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Hi all, kind of a long time lurker on here, with threads on two other forums about my car I've just never got around to making one on here as it seems like a lot of effort to keep them all up to date, but I suppose I may as well put it up here, sorry in advance for when it ends up not up to date! A little about me, feel like I'm writing a personal statement! I'm Richard, I'm 19, I'm a student at Loughborough Uni studying Aeronautical Engineering and in my pare time I like working on retro cars, must be in the right place! So, my car... Bought by my family to replace a written off 2005 Citroen C3 back in 2007, it's a 1989 Volvo 740GL estate in riviera blue met, poverty speck but with option front fogs and that's about it tbh. When we got it it was reasonably smart, but with curbed wheel trims and a missing door strip (found in the boot). The interior was fairly smart and it scrubbed up fairly well. It had the B200E 2.0 ltr mech injection red block and M47 5 speed transmission. It had about 120000 on the clock when we got it, so barely run in, done a few more now! Here's some photos from back closer to then (2010), unfortunately between getting it and this it had gained a dent in the N/S rear from a bit lorry, and lost a wheel trim it seems.      sounds needed improving, so I fitted a CR906 stereo and a CD stacker we had lying around from our old 960 was added in the boot. got some alloys free from a guy who worked in the garage where I did my work expedience at the end of GCSE (I was still a few years away from learning to drive back when this story starts).   Got myself a DSLR to take better photos (a Minolta Dynax D7). This showed up that actually the paint came up pretty well after a good clean.  I personally really like the factory roof rack that mine came with, though it would be better a little less bent maybe   Camera also showed up quite well that I didn't do a very good job of cleaning...  Much more driving and hard work happened for the car over the years, replacing the 'indestructible' Nissan D21 pickup that mom's gardening business killed, moving all sorts, including a lawnmower, a lot, about 4 tonnes of antique tiles (not all at once obviously) from Barnt Green to home, shed hauling, two diversions into ditches due to ice and fog, an altercation with a lamppost, odometer stopped and was repaired (twice), even towed the V70 to a new storage location when the drive needed clearing...  Other than servicing the B200 continued to serve well, apart from drinking vast amounts of unleaded obviously, and slightly less obviously increasingly more and more 10W40  My camera didn't fair so well so photos from here on are all iPhone ones until I get around to getting a new DSLR  By the time we reach 2011 and me learning to drive it was up to well over 200000 miles, probably about 210000, and still going strong. It had needed little more than a new exhaust (or two, crappy pattern parts) and one little bit of welding too I seem to remember, but otherwise really very little trouble. The interior had had a new headlining at some point along the way and also new carpets and seats through out (part leather ones from a 740 TIC. Rebuilt headlights, replacement valance (my first ever spray work) new corner lights, and some driving lights on the grill tidied the front up a little, but I still need to straighten the Bumper somehow in order to be able to get the towing eye cover on, get a new number plate and replace the reflector stripe.  Roof Rack had to come off for a while as i suspected a little rot under the mounts, yes, little bit of rot  Patched temporarily with P38 and P40 after treating the rot, for rattle can job on the drive it's not too bad   After RRG it finally got hit with a stick by way of a set of apex -40mm springs, I left the Boge Turbo shocks I put on a few years back for now.   Got me a new set of alloys;   Cant wait to get these on the car, but I'll be refurbishing them first. And finally, most recent photo of the car, at rugby station after dropping me off on my way back to uni last weekend.  More in a moment... Richard |
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Last Edit: Mar 19, 2014 10:19:40 GMT by rich745
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Now, as those who know the car and me will realise, I seem to have missed a fairly big part of the story of this car and me... That's where this girl comes in  Looks good doesn't she?  Ok, maybe not perfect...  Little bit scruffy here and there:  Not seen this on one before?  Aah!  That last show was just the tip of the iceberg, the sills were totally ruined, the floor pans not far behind, I've honestly never seen one nearly that bad, I don wonder if it had been flood damaged or something! Still, no matter, I only bought it for this:  And this:  And this  haha, got you there No more red block for me, lovely hopelessly fragile, awful, underpowered, inefficient VW i6 Diesel Should be simple?  Borrow barn, farmer and Manitou...    In she goes...  Looks comfy enough  Need a few more bits, can i borrow the Manitou again please?   Would you look at that, it seems to be running and back home  There have been a few small niggily issues since, dying wheel bearings, prop bearing, alternator, battery, leaky power steering, dead bottom ball joints, exhaust (several times), fuel gauge, gear linkage isn't great, diff still isn't a locker, no synchro on first (I did know about this), seized vicious fan coupling, gearbox mount collapsed, gearbox crossmember isn't far behind... tbh the list goes on and on but I'm loving it this curse word engine, which had 208000 hard miles on it when I got the donor car, has done 8000 miles in my car now, averaged 34MPG despite enjoying BOOST and the seized fan coupling, and a little shed hauling again. Fuel turned up (think it had been done before but then turned back down when the MBC that i suspect had been on the donor was removed) and it's easily out performing the old B200E, torque is great fun, and i recon it would actually give our 2.5TDI V70 a good run for it's money despite being 20BHP down on paper. It may be renowned as a curse word engine but keep changing the oil and the water pump and wind the fuel up and it's actually great. Thinks that's probably about it now other than one more thing, Richard |
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Ok, so part of my reasoning for suddenly posting this all up on here, was to ask for some opinions. VOC forum is good, and where I've had my project thread since I was about 16, but I want some advice, and there's a wider number of people have opinions about modding on here who are probably happy to offer them. So, I have a nice new set of Hyrda 16" alloys to go on in the spring, which I'm going to refurb before then. I also have a set of standard Volvo 15" steelies that have just gone on, see last photo in first post, which came off the parts car and are fitted with four matched, near new, Firestone Multihawks, which are M&S rated and therefore shall be being used as winter tyres until I can afford some proper winter tyres. These steelies also need refurbing, and will be getting done next year once the Hydras go on. Questions are, what colours. The Hydras I'm thinking will suit standard Wheel Met Silver, like the colour they're in now. Anthracite has been overdone a bit I think and I'm not so sure it suits Hydras or will work against my car anyway, but I'm open to other opinions. Like these...  The Steelies I'm not sure about however, black (these are actually pug 16" ones but you get the idea)  or silver  or maybe even grey?  Let me know what You all think guys and gals, we're all on here for opinions and advice right! Richard |
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I had a 940 with the D24, it wasn't intercooled mind unlike yours.
As you mentioned severely underpowered, inefficient and noisy, mine also had a seized viscous coupling so sounded like a bus, but i loved it.
As you said with the i wound the fuelling up a little on mine and it was brisk, more so in the winter than the summer due to colder mornings.
However i loved it! I thoroughly regret selling it, i got a 2.3 LPT after and wound the boost up to a bar, that was a quick car but never grew as fond of it as i did the diesel.
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Here it is, cut the springs and i was away.  As for the hydras keep them silver and steelies black IMO. |
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I had a 940 with the D24, it wasn't intercooled mind unlike yours. As you mentioned severely underpowered, inefficient and noisy, mine also had a seized viscous coupling so sounded like a bus, but i loved it. As you said with the i wound the fuelling up a little on mine and it was brisk, more so in the winter than the summer due to colder mornings. However i loved it! I thoroughly regret selling it, i got a 2.3 LPT after and wound the boost up to a bar, that was a quick car but never grew as fond of it as i did the diesel. cheers for the reply, if I'm honest I actually think it's quieter than my old B200E was as well, but then form what I've heard i must have had one of the worst 200Es around, it never ever ran right, was hopelessly uneconomical, felt like it was off cam above about 4000RPM, drank oil, and blew several head gaskets (which was actually what eventually happened to cause me to replace it). I have a solution to the fan issue all waiting in the shed, but need the old fan pulley machining down to fit it. The car's have so much character, they make you love them I think, but the 200E was a totally boring engine, the D24TIC is a lot more characterful, and makes a lovely noise which helps There are more engine mod's planned, I'm hoping, long term, to have it making about 180BHP ish, which should be possible with a decent HG, maybe rebuilt Injectors and more BOOST. It's all monies though, and I'm a poor deprived student Thanks again Rich |
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Last Edit: Nov 9, 2013 15:41:09 GMT by rich745: typo
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Feb 23, 2014 22:05:59 GMT
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Well, I'm hoping that this car is heading a little more towards something that might interest people on here over this year, so I'm going to try keep this thread updated with the progress incase anyone wants to have a read of it. Well, I've been at uni and my car's been in service being used for getting to and from places by mom's fiancée and doing it without problem it would seem, although I came home on friday to find that the rumbling noise I had left was certainly getting louder - I know the state of our roads is bad, but I don't think road noise would get that much more noticeable so i figured I'd better have a look to work out what it could be! I went to jack the car up, and decided that the fact that the rivets are coming out of my cheapo old axle stands, that were only rated to 500kg each to begin with, told me they had done their time and that it was time for me to move on. A quick search on the internet showed me that £23 could have me a nice pair of 1000kg each solid welded ratchet type stands from the Halfrauds Advanced Professional Lifetime Guaranteed Range, so i gingerly drove to Rugby, since it was the nearest Halfords big enough to have some in stock. Got myself a trade card while I was there and ended up paying £19 for them I think, not a terrible deal really, though I'll get another pair and a new jack sometime, probably from SGS Engineering on t'internet. Back home and about that noise, now my first suspicion was the centre prop bearing, which I've changed before, but I have no idea why I thought that was what it was tbh, it was just my first guess given what the noise was. After a little inspection it seemed less likely, I could neither see nor feel anything wrong with the bearing apart from the fact that the dust cover things are still loose - clearly need to be less sparing with my epoxy resin! Next I thought the worst - remembering that my diff makes an odd clunk clunk kind of noise when the rear wheels are rotated (and half hoping I'd 'have' to change the rear axle and conveniently stumble upon a 3.31 ratio locker), I guessed that the noise, which in fairness does kind of sound like the noise the axle makes but sped up, was something to do with my differential. I changed the diff oil in the hope that the condition of the oil would tell me something - it came out clean and smelling about as good as 75W90 Hypoid Gear Oil ever does This I was kind of glad of seeing as I only put it in there about 6000 miles ago! On test-driving afterwards, I believed that it seemed to have quietened down a little, but it's definitely still there and LOUD, and I may have been imagining the change tbh Back home research into diagnosing possible differential issues went on, and I decided it might be the carrier bearings in the axle, though it did seem a little odd to have a problem since I always thought the axles were pretty bombproof? Rather than waste the last of the light though, I got the front up and set about changing my gearbox crossmember since i got a nice now one that I'd painted up so it looked nice and new, and the old was a little past it's best to say the least. Old on the right, new on the left:  As above, not the missing bits where rust has attacked the old one, and how well the wax oil hides my welding  Also note how despite me belief that the M90 crossmember was the same as the Auto crossmember and they were all the same, these aren't  Thinking NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harmonics), I decided I'd better not fit it with no bushing's at all, so in the absence of whatever are meant to be used, I attacked the ones from the old crossmember with a knife, and made some little rubber washers to go between the crossmember and the car:  Then as I fitted this it went dark, so photo's from yesterday stop. So much for trying to take plenty This morning started late but when it did it started with deciding to rectify my long standing power steering leak (since I still haven't taken the car back for an engineer's report about the engine swap since I was given an MOT on account of the last thing I heard from the tester having been, 'I'll give you a pass cos I know you'll go and fix that, NOW.') The offending fluid union (with drip proving that not all the fluid had leaked out ):  Some may notice that despite being disconnected from the rack, the bolt part of the union remains firmly in the other bit, whatever it's called. That would be down to the 'sealing' washers, that have embedded themselves in the thread of the bolt and decided it's not coming off. In the end i had to resort to one of my decent wood chisels (you know, the ones that are actually sharp and hence hidden from others who might use them inappropriately ) in order to pry the thing free This shows the remains of the washers:  I now started on something else, that I shall come to later after finishing this part of the story so that things make sense. Suffice to say at this point, that I haven't been being the most logical or methodical person today! Couple of sealing washers and boshed the unions back on, topped up the system, bled and no leaks The liquid on everything is degreaser sprayed everywhere in an attempt to clear up some of the power steering fluid that has coated most of the offside of the car since this leak.  More in a moment Richard |
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Feb 23, 2014 22:56:59 GMT
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So, more did happen today than just fixing a power steering leak, I managed to get an awful lot of undersell in my hair and eyes, and poke a few holes in my floor as a reward Now, I've known about this one hole for a while, so i decided to catch it and stop it going any further until i can deal with it properly sometime in the nicer weather. It turned out to be a little more than I expected tbh, but its not the end of the world I suppose:  As is always the way when you decide to, 'just sort that little bit there,' I noticed this looked a bit crusty:  And thought I'd just check this bit too... Oh, that'll be another hole then!  See what I meant when I said I wasn't being particularly methodical?  Other side of the jacking point:  At this point I had a cup of tea and decided I should be a little more logical. Clearly I need to go over the whole of the bottom of the car and check it over for rust, and deal with what I find, repaint and retreat and then the car should be good for another 24 years In that case, as I've started here, I may as well do this area I thought... Out came the burner - reminds me, need more butane - and a scraper, and I set too deundersealing (Insert Expletives Here) God knows how people strip the whole of the bottom of a car, this is without doubt below working on transverse engined cars in my list of automotive ways to spend a day I only got the one chassis rail done from it's end to the back of the wheel arch.   I was going to do the floor between the sill and the rail too, but the carpets were getting warm, and I couldn't be bothered to take them out today, so that's a job for next time! Notice the disappearing light in the background  Finally I decided to call it a day for today, so I painted over it all with a couple of coats of rede oxide and called it a day.     I will paint over it all with stone chip and chassis black and I'll be Waxoiling the chassis rails come summer when they dry out properly, but since I'm going to have to cut chunks out of the bottom of the car red oxide will suffice until the welding gets done. So far the bits that need fixing are, this:  And this:  Ok, this time that's it for now. I'm hoping to do the welding at the car club at uni, and learn to do it myself. If anyone has any ideas on what the best way to do this would be then hints would certainly be appreciated Richard |
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Feb 23, 2014 23:21:42 GMT
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Oh, Forgot to mention one big thing! Car is off the road for the moment! While the front end was in the air, I noticed that the N/S/F wheel bearing is knackered, really badly, and very noisy Hopefully this is the source of my rumble, as it's under warranty from GSF still! By the time I next come home - weeks away now - Hopefully I'll have a new one and will also have received a known good Glow Plug Relay from Steve to test if that explains my Glow Plug issues (on going fault where the Glow Plug Relay is energising whenever it has power, and never switching off so burning out the Glow Plugs and flattening the battery faster than the alternator can charge it. Richard |
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Mar 19, 2014 10:17:44 GMT
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Hi all, Still here! Been mega busy with uni stuff, coursework load is always at it’s heaviest at this point in the semester, but still going not the only thing I’ve been busy with, been playing with this in spare time too, as those who are friends with me on facebook may have seen.  Our season opener at the Tour of Epynt 2014 didn’t go so well though with a retirement on the road section coming back to service after stage two. Suspected headgasket failure we think, but it remains to be seen how much further damage was done in the resulting overheat and whether this will effect Andy's plans for the remainder of the season! Still, could have been worse!  So, on to the subject of this thread! Car! In anticipation of plans that are afoot (i.e. stripping the underseal and repairing all rust, before re undersealing for the next 25 years), what is the best option for the underbody protection of the car following this? At the moment I’m considering two options:
1) POR15, very well recommended, one treatment, VERY hard and very good at stopping rust. Not really designed for use under cars and arguably possibly too hard and prone to cracking? Nigh on impossible to overpaint due to hardness apparently, and likes to be applied ONLY to perfectly clean bare metal. Certainly the reputation is that this stuff is unbelievably good at protecting metal, but what if I ever needed to take it off!
2) Epoxy based paint. (Like this www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RUSTBUSTER-EPOXY-MASTIC-5m2-STARTER-PACK-/230512286193?pt=UK_Body_Shop_Supplies_Paint&clk_rvr_id=605018982039&hash=item35ab9a59f1&afsrc=1) Spray able from a normal spray gun, similar priced, and I believe what modern underseal is based on? Can be used in primer form and then overpainted with stone chip type paint and then chassis black, which I think would look more OEM, and also stand up to road use, stones etc better?
What are people’s opinions, and where should I obtain materials from?
Richard |
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Mar 31, 2014 18:09:16 GMT
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Well, I've made a decision on the paint front. Decided I'm going with Rustbuster Epoxy primer, and then UPOL Gravitex over the top. In the summer when the car is properly dry, it will be treated in all the cavities and then get a coat of cavity wax and underbody wax. Since the decision's made, I just ordered: 1ltr Panel Wipe 6ltr UPOL Gravitex Stone Chip 1 Shutz Gun 1kg Brushable Seam Sealer 2000mm x 500mm Sound Deadening Pad 2.5ltr Rustbuster 421 'Custom' Epoxy Primer (Grey) 1ltr FE-123 Rust Nutraliser and a paint mixing cup My bank account is now nearly £200 lighter Does anyone have any helpful hints and tricks for me with this stuff? Richard |
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Dec 28, 2014 14:37:59 GMT
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Went for a little detour to play in the snow on the way back to uni.   Rich |
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Dec 28, 2014 15:44:30 GMT
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Looking good Rich. I've got an '87 240GL myself, always liked the 740 estate or saloon. Big ol' car! Have you joined 'Volvo Owners UK' group on Facebook? We'd love to see your car on there.
Tim
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My camera didn't fair so well so photos from here on are all iPhone ones until I get around to getting a new DSLR 
Looks good doesn't she? 
