I’m helping a buddy fix up his DD 98 cavalier. It’s rough around the edges but an ok car overall.
Issues Ive found so far:
Sunroof leaks
Flex pipe is rusted out
Has NO muffler hangers or anything because they all rusted and broke, whole exhaust is just sitting on the (subframe?) car
Headliner is in bad shape, someone tried to fix the sunroof and did more damage then good
Plans:
Fix the flex pipe with a bolt in replacement (nothing crazy obviously)
Rehang the exhaust
Drop the headliner and while doing so:
-fix the sunroof leak
-take interior lighting from my A4 parts car and giving him interior lighting (main reason for the thread)
I mainly made this thread to document messing around with his headliner and putting in custom lighting. You cant see a damn thing in the car at night, theres not even lights on your feet. The only one I could find online was in the middle where the windshield is, but the headliner spot where it goes is ruined and the wiring is all hacked up with little cuts all in it and a massive amount of electrical tape around it for no reason.
I just figure half his car is thin plasic or cardboard so the mounting of the lights should be the easy part :lolol:
Yesterday is actually when all this happened. We ordered a new mid section bolt on replacement for the flex pipe to be put on when it comes in, but I did notice literally every single exhaust hanger was snapped off or broken. We figured screw the whole exhaust but we needed to at least get the rear section hung back up, that way when the flex pipe section came in the mail half the work was already done.
I found the forward muffler hanger attached to the car wasn’t welded in or anything, it was just a small bolted on plate, so I removed the bolted on plate and put on a universal muffler hanger with a clamp. That single hanger did wonders for how it was sitting, but it still had a lot of wiggle room.
I found a bolt on the rear bumper of the car (the inner metal part) that I think used to be attached to something, but now was just sitting there, in the perfect position over where the tip of the muffler should have been. I put in another universal hanger with a clamp and was actually surprised how well it held and how well the muffler was positioned.
When he comes back this week I’ll take pics of what we did yesterday and what we’re doing to his interior lighting.
Anyone have experience with the sunroof on these things? Any ideas of what I should be looking for to figure out the root of the problem? I guess when it rains, it comes in on the passenger side. I’m going to take it apart next weekend or the one after to fix it, just figured I’d ask that way I have an idea of what I’m looking for.
Personally I’m excited to install the custom lighting. I love to wire shit up. Nothing crazy colors or anything. I think he has some of those “XT EXTREME!” blue advance auto lights or whatever they’re called, I might throw those on somewhere just because he already bought them, so why not use them.
My plans are basically this for the interior lighting:
Take the rear map light assembly from my car, cut the wiring harness out out of the parts car, and wire it up function as normal.
Take the vanity lights and the feet lights from the A4, cut the headliner to fit. Snip the wiring plugs out, wire them to the front lights
-this way instead of all kinds of aftermarket switches and stuff like that making it ugly, it will just be clean. He wont have control over each light by itself, but at least he will be able to turn them on and find things, and that’s the whole point
Use all white SMD bulbs (I have them on my A4 and I LOVE them. I can literally see anything in the car at any time, they’re bright as all hell.)