Northpole's Vectra C SXI

[northpole]

So i bought this car a few weeks ago because it was dirt cheap... yeah it had some work to be done to it but for the money it would be rude to let it go to the scrappy...




Well as you can all see it had some problems and the worst ones were: purple stickers, broken front bumper, broken NS foglight, cracked NS wing mirror and a really nasty interior with a big chunk missing out of the drivers seat...

So i installed both the SRI front and rear bumper, white side repeaters, the matching foglights for the front bumper, the irmsher grill (installed at buying) and replaced the chewed up drivers seat...

it now looks like this:


Yesterday i decided i had enough of the engine rattle and after some digging about it seems the source of the noise were the swirlflaps... I remembered that my dad used to de-carbonize his engines with deionised water and some other stuff... I copied his recipe and used that to clean out the engine... it worked a treat the engine lost the rattle and some of the flat spots it had going through the revs. I also took of the EGR valve to check the state of the cleaning and it was amazingly clean top for a clean out that didn't cost me a penny

I'm not done with it yet there is more to come...

HID's will soon be installed, I have all the led lights to match them (but i know i will need someone to activate the xenon option before installing them) I am looking into which cable i need to install my pioneer satnav and a CIM instead of the colk i have right now ( yeah the car doesn't have the oem radio)

I am still looking for a place that does PCD adapters for normal prices... so if some one knows a good place that doesn't charge the world for them please give me the details as I have a set of wheels that will look perfect on the Veccy but have the wrong PCD.

[Merlin51]

Welcome to the forum fella, looks a solid and clean Vectra.

You have done well with it already, front bumper change is a big improvement. There is always something else that needs doing or you stuff you want to do to it. Either way enjoy it and keep the updates coming.

[northpole]

well not a big update but today I fitted a new aerial base rubber, i would've liked to install a window antenna but the hole in the roof made me reconsider the practicality of just swapping out the perished rubber for a new one... soon it will end up with a short stick vw polo (honda crv type) antenna as i hate the stupid 16v whip it comes with and it needs changing too as the rubber of it is perishing also... so next week i am at the parts man at either vw or honda to get one


and i still have no clue as to what cable will work on for my radio, I also noticed that i need to get a CIM instead of the clock that is installed in the car... (the joy of having steering wheel controls that don't work.... it jars me off) it also counts for nothing that i have a complete ice setup just sitting here in the house that i can't install because of the iso cable and steering wheel controls...

[Slammedorion]

Just go to a half decent ICE shop they'll sell you the right leads to get it all working

[any-mgzt]

... I remembered that my dad used to de-carbonize his engines with deionised water and some other stuff... I copied his recipe and used that to clean out the engine... it worked a treat the engine lost the rattle and some of the flat spots it had going through the revs. I also took of the EGR valve to check the state of the cleaning and it was amazingly clean top for a clean out that didn't cost me a penny

PCD.

So are you going to share the recipe with us all?

[northpole]

So are you going to share the recipe with us all?

Before I do that let me put in a disclaimer first!
If you decide to this you do so at your own risk! Water can cause a hydro-lock! If a hydro-lock occurs this means your engine will seize up and will be beyond economic repair.. So if you follow my lead you do so at your own risk!!!

Here it comes

70% deionised water (you could just boil tap water)
15% pure acetone (do not use nail varnish remover as it isn't 100% acetone )
15% redex (for the appropriate fuel) diesel injector cleaner
The mixture than goes into a hand pressurized spray bottle..

this is needed because it is best to spray it in as misty as is possible this way it hits all the pistons and valves, all the walls etc etc etc plus it gets sucked into the engine more controlled.

The acetone and redex are to make sure the big chunks of carbon that get dislodged by the steam (water), actually burn off as both have a lower burning point than the fuel... the carbon gets burned and leaves the engine through the exhaust...


The engine has to be at working temperature (90 degrees) before undertaking this way of cleaning

You remove the intake pipe after the MAF sensor and with a running engine at 2500rpm you start spraying the mixture in... use short blasts 3 seconds at most wait a good 30 seconds and repeat (3 seconds spraying 30 seconds wait) until the mixture is completely gone... you will hear the engine splutter at first than it starts to steam grey/black smoke.... Mine took a good hour before the solution was all used up in that time i noticed the smoke going from grey/black to white and it smelled clean just like the mixture that is in the spray bottle.

Be very careful not to spray in to much water in one go ( hence the maximum 3 second spray and the 30 seconds wait) water can create hydro-lock and if that happens you have rendered your engine into a very big paperweight....

But when done correctly it is almost like a Terraclean... the proof of that will be the sooth on the ground behind the exhaust... also if you take of certain dirty parts like the egr before and after, you will notice they are a lot cleaner... Ideally you go for a long drive right after you're done, for at least 40 miles this is to make sure all the water gets out of the engine.. but if you can't take the car on the road (because it is sorn like mine) than it is best to have the car run stationary for at least another hour.


I used 1 liter of the mixture in the spray bottle before i was satisfied the engine was running better and after a check the egr was way cleaner than before the start.
in one liter it's easy to make the mixture:
700 cc deionised water
150 cc acetone
150 cc redex diesel injector cleaner ( i have a diesel)
and it took me 1 whole hour....for the cleaning process
it took another hour to leave the car to idle as i couldn't go for a drive ( leave it to idle at normal rpm)

I will say it again do so at your own risk... but it should be clear to anyone that doing this needs to be done with care!!!

[northpole]

Just go to a half decent ICE shop they'll sell you the right leads to get it all working

there are no half decent ice shops left in Ipswich.... halfords is the only place and they sell the autoleads cables... i have read that half of them don't work right.. also the staff from halfords pointed that out to me as well.

[Teapot]

I didn't think there were any decent shops left in Ipswich, let alone car accessory/ICE shops

[northpole]

I didn't think there were any decent shops left in Ipswich, let alone car accessory/ICE shops

just a few clothes shops that are half decent the rest is utter and total rubbish .... but there are some hidden gems when it comes to car parts

[northpole]

I went and got some service parts today (oil, oil filter, diesel filter) as the car needs these changed over asap.. I also got some rattle cans in the right colour to sort out a few bits that in my eyes should've been sprayed from the factory... so i'm also looking at some car mats as the car came without them in it and i'm kinda glad he binned them as like i said before the car was in a right state when i got it (one of the reasons it almost ended up on the scrappy)

Tomorrow i will start with the service bits and see if i can start getting those bits colour coded and dry quick enough so i can put them back on the car... Updates are soon to come