Hello everybody, I registered a few days ago on the recommendation of a work colleague and have spent a few evenings searching the forum and learning about my latest acquisition. I'm no stranger to forums and like the look of this one - looks like quite a few of you are practical and DIY mechanics is my favourite way to spend my spare time...
We all know that when cars approach 10 years old or 100k miles their owners often decide that's the time to stop maintaining them and run them until something looks like it's going to cost more than a tank full of fuel to fix before they send them off to the scrappy.
It seems I intercepted a VectraB last weekend that despite being an 02 reg with only 92k miles, CDX spec and an estate, was up on eBay with no bids for £450, a few suspected faults in the ad. I went to see it (locally) and diagnosed the manifold leak (not chain as per the ad I'm more confident) and bought it for £350. Bargain, and pretty unusual for me to get one. 😉
Usual CDX spec of (working) climate control, xenons, cruise, fuel computer plus heated leather. Body is silver, leather is black. It has had some love over the last 18 months, new tyres, new starter motor, GM battery and a new timing chain back in 2010. I reckon it'll make a nice car.
So on with fixing it. eBay supplied me another manifold, which arrived today, good condition and ready to fit. I've ordered gaskets from Vx and tonight set about removing the old manifold. No problems except one nut (and half a stud) was missing (heat cycled and broken off I guess). It doesn't look like it was blowing from there so the lazy option would be to ignore it (the lower end stud on the timing chain end of the engine) but I want to do better than that and have no doubt about it.
Given the restricted access, what's the best way to extract the stud? It's sheared off about 5mm below the manifold mating surface, so there's nothing to get hold of / weld a nut onto. I'm thinking about using two other studs to bolt a steel bar onto and drilling a pilot hole through that to guide a drill bit (right angled drill attachment I guess) into the remains of the stud. Then what?
I've previously tried easy outs (Laser branded from Halfords) and took them back in disgust as very modest torque snapped one in the stud the last time I tried this and made the job 10x harder. Presumably there are better ones, but where from?
With that stud extracted and replaced, I'm confident it'll all go back together well and solve the issue.
Looking around the car, it's not in bad shape. Two nasty scratches together on the bonnet where his ex apparently attacked it with a key, a couple of rust bubbles on the tailgate and some dodgy aerosol on the bottom of the tailgate and back bumper, not scruffy, but not as shiny and well finished as the rest of the car. Mechanically it is pretty good, suspension is all quiet and seems fine, engine didn't lack power, chain clattered for less than 1 second on very cold startup and the brakes are all good apart from the OSR disc needing some cleaning up. Then it looks like there are two distinct oil leaks. It is overdue an oil service and my guess has gone 18 months or so since its last one (when he bought it - the previous owner said it had just been done before he bought it, so that might be true, everything else he told me has stacked up)
One oil leak appears to be pretty general around the timing chain end of the engine and must be fairly minor although it's seeped everywhere and will need cleaning off, running again and another inspection to tell for sure. It's had a chain replacement in 2010 (£700!) so perhaps they reused the gasket or spilled oil everywhere in the process and didn't clean it up. There are some drips hanging on the bottom of surfaces but no deposits on the ground yet.
Second oil leak is on the gearbox end of the engine; again looks pretty general in terms of looking 'wet' around the bellhousing area. No idea of the cause, doubt it's the box as that seems very sweet but looking on here wonder if the water pump is in an unusual position and is the cause. I'm very familiar with the Vauxhall engines up to the old 2.0 ecotec (X20XEV) and V6 (C/X25XE) so this is my first chain driven camshaft. There's evidently lots that sets this engine apart from previous offerings and I remember reading the sales blurb at the time, driving hire cars with this lump and being pretty impressed.
So, The questions...
1) What's the best way to get that stud out without mullering the head?
2) Where can I get some good quality stud extractors?
3) What's the usual cause of the timing chain end oil leak?
4) Is there any usual leak from the gearbox end of the engine?
Thanks for reading this tome... 🙂
Ian.
