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I've wanted to post for a while but I've got excuses for miles so it's time to  I guess. I know these shots are a bit gloomy but don't mind the spring rain because I certainly welcome it. Maybe I'll update this OP with some snazzier pictures in the future. Or not. Anyways...Welcome to Otto's autos over-north.  Try to contain your excitement. The best place to start this off would be the present, I suppose. I asked about this in the general questions thread, looking for some advice, but the jist of it is this:  Someone slid into our family's Volvo in a parking-lot during a particularly icy week this past winter and that resulted in this sad situation. Bo-hoo, right? Fortunately, that individual had #1 insurance and #2 enough fortitude to come forward and leave a note. This damage was enough to total the car out:  We originally bought it for $700 and, subsequently, we put more than $850 into maintenance that helped it take us for a number of memorable road trips such as this one into the Rocky Mountain Nat'l park:   So, after everything was said-and-done regarding the insurance, we purchased the car back as salvage for $350, which came out of our total payout, and we ultimately took home a check for ~$2100. We both agreed we wanted the car back because not only do we know it through-and-through but because it also has so many more miles left innit which makes it a damned shame for it to go out over a broken corner lamp and bumped fender. That settlement was enough to pay for this aftermarket front light kit, coming in at just under $300:  A different set of wheels for the car, coming from a Volvo S40:  And this back-up vehicle, for emergencies and such:  After a junk-yard run this morning with my brother and our friend in his '50s Plymouth (which i neglected to take pictures of), I brought all the parts home in the '89 740 wagon that I built 2 summers back:  I built and love this thing because I don't have to worry about pot-holes during the winter and spring months plus, when we are camping, we can drive minimum maintenance roads with out much of a second thought. Between the suspension and tires I think I added 4" of lift over-all. I'd really like to take out to the desert because if that one guy in a crown vic can do it then damnit i can too. Anyways, I'm making this post because we've got big plans this summer and I think sharing and updating you guys will keep me motivated to see these things to finish, and finishing what I've started is my Achilles heel. Besides maintaining the fleet, I've already got the motor-mounts and a rough idea of what it will take me to put an aluminum block gen III LS in the grey wagon and I need to learn the ins-and-outs of the 144 as well, this includes tuning the dual SU carbs and adjusting the valves and I've never dabbled in those dark arts. Also, my better half is already dreaming of taking it for road-trips and I know that 3 speed automatic just isn't suited for today's speed limits. Coming up next, though? Fixing that sad headlight situation on the '90 740. Poor ol' blue.  Edit; Shout out to STR for chiming in with regards to the original insurance and process questions I had. It definitely helped! You guys are rad stone soup fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Apr 8, 2019 |
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Apr 8, 2019 00:01
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I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish today but, like often, my high hopes don't always work out. I wanted to replace the seat-belt receiver in the wagon, put summer tires on the blue car as well as replace the front light assemblies, and finally fix the horn which is suffering from rotten contacts. Parts haul & hauler; I wanted to start off with the shinier bits, so I started by fitting the wheels i picked up. Spacers are required to fit wheels from a later model FWD Volvo onto an earlier RWD model and I bought this set from FCP Groton. They're 25mm hub-centric units.   Unfortunately I didn't read enough because S40 wheels have a 63.4mm center-bore while other FWD Volvos are 65mm--sadly the spacers I bought are the latter. Bummer:  I guess http://www.motorsport-tech.com/ is a good resource for custom hub-centric spacers from the few comments I've seen, and the quote I got seems reasonable, so I'll be giving them a go. On to the headlights I suppose! One of the quirky things I like about the 7 and 9 series of Volvos are the hoods because they have a small mechanism on the hood-hinge that allows it to stand completely vertical, letting the light in and making it a lot tougher to bash your head in an unfortunate manner:     Time to dig in:  First the grill comes out by squeezing and removing 2 clips:   Then by looking at the new assemblies we can figure out where the bolts we need to remove are located:  Just inside the grill we find one bolt and above my finger is the air-intake where the second bolt is hidden behind:  The intake passes through the front sheet-metal into the engine compartment and goes into the bottom of the air-box. This is merely a friction fit on this car:   This reveals the second bolt:  Now kung-fu snatch the headlight out of the car like it was some poor adversary's eyeball:  This isn't out of malice but it's because the captive nuts on these assemblies are going to disintegrate and you'll need to keep them from spinning:    There are 2 additional bolts behind the turn signal:   The the head-light structure then comes out:  You can see the blue trim behind is broke. I don't have a replacement for this yet and it'll likely be a while before I can find one. There are three tabs which engage into the headlight structure but, on this piece, only 1 is intact. The passenger's side, however, is in 1 piece.  Squeeze to disengage:  Reassemble with new parts:  Both sides apart:  But, before reassembly, I wire-brushed the fasteners (after-top/before-bottom) and added some caliper grease because why the hell not?   After couple love-taps to the fender to move it in-line with the hood we are left with:  Broken trim aside--I think this was a job well done  It also was the second headlight job I did this weekend. A long-time friend was the victim of a hit-and-run and I helped straighten out his fender, pull a dent, and install a new assembly in his matrix the day before:   It's far far from perfect, but it pulled the fender from making contact with his drivers door and its now definitely more sorted than before, plus I was happy to help a friend in need. I never got around to tending to the horn because it was getting late, so while I did get some things accomplished I still came up short. Oh well. Im content with having got these things off the list and, also, there’s always next weekend. I’ll hone my project management sense as I do more. Before heading in, I lined up the stable for a family photo  There is a member missing and I'll get to that soon. stone soup fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Apr 8, 2019 |
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Apr 8, 2019 02:45
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I love the dog and Volvos, my neighbor’s got an old wagon I’m a wee bit jealous of. Light blue and like mint condition for 30+. Also, looks like Minneapolis?
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Apr 8, 2019 04:14
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Nice, I miss my 740 wagon a lot. It was a great doggy mobile. It was a great everything mobile with the seats folded down.
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Apr 8, 2019 06:40
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Car gets hit. Insurance totals car. Wind up with enough money to buy it back, fix it better than before, AND buy a You, sir, are doing things right. That offroad Volvo is 
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Apr 8, 2019 06:47
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RWD Volvos are the best cars.
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Apr 8, 2019 12:10
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I don't know if you've ordered new ones yet, but there looks like there's enough meat on there to take off the 1.6mm diameter. You're only taking 0.8mm of material off and there looks to be at least 2mm of material there. I had to get my spacers hogged out a little for my rear axle and it cost me $50 at a machine shop. I feel a little more comfortable with the inner part of the hub ring being solidly against the outside of the axle, but my front end is still 3600lbs without that and it has been fine. From what i understand, there really shouldn't be any weight carried on the hub ring anyways, it's just to center the wheel, while the clamping force of the lug nuts carries the weight of the vehicle. I see a lot of used spacers for sale off 9000lb brotrucks with no lip. I know this is a lot of "my wheels ain't fell off yet", but i've got a 3600lb front end, drive like an idiot, on ebay spacers, with flat washer style lugnuts. Like you i needed them to correct the difference between new vs old offset so the wheels don't stick out any further and stress anything more.  
Powershift fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Apr 8, 2019 |
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Apr 8, 2019 14:10
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Well hey there Mr. Sun, it's a pleasure to see you! Really though; what a difference a day (or two) makes. I'll be sure to repeat this again on Thursday.  A lot can change between now and then but it's looking increasingly likely that we're going to have a thing, and I might be upset about this thing if I didn't live so close to work (or I didn't own a wagon with ample ground clearance). To be honest, I have a fetish for weather events that more-or-less bring the city to a halt so it's hard to hide my giddiness from people who will suffer hour++ long commutes. The keen-eyed among you will notice that I replaced the broken driver's turn signal lens. It got delivered today and I was more than happy to install it on lunch-break.  You can also probably surmise that many of the plastic lenses resemble the white reflector in that picture as well and, if you did so, you wouldn't be wrong at all. Anyways, the orange lens came from IPD and was the last unit they happened to have in stock. This ended up being bitter-sweet because, in doing-so, I found a significant rust-issue behind that particular assembly--but I didn't document any of it since I figured it would be a straight forward install and I wasn't prepared at all for it to get super-oxidational. Sorry. I will get around to capture the cancer in action soon enough so stay tuned. This particular orange turn-signal lens has 4 phillips screws that secure it to a grey plastic backing plate, however, all of the screws had stripped the plastic backing to some degree which means that they're limited on bite and torquing power. While I am confident its enough to hold & not fall off at speed I also don't think that it's forming a strong enough seal to keep out water intrusion so this is something I'll be returning to later. I keep telling myself (as well as my gear-headed friends) that the next car bought should come from outside the state and rust-belt. Go deep into the desert on your spirit journey, I advise them as I do the complete opposite of my advice and buy in state. I seem get what I pay for, too. Imagine that. Although though I did poke around under the car prior to purchase, and I felt as if the floors and structural components were solid, this proto-brick does have some rot issues in common spots. This time around, however, I'm going to teach myself how to properly fix this (even if it's a long & drawn out process). For those not in the know: in the Volvo 240 world, the trunk cavities behind each rear wheel are known as butt-cheeks and they are definitely prone to rusting. In fact, some owners are actually ashamed of their butt-cheeks and go to various lengths to remove them. I frankly don't have an opinion either way, but I can tell you that it's something that needs remediation:  Drivers side^  Passenger's side^ There are a few other small spots that need tending to but, over-all, it's not extensive work for a car coming from 1974. And, really though, it's par for the course for any car that's actually survived numerous years in these parts. There are a lot of cars around here that simply have disappeared from the roads because of the rot. I forget which recent thread it was in but someone was sharing pictures from a first generation chevy S-10 and the desert dust that was behind their dash...and those just don't exist here anymore. Anyways, we've put less than 100 miles on the 144 since we bought it and it could use a little love to bring it back to peak operating conditions so, this weekend, I hope to adjust the valves and tune the dual SU carbs because it's falling on it's face under hard load and dieseling on shut-down. This youtube tutorial makes the valve adjustment seem pretty straight forward and the SU guide detailed on vclassics takes a lot of the mystery away from the tuning process. There's a lot more on the list of things-to-do but I'd rather not get into it all now so, instead, I'll show off the really snazzy aftermarket steering wheel that came with the car (easily one of the classiest things we own): 
stone soup fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Apr 9, 2019 |
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Apr 9, 2019 00:07
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I appreciate all the comments and reception so far everyone--thanks! I'll keep Otto's Volvo (& other misc adventures) content coming as long as it's enjoyed  Powershift posted:I don't know if you've ordered new ones yet, but there looks like there's enough meat on there to take off the 1.6mm diameter... nitsuga posted:Also, looks like Minneapolis? stone soup fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Apr 9, 2019 |
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Apr 9, 2019 01:07
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It was the garbage cans. Up in north myself.
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Apr 9, 2019 04:15
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I was headed into work this morning and the sky was beautiful shades of dawn so, in an effort to slow-down and enjoy the small moments in life, I pulled over to snap a picture. I'm taking 12 credits this semester plus working just under 40 hours, and also I'm poo poo with time-management to begin with, so I have been feeling mighty overwhelmed lately. The list of things I want to accomplish doesn't quite align with what I have time for, spend my time on, or really care about... and thats not a good recipe. Taking that moment to myself to share with you all felt right. Time to get on with it, then.  nitsuga posted:It was the garbage cans. Up in north myself. Sup neighbor?
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Apr 10, 2019 13:41
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Hehe. Not much I guess. You’re always welcome to PM me if you ever want a hand with anything. I’ve got a pretty rad Milwaukee impact wrench too.
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Apr 11, 2019 05:08
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^ I'll definitely keep that in mind! What a difference a day makes..  We got a round of heavy, wet snow that ended up freezing over-night so this morning the roads were terrible--even with the G80 auto-locking differential--but I suppose the tires I have on there (2nd hand Goodyear Wranglers) aren't the best for icey conditions, either.  Speaking of the Eaton G80; Volvo offered this as an option for its 2xx/7xx/9xx series and it uses an internal weight to control engagement below ~25mph. I also understand that some guys like to put them in their Cherokee front axle because both the Jeep and the Volvos use the Dana 30. Folks will even go so far as to alter the weighted piece to change the engagement speed. Theres a bit more reading here if you're interested. I originally grabbed mine out of a scrapped 940, including both axle shafts, but I made a crucial mistake by not getting the differential cover so when I put everything back together the magnetic speedometer pickup contacted the slotted tone ring and, because I was in a rush at the time, I simply snipped the tone ring off. That means I've been driving around without a speedometer since. I'd like to get around to fixing this but its not exactly at the top of my list either. For some non-volvo content, here is an old Divco (?) converted into a food-truck that serves utterly delicious waffles that I share a space with everyday:  stone soup fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Apr 11, 2019 |
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Apr 11, 2019 14:05
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That April snow? It was on the way out under the spring sun just a few days later, which also just so happened to be a great time to visit my brother and see whats-doin' on his end plus have some company while I turn a wrench of my own.  That Datsun came from a field in North Dakota. In it's current iteration it sporting an L24 valve-cover fabbed into an air-box for his blow-through turbo setup, while the motor also happens to be a fresh rebuild donated from a race-prepped 240z that was rolled in transit and subsequently parted out. It straddles this strange line between glamorous and Roadkill-esque. Its frightening for all types of reasons.  He's also trying to make a gasser out of the Falcon sitting in the background by stuffing that motor, an Olds 394, into it. This is going to be just as hilarious for all types of reasons. I think he'd fit in here.  What I stopped by to do, however, was to cut my teeth on adjusting the valves and syncing the carbs, as well as getting to know Clem better. I suspected something was unusual when I first went to take a look at the car because everything I read told me it would have early mechanical injection of some sort, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a dual SU carb'd B20 under the hood.  I kind of figured it out after finding this on the windshield, too. Thanks, neighbors! So with the miles we've put on Clem so far, what we've found is that it's down on power, the engine is loud and clackity, plus its sucking down gas rather quickly. The service manual that came with the car claims valve adjustments should be done with every oil change, or something like 3-5 thousand miles, and since I have no record of this being done then what better place to start? While preparing, I came across this video and it really inspired a lot of confidence and gave me the direction I really needed.  You can see that I've marked the plugs so I don't screw up the firing order, but the damage to the wire made me wish I had prepared an entire maintenance day including spark-plugs, wires, points, timing gears and whatever else is recommended but, because we're also somewhat budget-constrained, I figured I would start with whats free.  I did have a replacement valve-cover gasket on hand, thankfully.  Valve cover off.  Spark plugs out so the engine rotates easier for valve adjustment and to also give a clue as to how it's running (rich it seems). Ordered 1 on bottom ascending to 4 on top. Now shame on me because I was too busy fiddling with the tiny and pliable spark-plug feeler gauges to stop and take pictures of the actual process but, needless-to-say, every measurement was wildly different. I tried to set things within spec at .51" but I need a better set of feeler gauges to be honest. I do feel silly for being intimidated by this because it turns out that it's really easy and I have no problem coming back to do it again. I also took the opportunity to set the spark-plug gap as well but I don't remember exactly what that ended up being. As I mentioned earlier, the motor feels down on power. This is especially true in the top end, where it seems to fall flat on its face. Now, it didn't come equipped with a tach so I don't know where in the power-band this is happening but I know it runs out of steam quickly--likely after 3k. I thought that this might be a problem with the dual SU's being out of sync, but in order to get to test that theory I had to disassemble the air-intake.  The device in red caught my attention because it *looks* like a MAF sensor, but I really didn't know what the heck and it had to come off the car anyways...  It looks like a thermal switch for helping with winter cold-starts and warming up the carbs? Regardless of what it's function is supposed to be I don't think it was doing it's job because it was in the closed position and difficult to actuate. I have a feeling that was robbing some of the top-end power so I simply hooked the accordion intake-hose directly to the air-box when I put the car back together.  Air filter There's a simple vacuum device used to sync carbs and it measures the air-flow into each individual carb so they can be tuned to match.  As you can see, these two weren't even close. Alls I did was tune by ear and bring them to match, which works for now but I really need to take the time for examine the condition of the carbs in further depth. I had even verified the dash-pots were filled prior to this, as well, because I understand its important to the low-end responsiveness of the carbs. I put things back together and verified the timing with a light-gun, too. The difference was night and day. The motor had far less valve-train noise, it was more responsive and it gained a lot of top-end pull, however, there is still some very slight hesitation when pulling under load in the upper rpms. I'm confident I'll sort this out when I check the ignition specs, re-check the valve clearances with a proper set of feeler gauges, and truly tune the carbs as well as I can.  My brother suggested painting the steelies black but reconditioning the center-caps & trim-rings. I like the sound of that tbh. Currently my list of things to do: -Seafoam wooo -Oil change -Clean plugs -Wires -Check ignition, points, dwell (also learn how to do these in the process) -Recheck carbs & condition -Recheck valve adjustment -Wax a car (for the first time so more learning) -Lube crank windows (drivers is extra difficult, others are okay) -Do that thing with the chrome and steelies -Mount all-seasons/summer tires, sell blizzaks? Edit; Catte finale  stone soup fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Apr 23, 2019 |
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Apr 23, 2019 02:59
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It was probably a good thing the snow tires stayed on the wife's car, and while the missing hubcaps and rusty steelies really added a splash of haggardness that I felt represented our status in the automotive hierarchies...  ...the adapters I custom ordered had arrived, so now it's officially time to hibernate the snows!   There's a rattle-gun that bounces around the immediate family and I didn't happen to have it so this took a lot longer than I wanted it to. Still, its easy to over-tighten the wheels and warp the rotors and you'll never guess how I learned that.  Labeling is important, especially as your brain turns to mush. Now it's at this point I made sure the adapters fit the center-bore of the wheels, and then I eagerly snugged them in nicely, so much so that I bolted them to the wheel when I should have started at the rotor. Queue me spending extra time with the ratchet to undo that mistake. Properly mounted, they install first like this   This is the front right spacer. I ordered both fronts at 25mm. Much better  I went to do the rear and noticed the exhaust hangar had worked itself loose and disconnected from that rubber isolation dealio. I wasn't planning on fiddling with this had absolutely no fun getting this back together. I can find the dumbest poo poo to get frustrated over and this got me sour.  Then my jack stopped jackin' it and the substitute bottle-jack proved it self to be a deadly jackass just as i suspected it would be and I had to talk myself down with a bunch of profanity because I also had to pee and these delays were a really petty universe-tease. I'm ok now though.  Turns out the locking clip that pulls the plunger back up disconnected.   Some work with the pliers later and it was ready for re-assembly.  I had the rears made at 32mm because the track is a bit more narrow than the front and it evens out the appearance some.  Same verdict for the backs, despite the blurry picture cause my phone died and switched to a sad work-phone.  Look; we're enthusiasts now! stone soup fucked around with this message at 05:50 on Apr 23, 2019 |
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Apr 23, 2019 04:16
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Nice retro park pass. I always want to save those when I see a car at the wrecker with them. Love that 240Z a lot more than I really should.
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Apr 23, 2019 04:33
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I promised myself that I would try to offset the various summer project costs in various ways and one of them is biking to work. I managed to do this May through early October last year--it felt amazing--and I'm ready to do it again. Having a commute that's 10 miles round trip makes it an attainable goal, too, and between work and school I logged 1374 miles on whatever phone app I was using. I'm going to park the wagon soon and get serious about this LS swap, and this is part of that preparation. I pulled the bike I paid far too much for, because I knew far too little, out of the shed, put on a front fender, changed the rear tire and then the tube as well.  Kind of my first time doing this too, embarrassingly enough.  Regardless, its a blast riding around. I also picked this thing up recently, with the intention of bringing it to life again. It was put up in storage 30 some years ago and I bought it from the same family's children. It's a giant rear end steamer. My goals are to not get scalded or exploded and to steam the poo poo out of stuff. I've already found the complete service & parts manual. Wish me luck.   It's huge.
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Apr 23, 2019 04:51
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Does it run off fuel oil? That's a friggin bear
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Apr 23, 2019 12:35
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The manual calls for #1 or #2 diesel. Here's a diagram of the burner-motor: Its also rich in warnings, which seem innocent enough: 
stone soup fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Apr 23, 2019 |
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Apr 23, 2019 14:59
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It's been a rough week and I'll share a bit more of the specifics of it all later, because I'm feeling pretty worn down right now, but the short of it is that the wife had the opportunity to watch her driver's rear wheel bounce along side her down the highway and I broke some new parts I bought for the 144 pretty fast. Way-to-go, Wally J.
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May 4, 2019 01:47
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