1980's MK1 Vauxhall Astra GTE...your thoughts about them

[gbb]

Anybody remember the Renault Fuego

A colleague at work brought one late 1970s, early 80s. Second hand, can't remember how many miles it had or how old it was but it looked good.
It blew the engine in less than a month, he was heartbroken, he had spent a lot of money buying it, in the days before you had some sort of protection.

 

[gbb]

Renault 5 Turbo - absolutely bonkers - a mate had one and it was insane and shot flames out the exhaust. another mate had a fully customised one that was rather nice, but was chained up in his garage.

Another colleague who was into his hot hatches (he'd had two 205 1.9 GTis, he loved them) he had driven a Renault 5 turbo, downright dangerous he reckoned. Get the turbo lag wrong and it could launch you straight into the back of the thing you were just going to overtake.

 

[Gunk]

Anybody remember the Renault Fuego

my Mother had one

 

[midlife]

my Mother had one

I had a go in the turbo version. It just didn’t know where it was going, towards the ditch mostly. Scary lol

 

[uphillstruggler]

man!

i dont frequent the car section very often but.....

I had a MK1 GTE in Polar White - B560 *** i can still remember the VRN, I wish i still had it now. Knicker elastic snapping good looking too

had plenty of good times in that thing, fast has hell and fun to drive. sold it for £3600 cash, it didn't seem enough at the time and still doesn't

totally the opposite to cars nowadays

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

My brother had an A reg red Mk1 GTE. I also had a go in another black one at a car traders. They were quick for the time and great fun, but what always stayed in mind about both of them is that the brakes were really poor. I had a Mk 2 Astra SRI and the brakes were way better. My brother got the 16 valve Mk2 GTE, that was on a different level to the SRI in every respect, the suspension and brakes, engine were way better.

Really pretty car the Mk1 GTE though, more so than the MK2.

 

[Gunk]

Really pretty car the Mk1 GTE though, more so than the MK2.

At the time, the Mk2 seemed a step down in quality, the Mk1 just felt better finished, those velour Recaros were gorgeous, they made a Mk2 Golf GTi flat cloth, striped interior feel very spartan in comparison.

 

[Cavalol]

Despite owning countless Vauxhalls of this era, I sadly never managed to own one of these, but a mate did back in the day and raved about it.

Those old 8 (and 16) valve Vauxhalls were bullet proof and were the start of a glorious period of reliability. My Mk2 Cavalier 1.8 SRi (facelift) took a colossal amount of abuse, was raced pretty much every day against what ever other car I fancied trying it against and was crashed twice, yet just kept on going. It even had a cam belt calamity the first day I owned it, but they had a 'safe' engine so new belt and off to go.

 

[Gillstay]

My Dad had fast fords and VW's but always rated his early GTE. Oh, and he put a lot of miles on them all due to work.
.

 

[midlife]

Despite owning countless Vauxhalls of this era, I sadly never managed to own one of these, but a mate did back in the day and raved about it.

Those old 8 (and 16) valve Vauxhalls were bullet proof and were the start of a glorious period of reliability. My Mk2 Cavalier 1.8 SRi (facelift) took a colossal amount of abuse, was raced pretty much every day against what ever other car I fancied trying it against and was crashed twice, yet just kept on going. It even had a cam belt calamity the first day I owned it, but they had a 'safe' engine so new belt and off to go.

As opposed to my citroen C8 which had an "interference engine", I think that's what it's called. When the cambelt went everything clattered against the pistons.... Beyond economic repair and I simply left it on the garage forecourt and walked away leaving the V5 on the drivers seat

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

Those old 8 (and 16) valve Vauxhalls were bullet proof and were the start of a glorious period of reliability. My Mk2 Cavalier 1.8 SRi (facelift) took a colossal amount of abuse, was raced pretty much every day against what ever other car I fancied trying it against and was crashed twice, yet just kept on going. It even had a cam belt calamity the first day I owned it, but they had a 'safe' engine so new belt and off to go.

Yes the belt went on my 1.8 Mk2 Astra SRI. Just fitted another belt and all good. The only issue was if the belt needed tensioned you did it by loosening the water pump and rotating it, as its pully was off-center. It usually always leaked and needed to come out and a new seal fitted. Just not a great design.

I did all kinds to mine had the head off to de-coke it and replace the valve stem oil seals. De-coke not needed, but I liked to mess aound then and they were easy to work on.

The other excellent design on cars fitted with this engine family was the ability to change the clutch without removing the gearbox. I did this on a 1.3, 1.6 and 1.8. It had an access cover on the bellhousing at the bottom. You removed this, removed a cover off the side of the gearbox and used an adapted slide hammer with I think a m7 bolt welded to it, to extract the gearbox input shaft. Then got an assistant to press the clutch, whilst fitting special clamps to hold the compressed clutch plate at different points by rotating the engine by the crankshaft pulley, rotating the pulley also to remove the clutch plate mounting bolts from the flywheel. Then the assmbly could fit through the aperature created removing the bellhousing cover. You could then get access to the release bearing fork to replace it. Then align the clutch with the input shaft before fully tightening the clutch plate mounting bolts. Took about an hour. Then they stopped fitting this feature. Why make things so easy and lose out on business, t*ssers..

They were much better cars than Ford's of that era just IMVHO. I then got into Nissan's in the mid 90's, which again were way better than Vauxhall's. I don't think I'd ever want to own either now, show's how things change..

 

[Milzy]

Cracking cars. I had a 1.6, and almost bought a mint GTE with a redtop conversion a few years ago. I sometimes which I had, but I really needed something practical

Here's mine, circa 1988 sitting on Spax suspension with a Janspeed full system. Super go-kart

View attachment 583375

Wow amazing times, with no mobile phones. Life was better then.

 

[Gunk]

Wow amazing times, with no mobile phones. Life was better then.

I had my first car phone fitted to my Golf GTi back in 1988. It was an NEC. From memory the contract was £25 a month and 25p a minute

 

[randynewmanscat]

Was a very decent motor and could be worked on with few special tools and tuned enough to cause the connecting rods damage.

 

[randynewmanscat]

They were strong cars which were easy to work on.
I had a Y reg 1800 sohc Cavalier CD hatch, bought to do up . Someone had parked in the boot . Easy to work on and if the cam belt went it didn't bend the valves! Owning that car made me a Vauxhall fan .
I later had an Astra MK2 1300 , Vauxhall Carlton 1800, Vectra 2.0 . I bent 8 valves on the Vectra when the cam belt went.

Interference is a bitch.