Congrats! It's a lot of work when trying to design and build on the fly. Lots of little things that turn into more little things that need to be done twice or three times over ?. Everyone knows about LS engines but it's still far from bolt in and go! A quiet exhaust will be nice to keep it more 'normal car' but still enjoy the improvement in sound, power, drivability etc.

  • serk replied to this.
    alphax

    Congrats! It's a lot of work when trying to design and build on the fly. Lots of little things that turn into more little things that need to be done twice or three times over ?. Everyone knows about LS engines but it's still far from bolt in and go! A quiet exhaust will be nice to keep it more 'normal car' but still enjoy the improvement in sound, power, drivability etc.

    Thanks Michael! Totally agree with you - the amount of work it takes is very surprising and words and pictures on a forum don't do it justice (even for a budget build). I've spend a good amount of time tossing between a loud or quiet exhaust, I've settled with quiet for more of a sleeper feel, but seriously considering a LoudValve to give it some more noise... Will wait and see what it sounds like once it's on the road.

      A happy medium might be something that sounds like a 'sports exhaust' when a normie drives their V8 Commodore into an exhaust shop for an upgrade. Louder than stock with a good throb to it, but no harsh bark. That intake you have should add a nice bit of sound too at decent throttle openings.

      Sports exhaust it will be! Thanks for the advice!

      Chrome surround off, cleaned up and new screen fitted! Can confirm the 92 240 screen fits although it was a 2 man job to install.

      Removed the chrome clips as most were rusted and under all the old goop and rubber it was surprisingly clean and rust free... Very surprised. There's definitely been some kind of repair on the driver's side.

      Great!

      I did my old 240 wagon after suffering though country drives to work away in winter,plastic bag on right foot as water freely flowed in.....i did the rubber surrounding when i sold it ha!

      • serk replied to this.
        Ex850R

        Great!

        I did my old 240 wagon after suffering though country drives to work away in winter,plastic bag on right foot as water freely flowed in.....i did the rubber surrounding when i sold it ha!

        ? Never heard of water getting in that hard and fast! Hope the drain plugs came out easily after a trip like that.

        About a week ago there was a good amount of water in the footwells after a rain shower... definitely the reason why the floors were all rusted out! Figured I go the new screen and tick that off the list as you can see how crap the original rubber looks after a few years. Also added some silastic under the wiper arm rubbers to help reduce the amount of water getting in too.

          It certainly needed a rust repair in the footwell. Bro inlaw took the car off my hands. Silly bugger scrapped it years later without telling me , he was like that , some collectable English hi-fi speakers he loved needed fixed,off to the tip...Grumpy old bastard too....

          6 days later

          Exhaust installed so I was finally able to drive the car around the yard for a bit longer than a minute due to the noise of open headers... Exhaust shop went with 2.5inch into a single 3inch including a high flow catalytic converter, and a single hurricane muffler. It's quiet at idle and has a good bit of bark with a few RPM. Have a listen:

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1WmFo5b5fg&feature=youtu.be

          While giving the car a test drive, I found the power steering definitely wasn't working... upon investigation I found that I hooked up the lines backwards... whoops. Put the lines the right way around and it was still really heavy feeling. Went through the bleeding procedure multiple times and ended up pulling the pump off and checking the flow control valve in the back of it. All looked good so it went back on and magically the power steering was back! Car feels fairly light so I might restrict the flow a bit later down the track but I'll wait until I've driven it on the road before any changes.

          Things left to do:

          There's a brand new squeak coming from the engine bay, probably either the water pump or alt...Brake kits ordered for the rears as the fronts look like they've been done recently Remove clutch pedal and replace with the wider brake pedalGet the tach working... I've got everything aside from the tach and speedo working and I'm dead set on keeping the stock instrument cluster for the swap. I've read a few Turbobricks posts about getting the tach working and it doesn't look too hard. Waiting for the speedo converter - found a company in the US that makes a converter box to convert the digital output from the PCM to analog (cable driven) so I'll see how that fits...Add sound deadening to the flooring - been waiting for it to rain to leave the car outside and see if it leaks again with the new windscreen before installingBodywork

          Great stuff, sounds lovely! That's a pretty short 'to do' list compared to the work completed... on the home straight now. It's a good feeling to just 'get in and drive' an old car with such a seriously upgraded powertrain, every time you get in it.

          Yeah definitely close to getting on the road now... The dot point "bodywork" might only be one line but I have a feeling it's going to take a good while - there's a particular hit in one of the dog legs that causes the door to foul when closing it. Good thing there's a wreck out in the yard with a straight dog leg that I'll be robbing one of these weekends!

          5 months later

          "close to getting on the road now" ha-ha!

          Have made some minor progress... Cut the dog leg out of the wreck and patched it into the van.

          Also found that there's a significant difference between petrol fuel line and submersible petrol fuel line... Might be a rookie mistake but I'll pass on the knowledge to someone else that might read this. If you're replacing the in-tank pump then use the submersible fuel line, it's much more expensive but it won't be affected by the properties of the petrol. Will attach pics of the aftermath of the rubber sitting in petrol for a couple of months.

          I was having some hard starts which felt like a lack of fuel and sure enough there was a hole in the pickup as I used the wrong type of hose. It's also common with factory cars that the line just perishes from old age. Always good to be learning!

          Going to be applying bog and paint to the dog leg tomorrow and then it'll be onto the brakes - full rebuild. Then a road worthy!

          Made a fake exhaust pipe top, makes her look a little more original from a distance.

          Got a couple of models of my cars made as well! I hit up Vancouver Brick Customs on Instagram and gave him a few pics of the cars and engines to which he sent me the following Lego models.... Very cool! Absolutely thrilled with his work and would recommend!

          https://instagram.com/vancouverbrickcustoms

          3 months later

          Long time, no update... Have I mentioned how much I dislike bodywork?

          Your approach seems to be that you dislike bodywork so you do a good job to ensure you don't have to deal with it again.

          Thanks lads...

          Also got some nice bits from BNE Shop ??

          4 days later

          That's an awesome combo - bit like jackfruit - funny smell but tastes so good. I had a pumpkin orange coloured Renault 12 once. Some schoolgirl left a note on it in a carpark saying it was the ugliest car she had ever seen. LOL at her shallow taste. It was a fun car to own. You will get mountains of laughs with this rocket, I'm sure.

          2 months later

          A lot has been happening in the past few weeks... Car is officially mod plated for all modifications and registered! I couldn't believe my eyes when the lady at the transport department handed me these plates! They fit the car pretty well!

          On another note, the gent that came around to inspect the car and provide me with the modification plate messaged me a couple of days later saying that someone on the local Facebook community board was looking for a "Red 70s/80s Volvo with a roof rack". I was able to get in contact with the guy advertising and found that he's creating a short film for a local film festival in the next few months, and urgently needed a Volvo within 2 weekends.

          After a lot of rushing to tie up loose ends, I was able to hand him the keys last Sunday evening for filming on Monday - Thursday. Keep in mind that this vehicle had only been on the road for one weekend prior so I was stressed but excited to see what the car was going to be used for. On the day of pickup I took the orange beast for a drive and after getting home I noticed a massive pool of ATF under the car - a trans cooler line had split and blew out what must've been the whole pan worth of ATF. Of course it was a Sunday and nothing was open so I got to work fixing the line with some replacement agrihose and leaned on a neighbor for some fittings.

          Managed to get the car tidied up and running again; handed the keys over and went back to Brisbane to start work on Monday. Didn't hear from the guy until Thursday which was the agreed return day... As he was driving the car down the highway a massive amount of stream burst out from the bonnet - thanks to his quick ignition skills he turned off the car and managed to get it to the side of the highway about 5 minutes from home.

          Turns out it was just a hose clamp that I hadn't tightened enough and the coolant directly hit the exhaust header causing the steam. The old man fixed and filled the car back up and drove it home, thankfully the driver turned the car off quick enough so it didn't cook the engine.

          After all that ordeal I've got the car back in better condition then when it left, and I've been informed that the footage taken is absolutely amazing and fits perfect with this short film. If this film is available on YouTube or similar when it's released then I'll post here or I'll post the snippets of the car I get sent before the Jan 2022 deadline for the film. Also, one of the producers on set was none other than Jon Coghill from Powderfinger, which I asked to sign my dash and he did! See pic below.

          I've now been for a few drives in the car and there's a couple of things that need additional work - fuel pump doesn't seem to be providing the engine enough pressure when the car gets hot, and one of the thermo fans is blowing a fuse whenever it kicks on. All in all, I'd say the project has been a massive success and even better that I'll have some professional footage taken a week after getting it on the road for the memory. I have to admit, I got quite emotional the first time I drove the car on the road as I was overjoyed I finally pulled it off!

          As with most projects, there's always things left to do:

          Fix fuel pump setupWheel alignmentShifter is sloppy and needs attentionPut on the standard hubcapsGet wheels widenedetc etc, the list will continue on.

          Figured it would be a good time for an updates it feels like a huge milestone to finally get the car on the road!

          Cheers

          2 months later

          Jon Coghill signed your glovebox, I'm so jealous!

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