Right, im not entirely sure if ive put this in the correct section, im not modifying it (not at first anyhow) im pretty much rebuilding it :lol:
Well, I was the proud owner of a very low mileage 2001 sri 150 vectra, until one night I crashed it on black ice on an ungritted road, i was totally unsuspecting as I didn't take a turn off, they just stopped gritting halfway down a road!
So, I have a nice engine in a broken shell.
Enter this:
A 2001 sri 150 with a very poorly engine bought from a member on vvoc. No match for a tractor, even when towing a trailer!
With a few cdx and ls modifications 😃
It has ls rear seats(more on that later), steering wheel, doorcards and dashboard panels, and no stereo or speakers. It also has rear electric windows, one of them working.
And as you've probably noticed, running on STEEL showo..
Onlookers of the drivers side get to view the singular wheeltrim :wave:
While it may just look badly parked there...
.. Its actually refuelling from my green vectra, still containing a full tank of v-power - for the moment
The grey vectra does run, but its got a rather unhealthy oil addiction..
..to the tune of 1 litre per 100 miles :o
But nevermind eh, it stll got me 100 miles home over a period of hours and it even tried to save fuel by running on three cylinders most of the way. And it had a constant need to turn right lol
A very entertaining drive nonetheless, 'envoy cdx' took me to get it and convoyed me back home.
Lack of a working cigarette lighter socket meant some crafty bodgery, creating the glovebox light powered satnav!
Anyway, i had the green vectra stripped and it was time for it to go to a better place, a place it was towed to have its engine ripped out for a better cause :twisted:
The corsa is a courtesy car, with a noisy timing chain lol
The grey vectra serving as spares storage for the moment.
The time had come to get the grey vectra to the green one, a 40ish mile trip to the workplace of 'dead astra', who began taking the engine out of the green one in the wee small hours.
Halfway there I lost the fuel saving capabilities of 3 cylinder power and had to resort to two! which just didnt work at all really :roll:
The airbag light and the engine management light had been a constant decoration to the dashboard, but now i had a new one, a car with a spanner through it! and a sheer smoke whiteout behind.
I limped it onto the side of the road and rang dead astra, i may be a little late.
I let it cool for half an hour or so and plugged my laptop in, the usual suspects of p0130, p0132 and p0135. I cleared the codes and fired it up, everything seemed okay and I even got the rest of they way without the management light coming on :wtf:
Three cylinder fuel saving and the usual plume of blue smoke still accounted for though.
I'd better mention at this point, that i've been driving at quiet traffic times and making my way round every back road i could find to get this car from place to place.
I arrived shortly before envox cdx and before long the good engine was free thanks to the work of dead astra.
While the engine was floating at a good working height, a quickshift was fitted
And dead astra gave the other part a clean on a buffing wheel as it had become a tight fit and the gearstick wasn't centralising like it used to.
A bit of spray grease and everything was moving smoothly
The piper manifold was fitted, would have been rude not to really.
Most of the mess stays in the engine bay, the engine has very little trailing wires when removed
Okay, onto the grey vectra, no pictures really as it was so oily my camera would have soon turned the same colour, i did grab a quick picture of the engine on the floor though.
It was everywhere, on the side of the engine, in the induction pipework, the throttle body, all over the inlet manifold and all over the engine bay.
The cause of the car pulling to the left was a snapped spring
Pretty much broken right in the middle. Luckily the same strut in the green one was undamaged 🙂
Anyhow, back in through the top, the good engine was in
And then plumbed in, just an ecu swap and it was running with no problems.
Dead astra cleared it airbag light too!
The oily backbox was the only part of the exhaust to stay on the grey vectra, the centre section and lambda sensors were transferred from the green vectra and joined Johnnyn's hoffman downpipe cheers..
The next day I swapped the rear brakes with the help of envox cdx to rid it of a nasty judder and set the handbrake up how I like it lol
And today Ive changed the engine oil, transmission oil and all the filters. And fitted my old three spoke leather steering wheel.
Im currently looking for a wheel refurbisher to get my twinspokes repaired.
