My toys (Alfa and Volvo) Holliday times

Thank you! It was a bad fall this year.

The bolts are sold with the guaratee that they are made of the stated raw material and that the material was treated as stated in the specs by professional certified companies but are made as a hobby project for display purposes only ;-).

Thom

Good to see your MoJo returning Thom, despite your losses.

I always think that if I were to tell my friends my wishes, it would be to celebrate my life and get back to action as soon as possible.

But we all deal with loss differently.

Happy New Year when it gets to y0u.

In the mean time….. good to see you get on with work.

Well although there where some New Years party preparations to do I managed to sneak in the garage this afternoon. Applied body sealer to the (self produced so not always nice) welding seams etc of the Volvo Duett. And did some inside painting.



Tomorrow (after the sealer has dried) I will add the last coat of paint on the inside of the load area and under the rear bench.

Beside that I bought another piece of must haves for the garage;

I had this already:



And added this today (Came from FB and was for sale around 200 metres from my home)



Have a nice New Years eve all!

Thom

Next step is assembling of the dashboard and fitting to the car so I can finally fit the loom.



The Volvo parts book is sometime a bit basic as help while assembling. It does not help either that it is already nearly 5 years ago that I took it apart and a lot was far from original.



The fixing lugs of the defroster ducts are prone for breaking and the ducts are unobtainable parts for many years now (I assume there is a connection there). I repaired mine with some aluminium sheet, strong glue and patience (not my strongest side) and they are in their working position again. These have to be fitted before you fit the dashboard as you cannot attach them afterwards.



No big progress but at least something.

Thom

Again some kind of update.

Our Italian Diva had a kind of cough for a while and was hating to be waked up after standing for more than a day or two. Tending to fool the plugs then.
First looked at the plugs and they looking a bit too dark/too strong mixture. Started with checking the fuel levels in both Weber’s and found them a tat high so corrected them. Looked up the correct air mixture and main and accelerator jet sizes for a pre-1973 (not environmental restriction) set-up for a 1750 Alfa and started to look what was fitted.
I had to do so because during the last MOT I was very short of time and had outsourced some work including setting up again but was not ever happy with the result afterwards. Out came that there where some unmarked (aftermarket?) air mixture pipes fitted and that the main jets where a bit over sized. Measuring with some tricks I discovered that the air mixture pipes where to small so that was not a good mix..



Robbed my good fathers treasury of Weber jets and stuff (I kindly allowed me to do so 😉 ) and the Alfa is running far better now. As a sidekick I also discovered more by coincidence that the nr3 cylinder spark plug cable had a loose connection witch I solved. Hope this solved the damp morning hiccups which she sometimes had..
After a longer test drive the plugs looked very healthy now (I forgot to take a before pic, sorry)



Beside that our fleet has grown again with the arrival of a 09’Ford Focus 1.8. (the old twin cam 16V) Typical case of a car advertised with a so said gearbox problem. Being a one owner Titanium station with tow hook and dealer stamp and NAP (national car milage/KM registration) back upped 78000 Km. working life it fits perfectly in the family needs of an extra estate at low costs. I took the risk with the gearbox as the price was very interesting and was very happy as I found out that it was only a dead clutch slave cylinder.. At € 75 plus a few hours of cursing it runs perfect again…



The Volvo was a bit in background this month but I did some time consuming but invisible stuff like improving fitment of the spare wheel compartment door and the main doors. The weather is at least getting better now so that helps motivation absolutely.
Thom

Good stuff.

To change the title, go back to your first post, and edit the title there. 👍

Hi,

Beside (very slowly) assembling the Volvo Duett I'm also still remodeling pieces of my garden and the house.

During the winter we will replace one of the secondary buildings (storage and washroom) by a new, bigger hopefully not leaking like the current and better insulated one.
Due to the different lay-out I will lose my little garden tool shed in this process.



As I do not want to store the garden stuff in the garage I had to find a new location.
The garage is a free-standing building in the back of the garden with a spacious attic for storage above it. Access to the attic is via steel outside stairs with a little square pod-est in front of the door.
Bingo! Four vertical poles and a roof frame waiting to become enclosed and roofed. How to use now more or less useless space 😉


I forgot to take a picture before the work started so the wood poles, door highers and plastic roof plate are already "work in progress"

Normally I would pour a slab as a floor which would be a bit higher than the surroundings and end the planks (with some damp foil between it) leaning just above ground level against the slab. However, we spent two years ago a considerable sum to replace all concrete (ugly, old and at least in 5 different sizes and designs) pavement with kilt burned ceramic little stones (nuggets). Don't ask about the work to lay 160 m2 of these small little gold nuggets.
So, I would prefer to keep also under the new tool shed this pavement.
However, the big question is how do I " seal" the sides (Walls) just above ground level between the vertical placed planks of wood (heat treated) and the pavement?
Thought about a rubber skirt but don't know if this will work as being a classic " original" pavement it is not perfectly even and has flushes. Anybody a good idea?
Just to give an idea of the kind of construction when the planks are fitted:



Also I wonder how I can seal the underside of the door which will also be planked with the same wood planks ;-).



Gr,

Thom

Keeping water out is not an easy game. Could you just have a step up inside? Either build a floating floor or use a metal grid cut to size and laid on the golden nuggets? Or build a mortar dam on the ground on the inside of the shed to keep the worst of it out?

Not much news here.
Weekend was a combination of having some beers and a good laughter (was overdue) and some more woodwork. Outside work was not so funny with the rain showers. And I continued tonight



For the floor I decided (mainly through the input here) to go for some insulating foam on the floor (I work in the foam industry) and a water resistant multiplex floating floor on top. Have to pick the multiplex plates up on Wednesday after work.

Planning is to finish it before next weekend so I can work on my real hobby again then  ;-)

Funny thing is that such a totally different project in between motivates me again to continue with the Swedish elephant.


Thom