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So I figure I've been cluttering up the Volvo thread enough during the time I've been part of AI that I should write a thread about my cars. I've had Volvos for as long as I've been driving-I started out with a 1995 850 that my parents bought for my first car. I shared it with my brother until I was a senior in college (c. September 2009), at which point I bought a 1981 240 wagon. I didn't know anything about cars when I bought it and it was a total crap heap, but I learned almost everything I know about EFI from working on it and reading the Volvo service manuals. In better times, it looked like this: I had aspirations to add a turbo to it using parts from other Volvos, but they didn't get any further than that since I was broke. Eventually the heater core failed and after replacing it in a tiny one-car garage with no lights, I got spooked and traded it to another Volvo enthusiast for my next car, a 1989 244. I thought I was out of the woods, but the heater fan in the '89 failed a couple weeks after I got it, so I found myself back in the same boat-the dash had to come apart almost as far to replace it as it did for the heater core. Thanks, universe.  The heater core job in the '81:  The heater fan job in the '89:  The '89 in better times:  The 244 served well as basic transportation, but the body had collision and rust issues, the transmission leaked, and the interior started falling apart so I didn't feel like it was a good idea to pour money into modifications for it. After driving it for a couple years, I sold it in September 2012 and got a 1998 V70 XC. For those unfamiliar, the XC was Volvo's attempt to capture a share of the tall-wagon-with-AWD market created by the Subaru Outback. It sold relatively well, but its AWD system was basically an afterthought and due to a combination of poor design and owner neglect it was failure-prone. Fortunately, the one I found had been maintained (with a few exceptions) and ran and drove really well in spite of having 207,000 miles. When I got it it looked like this:  I drove it for a couple years and didn't do much with it beyond basic maintenance, since a lot of stuff was worn out. One of the worst jobs was the PCV system, which required the removal of the intake, like so:  It also had a weird idle issue that turned out to be a blown-out silicone connection on the turbo:  In the winter of 2013, a 1995 945 Turbo with a blown headgasket showed up on the Columbus Craigslist for $350. I bought it, swapped the headgasket and head, and sold it for $650 to another Volvo guy. It had a ton of minor issues in addition to the head gasket and since RWD Volvos are basically extinct in Midwestern junkyards, it was going to cost a lot more than the car was worth to resolve them. It was a fun diversion but I'm glad I got out of it when I did. I really hated working on it.  One of the signs of overheating that I couldn't see with the timing cover in place:  The cause of death was a tiny hole in the heater hose.  Volvo didn't install a low-coolant light in these models and since the temp gauge is compensated it's usually curtains for the engine by the time it pegs. Last summer, I got bored with the XC and found a 2000 V70R to add to the stable. I've had a love-hate relationship with the R-it had history in the Volvo enthusiast community so I thought it had been taken care of, but the previous owner didn't disclose a lot of issues with it and didn't drive it much at all while he owned it. Plus, most of his automotive experience was with E9 BMWs and 2002s, so there were a lot of things he missed just because he wasn't up on the car's idiosyncrasies. It's been a pain in the rear end, but at least it looks good:  I also have a '99 S70 that I bought last weekend as a commuter beater but I don't have any decent pictures of it yet. The XC, R, and S70 all need work so I'll write more about them as I get it done. This is just the tip of the iceberg. 
SUSE Creamcheese fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Mar 19, 2015 |
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Mar 19, 2015 01:50
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Just the tip, he said. I'm very much a Volvo guy myself, but I never could get myself to like the 240 very much. Glad someone does though!
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Mar 23, 2015 14:37
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I liked my 240s and they were pretty reliable from a driveline perspective but they were both surprisingly crappy cars when it came to basic functionality. The headlights and taillights (especially in the sedan) liked to fail at random. Neither of them had a working speedometer. The windshield wipers in the 245 were possessed-if you set them to intermittent, they'd turn on and continue to run no matter what position the switch was in, and the car would have to be shut off to "reset" them. Neither had working AC and something was wrong with the vacuum controls for the air vents in the 244, so I had to use zipties to hold the vent flaps in a position that would give me air from the defroster and dash vents. Speaking of HVAC, the heater core in my V70R finally started leaking badly enough that I couldn't ignore it, so I replaced it and took some pics. This job isn't nearly the nightmare that it is in the RWD Volvos, but the downside is that I've had to do it in every P80 chassis Volvo I've owned-judging by the threads I've read elsewhere it's pretty much a rite of passage for anyone who buys one of these cars. The heater core has plastic endtanks and after 15 years of heat cycling they separate from the core and start to leak around the tubes. Anyway, to get to the heater core in these cars you open the glovebox and remove the insert, which reveals the guts of the dash and the screws that hold in the kick panel/map pocket under the passenger side of the dash.   With the screws removed the kick panel drops out of the dash and slides out.  Peel back the carpet and you see this:  Remove the plastic panel in the middle of that pic and you're looking at the housing for the heater core.  The driver's side of the dash comes apart pretty much the same way, and once it's apart you can access the coolant plumbing.  The coolant pipes are held in with one T25 screw. I should mention that it's critical to drain the coolant before doing this job. if you don't you'll fill the floorpan with it and the sound-deadening insulation will soak it up before you can say "shop towels!" Once that happens the car will reek of coolant and it's impossible to get rid of the smell unless you take the insulation out and wash it off. To prevent that, I put a Ziploc freezer bag around the bottom of the heater core before disconnecting the pipes in order to catch the coolant that was left in it. It worked great but it looked disgusting. I didn't take pics.  Anyway, here's the old core:  You can't see it in the pic but it was leaking from the bottom tank. The plastic was in awful shape. Here's the new core attached to the housing:  After this it got dark so I didn't take any more pics but the installation really was the reverse of removal. I drained the coolant by taking the lower hose off the radiator since it's original to the car and I didn't trust the petcock (petcock™) to open without breaking. While I was taking the underbody tray off to get to the radiator, I found a dead mouse, which didn't really surprise me. When I got the car the hood blanket was chewed up and there were mouse droppings in the air cleaner, but I never saw any further evidence of them until last night. Fortunately for the wiring, etc. it looked like it had been dead for quite a while. The heat works great now and there's no more coolant smell inside the car, so that's one job off the deferred maintenance list. This weekend I might tackle the brake hoses. Or the starter in the S70. Or the front suspension in the XC so I can get it out of the garage. I have no shortage of projects. 
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Apr 11, 2015 00:52
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