wow... i finally gathered all of the pieces ( or what i thought was all of the pieces) and went to town tearing down my interior and i was amazed at how frustrating it is. i felt sick to my stomach seeing my interior torn apart almost all the way to the firewall for the first time ever.
anyways, i got the hard part over with on the interior. i got the metal frame in , and the bottom plastic dash in. right now im working on wiring everything back up. i had to stop for the night because i have been going at it for far too long and im out of solder.
i woke up this morning and went to the junkyard to collect the metal frame and big bottom dash piece and man o man was that ever fun. 5 hours, rusted/stripped bolts on a steering wheel making it so i couldnt get the airbag piece off to use the wheel puller, a cordless sawzall, alot of sweat in the hot sun cutting the steering wheel off, and 40 dollars later and i had all of the pieces i needed.
one question though for anyone who has done this......
the door panels.... is it just me or does nothing line up on the sunfire door panel and the cavalier door? im havin the hardest time figureing out just why they wont go on right... i think my problem is the speaker... im thinking i need to get a speaker mounting plate off of a sunfire door because my speaker might be sticking out too far for the door panel to go on properly
First off what are you having to soder???
As for the doors mine fit just fine, there was only one hole that wasnt the same between the Cav and SF panels. My swap took me about 6 hours total.
Maybe the cluster wiring???
What you talkin bout, Matt?? Its Colorado! It doesnt get hot in Colorado! Hell it was only 96 yesterday!!
i have to solder stuff for my stereo...when they installed it they did a shotty job so im redoing it...
i figured out the door panels...turns out im just an idiot
the only thing i cant figure out now is the cluster..... i have a sunfire cluster but the plug on my harness is too big...it wont fit into the hole in the back of the sunfire cluster to plug into the pins...it has the same # of pins and everything.. ...do i have to cut all of the wires and put the sunfire plug onto it to get it to work?
Get a sunfire plug and just cut/solder the wiring
Logic says that same colors would be same stuff, but who knows anymore!
I dont even know if the fire cluster will work in a 96....at least not without a ton of wiring work....the 00 and up ones swap right in.
<img src="http://home.comcast.net/~cbr929nl/sig.jpg">
ill just solder the sunfire plug onto my cavalier.... i wouldnt have to do it this way but the harness on the cavalier is too big to fit into the opening in the back of the sunfire cluster...so it cant even reach the pins
the 96 cavalier cluster plugs in on the top of the cluster and the sunfire ones plug into the back
ill get it all worked out.....and ill keep this post updated on how i did it
btw...the reason my door panels were so hard is because i had 6" speakers in my doors instead of 4" x 6" the sunfire door panels dont fit with the 6" speakers so i had to change to 4" x 6" speakers..
SO
IF anyone wants the 6" speaker mounting hardware AND speakers for a cavalier ( any year ) email me at mattbeck16@gmail.com with an offer cause im sellin them
acually 6"speakers will fit....i have 6.5" jbl's in the front right now..but it depends on the thickness of the wood you used on it....i used 1/2 " and no probs ut it wouldnt work with 3/4"...hope this helps..phil
i dont use wood at all lol... i have factory-like mounting hardware...the plastic ones like what come on the car.
