This is the ongoing tale of my Volvo 850. A 2.5 litre non-turbo petrol 5 cylinder, with a useful 170bhp when new. Feels closer to 90 ish now. It has the T5 wheels and spoiler, so looks much sportier than it is. Also sounds sportier than it is. A big metallic red herring.
Bought as I desperately needed to be able to transport our new puppy, yet really wanted something a bit older and interesting, and dirt cheap so I could DIY it a bit and not feel bad when I inevitably ballsed it up. Hankered after 7/940s, thinking RWD had to be better, but prices were on the rise, presumably from their driftability / stance / cool factor. And they are cool. I still want one. Anyway, started looking at 850s on the internet and realised they were pretty cool too. Anyone who remembers them as touring cars in the nineties will know what I mean.
Loaded up with bits of wood:
Bought from a local fellow who seemed slightly shady (the transaction was done in a layby) and who agreed waaay too readily at my suggested price cut. Initial inspection revealed central locking that only worked from the passenger side and a boot that wouldn't open at all, yet whose grip on the central locking meant we managed to lock all 3 keys in the car at one stage and had to come back later. On the test drive she rode like curse word and the steering was alive with shakes. But the engine sounded good, the oil was a nice golden colour only leaked a tiny amount. The paintwork was pretty bad - every panel had a scrape or a dent or some prodigious rust (I'm looking at you, driver's side front wing) but it had a towbar with electrics and a free terrible set of roofbars. The interior was beige and it smelled of dog. Perfect, since I was buying it for dog. The driver's mirror was held on with bathroom sealant and didn't move.
Handling is surprisingly great. Chuckable and placeable. The ferry-disaster levels of body roll actually seem to increase my confidence in bends. Feels much smaller than it is. Ride very bad but seats very good. Feels like being thrown down a flight of stairs in your favourite armchair, smoking a cigar made of old dog.
Got home and discovered a few things I should have discovered before. The power steering fluid was non-existent and the odometer didn't work - it was stuck on 178-something k. Not a huge problem as the last MOT was 172-something k, meaning chances were the odo had stripped its cogs in the last 6 months. Easy fix, according to the forums, but does involve taking the dash off. Although the driver's door mirror didn't move, the heating element in it worked fine. The passenger mirror moved, but didn't heat. Classic.
Scored 4 very cheap tyres (2 of which were great) from a lovely chap who even met me halfway and had a laugh about broken things on bangers.
Fuel consumption pretty bad. Gets the same mpg as my 350z, so about 25 when you're reasonably sensible. But she drinks normal unleaded, so that's a win.
I went the long way round about fixing the mostly non-squirting windscreen washers. First off I thought the reservoir was just empty, but when I tried to fill it up I could only put in a tiny amount - about what I'd expect to put in to fill up the filler neck. At this point I figured it must be the pump. So, bought a new pump on ebay for next to nothing and set about replacing it. A bit fiddly in places, but nothing compared to changing a headlight bulb on a lot of modern-ish metal. Tried it out and hey presto, the problem persisted - I could get a good squirt, then a dribble, then nothing - but the pump still whirred away just as it always had. So before assuming a DOA pump (read about some poor curse word that had happened to) I thought I'd try poking about in the reservoir with a stick, to see if I could find a blockage. Funny thing, I could only get the tip in (hurhur). Fairly long story slightly short, there was a gauzy filter across the bottom of the filler neck, completely unmentioned on any internet how to guide. I cut it up with a knife then pulled it out. It resembled a used condom that had been in a stagnant pond. The filterness of it was totally blocked with, well, ick. Since I've never seen such a thing on a car before I figured I couldn't possibly need it and threw it away. Then water went in (the reservoir was empty - I guess the filter very slowly let in the tiny amount of water the filler neck could accommodate, then that went in one or two squirts) and hey flipping presto, the washers worked perfectly.
Finally got the 2 good tyres fitted to the front, and balanced, and aligned. Joy of joys most of the steering wobble went away. This was a real boon as for reasons that escape me now I was considering getting the steering rack reconditioned for a couple of hundred quid. What was I thinking? That's real car money!
Bought a used but perfect driver's door mirror off a bloke breaking a purple one. Discovered changing them over could be done in half an hour before dinner.
Also got a new tailgate lock and interior release, as mine was missing the release handle. Although in the time it took me to arrange pickup, I'd fixed the non-opening issue. After several instances of having to extract the dog and her shenanigans via the backseat, a good mate and I stripped the tailgate of its plastic trim and lubed the lock with silicone spray. This worked a charm. Boot was now locking and unlocking, only very occasionally sticking. We left the trim off, so any time it stuck one could unstick it manually. This wasn't ideal so I swapped the new release handle in and bunged the trim back on. Had to buy some new trim clips as we'd broken most of the few remaining ones getting the trim off with the boot shut! It worked great for a while, then started to be really loose in the shut position, requiring a couple of hefty slams to stick. Poking about I diagnosed this as the latch pole set in the boot floor somehow having come loose. Trim off (2 of the 8 screws present), some experimentation with positioning and it was pretty perfect again. Certainly perfect enough for me and the dog.
Ride still utter poop, so had a look underneath for obvious signs of broken/worn stuff. Would have to be very obviously knackered as I'm very, very new to doing anything myself. Didn't see anything obviously beggared, but did discover that the rear shocks were completely different designs! Turns out one is a Nivomat self-levelling jobby, and the other is a conspicuously new probably-cheap-knock-off standard shock. Nivomats are a kidney to buy, so at some point if I care enough I'll replace both rear shocks with the standard knock-off design. The "at some point" will be in the unlikely event she passes her MOT in September. Meantime I'll live with it.
Shortly after purchasing, started driving like I stole her, partly because she sounds so, so good at high revs, partly because she's a cheap runabout that I don't have to care about. Redline is 6k, and she's happy to go there. Or she was. A misfire started happening over 4k. The engine management light went on and stayed on, and during bad bouts of misfiring, would flash alarmingly until one backed off. Diagnosis as yet unknown. On my todo list is checking the spark plugs and changing the fuel filter.
From the start the glovebox was locked shut and the lock missing. I hacked it open with a screwdriver and a bad attitude and scored an abundance of prizes: the owners' manual, a nice pocket torch and a portable drinking bowl for the dog. Plus about 8 bulbs, some dog poop bags, and an ice scraper. I have used all the items, and the manual is a great read – from a time when manuals covered everything ever! I velcro'd the door shut as a temporary measure, then vowed to make a proper solution with an old belt. More on this later.
As much as I seriously loved the Volvo stereo's manual equaliser sliders (how cool is that?), I replaced it with an old double din head unit to get my USB/bluetooth creature comforts. Had to use a hacksaw to get it in, but wisely (I reckon) only took the OEM headunit locking rail off one side, meaning it could be refitted if need be. In fact, I kept the sliver of rail too, thinking glue is always an option to make it good again. This is me thinking ahead. After that was in and working and actually sounding fantastic, I added a subwoofer for non-dog days. I bought a cheap wiring kit on ebay and was surprised (although shouldn't have been) that 5 metres of power cable didn't cut it in a Volvo wagon! Some splicing and careful routing later and it was all in surprisingly painlessly.
At one point I decided I was going to repaint the old bus yellow. I've always wanted a yellow car and my friend demister has recently rattle-canned his MR2 back to glorious post-box red for relatively little outlay. Obviously the Volvo is about twice the size, so I planned to use the roller paint enamel method. I mocked it up in photoshop and felt good about it. I reckoned it would cost between £1-200 to do the whole thing. Plus the blood sweat and tears of course. But crying is free.
Around the same time my better half convinced me I needed to tint the rear glass to keep the dog cool this summer. The 850 has a lovely lot of glass area as standard - I think this helps the ease of placement when driving and reversing and whatnot. I remember my old Impreza had tints and reversing at night was just guesswork. But who cares right? So I had a small think (really small, definitely not big enough) and got some cheap 15% tint film from ebay. It showed up and looked completely black. 15% was way too dark. Ridiculously so. But I had the tints in hand, confidence in my heart and a certain devil-may-care attitude that seems to have arisen from owning this car.
I uncarefully measured and cut the film, then applied it enthusiastically with a credit card, the rubbery bit of the ice scraper I won in the glovebox lottery and tonnes of soapy water. It seemed to go on pretty easily, and most of the bubbles were easy enough to chase away. Inside it was like I'd been buried alive. Reversing was a distant dream. Outside it looked... not quite right.
I spent a bit more time on the bubbles with a craft knife, then called it good enough and went to bed. The next morning the tints had started to peel off. After the trip to work and back with windows open, they'd fallen off altogether. I put this down to aggressive bubbles and redid them, this time with a credit card, soapy water and a proper squeegee. They went on so much easier and better with the squeegee vs the ice scraper. I really wished that I'd bothered going upstairs to get the squeegee first time round. Little did I know that I had bigger problems. Next day they'd started peeling again and fell off in a similar manner.
I was flummoxed. I'd followed a youtube how-to really carefully. Except for one detail. A detail my lovely wife had also pointed out a few times and I'd poo-poohed. On the youtube video the tints they used had backing film. Mine seemed too thin and cheap to have backing film. I did look for it of course but it was super thin, like a molecule thick. Anyway. Of course there was a backing film layer, which I eventually found way, way too late by raggedly hacking at a bit of offcut, long after having ragequit the whole sorry affair and crumpling the tints into the carrier bag to stop them blowing around the car as I drove it home. Backing film off, the tints felt really sticky. Like they'd stay on forever. Balls. Lucky they were too dark I suppose.
Gave up on tints, although still under a little pressure for tints or curtains or something for the dog. But it's not as if we ever leave her in there in hot weather. Dogs die in hot cars.
My mind returned to the yellow. At the same time as buying the tints I also bought a small roll of yellow wrap on a whim. It was a lovely colour - very much reminiscent of the liquid yellow you used to get on performance Renaults. TL;DR - it went on worse than the tints, but currently is still on on the passenger side front wing. People generally wrap indoors. They generally don't wrap outside in a thunderstorm (we waited for the rain to stop, we're not idiots...) after a few cans of cider. They generally use the heat gun they planned to use rather than being too lazy to get it out of the shed and plug it in. These other people probably wrap better than I. There was enough left to cut a small square and vent some feelings.
It's so bad it's almost good, but from a distance it actually is good. But not good enough to spend so much money and so much time making a car that is unlikely to pass its next MOT and completely different colour. So the yellow plan has been shelved in favour of returning the wheels to their former glory, and maybe re-clearing some of the current paint. And sorting that rust patch.
Recently I discovered the car was old enough not to have ABS - or so I thought. Discovered this the usual way one discovers such things - braking sharply on a hill after getting the tyres covered in mud. I wouldn't really mind except I went back to look at the MOT history and the last fail was for, among other things, the ABS warning light being on. Suspiciously it then passed and the light is not on now. I suspect disconnection.
A few days ago I revisited the glovebox and finally followed through with my belt plan. Initially I was thinking of just using short lengths of belt and nailing it in, but when it cam down to it I was able to make it look like the belt encircled the whole thing, by cutting a slot in the top of the dash and looping the lower piece into the inside of the lid. I used a drill with small and large bits, a craft knife and a bit of sandpaper wrapped around my ice-scraper handle, then screwed it in, reasoning that nails could just disappear into the foam layer.
The top hole is slightly large and needs a finisher piece, but overall I'm really pleased with how this looks. Riffing a bit on the proper classics with their bonnet straps. I did have a look online before I started drilling the hole to check there truly was nothing back there to hurt. It's just completely empty back there when you have no passenger airbag. I was slightly too efficient keeping it done up tight as I drilled - I need to put another hole in the belt as it currently requires a lot of effort to use!
Last week in the work car park I found a bit of red plastic in the dog's mouth. Being a good dad but a bad citizen I took it off her and chucked it over a fence. This casual littering was both good and bad for me, but ultimately good for the environment. It took me til getting home that night to realise the little bit of red plastic had been a chunk of one of my rear lights. So I covered the hole with electrical tape and planned to retrieve it - next lunchtime I made a tool out of a steel rule, a pencil eraser and a piece of plastic the dog had removed from one of our desks. And sellotape of course.
Over a small wall, crouched between that and some chain link, angling a ruler to paw with increasing desperation at a piece of broken red plastic less than an inch square... that's what good living is. Got it back of course. Slapped it back in place this evening with a bit of gorilla glue (made from genuine gorillas) - we'll see what it looks like tomorrow.
It's now tomorrow. Looks like it stuck OK but the glue squeezed out in places and looks a bit messy. Will tidy up with a knife later.
Still to come:
Bought as I desperately needed to be able to transport our new puppy, yet really wanted something a bit older and interesting, and dirt cheap so I could DIY it a bit and not feel bad when I inevitably ballsed it up. Hankered after 7/940s, thinking RWD had to be better, but prices were on the rise, presumably from their driftability / stance / cool factor. And they are cool. I still want one. Anyway, started looking at 850s on the internet and realised they were pretty cool too. Anyone who remembers them as touring cars in the nineties will know what I mean.
Loaded up with bits of wood:
Bought from a local fellow who seemed slightly shady (the transaction was done in a layby) and who agreed waaay too readily at my suggested price cut. Initial inspection revealed central locking that only worked from the passenger side and a boot that wouldn't open at all, yet whose grip on the central locking meant we managed to lock all 3 keys in the car at one stage and had to come back later. On the test drive she rode like curse word and the steering was alive with shakes. But the engine sounded good, the oil was a nice golden colour only leaked a tiny amount. The paintwork was pretty bad - every panel had a scrape or a dent or some prodigious rust (I'm looking at you, driver's side front wing) but it had a towbar with electrics and a free terrible set of roofbars. The interior was beige and it smelled of dog. Perfect, since I was buying it for dog. The driver's mirror was held on with bathroom sealant and didn't move.
Handling is surprisingly great. Chuckable and placeable. The ferry-disaster levels of body roll actually seem to increase my confidence in bends. Feels much smaller than it is. Ride very bad but seats very good. Feels like being thrown down a flight of stairs in your favourite armchair, smoking a cigar made of old dog.
Got home and discovered a few things I should have discovered before. The power steering fluid was non-existent and the odometer didn't work - it was stuck on 178-something k. Not a huge problem as the last MOT was 172-something k, meaning chances were the odo had stripped its cogs in the last 6 months. Easy fix, according to the forums, but does involve taking the dash off. Although the driver's door mirror didn't move, the heating element in it worked fine. The passenger mirror moved, but didn't heat. Classic.
Scored 4 very cheap tyres (2 of which were great) from a lovely chap who even met me halfway and had a laugh about broken things on bangers.
Fuel consumption pretty bad. Gets the same mpg as my 350z, so about 25 when you're reasonably sensible. But she drinks normal unleaded, so that's a win.
I went the long way round about fixing the mostly non-squirting windscreen washers. First off I thought the reservoir was just empty, but when I tried to fill it up I could only put in a tiny amount - about what I'd expect to put in to fill up the filler neck. At this point I figured it must be the pump. So, bought a new pump on ebay for next to nothing and set about replacing it. A bit fiddly in places, but nothing compared to changing a headlight bulb on a lot of modern-ish metal. Tried it out and hey presto, the problem persisted - I could get a good squirt, then a dribble, then nothing - but the pump still whirred away just as it always had. So before assuming a DOA pump (read about some poor curse word that had happened to) I thought I'd try poking about in the reservoir with a stick, to see if I could find a blockage. Funny thing, I could only get the tip in (hurhur). Fairly long story slightly short, there was a gauzy filter across the bottom of the filler neck, completely unmentioned on any internet how to guide. I cut it up with a knife then pulled it out. It resembled a used condom that had been in a stagnant pond. The filterness of it was totally blocked with, well, ick. Since I've never seen such a thing on a car before I figured I couldn't possibly need it and threw it away. Then water went in (the reservoir was empty - I guess the filter very slowly let in the tiny amount of water the filler neck could accommodate, then that went in one or two squirts) and hey flipping presto, the washers worked perfectly.
Finally got the 2 good tyres fitted to the front, and balanced, and aligned. Joy of joys most of the steering wobble went away. This was a real boon as for reasons that escape me now I was considering getting the steering rack reconditioned for a couple of hundred quid. What was I thinking? That's real car money!
Bought a used but perfect driver's door mirror off a bloke breaking a purple one. Discovered changing them over could be done in half an hour before dinner.
Also got a new tailgate lock and interior release, as mine was missing the release handle. Although in the time it took me to arrange pickup, I'd fixed the non-opening issue. After several instances of having to extract the dog and her shenanigans via the backseat, a good mate and I stripped the tailgate of its plastic trim and lubed the lock with silicone spray. This worked a charm. Boot was now locking and unlocking, only very occasionally sticking. We left the trim off, so any time it stuck one could unstick it manually. This wasn't ideal so I swapped the new release handle in and bunged the trim back on. Had to buy some new trim clips as we'd broken most of the few remaining ones getting the trim off with the boot shut! It worked great for a while, then started to be really loose in the shut position, requiring a couple of hefty slams to stick. Poking about I diagnosed this as the latch pole set in the boot floor somehow having come loose. Trim off (2 of the 8 screws present), some experimentation with positioning and it was pretty perfect again. Certainly perfect enough for me and the dog.
Ride still utter poop, so had a look underneath for obvious signs of broken/worn stuff. Would have to be very obviously knackered as I'm very, very new to doing anything myself. Didn't see anything obviously beggared, but did discover that the rear shocks were completely different designs! Turns out one is a Nivomat self-levelling jobby, and the other is a conspicuously new probably-cheap-knock-off standard shock. Nivomats are a kidney to buy, so at some point if I care enough I'll replace both rear shocks with the standard knock-off design. The "at some point" will be in the unlikely event she passes her MOT in September. Meantime I'll live with it.
Shortly after purchasing, started driving like I stole her, partly because she sounds so, so good at high revs, partly because she's a cheap runabout that I don't have to care about. Redline is 6k, and she's happy to go there. Or she was. A misfire started happening over 4k. The engine management light went on and stayed on, and during bad bouts of misfiring, would flash alarmingly until one backed off. Diagnosis as yet unknown. On my todo list is checking the spark plugs and changing the fuel filter.
From the start the glovebox was locked shut and the lock missing. I hacked it open with a screwdriver and a bad attitude and scored an abundance of prizes: the owners' manual, a nice pocket torch and a portable drinking bowl for the dog. Plus about 8 bulbs, some dog poop bags, and an ice scraper. I have used all the items, and the manual is a great read – from a time when manuals covered everything ever! I velcro'd the door shut as a temporary measure, then vowed to make a proper solution with an old belt. More on this later.
As much as I seriously loved the Volvo stereo's manual equaliser sliders (how cool is that?), I replaced it with an old double din head unit to get my USB/bluetooth creature comforts. Had to use a hacksaw to get it in, but wisely (I reckon) only took the OEM headunit locking rail off one side, meaning it could be refitted if need be. In fact, I kept the sliver of rail too, thinking glue is always an option to make it good again. This is me thinking ahead. After that was in and working and actually sounding fantastic, I added a subwoofer for non-dog days. I bought a cheap wiring kit on ebay and was surprised (although shouldn't have been) that 5 metres of power cable didn't cut it in a Volvo wagon! Some splicing and careful routing later and it was all in surprisingly painlessly.
At one point I decided I was going to repaint the old bus yellow. I've always wanted a yellow car and my friend demister has recently rattle-canned his MR2 back to glorious post-box red for relatively little outlay. Obviously the Volvo is about twice the size, so I planned to use the roller paint enamel method. I mocked it up in photoshop and felt good about it. I reckoned it would cost between £1-200 to do the whole thing. Plus the blood sweat and tears of course. But crying is free.
Around the same time my better half convinced me I needed to tint the rear glass to keep the dog cool this summer. The 850 has a lovely lot of glass area as standard - I think this helps the ease of placement when driving and reversing and whatnot. I remember my old Impreza had tints and reversing at night was just guesswork. But who cares right? So I had a small think (really small, definitely not big enough) and got some cheap 15% tint film from ebay. It showed up and looked completely black. 15% was way too dark. Ridiculously so. But I had the tints in hand, confidence in my heart and a certain devil-may-care attitude that seems to have arisen from owning this car.
I uncarefully measured and cut the film, then applied it enthusiastically with a credit card, the rubbery bit of the ice scraper I won in the glovebox lottery and tonnes of soapy water. It seemed to go on pretty easily, and most of the bubbles were easy enough to chase away. Inside it was like I'd been buried alive. Reversing was a distant dream. Outside it looked... not quite right.
I spent a bit more time on the bubbles with a craft knife, then called it good enough and went to bed. The next morning the tints had started to peel off. After the trip to work and back with windows open, they'd fallen off altogether. I put this down to aggressive bubbles and redid them, this time with a credit card, soapy water and a proper squeegee. They went on so much easier and better with the squeegee vs the ice scraper. I really wished that I'd bothered going upstairs to get the squeegee first time round. Little did I know that I had bigger problems. Next day they'd started peeling again and fell off in a similar manner.
I was flummoxed. I'd followed a youtube how-to really carefully. Except for one detail. A detail my lovely wife had also pointed out a few times and I'd poo-poohed. On the youtube video the tints they used had backing film. Mine seemed too thin and cheap to have backing film. I did look for it of course but it was super thin, like a molecule thick. Anyway. Of course there was a backing film layer, which I eventually found way, way too late by raggedly hacking at a bit of offcut, long after having ragequit the whole sorry affair and crumpling the tints into the carrier bag to stop them blowing around the car as I drove it home. Backing film off, the tints felt really sticky. Like they'd stay on forever. Balls. Lucky they were too dark I suppose.
Gave up on tints, although still under a little pressure for tints or curtains or something for the dog. But it's not as if we ever leave her in there in hot weather. Dogs die in hot cars.
My mind returned to the yellow. At the same time as buying the tints I also bought a small roll of yellow wrap on a whim. It was a lovely colour - very much reminiscent of the liquid yellow you used to get on performance Renaults. TL;DR - it went on worse than the tints, but currently is still on on the passenger side front wing. People generally wrap indoors. They generally don't wrap outside in a thunderstorm (we waited for the rain to stop, we're not idiots...) after a few cans of cider. They generally use the heat gun they planned to use rather than being too lazy to get it out of the shed and plug it in. These other people probably wrap better than I. There was enough left to cut a small square and vent some feelings.
It's so bad it's almost good, but from a distance it actually is good. But not good enough to spend so much money and so much time making a car that is unlikely to pass its next MOT and completely different colour. So the yellow plan has been shelved in favour of returning the wheels to their former glory, and maybe re-clearing some of the current paint. And sorting that rust patch.
Recently I discovered the car was old enough not to have ABS - or so I thought. Discovered this the usual way one discovers such things - braking sharply on a hill after getting the tyres covered in mud. I wouldn't really mind except I went back to look at the MOT history and the last fail was for, among other things, the ABS warning light being on. Suspiciously it then passed and the light is not on now. I suspect disconnection.
A few days ago I revisited the glovebox and finally followed through with my belt plan. Initially I was thinking of just using short lengths of belt and nailing it in, but when it cam down to it I was able to make it look like the belt encircled the whole thing, by cutting a slot in the top of the dash and looping the lower piece into the inside of the lid. I used a drill with small and large bits, a craft knife and a bit of sandpaper wrapped around my ice-scraper handle, then screwed it in, reasoning that nails could just disappear into the foam layer.
The top hole is slightly large and needs a finisher piece, but overall I'm really pleased with how this looks. Riffing a bit on the proper classics with their bonnet straps. I did have a look online before I started drilling the hole to check there truly was nothing back there to hurt. It's just completely empty back there when you have no passenger airbag. I was slightly too efficient keeping it done up tight as I drilled - I need to put another hole in the belt as it currently requires a lot of effort to use!
Last week in the work car park I found a bit of red plastic in the dog's mouth. Being a good dad but a bad citizen I took it off her and chucked it over a fence. This casual littering was both good and bad for me, but ultimately good for the environment. It took me til getting home that night to realise the little bit of red plastic had been a chunk of one of my rear lights. So I covered the hole with electrical tape and planned to retrieve it - next lunchtime I made a tool out of a steel rule, a pencil eraser and a piece of plastic the dog had removed from one of our desks. And sellotape of course.
Over a small wall, crouched between that and some chain link, angling a ruler to paw with increasing desperation at a piece of broken red plastic less than an inch square... that's what good living is. Got it back of course. Slapped it back in place this evening with a bit of gorilla glue (made from genuine gorillas) - we'll see what it looks like tomorrow.
It's now tomorrow. Looks like it stuck OK but the glue squeezed out in places and looks a bit messy. Will tidy up with a knife later.
Still to come:
- The dash-rockery
- The lizard of guilt
- Refurbing the alloys
- Testing the towbar
- Checking/changing spark plugs
- Changing fuel filter
