Charles' early 92 827 manual coupe

[scoobyh123]

None of the above Charles! The two large holes (as far as i'm aware) are for balancing the hub assembly and the two small holes are for the two screws that secure the brake disc to the hub.

The ABS sensor is mounted in the hub carrier and pokes its nose through so the diamond shaped tip of it is close enough to the reluctor ring to give an output.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vauxhall-Cal ... OSw-sZa7H4~

Those pics show the sensors, not sure if the plugs are the same but them's the kiddies!

[Charles827si]

None of the above Charles! The two large holes (as far as i'm aware) are for balancing the hub assembly and the two small holes are for the two screws that secure the brake disc to the hub.

The ABS sensor is mounted in the hub carrier and pokes its nose through so the diamond shaped tip of it is close enough to the reluctor ring to give an output.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vauxhall-Cal ... OSw-sZa7H4~

Those pics show the sensors, not sure if the plugs are the same but them's the kiddies!

Right I get it, pardon my lack of insight but the part is not something I've been familar with, probably because it's not something I've seen before as a standalone item.
The way the speed measuring works seems both a simple and effective method really.

[scoobyh123]

The speed measuring is only for the ABS, as you say, simple but effective. Odd thing about my Volvo, it only has one sensor at the back and that's mounted in the differential.

This has a splitter further along the system that goes to the ABS ECU for the ABS system and the other half of the signal goes to the speedo to tell you how fast you're about to collide with the nearest pedestrian.

To be fair, unless you've needed to know it for any reason, it's not the sort of thing you'd ever really look up.

PS - nearly forgot - those Cavalier front ABS sensors fit the rear of our 800s and errr, the front of my Volvo too!

[Charles827si]

PS - nearly forgot - those Cavalier front ABS sensors fit the rear of our 800s and errr, the front of my Volvo too!

That's quite useful to know! I hope I don't have to replace any sensors for a while since I know these are certainly not cheap to buy new!

[scoobyh123]

Do a search on ebay for Cavalier MK III front abs sensors - you can pick up new ones for £18 a side. Someone is also listing the Lambda sensors for ours in with the Cavalier stuff - no surprise as it's the same sensor with a different plug but the surprise is someone has twigged that fact and listed as fitting the Cav, the 827, Suzuki Swift, Toyota models and so on.

At those sort of prices i'll happily change the plugs for something i can fit easily!

[Charles827si]

Do a search on ebay for Cavalier MK III front abs sensors - you can pick up new ones for £18 a side. Someone is also listing the Lambda sensors for ours in with the Cavalier stuff - no surprise as it's the same sensor with a different plug but the surprise is someone has twigged that fact and listed as fitting the Cav, the 827, Suzuki Swift, Toyota models and so on.

At those sort of prices i'll happily change the plugs for something i can fit easily!

Maybe the fitting of certain parts to cars from this era is somewhat generic.
The lambda sensors I got fitted certain Suzuki and probably Toyota models also.

[scoobyh123]

Do a search on ebay for Cavalier MK III front abs sensors - you can pick up new ones for £18 a side. Someone is also listing the Lambda sensors for ours in with the Cavalier stuff - no surprise as it's the same sensor with a different plug but the surprise is someone has twigged that fact and listed as fitting the Cav, the 827, Suzuki Swift, Toyota models and so on.

At those sort of prices i'll happily change the plugs for something i can fit easily!

Maybe the fitting of certain parts to cars from this era is somewhat generic.
The lambda sensors I got fitted certain Suzuki and probably Toyota models also.

I know - i gave you the link for them!

Single wire universal Lambda sensors is how they're sold these days.

I need to get a 3-wire universal "HEGO" - Heated Exhaust Gas Oxygen sensor aka heated Lambda sensor for converting the Volvo to LPG, just so i can see what the mixture is doing when tuning it.

Also need an exhaust Lambda adaptor so might take the opportunity to fit a free flow centre silencer at the same time as that's the only silencer i've not renewed and the one most likely blocked over the years.

Should unleash more of that V6 growl as well!

[Charles827si]

Is your Volvo decat Dave? Not sure about rules of decat on LPG cars but I would have thought the lower emissions of LPG would mean a different emissions testing or something different?

[scoobyh123]

No, it's the "full fat" 170bhp B280E V6 Charles instead of the "strangled by a cat" B280F 147bhp V6 Charles.

It's too early to mandatorily need a cat because of its registration year but i decatted the Coupé (aug 95 registered i think) when it was converted to LPG because it's legal to do it that way.

In theory, i can decat the Sterling legally without converting to LPG because of its age and engine/VIN numbers - yours should be the same and possibly not even need a cat by registration as it's on a J plate if memory serves?

However i'm going to wait until i convert to LPG to decat for the MoT although i might decat in preparation as it were. Always goes a lot better and drinks less when it's decatted.

[Charles827si]

No, it's the "full fat" 170bhp B280E V6 Charles instead of the "strangled by a cat" B280F 147bhp V6 Charles.

It's too early to mandatorily need a cat because of its registration year but i decatted the Coupé (aug 95 registered i think) when it was converted to LPG because it's legal to do it that way.

In theory, i can decat the Sterling legally without converting to LPG because of its age and engine/VIN numbers - yours should be the same and possibly not even need a cat by registration as it's on a J plate if memory serves?

However i'm going to wait until i convert to LPG to decat for the MoT although i might decat in preparation as it were. Always goes a lot better and drinks less when it's decatted.

Right that's the idea I had; LPG cars don't require catalyst for MOT purposes.
My car was registered in September 92 and is a K-reg. It was possibly just within weeks of the catalyst test becoming mandatory.
So I checked with DVSA (was VOSA) and was told a cat is not required for testing. The cat now replaced with straight thru section (which is slightly noisy but not feeling more powerful) and the emissions test is just the standard 'metered test'.
I think it's better not having a cat for the reason being, it deters theives taking angle grinders to my exhaust to whip the thing off making a few bucks.
Having said that, I got nothing for the old cat because it had gone thru blown bad.
It would be nice when the time comes where our cars no longer need MOT. My car struggles every year to pass on the handbrake which always only just meets the parking limit. These cars were built at a time when testing was no where near as stringent. This is partly the reason even older cars no longer require testing..they couldn't be capable of meeting tests satisfactorily.

[scoobyh123]

The original date for cats to be fitted was 1/1/92 so any car made after this point, in theory, should have had a cat fitted. Initially they took this date as the date of registration and then found a lot of cars were failing because they hadn't been fitted with a cat in the factory and had sat around in a compopund somewhere for 18 months or more before being registered.

That's why they brought the grace period in for the "changeover" period. My Sterling was registered on 14/3/94 but is still an old enough VIN and engine number to not need the cat by default.

Because running on LPG reduces CO2 and a lot of Nitrates (NOx), cats aren't needed any more and are only really doing what cats do best and that is strangling the engine. I'm just glad it's a legal method of removing the horrible things!

[Charles827si]

Bad news. The new rear hub is not the correct one. The difference is the ABS ring itself. Otherwise the hub was ok. Now that will need to be returned to the States.
That's two parts recently that needed returning so I'm not going to try third time lucky just at the moment.

On a better note (exhaust note perhaps)the coupe is having an all new through stainless system fitted which will include the OBX racing manifolds for the Acura Legend which again also came Stateside.
Obviously this will be much better for the car with a longer life span and the larger manifolds should certainly provide some extra needed performance.
The existing stock exhaust has been on since 2013 when I bought the car. Recently I've had to fill another hole in the mid section. It's still noisy so I suspect there are holes that I can't see in the back box muffler. After 5 years, now is the time to upgrade.
Watch this space..

[scoobyh123]

Awww, no! What a bummer!

Something in the back of my mind says very early Mk1s had a different number of teeth but it changed only a year or so into production and stayed the same since. Maybe it was one of the early ones and it ended up on the shelf because people kept bringing it back because of the wrong number of teeth and eventually you bought it - very much like the master cylinder perhaps!

I am really sorry to hear it though, whatever the cause! I'll keep quiet abut the exhaust and just sit here and hope!

[Charles827si]

Awww, no! What a bummer!

Something in the back of my mind says very early Mk1s had a different number of teeth but it changed only a year or so into production and stayed the same since. Maybe it was one of the early ones and it ended up on the shelf because people kept bringing it back because of the wrong number of teeth and eventually you bought it - very much like the master cylinder perhaps!

I am really sorry to hear it though, whatever the cause! I'll keep quiet abut the exhaust and just sit here and hope!

My laptop died just as I finished typing this but thankfully it was still here!
I wasn't annoyed like I could have been and maybe it's because I've got used to setbacks (and there have been a few in my ownership of this car)
Yes it's highly likely there are different numbers of teeth comparing the two rings and it's likely as you said Dave it's been put back on the back of the shelf more than once.

This ring part is removable so one option is, to have a new one made. The old part is back on the car and the driving is unaffected but I doubt however the car would pass an MOT with the ABS warning light lit up on the test, I guess it depends how strict the tester feels.

The good news is when the car was last in the garage, both the front ABS sensors have been sorted and this has improved the front brakes.
What had happened was the aluminium bits on both front sides had corroded and pushed the brackets and the sensors outwards.
Simon has very successfully bent those brackets back into the correct positions.

Now I think the aluminium parts are the bits that go onto the reluctor ring to give the reading. They look like square blocks (can't think from GSCE maths what term to give the shape)
I have a feeling the same problem happened with the rear. The aluminium part had corroded and that pushed down with some force onto the ring as it rotates and this force broke the rear ABS ring.

[scoobyh123]

The rear ABS sensors fit in a different way. They go through the back of the hub carrier so are in fact at right-angles to the reluctor rings and have a diamond shaped "nose" on them which does the sensing.

On the fronts, the brackets the sensors sit in tend to corrode and when they corrode, they produce crystals of aluminium oxide which grow.They can't grow outwards because the brackets are there so they grow inwards and crush the sensor, killing it.

The back ones don't go so often because although the hub is cast iron, it doesn't corrode so rapidly or easily as the aluminium brackets on the front.

When i had to do the front sensors on my last 740 (same sensors as the 800 rears), after a combination of drilling, die-grinding, burning, chiseling and whatever else i had to do, i spent another hour or so on each one slightly enlarging the hole then polishing it to a mirror finish. I then used some Vaseline as a protective grease when i fitted the replacement sensors. Also did the same on the Sterling when the front sensors went in that.