'Claudia' the Corsa Club 3Dr 1.0L 12V in black!

[joedmcs]

Hi! This is my second project car but first Corsa so here we go!



Picked her up a few months ago from a work mate for 200. Here's the details.

• Good bits-
  
  Almost no corrosion
  Reasonable paintwork
  Straight chassis and shut lines
  Fully functional electrics (some bulbs out here n' there)
  Original glass all round
  Paper trails for all work done including original purchase receipt!
  
  
  Bad bits-
  
  One small bump on the slam panel
  Drivers seat is tired and stained and there's fag burns on the rear bench
  Corroded steelies with a different tyre for each wheel (mostly cheap chinese 'black death' tyres)
  Faded plastic
  EML light problems
  No oil
  No coolant
  blowing exhaust

First thing to do was to sort out the lack of fluids. The guy I bought it off was errr 'not a car person' so it wasn't a surprise but I'm still amazed it'd run like this for a year.

While I was doing that I had the radiator out to jet wash it and back flush to get all the gunk out. The head and block coolant galleries where washed out as well to make way for the proper GM stuff! Apologies for the poor quality of the pictures it was night time with a mobile..

Looking at her the next morning it was clear she needed a good wash & polish to see how much of the original shine I could revive before getting the DA on it.


Luckily I run a company car as well as the Corsa so I can take her off the road as and when; finding the time to do that is difficult though so I'll update this log as much as I can when I'm home! My ultimate goal with her is to restore her to as close to concourse/showroom condition as I can as far as looks go but give her a bit of a lift mechanically. Possibly an X16XE1 conversion...undecided.

Any feedback is appreciated as I'm not used to writing about cars!

[Domwhitex]

Welcome to the site mate, got yourself a nice car there for a decent price and sounding like its not in bad nick either! Hopefully she'll polish up nicely, grab some auto works black from poundland and spray it on the plastics its what i used on mine came up lovely!

[stanc3w0rks]

Just make sure the bumpers are completley dry before you spray it on as i found out lol

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[stanc3w0rks]

But its looking nice for the money spent on it!

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[andy w]

Welcome buddy great to have you and sounds like you no how your car is gonna look when its complete

[joedmcs]

Thanks for the warm welcome & the tip, I'll pay poundland a visit on the weekend and give the spray a go. I'm always looking around on CleanYourCar as it's where I picked up the DA machine from and they've got this http://www.cleanyourcar.co.uk/engine-an ... d_851.html but it wants to be good for the price they want!

The first round of polish took nearly all day and it was late by the time I got some photos.



This is a little blurred but it shows the paint after a manual polish using a Sonus deep gloss for black cars!



Now the big thing that kept letting her down on the exterior (apart from the wheel trims & bumper plastic) were the original plastic number plates so while I was moaning to my mate about different parts I wanted and what needed doing he recommended I get a set of pressed plates online. After a small search on eBay I got a set ordered and I think they make all the difference.

Here's before:

And here's after:




After the small cosmetic bits I decided it was time to give her a proper service & sort out the EML problems which were causing all the standard Corsa quirks. Diagnostic box pointed straight to the EGR valve and lucky for me a free replacement was easily found from a friends car that'd been stripped for scrap. While this was the only item causing problems I decided to replace the MAF and the ISCV while i was at it to cover my arse against further failures in the mixture formation and emissions systems. I want to keep this car as OEM as possible so everything for the service right down to the air filter was GM. It's resulting in some expensive trips to the Vauxhall dealership.

I only took pictures of the gear oil change as the other servicing items aren't that interesting to do let alone look at!

Cracked the bolts and with a slightly warm box the fluid drained pretty quick.


While the diff cover was off I took the time to look for any pitting or obvious wear where it shouldn't be.


The little catch magnet was pretty clean so I wasn't too worried but it's always nice to be able to give things like this a thorough visual before it all gets covered n' filled up with oil.


While she was up on the ramp I was thinking about ride and handling; the car had been extremely twitchy on the rear end on the ride home..and...every ride since so I thought I'd give the suspension components a good look over to see if there was any obvious issues...wasn't expecting what I found...



Caravan helpers...I can only assume a cheap way of firming up the rear suspension?? This thing sure isn't pulling any caravans so that can't be the reason. At any rate they were ripped off pretty quick and are now in my garage if anybody wants them I've got a load of pictures of the interior work to sort for the next bit but that's it for now. Thanks again for reading!

[stanc3w0rks]

Looks well shiny!! How much gearbox oil went into her out of intrest?

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[joedmcs]

Haha my nickname at work is Mr.Shiny and I'll put some pics up of the polished x10 engine soon which backs that up!

Took a shade under 2L if I remember right mate.


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[stanc3w0rks]

Haha i can see why.. Do you remove the engine to polish it up or how do ya do it?

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[joedmcs]

Ideally I would but I'm working my way down from the rocker cover atm using increasingly fine grades of sandpaper to remove the oxidation then finish with a wet n' dry and some t-cut metal polish & a buffer wheel on a drill!


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[stanc3w0rks]

Wow thats extreme haha but bet it looks awsome.

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[joedmcs]

Update two!

Got a little time off work so decided to spend some time tarting up the interior. Started with a strip down of all the little plastic trim bits.



Then (after a degrease & wash) two coats of plastic primer.





Then after leaving it to dry properly overnight, two coats of satin black.





I'm really liking the satin black on the A & B pillars, I don't know how well it shows up on the pic below but that horrible beige plastic looks sh**e compared with these now.

[joedmcs]

After a bit of searching I also managed to get hold of an original CDR500 for her. I'm not sure if this was the model fitted when she came out the factory but they definitely had them as an option so I put one in. The previous stereo had a fault on the integrated amp as well so it was a no brainer; the sound is much better, the TID now functions as designed & it doesn't look like a fruit machine.



Got to work on the engine last month to so here's some before & after pics.









It's not perfect yet and I'm not a skilled detailer but it doesnt look as tired as it used to. I'm hoping that cleaning it and making it shine might make it go a bit faster..

I've got a Steinmetz/Bilstein suspension kit & new sporty exhaust to fit soon so hopefully I'll get that written up soon!

[Markyboy914]

You've got that looking great!

[johnny]

That's looking good mate get some high temp lacuer for the rocker to keep the chrome look

I never understood why they put cream arches with the black dash it looks stupid, I wrapped mine and it makes such an improvement