This How-to has been created as a personal goal of mine to prove i could do it, plus i love the flip keys. There has been a lot of head scratching etc but i have finally done it and it works great..

Things to note before hand:

I will be 100% honest with you regarding this procedure, its very easy to screw up and damage your key, also you need super human patience if you try and rush all i can say is its your own fault. The photos were taken for this in the middle and end of the transplant.

Tools Required:

1 x very sharp stanley knife.
1 x hot glue gun.
1 x vectra B series key.
1 x h series vectra key blade.
1 x soldering iron & solder.
1 x length of very thin wire.
1 x very strong glue
1 x dremel

ok the first thing you need todo and obviously the most obvious is to open up your new purchase,remove the battery cover and remove the battery, dont worry about the circuit board in there as its of no use to us except the mini switchs on it.

once the battery cover is off work your stanley up the plastic case a few times to make an incision, once this is done insert as much of the blade as you can into the key and work it around the seal as much as you can, once you have done this you should have something that looks like below (excuse the battery in this pic as this was taken after i done the mod) below.

The blue ring is the plastic seal that holds the key together this is what your trying to cut through without damaging the case, again patience is a virtue with this or the end product will look crap.

Once the Key is open you need to get your soldering iron out and remove both the little switchs on the circuit board (we will need these later on to put back in.) after this you no longer need anything on the circuit board so that can as far as your concerned go in the bin.

the next step now is to remove some parts from your vauxhall key, this is where you need to take your time even more or it will get expensive very quickly....

remove the blade from the key and you will end up with the following.

this just simply pulls apart leaving you with a piece of plastic and a circuit board, if you lift the circuit board at the end nearest the steel keyring part of the key it will simply lift out. again the 2 plastic pieces of the key fob are of no use now so u can bin them if you want, we are after 1 - 2 other pieces from the original key, you need the Transponder chip and the keylock blade (depending on if your going to use this blade or order one and get it cut to match yours)

the transponder chip is located in the piece of plastic where the keyblade is, at this point i cannot put enough emphasis on how carful you have to be. The transponder chip is the bit that starts your car, the bit vauxhall charge your for to reporgram etc, if you break this bit its game over. you will need to get another key and have it coded to your car before you can continue.

this is the location of the transponder, from what i can see its glued in quite well i was however quite lucky that the glue holding mine in had given up so i could just pull it out, but again you need to use your initiative to remove this chip, once you have it out take some blue tak and stick it to somewhere safe and out of the way.

If you have ordered another blade designed to fit the flip key and your going to use that skip past the next bit as it will only interst those who are going to reuse the blade from the old key. the next bit is to remove the key blade, its highly technical and again need skill and patience..... or you can do what i did and beat the living stuffing out of it with a hammer.

The shape of the blade is of no use to use, as its a T shaped end that is used in the old key, you now need to get your dremel out and take the ends of the key so its no longer shaped like a T but more a straight piece of metal.

once you have the ends removed you need to remove the blade out of the new flip key todo this if you examine the flip blade you will see a little pin that needs to be tapped out, even after tapping this pin out you need to put some effort in to remove the blade as its well pushed in.

you will now need to grind the end of your blade to match the flips blade, please take a note that of the pic on the right highlighted in green this is the notch that allows the pin you tapped out to hold the blade in, otherwise when you flip the key the blade will take off into the atmosphere.

once you have done this its time to "modify" the original circuit board and flip keys plastic internals so that the vectras circuit board fits.

at this point its time to get the kettle on and plug your soldering iron in, sit back and relax whilst the iron heats up as it needs to be as hot as it gets before you start, once its hot, use the tip to remove the 2 switchs from the board, try not to keep the soldering iron in contact with the board for too long as it may cause damage to the board and its components, if you think the board is getting too hot, leave it cool for a while.

once you have removed the switchs, also remove the battery holder, but remember to mark the board with a plus and a minus to show which points are which.

you should end up with something similar to this. (note the plus bottom right corner and the minus top left)

at this point i took a look at the board and noticed even tho there are 4 contacts on the board for the switchs in reality only 2 contacts per switch are needed. as shown below.



now you have the battery holder off you need to modify this as well so that you can reuse some of the parts on the final key. your after the center part of metal out of it, that contacts the minus side of the battery as shown below. the rest again can now go in the bin.

Now you need to start making a mess with the dremel to modify the keys internal plastic to get the key to fit.

I took my time and done a test fit every time i thought it would fit, after a while the board will sit more or less completly flat in the plastic at this point your ready to start assembly of the key. as the picture below shows it took me a lot of plastic to get the board to fit right. (excuse the pic of the switchs but i forgot to take a pic until after i glued the switchs in place)



once your happy with the result, you need to make some alterations to the internal plastic, where the buttons will sit. i will talk you through this but you need to use common sense and judge when your happy with it, the picture below shows the bits your after there highlighted in Yellow circles.



you need to use a sharp blade or something simular to remove the plastic from the yellow circles until there slightly under the height of the plastic case, because if you examine the switchs they have little black circles on them that protrude around 1mm you need to be able to insert the switchs into where the yellow holes are so that when there flat against the case there not being pushed (or clicked) what your aiming for is shown below, if you look at the hole that is close to the bottom of the picture you can see its recesed in about 1 - 2mm, you need to ensure that you dont go to far or the button will not work.\

once your happy the switchs only work when you push the external side of the button, you can glue them in place and solder wires onto them.



once there glued in place ( i would suggest another cuppa to let the glue dry. when the glue dries you should be able to test the push buttons and here them click correctly)

once the switchs are in and the circut board fits with it, you now need to cut and solder the switchs wires onto the circuit board.

the pic below shows 8 wires but this was my first attempt at re-using the original switchs (which failed so i used the smaller ones), so you and i only need 4 wires. in the pic below you can see i have highlighted, the connections on my circuit board that i needed to use, check you have the right ones on yours. once there connected you can glue the board in place, i choose supaglue, be careful tho as this can leave a white mark on the plastic that cannot be removed.

Ensure that the Minus side of the board is kinda centered refer to the pic below, trust me if you glue it in so that the mius side is not centered you will regret it.

once this is done you need to dremel the upper case so that it closes completly over the circuit board.

once your happy with this you then need to modify the battyery holder bits you scavenged earlier so that they will fit the circuit board and the key, by following the picture below you will end up with the correct bit to re solder back onto the board.

Please note your after the middle section of the battery holder NOT the edge connector, i know the pic shows the wrong bit but again i had already soldered mine on then thought about the pic.... yes i can be dumb at times....

you need to grind the blue the bits away so that its all the same length around 1.5mm and cut the steel shaft off where its marked with red. at this point your battery holder is now the correct length to be resoldered to the Minus part of the circuit board.

once its ground down to fit correctly (remember your after the center bit from the battery holder NOT the bit shown. see pic below to clear this up. you need to add some black tape to the circuit board, to ensure that there are no shorts out on the circuit board.

once you have done this you now need to add the transponder back into the key. can you remember where you blue tacked it?

this can do into the empty space marked in red in the pic below.

you now need to fit your blade into the metal flip piece and tap the pin back in so that your all ready to re assemble the key.

when it comes time to put the blade back in you need to put the bits together and rotate it ONCE counter clockwise to tension the spring enough so that it will "flip" when you push the button.

once the transponder has been glued into place (i would suggest Hot Glue and nothing else as this is the most non reactive glue, so its least likly to damage the chip) its time to glue the key back together, todo this you need to run a seal of your selected glue around the blue line, place the key back together, and leave it clamped for at least 24 hours to allow the glue to setup. once you have done this its time to test your creation and hope like hell its all worked :)