Cavalier Mk2 Memories

[mad4amanda]

pstruck said:

A 1984 (A reg) Mk2 saloon in a very fetching light metallic green was my first car, bought by emptying my Post Office savings account. It was a 1.6 basic ‘L’ model, but being my first car I was completely smitten with it.

I put an upgraded headunit and speakers in it, a pair of rectangular spotlights below the bumper and painted the lower valance black, as I couldn’t afford an SRi but wanted it to look a bit like one (sad I know). I had some problems with the carburettor (remember those), so bought a Weber twin choke replacement which to my mind at least turned it into a rocketship (unlikely)! Fond memories.

I`ve still got a weber twin choke carb somewhere that was a manual choke replacement for a cavalier

[dumfriesdave]

av185 said:

J D Campbell I agree the ebay black "sri 130" is not right.

Apart from the wheels, the exhaust is standard 115bhp sri whereas the 130 tailpipe was oval big bore.....

^^ Correct. Wrong tailpipe, side skirts missing, also had rear valance work done and the plastic lower skirting is now missing. Liked LX alloys in their day but just wrong on a 130.

[forks]

First car back in 92 was a metallic silver green 1.6 SR Cavalier saloon. My mate had a red 1.6l with a Weber carb on it, and twin tail pipe from a Diahatsu Charade he welded onto the exhaust! Loved mine though, 90bhp felt adequate, and the beige Recaro interior was great! Unfortunately the dreaded tin worm claimed it, and 3 months after I sold it, it was gone. RJR19Y, wish I had that plate now! Went on to a Sapphire Cosworth after that.

[spanner348]

dumfriesdave said:

^^ Correct. Wrong tailpipe, side skirts missing, also had rear valance work done and the plastic lower skirting is now missing. Liked LX alloys in their day but just wrong on a 130.

I'm pretty sure the front pipe of the exhaust on the 130 had a small silencer mounted in it too,(geek alert!) Could be long gone now I suppose and probably no longer available. LX alloys were the default choice of the late 80's, early '90's, Vauxhall driving chav. They miraculously appeared on any number of Novas, Astras and lower spec Cavaliers. Despite being a relatively paltry 14 inch diameter, these immediately transformed Darren's Nova into a completely different beast with so much more street cred innit...
I always thought that the Cavalier LX (and LXi) from whence these wheels came was actually a really well judged and smart looking run-out model. I always quite fancied one.

[J4CKO]

Cant be more than a few hundred MK2 Cavaliers about now, they generally dissapeared, even as bangers in the nineties, very rare to see a MK3 nowadays, in fact the Vectra is a bit thin on the ground.

[spanner348]

J4CKO said:

Cant be more than a few hundred MK2 Cavaliers about now, they generally dissapeared, even as bangers in the nineties, very rare to see a MK3 nowadays, in fact the Vectra is a bit thin on the ground.

Slightly off topic, but I remember when the Vectra first replaced the Cavalier. At the dealer I worked at we all felt the car was no improvement at all over the previous car. It certainly didn't drive better and had a huge number of niggling recurring faults that blighted the model for a good year or two after the launch. The last Cavaliers were smooth, comfortable & reliable. By contrast, it seemed that Vauxhall allowed Joe Public to complete the development testing on the Vectra for them. Perhaps that is where the rot began to set in...

[mad4amanda]

I had one of the last cavalier mk3 as a company car m413trb a 1.8 gls saloon in dark blue it wasn't a great car and even the old plate on the gearbox allowing a clutch to be done in minutes rather than hours had been cast in meaning a box removal was the only way. I swapped it into the pool for a 2.0 gsi that was nearly due to go .

[Maxus]

My first car was a MKII Cavalier. I passed my test on a Thursday and was fitting a new fangled CD player to it on the Sunday. Back in 1990 this was so advanced!
The car was fantastic - quite lively yet very cheap to run. I got to know the partsman in the local dealer quite well - he got use to me asking about various CD/SRi parts to fit to my 1.6L.
It got a bit rusty at 8 year old and was off the road by 12 years old. Not bad for one of these.
Who remembers fake mobile phones?

[Rickyy]

I loved old Vauxhalls as a kid. Lost interest when they started producing the Vectra, Mk3 Astra and Corsa though.

My Dad had a Mk3 Cavalier 1.4. (G115 ELJ) Don't even think it was an L model. It was as poverty spec as they come.

My Aunt had a light blue MK2 hatch, with a black boot lid from a black SRI!

[LaurasOtherHalf]

Dad had a 1.6L, still remember the reg-D459 UAO.

[bennyboysvuk]

Johnny50 said:

I changed it for a GSi2000 but didn't live up to the Mk2.

Commendable plate on that: H...UNG.

My dad had three successive Mk2 1.6 GLs as his company car between '84 and '88. I recall one day, we were travelling downhill on the newly opened M25 Reigate Hill section and I asked my Dad "why is the steering wheel shaking". My Mum was quick to respond with "because your father's speeding".

[dumfriesdave]

spanner348 said:

I'm pretty sure the front pipe of the exhaust on the 130 had a small silencer mounted in it too,(geek alert!) Could be long gone now I suppose and probably no longer available. LX alloys were the default choice of the late 80's, early '90's, Vauxhall driving chav. They miraculously appeared on any number of Novas, Astras and lower spec Cavaliers. Despite being a relatively paltry 14 inch diameter, these immediately transformed Darren's Nova into a completely different beast with so much more street cred innit...
I always thought that the Cavalier LX (and LXi) from whence these wheels came was actually a really well judged and smart looking run-out model. I always quite fancied one.

Well done on the geek alert exhaust spot. I noticed that too- the centre silencer is the correct item as it has 3 bolt flange rather than 2 on normal Cavs but front silencer replaced with straight through pipe. Used to use the same small boxes to replace Cat converters on Calibras as they were a direct swap (ultra geek alert?)
Time served with Vauxhall then years of working in exhaust centres, also owned almost a dozen mk2 and mk3 Cavaliers over the years.

[ToothbrushMan]

Ive been looking at Mk2s now on ebay too!

That SRi certainly isnt stock is it? It could still be the real deal but if is then its lost some of the original features as mentioned earlier. I cant imagine anybody applying 130 decals to the front doors and tailgate. Youve got to be desperate to do that just to try and fool a few poeple and surely than VIN number should come back as a 130? I always ask a seller now for the V5 reference number to check a cars MOT history on the VOSA website so that should also be useful to buyers. The LX wheels do it no favours nor the lack of side skirts. I see bids are over £1,200 though so its not putting many off.

Whilst browsing ebay I looked up some Vauxhall brochures for the Cav and the prices are unbelievable! £18 plus P&P for a brochure of the LX/LXi versions (probably consists of just 2 pages) even the full standard range brochure is £14. I would have bought one to go down memory lane with but not at those prices! Plenty of watchers on them too so still lots of fans of the Mk2 out there......

If anyone has a brochure what were the various outputs and figures?

[spanner348]

dumfriesdave said:

Well done on the geek alert exhaust spot. I noticed that too- the centre silencer is the correct item as it has 3 bolt flange rather than 2 on normal Cavs but front silencer replaced with straight through pipe. Used to use the same small boxes to replace Cat converters on Calibras as they were a direct swap (ultra geek alert?)
Time served with Vauxhall then years of working in exhaust centres, also owned almost a dozen mk2 and mk3 Cavaliers over the years.

I wouldn't have remembered about the 3 bolt flange, so indeed sir you are the ultra geek! I worked on Vauxhalls for 19 years in all, but the Mk2's seem such a long time ago now...

[Crafty_]

mad4amanda said:

I had one of the last cavalier mk3 as a company car m413trb a 1.8 gls saloon in dark blue it wasn't a great car and even the old plate on the gearbox allowing a clutch to be done in minutes rather than hours had been cast in meaning a box removal was the only way. I swapped it into the pool for a 2.0 gsi that was nearly due to go .

I think it was for the 92 MY they changed the clutch, early cars had a "flat" flywheel, which meant you could drop the clutch out the bottom, the later cars moved to a "pot" flywheel that had a bigger lip on it, this meant you couldn't get the clutch out with gearbox in situ.

Back to Mk2s, my Dad had two, '84 1.3 L 4 Speed hatch in blue (he towed a caravan with that(!) ) and then a '87 1.6 L 5 speed. The '87 had velour seats and the lower bumper valance on the front, was a much nicer car than the first one. Neither ever gave any trouble really.

The Vauxhall engines of this era were complete gems, the 86x86mm format works well, indeed Vauxhall engines today still retain this.

I had a Mk3 H plate GSi that I swapped out for a modded '93 turbo that I kept for years. I was chatting to a mate the other day and came to the conclusion that the car I want now is just a modern version of the turbo.

Saw some comments about it all going wrong with the Vectra and ecotec engines. Opel rushed the Vectra out because Ford had come up with the Mondeo, so instead of battling against a Mk5 Cortina in a dress it was an all new car, wrong decision but thats easy to say in hindsight. Also, you have to remember at this time the performance car market fell on its arse - Gsi, Turbo cavaliers, Gsi astras, GTE, GSI, SR, SRi novas, Ford Cosworths, XR models, 205 Gti all gone, even the Mk2 Golf was gone, replaced by the lack lustre Mk3 which was pretty rubbish. Insurance premiums had killed the cars off and it wasn't until the very late 90s/early 2000s that the performance cars returned.

The Ecotec engines were actually pretty good (plastic cam idlers excepted), the real problem was the stty siemens engine management. If you dumped that they were pretty good.

Anyway, memory road trips - there was a guy called Daz Cox who had a Mk2 Sri for years, always used to see it at shows, I'm sure some will remember it, it was a peppermint green colour - I found a page about the car here: http://www.mk2cav.com/body/media/imagestore/cavs/m...
Well, eventually she went to the big scrapyard in the sky, but she lives on because Daz put the number plate on his daily driver (Astra VXR).
I don't know exactly how, but Daz came across another very tidy SRI 130 and decided he had to have it. He did quite a bit of work ( http://www.vauxhallownersnetwork.co.uk/index.php?t...) and the results are awesome, Cav porn at its finest!
AFAIK he still has it:

[s m]

Crafty_ said:

Anyway, memory road trips - there was a guy called Daz Cox who had a Mk2 Sri for years, always used to see it at shows, I'm sure some will remember it, it was a peppermint green colour - I found a page about the car here: http://www.mk2cav.com/body/media/imagestore/cavs/m...
Well, eventually she went to the big scrapyard in the sky, but she lives on because Daz put the number plate on his daily driver (Astra VXR).
I don't know exactly how, but Daz came across another very tidy SRI 130 and decided he had to have it. He did quite a bit of work ( http://www.vauxhallownersnetwork.co.uk/index.php?t...) and the results are awesome, Cav porn at its finest!
AFAIK he still has it:

I'm pretty sure that Daz Cox's Cavalier is in 'Total Vauxhall' mag this month

Amazing how light they were for a full 5-seater saloon even back then - almost a full 200kg lighter than a new GT86 coupe.

[petrolhead888]

Ive just bought a totally original Mk2 Cavalier 1.6 L 1988 Facelift hatch in silver with only 60k, its never been welded and still has original rear arches with no rust! Never thought i`d end up with another but you just don`t see them anymore , especially in 2017!!

[ToothbrushMan]

how much? pics?

[K50 DEL]

Pleased to see so much love for the Mk2 Cav on here...

Friends owned various ones over the years, though I always had Astra Mk2 instead.

Until about ten years ago when I friend and I decided to rescue an unloved SRi 130 and turn it into a road rally / track car.
All was going well with the project until it was stolen (as a non-runner) from outside his workshop.

Apparently we weren't the only ones with fond memories of the Mk2 lol

To this day the 130 remains an unscratched itch!

[mk4gtiturbo]

My first car was an 85 Cavalier 1.6 GLS auto, I rebuilt the engine with high lift cams (which really suited the auto box) at the time I thought it was really quick, about a year later I killed the gearbox. I remember practicing lift off oversteer on a big roundabout near where my parents live. Ahh the memories. Off the eBay now.....