sophos9 - Living with the Vectra B 2.2

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sophos9

Regular Member
I bought the 2001 2.2 Vectra on the 11th April 2010 - had been wanting to get back into the Vauxhall club for a little while and had viewed many Vectras. This one is in black with full irmscher styling and only 61k - its immaculate, obviously someones pride and joy. I checked everything over, full diagnostic, body, HPI etc - could smell coolant from the engine bay however thought about pipes/thermostat, valve etc which are no problems so I bought it

Got it home, first thing is balancer and cam chain so bought all the genuine Vx stuff including seals/new bolts and a full service kit. Monday night started by pulling the plugs for a change, noticed some filler on the coil pack boot in cylinder (4?) nearest the cam chain. Either way, this was not going to be pretty - yep cracked cylinder head - looks very much like someone crammed the taper seat plug too tight

Mad scramble and £545 for a new head from ATOM X, full strip down and rebuild with gen Vx head gasket kit, new seals through out - you can read the full story here. (thanks again to ATOM X, great guy and excellent engineer)

Car finally running with new cylinder head and no oil/coolant leaks
 
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sophos9

Regular Member
Next up - full service. I'm using 5-30w fully synth Vx oil in the Vectra as I get this via trade club and its good oil. Everything replaced - fuel filter, pollen filter, air filter, oil filter, oil, plugs, coolant, brake fluid, clutch bleed - everything gen Vx and followed TIS service advise. I like genuine Vauxhall products, they are a little expensive but over the years of running X25XE, X30XE, C20LET, X20XE vectras, omega's and calibra's I've been burnt a few times on buying bits non gen and them having a short life. Trade club also helps significantly.

Once service done, the veccy is in a known good state so I can focus on nicer additions.

Things that still need sorting include:
  1. Steering off centre
  2. Steering vibration
  3. Coolant flush (evidence of copper from where the spark plug copper grease previously put in by previous owner washed through the system)
  4. Exhaust blowing slightly
  5. Cruise control fitting
  6. New bluetooth stereo for iPhone
  7. Aircon cold but getting close to needing a recharge
 
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sophos9

Regular Member
Steering corrected...

2 pet hates, vibration and off centre steering wheel. Took car the SCA Race and Rally to get a computerised full geometry setup and 4 wheel balance. The setup went fine and the steering wheel is now straight however the vibrations are better but still get some vibes at 80mph, damn - more about that later.

Cruise control - how easy is it to fit cruise to the veccy :D bought a stalk from Daz. and bought the clutch switch from Autovaux. Clutch switch was easy to fit, pull out the red adjuster - clip in place, connect loom. Stalk a little bit more difficult due to the screws straight behind the steering wheel but fitted no problem. Took it for a run out and cruise works perfect, awesome as I love cruise control for economy and control of a right foot ;)

Tuesday morning, started car up to hear a rattling coming from the front - s**t myself a little as I thought WTF!!!! Get under it and the cat is rattling like crap - its a ceramic cat and looking at the state of it, and the replacement flexible pipe that was welded in my guess is its the original. New type approved cat ordered and gaskets/bolts ordered from Vauxhall. Good news is, I found out it has a stainless steel magnex cat back exhaust fitted with the letterbox irmscher back box. I can hear its blowing also, back joint but can sort that later.
 
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sophos9

Regular Member
Went back to SCA to get wheels looked at - they checked over the wheels and rebalanced the front. Fingers crossed its sorted but no luck, still the 80mph vibration. Got some awesome advise about the wheel centre hole only being cosmetic - more info here

Booked it into Pug garage to have balance sorted with stud mount

Exhaust cat and down pipe arrived today so got the car up on stands and crawled under. Removed the rear O2 sensor, was in great condition unlike the front O2 sensor. Looks like the cat had been partly blocked and front O2 had started to melt. Amazingly it still works however ordered a new one from Vauxhall this morning to replace on Tuesday as the sensor does not have much life.

The old downpipe and cat had had it, its full of something between precat and main cat - loads of debris moving around in there and the ceramic has started to break up but not from the back end. Fitted new cat, reset sensors and took it out on a test drive. The new cat stated to drive around 8 miles carefully so I done this, the veccy feels a lot 'free'er', I guess the cat was partly blocked. No blows from the joints and there is more back pressure for sure as I can hear the blowing rear piece much louder now - it actually sounds quite nice :LOL:

Dropped 3 litres of coolant from the coolant pump and checked, still some evidence but not as much as expected. Sucked some from the header tank and it looks OK. I'm probably not running at 50:50 coolant to RODI at the minute, more like 35:65 but will remove another 3 litre and make up the difference

Another great session on the car
 
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sophos9

Regular Member
Booked a mobile aircon specialist for Tuesday to sort the aircon. He will nitrogen pressure test the aircon and if all checks out, will vacuum and recharge the system. I dont think there are any faults/leaks so dont anticipate any issues, will be good to have ice cold aircon.

Awesome result today also, the garage that stud mounted the front wheels have removed the vibrations - I tested along the dual carriageway at a significant speed today, no signs of vibes :D

The new cat has made a nice difference also, the car when warm has a whole bunch of cleaner torque now - pre change, it felt restricted. Will run the diagnostic on it to see what the fuel trim is doing out of interest.

Getting there now, car is vibe free, runs straight and goes well - the mechanics of the car are known.

One thing that I'm wondering about is the clutch. When pulling away the clutch feels a bit rough, its def not slipping but feels a little vibey and not as smooth as I think it should be - also get a small 'meep' from first gear when pulling away which I think is thrust bearing. Thinking this could be down to the following:
  1. Contaminated clutch
  2. Flywheel damage/warped
  3. Clutch damaged
  4. Engine mount problem

What are your thoughts on the clutch please? Thanks in advance
 
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sophos9

Regular Member
Tonight (or tomorrow) I will have a K&N replacement airfilter and a new coil pack. The current coil pack functions fine however the plastics are cracked and this bugs me :)
 
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sophos9

Regular Member
K&N fitted - yey. Just an observation - the Z22SE fitted in the vectra C has a massive air box and intake... wonder why they changed?
 
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sophos9

Regular Member
Yesterday I had a good run out in the car - feels much better since sorting the cat and sticking the new filter in. Had a mobile air con service guy come and check the car as the aircon was getting a little cold but not ice cold.

Measured the volume of stuff coming out - 250g
Amount needed in system - 900g
Checked over with dye and found a compression ring leaking - replaced it for £5
Nitrogen tested at 10bar and it held pressure fine so vacuumed for 20mins then added 900g of refrigerant

Result, ice cold aircon, result for £65 all in

Hopefully today the new O2 sensor will arrive with Vx - can't wait to show the photo of the old one :LOL:
 
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sophos9

Regular Member
New O2 sensor fitted - no problems. Nothing to really write home in way of noticeable difference but when you see the photo of the old sensor you will see why ;)

I'm averaging 33.4 at the minute, not driving hard - maybe brisk but cannot enjoy the full pleasure until I know what's happening in the clutch department (shameless link to the clutch thread - can you help?)
 
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sophos9

Regular Member
Today was proactive maintenance - fitted a new coolant temperature sensor. No errors with the current one however I was seeing different readings between diagnostic and gauge readout.

£10 well spent...
 
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sophos9

Regular Member
Its strange (and very good). The missus Vectra C z22se is getting around 30 - the 33mph I'm getting it is not driving crazy but is not hanging around. I think everything is working at its best :LOL:
 
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sophos9

Regular Member
Made my way to Halfords to buy a blowtorch, vortex socket set, new axle stands and stud extractors. Nearly bought a compressor, will pick it up next week

Today was clean day, the £70odd quids worth of Mequires made its guest appearance...

The clay s**t is amazing and the vectra is like a mirror after doing shampoo, clay, polish wax blah blah. My GSXR 600 and the missus Vectra C got in on the action
 
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sophos9

Regular Member
I changed the gearbox fluid on Thursday night, the fluid coming out was in the same condition as that going in which was a good sign. Also had a EGR blanking plate arrive which was a bonus, fitted that on no problems - next move to buy a cheater.

Heard some metallic rattling coming from the car - the Irmscher rear box has corroded and blown its baffles so now on the hunt for a new rear exhaust box :(

Car booked into Courtenays to sort out the clutch thing thats going on - will get a sports clutch and lightened flywheel at the same time :)
 
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sophos9

Regular Member
Changed the rear box for a almost new Irmscher replacement - either the exhaust or the EGR blanking plate fixed things nice for the vibrations when pulling away (check this thread)

Also found out that the car has been fitted with a 2.5inch cat back stainless steel exhaust, this causes 2 problems

1) The car is pretty much stock so having a wider flow mid section is probably not too cool
2) The mating faces of the rear section do not mate properly with the rear box gasket

I'm going to buy a new Vauxhall mid section (£50 on tradeclub) and remove/sell the stainless steel mid section so let me know if you are interested :)

The blowing exhaust joint and rattling rear box are almost sorted - great s**t :)
 
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sophos9

Regular Member
Another thing fixed - the rattle at 4000rpm has been sorted (here)

Also last night I fitted the new Vauxhall centre pipe, easy job and now the exhaust is standard Vx 2inch right the way through so expect to see a stainless system up for sale soon.

To recap, here are the things I have fixed/done on the car (all parts are Vauxhall)
  1. Full service (inc fuel filter, brake/clutch pressure bleed)
  2. Gearbox oil change
  3. Coolant change and flush
  4. Injector clean
  5. Sump rubber
  6. Aircon recharge and replacement 'o' ring
  7. K&N panel filter
  8. Rear engine mount
  9. Cam chain kit
  10. Balancer chain kit
  11. Chain cover gasket
  12. Head gasket
  13. Recondition cylinder head
  14. Crank seal
  15. Cam cover gasket kit
  16. Coolant temperature sensor
  17. EGR blank
  18. Heated O2 sensor
  19. Irmscher rear box
  20. Down pipe and graded catalytic converter
  21. Center pipe (with new rubbers/gasket/bolts/springs)
  22. Full geometry setup
  23. Stud mount wheel balance
  24. Throttle body clean
  25. Coil Pack (old one functioned fine, just plastics were broken)

Only 3 things outstanding now, get the clutch sorted (replacement clutch/bearings and lightened flywheel) and bluetooth replacement stereo then hopefully, I will be good to go for a while :)
 
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sophos9

Regular Member
Today the car is with Courtenay Sport, they are starting to pull the gearbox off right now to assess clutch problem - once assessed I'll make a call on the lightened flywheel ;)
 
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sophos9

Regular Member
Matt said:
Excellent mate, hope all goes well.
Click to expand...

Thanks mate. nearly back together with sports clutch and lightened flywheel (and bearing/slave). Had a good look over other components in subframe etc and all is good. Release bearing looked like it had uneven play/wear and something else which is strange, the pressure plate had yellow writing on it saying something like VBTA tested III - like what you see out of a breakers yard? Also found a bush missing and another badly placed on the gear linkage which confirms the vibrations coming through the gear stick.

Makes me wonder WTF, why would someone fit a pressure plate from a breakers after going through all the hassle of getting the box off?

Well looking forward to the razz home with the new flywheel - looking at the visible difference and it pretty significant :)
 
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sophos9

Regular Member
If it was not for the frickin divvy drivers ambling around at 45 in a 60 most of the 40miles home I would have really enjoyed the car. Clutch and flywheel combo is great, I did not stall it either ;)

Much more responsive, feels like it picks up much better from low revs and it def feels free'er - well impressed with it, great mod!!!
 
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