vauxhallviva.com

Hi

Thought i had better start a thread for the viva I recently rescued.

I used to own a J reg 1159 cc back in the late 80's, i bought that at the time for £30 and the main work i had to do to that car was rebuild the engine (bearings, rings, valves etc..) and repsray it (first time i had attempted that) .

It was bought for my then girlfriend , who shortly after the rebuild blew it up (oil pressure switch blew out).

Anyway, this big blue beasty should fill some of the spare time i don't have, therefore this thread could spread over years

I'll put up some of the gory "before pics" next. At least so i can look at them regularly and ponder my sanity.

Bill

tonight i popped the bonnet (required careful persuasion and some lube fore the hinges..).

Took the plugs out of the engine and they were all clean , no sign of burning oil, stuffed rings or the usual signs of engine death so this is good..

poured some redex into each cylinder and loosely put the plugs back in.. that can soak for a while..

removed the particularly grubby old air filter.. I have a new one from fleabay to stick in there.

sprayed some redex into the carb too.

lobbed a battery on and the indicators work, the rear lights and what's left of the headlights, also the speedo dash lights work.. that is at least promising.

didn't attempt to turn the engine over, will do that after its been sat with the redex for a bit and then only with the plugs out.

There is an electric fan heater installed in the footwell happily running, both front windows just slightly open.. this will help dry her out as there is quite a bit of wet inside.

There is no carpet in there so that makes this job easier. (good job else i am sure a carpet would of rotted the floor out by trapping water).

The headlights are Cibie ones and i got a pair of NOS ones , they wont be going on for some time though, plenty of more immediate stuff needs to be done as can be seen in the pics.

First lengthy task will be to wash off all the moss and crud , as well as pressure wash off dirt (and loose rust) underneath so what needs doing there can be seen without receiving a face full of dirt every 2 mins.

Bill

Sounds good, wise precautions taken. Scary pictures, resplendent rust.

I really don't think there's any need for using salt on the roads at all -totally bad and mad as it is. People would just drive a bit more carefully and adapt to the reality of the climate and road conditions, own and fit mud+snow tyres maybe for the worst of it, the same for emergency vehicles and such special cases, including rushing an army to menace an invader or uppity revolting masses. It is to an extent collusion between government and industry, at the expense of consumers, rather than done for vague reasons of safety; safety overall must surely be diminished by the corrosive attack on everything from vehicle structure to brakes, suspension and steering. There would still be limited corrosion of course, but nothing so destructive to car bodies and systems, except maybe near the sea coast or a salt mine. The salt water run off into the ditches and verges, rivers too, must adversely affect the variety and health of almost all plants and creatures, by the roadside and further afield; resultant freshwater salinity even turning farmland to sterile desert as the rains even in summer reactivate the salt, withering fickle crops.

No offence but your rust makes me feel much better about mine. Good luck and keep us updated.

heh

too true, it is an interesting challenge for a first time restoration.. Makes the work i am doing on the chevette look easy at least.

Bill

Good luck on this, look forward to following as you move along. As for the road salt, better not tell you where I work, but will give you a clue. Try Googling Boulby Potash Mine!

Peter

It's YOU is it Peter, I dimly recalled someone on here mentioned once that they did salty stuff, but I'd forgotten who. No offence intended but there is no better way to start the day than with an almighty rant.

Seriously though, around here it is beyond a joke, they just salt relentlessly it seems from about October to April regardless of whether it's actually necessary. This morning was a beautiful dawn, about -5C I'd guess, everything was white and crisp and the sun was a brilliant orb, the sky so clear and blue etc. etc. It's really been like this for over a week, dry and dusty with the lightest of breezes and the traffic just swirls up clouds of the stuff, you can quite literally taste the airborne salt. In protest I spent a blissful day tinkering with the bike, while out the corner of my teary eyes, I watched the Viva steadily dissolving away. I've lived in a few different parts of Scotland, some with weather far more extreme than here, which is mostly mild and damp, but have never seen anywhere so much salt used so excessively, with the possible exception of one or two chip shops, maybe.



Good luck Bill with your resto, more pics if possible as you proceed.

Strange thing is, the road salt is actually a by-product for us, we have to dig through it to get to the potash, we dont even make any money on it, sell it at cost to get rid of it!!

Peter

Heh, quite agree with the salt thing although the local councils round here aren't exactly over mad with it as its Rural and iced up single track lanes wouldn't be the same if they salted em

I have an update on the Viva, which has been named Sparky as my partner said the colour looked like electric blue.

I am not sure what exactly the colour is called but i think its the same as the one in the forum top logo

Anyway.. today Sparky got a wash, washed off the moss, dirt etc.. Used a soft floor brush and some generic car shampoo from a local factors (washing vehicles isn't something i do a lot , but then my other vehicle is an LDV convoy).

The paint isn't too well, lots of white spot oxidisation, some rusty bits on top etc.. the chrome trim is ok, where it isn't bent.

the clean has uncovered the fact that a red vehicle has been scraped down the passenger side, leaving a dent in the passenger door and wheel arch. This will be something i will attempt to fix with a panel beating kit i bought a year or so ago ..

The fan heater that has lived inside in the footwell for the last day or three has dried out the inside nicely and the rubber mallet confirms the rust on the floorpans is surface and they are solid.

I have applied phosphoric acid to the passenger floor pan with a pain brush and worked it into the rust. this stuff dissolves the rust but doesn't dissolve steel and when it has finished you just wipe off any residue and you are left with shiny metal..

it is like that stuff halfrauds sells in 90 ml bottles, but i got it in 5 litre bottles from here >

http://www.bonnymans.co.uk/products/pro ... uctID=6183

£19 for 5 litres of strong phosphoric acid, as opposed to £7 or whatever for weak 90ml blahrust from halfs.. You can tell when this stuff is high concentration, it is clear and slimey.. at lower concentrations it darkens.

use of goggles and gloves is wise, it takes a lot of washing - dilution to get it off your hands. that is my public service announcement, from experience

I tested it on the floor pan of custard first, my yellow chevette which is receiving parallel restoration work.. the battery tray had gone on it and the drivers side floor was very wet.. again caught before it became serious rot.

Will go back and see how that went tomorrow perhaps. got to zinc paint the now de-rusted bits of the chevette floorpan first. her blog is on the chevette owners group site.

The engine! - Sparky is a 1256 with the cake tin filter + carb as expected. Last time i visited i removed the plugs and poured in some redex to each bore. Checked it had oil in it and that it looked usable etc.. lobbed some of the redex in the oil too (i have done this before on other vehicles to great effect, ask for details ).

this will help degum - carbon the oil side before i change the oil - filter etc..

This time i thought i would try and turn the engine over , a couple of nudges of the crankshaft pulley nut before the engine decided to budge (guessing sticking rings). Then decided to crank the key once i had a battery fitted.

she turned over, slowly at first but then picked up speed as expected with the plugs out

so it turns

Next i stuck one of the removed plugs onto a lead, rested it on the brake servo, cranked the engine over, no spark..

popped the dissie cap off, poke the points with the 11mm spanner i had ready to take it out if needed.. At this point i was reminded quite sharply that i had left the ignition on ... owch..

I retrieved the 11mm spanner from about 20 ft away and turned the ignition off.

redneck style i turned the engine over by jamming a big screwdriver across the starter solenoid contacts so as to get the points to sid on a lobe. they wern't opening.. except for when i pushed em open with the spanner earlier.

out came the screwdriver, ah this takes me back.. tweaking the points base plate and scraping off corrosion from the points.. finally got them about right visually. they opened/closed anyway..

lobbed the cap back on, cranked it and a spark on the plug, yay

Stuck all the plugs back in and put the leads back on.. poured a bit of fuel into the carb and turned the key.

The engine spluttered, fired into life then died one the fuel vanished. The pipe to the tank from the fuel pump was disconnected when i bought it so i used a pierce of hose from the pump into the redex bottle which i had now filled with petrol.

i used the redex bottle as it was clear so i could see if the fuel was going somewhere , i.e. the pump works

the hose fitted it nicely too.

the choke cable is seized, and due to the carb design if you cant move the choke cable then you cant manually push it. So i popped the lid of the air filter box, ignition on, big starter solenoid shorting screwdriver at the ready and cranked it over while placing my hand over the air inlet to the carb.

a few turns and vroom, it started and ran, left it running for a bit, the exhaust wasn't blowing and no nasty smoke out of it either.. phew..

turned it off after a bit as there was no fanbelt, so fitted one, another ebay purchase, got two, the other one for custard as that still had the original one on it and it looks well ropey/thin/frayed.

It was fun persuading the alternator to move, my friend mr rubber mallet helped it down low enough to get the belt on. then the fun of levering it back up again to tension the thing and do the nut up.

poured some water (well washer fluid as its all i had) to top up the radiator.. it wasn't empty so that was a good sign.

fired it up and left it running until the redex bottle ran out.. all seems functional

All this was done in the dark this evening, my LED headlamp being the main saviour.

I did take a couple of pics of the cleaner sparky but as yet haven't transferred em to the PC. flash photo's at night never look that good imo anyway ..

maybe take some more tomorrow if i get chance in the daylight.

bill