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151

Omega General Help / Re: Omega overheating and then fine again. Z22XE

« on: 11 June 2020, 16:21:30 »

Started up the car and set the heat to HI and yep there is was dripping quite a lot from around the gearbox.

I have a brand new one lying around because i ment to replace it as a preventive matter but it's so tight around it that it needs to be replaced from the bottom.  So i won't be doing this without a lift.

On a 2.2, you can see the HBV from below, but it's a long way up, and it's difficult to get both arms up to hold the valve while pulling off the hoses. Working above means removing the scuttle, but the hoses have enough slack to allow you to pull it up, as in my picture, hold the HBV in one hand while pulling off the hoses with the other.
The hoses can be hard to remove. It helps to label the hoses.

Correction; it is controlled by a vacuum hose, not a cable, it can be seen in the pic running under my left thumb, it goes into a connector above the diaphragm.

152

Omega General Help / Re: Omega overheating and then fine again. Z22XE

« on: 11 June 2020, 11:40:10 »

Started up the car and set the heat to HI and yep there is was dripping quite a lot from around the gearbox.

I have a brand new one lying around because i ment to replace it as a preventive matter but it's so tight around it that it needs to be replaced from the bottom.  So i won't be doing this without a lift.

On a 2.2, you can see the HBV from below, but it's a long way up, and it's difficult to get both arms up to hold the valve while pulling off the hoses. Working above means removing the scuttle, but the hoses have enough slack to allow you to pull it up, as in my picture, hold the HBV in one hand while pulling off the hoses with the other.
The hoses can be hard to remove. It helps to label the hoses.

153

Omega General Help / Re: Omega overheating and then fine again. Z22XE

« on: 11 June 2020, 10:25:56 »

Heater bypass valve, plastic item with three pipes and a cable attached, see picture above. To test, run engine and set heat to maximum and watch for drips below rear of engine, if no drips set to minimum and watch again.
To replace, allow engine to cool, remove header tank cap, remove scuttle, locate HBV below rear of cylinder head, heave it up with its hoses, disconnect hoses and cable, and replace with new HBV.

154

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 09 June 2020, 19:03:46 »

Pic above of display installed in the Vectra estate.
Fair comment, Nick. When I was younger I would swing my left arm behind the driver's seat, look straight behind me, and with feet still on the pedals and right hand on the steering wheel, easily manouevre the car backwards. Head restraints and old bones now make this near impossible. Now I see women at Tesco's easing their cars effortlessly into the marked parking bays, using their door mirrors and reversing sensors. I applaud them.
Now the Vectra saloon is starting and running well, I am enjoying tinkering rather than sorting, as DG puts it. I need things to do in the lockdown. SWMBO suggests I could paint the spare room, but that sounds boring.

155

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 06 June 2020, 17:50:56 »

smaller picture

156

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 06 June 2020, 17:16:44 »

Notch the dash at the bottom of the display aperature

That's tidier, Doc. On this display there is nothing shaded. On the Design estate there is something displayed bottom LH corner, shall have to watch that.

157

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 05 June 2020, 19:02:52 »

By dash top vent, I meant the one for clearing the windscreen 

Not the easiest place to get to though

That is trickier, can't easily do it now. The location at the bottom of the display is attractive, but of course that is on the trim strip that conceals the screws that locate the heater vent panel, that goes on last. I should need to tighten the screws first, hoping to feed the cable through a gap between vent panel bottom and fascia, then glue display to trim strip. Will investigate.

158

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 05 June 2020, 18:41:20 »

This is why having the brochures is so handy.

Also, they built 20 billion Vectras, so you can afford to be choosy.

Personally I would have sat the parking sensor display at the bottom of the display screen or run it out of the screen vent on top of the dash, but I'm a bit ocd like that.

Regardless, it's good that you're tinkering rather than fixing

Why didn't I think of that? I can still move it. The plug on the end of the cable would not go through the heater vent. I did consider cutting the cable to put it through a drilled hole in the dash, but did not fancy resoldering the cables.

159

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 05 June 2020, 17:51:50 »

STEMO and I appreciate our reversing sensors, costing less than £10 on e-bay, against the £1000 as a new accessory, and easy enough to fit. Hardest job is get the cable tidily from rear of car to top of dash. Originally I taped it along the side of the central tunnel, but this week I tidied it up by rerouting it through the tunnel, see pic above. I did it on both my Vectras. I did the 2008 SRi saloon first, then the 2007 Design estate.

Buying under £1000 used cars is always risky, not to say exciting. I was shocked to find a rear heater duct in the estate that I had not found in the saloon. I thought the crook who sold me the saloon had removed it, but I was wrong; checking the specifications, rear heater ducts are not fitted to SRi saloons.

160

General Car Chat / Re: Vectra 1.8 starter will not turn

« on: 27 May 2020, 08:10:08 »

It is pretty much impossible to put a system in place that detects loss of a ground connection and reports a trouble code associated with it 

Thank you. That leads me to wonder whether, had I got a man in to sort this car out, as suggested by DG and STEMO, he would have fared any better. I imagined that a Vauxhall dealer 'expert', with a superior diagnostic device, could simply plug it in and read out the fault.

161

General Car Chat / Re: Vectra 1.8 starter will not turn

« on: 25 May 2020, 21:01:58 »

Happy to report that V828 still starts first time every attempt, so I am confident my elusive fault was indeed the loose cylinder head earth lead. I am still puzzled that a loose earth lead could inhibit the starter cranking, or stop the running engine, without leaving a fault code.

Above pic shows the engine of my last remaining Omega, a 2000 minifacelift 2.5 petrol manual estate.  I bought this car in 2015, in Clacton, for £259. The owner told me he was in Portugal, with his family, living in a caravan, and needed a vehicle to tow the caravan home. He found this car, and had a local garage get it going. It came with some novel repairs, including the location of the coilpack, rear doors with windows that would not open, a blowing exhaust, and worst of all, a leaking clutch slave cylinder. Its merit was lack of rust.
I had spare rear doors in the right colour, and a spare estate exhaust system. This car's MOT was due on 24th April, but is extended due to the coronavirus. It has a blowing LH exhaust manifold.

162

General Discussion Area / Re: cummings

« on: 25 May 2020, 08:52:33 »

Everybody is entitled to ignore advice. He should accept it gratefully, bear it in mind, then feel free to decide for himself how to proceed. If a government wants the nation to behave in a certain way, it begins with advice, then proceeds through subsidy and taxation to legislation.

It is not a crime to ignore advice, just the exercise of free choice. 

163

General Discussion Area / Re: cummings

« on: 24 May 2020, 20:29:51 »

Not sure why... Alastair Campbell being an obvious example...

Not to mention Charlie Falconer and Cherie Blair. Cabinet members seem to be there to carry out orders, the inner cabinet and close advisers make the decisions.
I understand  Mrs. Dominic Cummings is Mary Wakefield, who writes a column in the Spectator.
I imagine Dominic Cummings did not expect to be found out. He broke no law, just failed to abide by government guidelines and advice. Professor Neil Ferguson similarly was visited by his friend from north London, no harm in that. I reckon most of us take a chance speeding, or parking, and get away with it most of the while.
I am surprised so many folk appear to have abided by the rules, I think they were all scared of the virus. In fact I read that nobody under 60, in good health and not obese, should be afraid of it.

164

General Car Chat / Re: Couple of niggling fault codes on the Barge... C1022/C1022-0019

« on: 21 May 2020, 09:11:17 »

Any chance you could tell us un-initiated what the "BattleBus" is? I've searched for Battle Bus in previous posts and can't decide if its an Omega, Astra G or Zafira.

I got reams and reams of info when trying to track down the circuit diagrams for a facelift Omega. If you could tell me the car model, year, engine and gearbox then I might be able to locate some information. I've looked through all the likely Omega B stuff and cant find any reference to C1022.

The battle bus is Jaime's zafira Mk1, but I see no mention of it in this thread 

Thank you. I beg senior forum members to define abbreviations they intend to use early in a thread, rather than writing in slang or code which they all understand but other members may not. On page 3 I am still wondering what vehicle 'the Barge' is, as for ESP, BAS, SAM, NIS, CAN, it's like Cockney rhyming slang.

165

Omega General Help / Re: Opening and closing the sun roof

« on: 19 May 2020, 19:32:01 »

Since you're not actually driving anywhere, I think your wife should take all of your car keys off you. 

I can see the headlines now... "Enthusiastic car owner loses ALL his car keys when his long suffering wife put them 'somewhere safe'"

Nah, that's too long for a headline.