1978 Volvo Estate - Impulse Ebay Purchase

Some more tinkering spread out over a weekend…



First off, the exhaust – I pulled my spare downpipe out of the garage and it appeared to match, so the one on the car (which I had refitted without exhaust paste as I knew it’d have to come off again) was pulled off and compared – a perfect match. I must have mis-remembered what the previous owner told me, perhaps it was that the exhaust for guaranteed for life rather than custom made. With the exhaust off it was easier to remove the gearbox cross member, so that was taken off (with a jack under the gearbox!) and I replaced the gearbox mounting.

The ‘new’ downpipe went back on ok, apart from a bit of filing required on the bracket at the bottom of the downpipe to make it fit. This wasn’t fitted before, which is probably why the other downpipe cracked there as it wasn’t properly supported.



I then fitted three new copper brake lines that my local garage made for me to replace the ones that were ruined in various ways during disassembly. Replaced new rear discs, fitted new rear calipers and fitted new rear brake pads.



The rear shocks are pretty ruined but I’d bought a replacement set, so I attempted to fit them which turned out to be quite a time waster… the top of the shock is held with a nut on the end of a stud that comes out of the bodywork at the top of the wheelarch, the bottom of the shock is held with a bolt that passes through the trailing arm, then through a spacer, then through the shock bottom, then through the other side of the trailing arm and then is secured with a nut. The nuts came off easily enough, but unfortunately the spacers are rusted onto the bolts, meaning that removal of the bolts was impossible. I tried various methods and then asked online – the solution is to cut through the bottom of the shock mount and the bolt, then cut the head of the bolt off on the other side of the trailing arm, meaning it can be removed in pieces. With limited space to work – the car is on axle stands rather than on a lift – I decided to source new bolts and spacers and leave this job to the garage that will be MOTing the car since they will have the car on a lift and have much more space to work.



After that came bleeding the brakes… what fun. I made a DIY pressure bleeder from an old master cylinder cap and a piece of inner tube, which allowed me to pressurise the reservoir using a bike pump that has a gauge on it. I bled every caliper but the pedal still went to the floor without resistance. Asked online and with a completely empty system the spider distribution block needs to be bled first by loosening the inlet and then outlet unions until they drip fluid. With that done another round of brake bleeding didn’t make a difference – the pedal still went to the floor. Asked some more questions online and left that for the day…



Next on the list – I set the engine at TDC, then stripped the front of the engine, removed the cambelt… and then called it a day. Back the next day I pressure washed off all the accumulated grime (but no fresh oil so no seals need replacement) from behind the cambelt cover, replaced the cambelt and tensioner pulley, then put the cover/belts/fan and shroud back on. I did make a small change, I swapped the alternator adjustment arm for a later one that has a tensioner bolt on it – this allows you to adjust the belt tension to the correctly before tightening the securing nut. The older version doesn’t have this extra bolt so you have to adjust the tension in the belts by levering the alternator away from the block and then do up the securing nut, presumably one handed. Set of new plugs also got installed.



I had another go at the brakes and managed to get the pedal to have some feel, although still a bit mushy.



Time to try starting it and it started straight away and settled down to a smooth idle. The alternator is now charging – it was just the bulb in the dash that needed replacement. I took it for a short test drive round the block and the brakes do work, despite the mushy feeling brake pedal. The clang when changing gear is also gone, so that was caused by the uj which I have replaced.



So off for an MOT! A few things for the garage to sort – there’s a small isolated patch of welding needed on the left hand inner rear wheel arch, the brakes need another bleed all round, the rear shock bolts need to be cut off and replaced and the tracking needs checking – the front right tyre didn’t have any tread on the inside edge (I’ve replaced it with a spare I had).



exhaust measuring





yep, that should work





gearbox mount replaced





Bending brakepipes to match the originals





New rear brakes - note the very rusty rear shock upper





DIY brake bleeder





Front of engine stripped off and clean




New pulley ready to go on



Replacement later alternator tension adjuster



All back together



A quick wash and now it's ready for a trip to the garage for a few bits of work and hopefully an MOT...

Got to love a 245 Started something of a revolution in my family, my dad had 3 (245, 240, V70) Brother 2 (S80, XC60) and I'm on my first (S60)

Brilliant write up, really enjoying reading this keep the updates coming

Written in February 2018:


So yet another update... moving through the list of faults and next of the list was the non-working heater fan. The previous time I changed a fan was in my 240 and that time I removed the dash, opened the heater box in place without disconnecting the heater matrix and swapped the replacement fan in from the top. I started out with that approach, but when I removed the foam backed underlay carpets they were wet which wasn't a good sign, so I carried on and ended up removing the dash, as well as the heater box etc. basically everything back to the bulkhead. Since I was convinced by this point that the matrix was leaking I removed it all to look for corrosion hiding anywhere, but you don't need to remove this much to take out the heater box - it can be removed with the dash staying in situ.



With the dash completed stripped out there was a fair pile of parts in the back seat... front seats were removed and were in the boot for easier access to the dash etc.





Which left me with this






Heater box removed and yes the old fan was knackered - no picture but the motor shaft had almost completed seized.



I took the heater matrix to the outdoor tap to test it... yep, that leaks like a sieve. No wonder the carpets were wet.



Bodge-o-matic test rig assembled





matrix pretending to be a sprinkler - there were other pin holes too





One phone call to Anglia Radiators in Cambridge later (highly recommended actually, a proper old school engineering place and very helpful) and it turned out they had an identical re-cored unit on the shelf. So I went and bought it.




Then rebuilt the heater box with the new fan and the new heater matrix in place.



With the interior of the car stripped out I hoovered out the sills and discovered a small hole in the floorpan - where water from the leaking matrix had been sitting under the carpet... apart from that small patch the floorpans are in great shape.



Hole visible to the bottom left of the circular stamp in the floorpan - you can see the drive through it!



Around this time I paid yet another visit to Lakes for a propshaft (more later on) and it turned out they had just got in what I'd been holding out for - a lowish mileage 240 in white with the rear doors still attached. The front door hinges on the 245 has been fairly awful all the time I've had the car - the passenger door was super stiff despite all my efforts with WD-40 and equivalents, both doors had also lost their ability to hold open. So I removed all four hinges from the white car at Lakes - of course the 245 is actually ivory not white, but given that (as far as I'm aware) later cars weren't available in ivory the chances of tracking down a set of ivory hinges in good shape seems impossible and white is nearly there.



So both doors got replacement hinges top and bottom. This isn't the hardest of jobs to do, but adjustment afterwards is fairly time consuming. Got there eventually though and both doors swing open and closed, hold in two open positions and close with a minimal push and a satisfying thunk. The dash wasn't in the car when I replaced the hinges, which made access to the upper hinge bolts easier but it could be done with the dash in the car.



Replacement hinges - they fit the same, but the design of the hinge changed slightly at some point, the part on the right which bolts to the door wraps up and over in the original hinge (top), then around the side in the later hinge (bottom).




So after that was done I replaced the dash apart from the carpets (as I need to fix the hole in the floor) and started the car for the first time in a couple of months to see if the heater and fan worked... which they do, excellent With the car idling on the drive with the bonnet open I became aware of a strong smell of petrol... and looking under the bonnet revealed why, the pipe from the petrol pump (mechanical, it's on the side of the engine block) to the carburetor had randomly fractured and was now spraying fuel around like a fountain... fooooooook. I didn't disturb the petrol pipe during any of the previous work, so I guess it was just coincidence? Anyway, I was glad I had only just started the car and the engine had only barely got warm.



Hard to see in this photo, but it cracked up at the top of the pipe just before it entered the carb.




So onto the next round of fun - one of the reasons I went to Lakes was to pick up a 240 propshaft for someone else - they were going to turboswap their car, so had removed their existing engine and gearbox, which was a B21A (same as mine) with a 5 speed gearbox with a cable drive for the speedo - the cable drive bit makes it quite a find as Volvo only produced a 5 speed with a cable drive for a few years before moving to an electric speedo connected to a sensor on the diff cover. The 245 had a 4 speed gearbox and a not quite diagnosed driveline shudder whilst pulling away, so swapping to a far lower mileage 90K 5-speed was always going to be a good idea. The other guy needed a later propshaft to connect to his later turbo engine and gearbox, I needed the propshaft from his car to connect up to the early 5 speed as the output flanges are different (early cars have a 4 bolt connection between the gearbox and the prop, later cars have a three bolt connection)... so I brought a later propshaft to him and took away the 5speed and the matching propshaft. I also took his B21A, so now I have a spare 90K engine



I did initially think that I could jack the car up and remove the gearbox from underneath it, but I have no idea how I'd manage that on the drive single-handed... so that idea was abandoned.



Car jacked up... not sure this will work




'New' Gearbox




'New' gearbox getting new oil, since it's a doddle to change when it's not on the car.



So I decided to just whip the engine out and change the gearbox out of the car. This sounds drastic, but the prop shaft was already disconnected, the gearstick was removed and the petrol pipes were going to be replaced anyway - that just left taking the radiator out, disconnecting the electrics connector at the bulkhead, stripping off the front bonnet slam panel etc and then disconnecting the throttle and choke cables and undoing the engine mounts.



Also, there had always been a lot of oil on the back of the engine, leaking from somewhere and I couldn't quite tell where from with the engine in place... so much easier to tell with the engine out. I suspected the oil on the engine was connected to the driveline judder, so wanted to fix it.



Started to get dark




Engine out




So oily



With the oil and grime going all the way up to the top of the engine there was only one culprit - the rocker cover gasket. This is what a leaking rockercover gasket can cause - a slick of oil down the back and side of the engine. It's hard to describe just how mucky it was - a thick covering of oily, slimy goo.



The next day and some next-level cleaning and things looked a lot better. I haven't got a picture of it at the moment but the oil leak had leaked significant oil into the gearbox bellhousing through the joint between the block and the gearbox (there's no gasket there as it's not supposed to be a oil tight seal) and it had been flicked around by the flywheel and clutch. I cleaned everything and replaced the rear main seal since it was easy to access.



Looking better



Also, the bearing in the back of the engine to support the gearbox input shaft was pretty notchy - lucky I had a spare engine just sitting there with a perfect bearing the 'new' bearing was easy to remove from the other engine, the notchy one in the current engine was harder to remove and required a slide hammer. That bearing had been replaced at some stage as there were marks around the outside on the end of the crank where someone had fought hard to remove the old one - a bit more investigation and I think I know the reason for the driveline judder - the input shaft into the gearbox has a worn bearing, which means that the input shaft can move side to side /up and down a bit. That movement explains the slight judder when pulling away and also explains why the bearing in the back of the engine had to be replaced previously, although that said the engine has 300k on it and I have no idea what the service life of those bearings is.



New and old bearing - slide hammer in background



And then, investigations over it's onto reassembly... new sachs clutch three piece clutch kit, then a new genuine gasket for the rocker cover




A new engine mount - turns out that if you rest the engine on a pallet on just the threaded rod out of the bottom of the engine mount (ie without the lower metal part attached) it'll break and you'll need a new one. Oops.



Whilst everything was out of the way I rebuilt the clutch slave cylinder with new seals and replaced the flexible hose too




So I threatened the car with an engine




Got the correct propshaft - with the shorter front section, the longer front section is the 4-speed prop



And put the engine back in... then this happened. So I packed up for another day.




Back to it another day and...



(it was dry until right at the end as i was packing up, honest)



It's back together and running. The 5 speed gearbox is so light and easy to change gear, the clutch pedal is as light as a modern car. The interior isn't all back in as I need to fix the hole in the floor, but getting there.



The judder when pulling away is gone and I fixed the spotlights too

Written in May 2018:


A nice and sunny long weekend, with some time for a bit of tinkering…



First off, the fuel tank. I figured juggling the sender unit hanging on the fuel hose, guiding the filler tube up to its position and positioning the tank itself would be a bit of a nightmare so I crawled under the car to see if I could disconnect the sender unit hose somewhere and take one thing out of the equation. The flexible hose meets the hard line with a fitting tucked up and out of the way above the rear suspension, I sprayed that with WD-40, left it 5 mins and then it undid easily, which was an unexpected bonus.

With the sender unit and tank off the car, fitting the two together was relatively simple. I cleaned up the top and bottom of the sender unit, as well as the better condition locking ring I’d taken from a car at Lakes some time back, sprayed everything in lithium grease to allow the locking ring to slide into place as easily as possible and then reassembled with a new sealing O-ring. For the filling tube I sprayed everything in lithium grease and reassembled with a new o-ring and a new clamp (I broke the old clamp taking it off). The new clamp was a really tight fit until it had been screwed into place and released once, I had to use a set of grips to compress it enough to get the bolt started – this would have been impossible under the car.



Refitting the tank with the filling tube attached was pretty fiddly – I needed a volunteer to help guide the filling tube into place from above, with me under the car manoeuvring the tank itself. We quickly realised that some extra manoeuvring would be needed, so the filler tube clamp was loosened just enough to allow the tube to twist (I’d predicted this, one of the reasons for the covering of lithium grease) and that made things easier. Once the tank was place there is just enough room to get a small ratchet up into the space above the tank to reach the clamp and tighten it fully.

Back together, started the car on the 5 litres of fuel I had to hand and everything working. Great.



Fitting connecting sender unit hose to hard line




Sender unit undone (there is a filter on the end of the pickup tube, but it wasn't on the tube in this photo)



Tank with new seals and new clamp




Tank in place




Next job – power steering. I bought a power steering rack and period correct pump (with integrated reservoir) some time back, along with a later steering column knowing that I’d need to change the column as well to fit the rack. You may or may not have noticed/realised that I’ve been planning this for a while – the photo titled ‘all back together’ on the first page shows an unused third pulley on the crank. The later cars have a one piece pulley with three grooves on it, the earlier cars have a pulley with two grooves and when necessary a third pulley is bolted onto the front of that. I added the third pulley back when I first serviced the car and got it running, in anticipation of this conversion.



Fitting the pump wasn’t too difficult – I seem to have forgotten to take any photos though, I’ll add some later. The bracket bolts onto the engine side with three bolts, then the pump mounts on that. I’m not sure if the original fitment would have had a bracket with an adjuster bolt (same as the alternator bracket didn’t have an adjuster bolt originally) but I found a bracket in my box of spares that was suitable so it has one now.



The bottom ball joints are different between manual and power steering – the power steering ones are cranked forwards to increase caster, the manual steering ones are straight. I replaced them both and… spot the difference? The top one in the photo came off the left hand side of the car and is correct for a manual car, the bottom one came off the right hand side and is incorrect for the right hand side of a manual car (but was correct for the right hand side of a powersteering car). This may explain the uneven wear on the inner side of the front right hand tyre when I first got the car.




With the ball joints replaced, I took the manual rack off and bolted the power steering rack in place with new track rod ends connecting it to the steering arms. Then I removed the manual steering column and bolted the power steering one into place, all relatively straightforward. The manual column top universal joint was pretty stiff and the old rack was a bit notchy (neither easy to diagnose with the parts in place on the car) but that’s not that surprising after 40 years.



Under the car with the manual rack removed




New ball joint and track rod end



Old style steering column



New style steering column



With the engine running and the front wheels in the air I tested the power steering and unsurprisingly it’s much lighter. Whilst still jacked up the car ran out of fuel and cut out… then wouldn’t restart after I put more fuel in the tank. Had to ask online what was wrong as I couldn’t quite diagnose - it turns out that the mechanical fuel pumps don’t start working until the car is at least idling – spinning the engine over on the starter isn’t quick enough to draw fuel through from the tank when the line and float bowl in the carb are completely empty. The solution is to take the airbox off and start the car using something flammable (easy start, or in this case brake and clutch cleaner which turns out to be a widely known substitute) sprayed into the carb inlet. This will allow the car to start and as soon as it’s running the mechanical pump will start working. Did that easily enough and now the fuel line and carb bowl are full of fuel again so back to normal.



So that’s where I’ve got to – the car is booked into the local garage at the start of next week to weld up the small hole in the floor and set the tracking (set by eye! But it’s a 500 metre drive to the garage at most) and then I can put all the interior back in place, clean it thoroughly and then start advertising it for sale. It’s been fun and I’ll miss it, but I have two project cars and can’t quite justify more than one. Time to sell it on to someone who will enjoy tinkering with it and hopefully driving it a bit more than I’ve had a chance to.



Perhaps I'll make time to take it on a trip somewhere before selling it on, at least a run to the seaside or something.

Written late June 2018 - bit of a setback...


Well, that wasn't the plan... the plan was to MOT the car and then put it up for sale. What actually happened was that it failed the MOT on quite a lot of stuff, some serious, some not and now I'm not quite sure what to do with it.

While I admit that I did not see it coming from the pictures posted, it seems that there are some significant rust repairs required. You up for that?

But you DID spoil the plot!

Written in August 2018:

So, back to the car and the weldathon. So I left the car with the right hand side sill inner repaired and two out of four patches to the outer sill welded in place. The patches for the remaining two holes were already made so the first thing upon return was to weld those in.



That left me with something looking like this:




Then the welds and patches got a very light skim of filler



And then painted with red oxide primer - note the painting was done the day before, it was raining in the morning when this photo was taken



So that meant it was time to move to the left side of the car... which I knew wasn't quite as good.



The car had failed on the inner sill being holed on this side, but the outer sill end didn't look all that great either...



Not looking great





The merest touch with a wirebrush left me with this



Hmmmm



Uh-oh



So obviously a lot of this had to be cut off. With the back of the sill outer cut off and a better look inside it became clear what had happened and why the spotwelded seam along the bottom of the sill this side was so rusty...





The left hand sill has been replaced previously - hence why the support about hand way down the sill has been cut through. Somewhat hard to see in the photos though was how the sill replacement had been done - they'd cut along the top surface of the original sill to cut it off, and then overlapped and plug welded it to the remaining section of the sill at the top. This joint is strong and well done.



Along the bottom they'd cut off the majority of the sill but had left the very bottom strip of metal, the vertical section that has all the spotwelds to the inner sill, in place. Of course they'd ground all the paint off that strip to be able to weld the new outer sill to it and the result was a three layer thick sandwich of metal along the bottom seam, with the inner sill spotwelded to the strip of metal remaining of the original outer and then the new outer welded to that. And it was all very rusty as any moisture that got into the sill dripped through the multitude of gaps between the three pieces of metal and road grime was flicked up and jammed into the gaps by the front wheel keeping that moisture there to do it's dirty work.



Hard to see - but there are three layers of metal in there



So obviously I wasn't going to leave it like that... I put a screwdriver into the rusty gap and twisted it and was rewarded with a dull 'booooing' as the spotwelds holding the inner sill to the remains of the outer or the plug welds holding the new outer to the remains of the outer let go.



'Drat.' I said. Along with 'Oh dear' and 'I'm really surprised that failed like that, given the quality workmanship involved in the repair'. Or something. 


The screwdriver of destiny meeting the sill repair of bodgery.



So... best get on with it then - I cut through, levered off or otherwise separated all the of the spot or plug welds that were still holding the two halves together and propped the gap open with little blocks of wood the whole way along. Then using a multitude of grinding discs, flapper sanding discs, wire brush attachments and other things, I removed all traces of the strip of original outer sill and got both the surface of the inner sill and the surface of the new outer sill back to clean shiny metal. Thankfully the rust was pretty much contained to just the now discarded strip of original outer, so I didn't need to repair any sections along the seam.



Then I drilled out the plug welds in the replacement sill and drilled new holes in between each to double the number of welds along the seam. Clamped the two sides back together, plug welded all the way along and ta-da - I'm back at the point I thought I was several hours ago.



Sill cleaned up and ready for rewelding



Clamping and welding



So that was fun.



The back to the end of the sill. The next day it was raining, so I made use of the overhang at the front of the house...



I seem to have forgotten to take any photos of the new section of inner in place, but this photo shows how much outer I cut off, and how much inner I had to cut off - more than the other side of the car



And this is inside the end of the sill with the outer section welded in place



And then protected


After that I 'merely' cut out all the remaining rusty metal that was the sill end/inner wheel arch and made a section to go back in. I also cut off the rusty reinforcing plate for the rear seatbelt that had fallen apart when looked at by a wire brush and replaced that - even if it wasn't an MOT failure I have a vested interest in rear seat passengers not becoming front seat projectiles in the event of an accident...



Another section of rust I'd cut out was the bottom of the spare wheel well, which took quite a lot of time given the size of the patch, due to all the curves... this isn't my best work but it's good and strong. I think the spare wheel well should be replaced complete really, hence why I didn't spend too much time making this pretty - but I didn't have time for that level of surgery... one for the next round.



Inside the spare wheel well



After cutting out




Patched




And then there was the right hand side sill end to finish now that the inside had being painted



And... phew, that's the end of the welding. Only a couple more faults to fix before the looming MOT... after replacing the tank a while back the fuel gauge didn't work and then coincidentally a NOS sender came up on ebay so I bought it. This is scrolling back a few weeks, but after fitting the new sender unit I then had some difficulty getting the car to start which I eventually traced to the start of the hard fuel pipe (where the sender unit flexible pipe connects to it) which had fractured as a result of being disturbed after 40 years and was letting in air, which meant the fuel pump was sucking in air rather than fuel. The solution was to cut the fuel pipe on the first straight section, then take the old end to a local hydraulics place to have a replacement made up. The new piece was put in with a length of fuel hose overlapping the join by several centimetres on each side and secured with jubilee clips - note the fuel line isn't under pressure as the engine is carb fed, other (original) connections along the fuel line are made in this way with hose pushed over the hard line and secured with jubilee clips.



The new and the old



It was rust that had eaten through the top of the pipe, rather than it being fractured.



I also disassembled, cleaned and reassembled the carburettor and changed the auxiliary air bleed valve on the side with one from my spare carb, as it was stuck.





With the carb back on I topped up the dashpot oil and checked the timing then... it was time.



I took the car to the garage and with it idling on the monitor turned the mixture screw in until the co content was under the 4.5% limit (that it failed on last time) then headed off for an errand whilst the rest of the MOT test was carried out.



It passed! wooo! A few celebratory beers were drunk whilst sitting in a comfortable chair and trying to forget all the crawling about on the floor.



The next day I rebuilt and tightened the front wheel bearings (an advisory on the MOT)



Left



Right




Right back together




And then swapped over the wheels from my other car - two of the tyres on the original wheels had advisories from the MOT and after a puncture I put the spare on, which had 'sept 07' written on it in chalk which wasn't exactly confidence inspiring.



Washed for the first time in ages and all set to go to retro rides...





And then... failure at the final hurdle. I had declared the car SORN when it failed the MOT and when I called the DVLA to retax it (it'll be tax free next year) all the phone lines gave the same recorded message saying 'due to essential maintenance there will be no telephone service until Monday morning'. The website had a similar message. I tried all phone numbers and all had the same message... so that was that. After all that work to get the car ready, the DVLA blew my opportunity to go to retro rides in the car out of the water by not having enough foresight to keep either the telephone service or the website open but instead closed both at the same time. How are you supposed to predict something as dimwitted as that? There's not even any lesson to be learned from this, as it isn't like I did something I can change next time. I suppose if I'd tried to tax the car the moment I got it back from the MOT late on the Friday then I'd have been OK (assuming for a moment the systems outage was only for Saturday and Sunday) but there was no reason to suspect a government department in a supposedly developed country would be so dense. Yes I was annoyed.



I'm typing this on the Wednesday following the Saturday in question and I'm still a tiny bit disappointed.
(and I'm copy pasting this in April 2019 and I'm still annoyed)


So I swapped the wheels back to the other car and took that instead. Retro Rides is a great show, you really should go if you haven't been before. I had a good time, met some great people... perhaps I'll still have the 245 next year and make it there in it.



And someone took this photo of my other car, which is rather nice (I bought the photo from him, I haven't just nicked it)





That's all for now, 

Cheers.