet with a black/yellow rocker cover combination and yellow silicone hoses, any thoughts?

UPDATE
Finally some progress although not much...

The majority of my spare time has been taken up by my GTE which was only meant to be a runabout while I did this Calibra up however it has taken over!

Anyhow after alot of umming arring about whether to go for Bilstein B8's and eibachs or coilovers I finally decided to go for the Gaz coilover conversion so off with the front struts...

After alot of messing about managed to get the struts off


Started stripping them down to find that on both struts the bottom coil of the Irmscher spring had snapped, nice...


Look at the state of that


Everything was corroded to hell and nothing was going to come off easy, had to tap a torx bit into the cap head allen bolts


Mole grips to remove disc guard screws


Chisel out the circlip!


Stuck solid


Pulling out the hub


Pressing old bearing out


don't actually have a finished article picture but basically the struts are completely stripped ready to be sent away to Gaz.

While I was at it decided to remove the wishbones and anti roll bar drop links, the subframe/wishbone bolts were in excellent condition but the drop links either sheared or needed to be cut off.



Replacements with powerflex bushes


Pain in the backside



Replacements again with poly bushes


Subframe is a bit manky


A quick smidge of hammerite



Ideally I would like to drop the subframe and give it a good clean etc but at the moment I don't have the time or the space so a quick coat will have to do.

Even the ABS ring has rusted away!


It's almost as if someone took the whole barge/boat thing a step too far and parked the car in the sea.

[tiff_lee]

Ok another update

Removed the rear subframe/axle


some associated bits


Rear calipers were pretty corroded as expected, one bleed screw sheared so replacements ordered


Whiteline ARB to go on


Replacement rear subframe already polybushed


'new' and old


Replacement rear mount bushes


Rear drivetrain prior to cleanup


Wire wheeled all the parts then painted in hammerite





Fuel filter bracket and rear exhaust hanger

Damper bar


Rear section of prop


I did purchase a new gaiter set for the rear shafts but the ones fitted were fine so I just cleaned everything up and painted it



Some new brembo brake discs for the front


Had to make new brake lines all round so picked up a decent tool to do it with


then using cunifer pipe for all but one line (ran out so used copper)


New abs ring for one of the front cv joints




Rear diff painted, also drained the old oil and replaced


Removed the plenum turbo cover to replace the inlet fuel line, rubber was perished and leaking


also noticed this broken something to do with breathers?


New handbrake cable,if anything brakes should be good on the car with every single component having been replaced


The underside of the car was generally in pretty good condition but the few areas that was slightly rusty I wire wheeled treated and coated in hammerite. I would like to do a thorough cleaning on the underside but when I can barely get underneath the car it isn't very practical.







Currently waiting on front struts back from Gaz and new rear calipers then I just need to re assemble everything do a couple more oil changes and then should be good to go for an MOT, should....

UPDATE
Ok small update

Away went the struts to Gaz...


and back they came with some rear coilovers as well


note these were the cheaper fast road coilovers or whatever Gaz call them supposed to "Gaz gold"

they even did the disc shields for me although not alot left round the mounting point after they blasted them (or however they clean them)


painted new rear calipers

some new rear GM pads


A closer pic of the converted strut


I'm guessing i'll need to fit some solid mounts with a spherical bearing as there isn't enough space/thread to fit the standard setup (not that its worth doing anyhow?)


the original setup


will possibly be getting some solid mounts like this (the one in pic is from my R5) but will then have to drill the strut top in the engine bay to bolt them on.


I have seen these compbrake fixed ones on ebay
Vauxhall Opel Cavalier mk3 Calibra suspension Top Mount | eBay
which have a different part number to the fixed ones listed on their main website
http://www.compbrake.co.uk/Parts-by-.../prod_620.html

in fact looking at those ones on ebay i'm not even sure how they work, the standard setup is 2 pieces one either side of the car body itself but thats one piece?

[tiff_lee]

Another minor update, purchased some solid top mounts from compbrake for the coilovers as the standard setup couldn't be used. I did intend to take some pictures of the mounts before fitting them so may remove one if I cba however here are some pics of them fitted.

As you can see I was required to drill a couple of holes as the solid mount bolts to the car like on a Astra mount and then the strut bolts to the mount.



Removed the track rod arms to give them a 'refurb', also fitted some new poly bushes to them.



Removing the old bushes

Painted and greased up


Gave the front calipers another coat of yellow


Front strut fitted

320mm brake disc


and the wheel fitted


I have noticed the back of the rim has scraped some of the paint off the caliper but meh.

and some nice shiny mikalor clamps for the exhaust


UPDATE
The car passed its MOT last week no problem which was a relief, although I had replaced every single brake/suspension component pretty much so good job.

I was having trouble with my boot lock thinking it was fubar but after visiting a member of clubcalibra yesterday my boot lock appears to be ok after all (operator failure) although I may now have a problem with the factory fitted alarm, time will tell on that one....

Also had a problem with radiator fans not cutting in which was down to the aircon rad fan being completely seized and since the fans run in series one being fubar prevented the other from running as well.

Removed the bumper trim to find some familiar sights (from when doing under the car)


fan, seized solid


Tested both radiator fan switches and they were fine so that's at least one positive.

Also need to look into some replacement bearings for my solid top mounts as they don't seem to be rotating freely when under load the spring just seems to twist round instead.

UPDATE
Replaced the front radiator fan and now all works as it should so one less job on the list.

While under the bonnet with the engine running I noticed one of the rubber hoses between the solid fuel line and fuel rail was leaking! the rubber had perished and was spraying out, how long it had been like that I dread to think.

It was this hose, goes to the fuel pressure regulator



I had replaced the other rubber flexible for the exact same reason so that should of prompted me to inspect this one, oh well no harm done..... this time....
Rather than pay about £8 for a replacement I made a new fuel line using the old union, with a dremel I removed the crimp


Fitting the union onto some new 8mm fuel hose and secured with an 'O' clip


Picked up some new longer wheel nuts seeing that I had fitted 3mm spacers


Been trying to identify this random hose coming off the servo vacuum line


looking at diagrams on max boost indicates no pipe work tee'd off the servo vacuum line.....

UPDATE
Not much of an update as busy at work with the boat being back (boo)

Anyhow picked my wheels up from being powder coated at the weekend after an epic drive home

pretty pleased with them for £20 a wheel

not the best on the car pic

the car needs a good clean and polish now, also bbs centre caps on order at the bargain price of £40.......

for those who have owned a calibra before you are probably aware of how poorly lit the heater panel is, the single bulb had blown on mine and whenever driving at night I would fumble the controls trying to find the right one so I decided to carry out the led 'mod' as featured here
How to fit led's to Cav heater panel | Vauxhall Owners Network

I used 4 x 3mm orange led's, 3 for the slider knobs (chuckle) and 1 to illuminate the fan control




on that guide the chap drilled holes here there and everywhere to accommodate the led's but I decided to use smd ones as they're alot smaller and no additional drilling required (apart from the 1 hole for fan controller)


also I used one at each end of the hot/cold bar rather than several behind as I didn't like the bright points with light bleeding through where each led sat




the picture doesn't do it justice and although it may be bright it doesn't glare as much that.

The led's providing the white backing light along with those 2 on the hot/cold bar are on 3 separate circuits (with own resistors) as it made it simpler to make each part as a separate component, however I think ill wire them all together in a series/parallel circuit as the brightness amongst them isn't consistent then i'll reduce the driving voltage to reduce the brightness....zzzzzzzzz

Not very exciting

some 6mm plastic which ill need to do some sanding/trimming to make a good fit in the vent hole then I plan to retain the hazard switch in the centre while mounting 2 x 52mm gauges either side, boost and wideband (will be covered with some stick on carbon fibre wrap to finish)

Also got this random nasty rust spot under the bonnet not sure what can be done about it or whether its a replacement bonnet job


UPDATE
After doing a few hundred miles in the calibra it seemed a little more thirsty than I had expected which raised the suspicion that the fuel pump/tank top lid where the fuel supply/return lines connected to was corroded pretty badly and possibly leaking (a common problem and something that wouldn't surprise me given the state this car was initially in).

Upon removal I was pretty surprised as it seemed in rather good condition


however that small patch of rust on the supply line was concealing pin holes which no doubt leaked fuel when the pump was running (only a slight amount so not really noticeable except on my wallet)


I've seen a couple of different diy repairs on clubcalibra one of which involved soldering some copper pipe in place of the original steel pipe, seeing that I had the necessary pipe and tools to hand I decided to give it a go.

Cut off the old pipe and drilled through (removing the pipe from the underside)


Then soldered some copper pipe in place

not a pretty joint but then I don't exactly get a lot of practice, however the joint was strong (no movement etc) and water tight. I couldn't get as tight a bend as the original piece without the pipe kinking but at least now there is a solid single piece all the way through.

Some hammerite for good measure


Also took the opportunity to fit an uprated fuel pump (in prep for future upgrades), pump is a HRC performance one


had to trim the rubber sock to get the pump to fit inside the mount and also modify the bottom of the mount to get the pump filter connected as it was fouling




Rather than splice the uprated pump wiring into the thinner oe stuff I removed the pins from the connector and soldered them directly to the pins instead


Also went about converting all the push button switches to leds using 'warm' white leds as less distracting/dazzling IMO



Also started making the gauge holder to fit where the centre vents were


I actually messed up and removed too much material from the top after this (plus plastic was a little too thick) but I carried on anyhow just to get a feel for how it would look



I have some carbon wrap to finish it or maybe even some carbon sheet somewhere to actually make it from but anyhow you get the idea, it's just a shame the AEM has such a huge bezel.

[tiff_lee]

Very little progress at the moment as i'm working away alot and have a massive box of parts to fit ><

Got home last weekend and crudely knocked a gauge mount for the centre vent using some scrap carbon fibre I had loafing, first I used some butyl strip to seal the centre vent flap shut



centre gauge pod just pushed in, may well use a mk2 astra hazard switch mounted between the gauges should fit in nicely with it also being round


also fitted the led switches, I had used 'warm white' leds but the dials and stock oil/volt gauges I had fitted with 'bright white' so I will change all leds to warm or bright white still undecided though





and led heater panel fitted, again not too sure about warm white or the orange I used for the sliders now


just random pic of original bulb holders being fitted with leds