Right.

It's been a while since I've owned a Volvo, but these things just happen.

Also I don't know if this thread should exist or not, but I figured it's the best way to put the word out there as it's not really a build thread or car thread or... anything yet, but I figured that I own this car and I need to tap into the collective OzVolvo (TurboBricks?) knowledge - I have a bunch of questions so... yeah.

I start a new job in January and need a car (I currently do all commuting on a motorcycle) and as my new job requires a suit, it's car time. I could keep riding the bike and changing i'm sure (and for the first few months I probably will) but there'll be a point where the time saved motorcycling is soon taken away by the time taken to change, store all the safety gear, blah.

So lightly searching for cars to drive for the new year, nothing really stood out for me. Was thinking of getting a new Mustang but it's a lot of money for something i'm not all that excited about, I wanted a manual convertible but they don't bring them into the country... then I had a Peugeot 306 Convertible I was happy with, but stupidly ended up selling it and making money on it instead. A friend of mine had a VE Commodore he wants me to buy for a reasonable price (eh) and another has an XR6 Turbo (probably a good investment?) but again, eh.

So what's the best thing? A... uh... non turbo... automatic... V40...

That I now own.

Well, maybe. Spac found this car, chatted to the owner and somehow I ended up paying for it and having it towed to my place - I think this is a scheme of Spac's so he gets free front end or something something (I can't remember what he wanted but it's something to do with hubs or something), but considering the amount of knowledge (and parts) on these cars that he has, i'm sure I can milk this front end into way too much help from him. Sucked in Spac.

So in the Bruces thread, there was speculation whereby, due to the first generation S/V40's being built on the Mistubishi CARISMA platform, if you could bolt a Mitsubishi driveline into it - After all, in Europe you could buy a Mitsubishi Cariama complete with 4G93 from the factory. There are also numerous interchangeable suspension parts, read Spac's thread on it, it's interesting.

So, basic premise is to cut the back out of this car, see if an Evo rear end welds in, and if so, continue from there.

Perfect world: A standish 4G63T, AWD, manual V40 that I drive to work and make cool whoosh noises with.

Probable world: Car gets scrapped, but we find out if it's feasible. Also Spac gets a free Evo floor to weld into Mrs Spac's race car.

Smart world: Buy a manual V40 T4

Wino's world: Why buy a $10,000 car when you can spend $10,000 to turn a $200 car into a $1500 one?

She's been in the car hole for a week now I think. Since then i've been... well, evaluating what fate has given me.

We have a March 1998 V40 with 265,000km's on it. Hmm. It has been sitting since March 2016 it seems, and shows.

First things first: I hate dirty cars. I hate working on dirty cars, so first things first it to clean it.

This car has a lot of surprises! And they're all spiders. Cleaning the door jambs? Spiders. Cleaning the mirrors? Spiders. Removing the front bar? You better believe it, spiders.

The entire side was covered in aluminium tape, peeling that back I was worried what I would find.

Well, spiders.

But other than that... nothing. Side skirt is afixed properly and isn't going anywhere. I guess they wanted to aesthetics of having a car that hides rust without the rust? Who knows. Took an hour to remove the bulk of it, but still some there. If this project is feasible, the entire thing will be getting plastic black treatment which will sort it out.

The body is (fairly) straight - it has some cosmetic uh... character, but that's... well who cares, really.

This has possibly of being big.

Or.

I don't know. It could. It also could not. I mean you need to spend BIG money on 4G63's to get the kind of mental power figures you can pretty much get from any new modern car with all the fancy electrics. Hell, could probably finance a Tesla Model 3 and end up ahead in the longrun, but meh. This is here now and I want to know if the CARISMA prophecy holds true...

Every single replacement part on this thing, maintenance or otherwise, seems to be OEM stuff, which is nice. Even the brake pads are Gerling. Whoever owned this car (until 2010 and 215,000km's) spent money keeping it going with all the good stuff. It's had a good life. I've washed it down 3 times now, including pressure washing EVERYTHING (to remove the spiders) but, every morning I come out to a new set of spider webs. These are the huge abdomen ones too, like redbacks but no red. I don't know what they are, but they're everywhere.

Also, I've never named a car before, but I think i'll name this one Alice. I took it around the block on old varnish fuel from 2016 and it drove fine, including the factory fit CD stacker... and it played that Who The Fuck is Alice song. Also, the owner from 2010 to 2015 was Alice. There's a few receipts for things in the car from her. The previous owner between Alice and... well now seems to have been given the car, proceeded to drive it until it ran out of registration and then... let it sit? Not sure. Car drove fine. Fired up first go, seemed to pull as well as an automatic 2 litre B...342534563452345345345 (If it's not a B23, B21 or B230 I don't know what it is) should. (There's too many numbers these days)

At first glance, this is the big ticket issue:

It's had a tap in the front end and whoever repaired it did a very shitty job at fixing it. Both side marker indicator wiring is twist and tape, the fasteners for everything in the front end seem to be a mixture of Volvo and whatever was lying around, it's been really haphazardly put back together. From the front bar back though, it's all Volvo fasteners and aligned body panels.

Now, first things first, i'm not here to fuck spiders. If I was, I would need more time as there are so many spiders that would require fucking.

So, out comes the interior.

I found $1.35 under the rear seats. That means this is now a $198.65 V40.

I still need to remove the front seats and console, but i'm removing things, cleaning them, tagging and bagging the fasteners so it takes time. At least i'll know how it goes back together.

I have a floor cut from an Evo 7 lined up, just need to wait for restrictions to ease to go and get it. If that falls through I have a backup anyway. Evolution parts are, so far, not as expensive as I was expecting as far as JDM yo Mighty Car Mods Tax goes, which is nice.

Door cards and roof lining will be trimmed in fresh, dark fabric (That is true of whatever car I buy to drive, not just this one) so i'll have to do something about all this grey. Probably replace the seats with black leather ones from another car. Maybe. If the floor goes well. Which it won't. But who cares.

Even though this car isn't in the garage (that's for E21, motorcycles and the Yaris for some reason) it is SO nice to have somewhere to stash all the bits. Makes working on things so much nicer.

So, with the interior almost out, I decided to resort to pulling out the front wheel inner guards (to assist in evacuating the spiders). Might remove the side skirts to do the same tomorrow, not sure. I had to drill out the stuck trim clips, and the drivers side inner guard is kind of jacked. So this is where the list of things will live.

I am not going to stage 0 this motor at this stage. I will if I decide to keep this motor in the car, but with unknown belt history, I don't really feel like spending big on a motor that will probably be given away/scrapped. So, until it's floor time, i'll just be writing a list of what's needed to get it roadworthy. Not just roadworthy, but WinoWorthy. I like things that are fixed properly.

Things to do:

TBA

The List of parts required:

RH Inner Guard.

2x Blister Packs guard clips

LH Indicator assembly.

Windscreen.

The list will grow, obviously. I am going to attack this one job at a time. If a part gets removed, it either gets cleaned, catalogued and stored away, or it goes in the bin and comes under "Parts required".

Also, if something previously has been put together shit, I will do what I need to rectify. The plastic splash tray was held together with an assortment of random bolts.

The tray itself seems to have been replaced with a Volvo genuine part in 2008 for some reason, but the fasteners are all different - So, i'll put the right fasteners back in (if it ever does.) Do it once and all that..

Not sure what caused this, but the front bar is jacked:

Not 100% sure if it's the same as what caused this:

I guess i'll never know. I'd like a new reo bar before deciding what to do with the front bar.

Things to do:

TBA

The List of parts required:

RH Inner Guard.

2x Blister Packs guard clips

LH Indicator assembly.

Windscreen.

Reo bar.

Gave it a wash anyway.

The PenisWheels (Mrs Wino's term for them) came off, so they get washed down too. So much baked on crud. Still so much to go. Need a stiffer brush.

I don't even know if V40's and Evo's run the same stud pattern so unsure why i'm cleaning them. Either way it's a lot nicer to store clean parts than dirty ones. Two of the centrecaps are missing. Tyres are all pretty good, receipt for September 2015, car was off the road March 2016 so I guess not too many km's... Probably replace them anyway if the PenisWheels ever go on another car.

So that's where it sits so far. I guess i'll just keep plodding along and cleaning things until it comes time to unstitch the rear floor panels and really see what's up.

Things to do:

Pull apart/tag and bag rear end

Pull apart/tag and bag the front half of the interior

Clean/Scrub/Degrease

The List of parts required: (If putting the car back together...)

RH Inner Guard.

2x Blister Packs guard clips

LH Indicator assembly.

Windscreen.

Reo bar.

This tape is annoying me. Why? All the factory fasteners are there? There was no chance of the side skirt coming off!

They are easy to take off though, take out a few plastic fasteners, an M6 bolt up front and it all slides back for an easy way to break all the factory clips in one foul swoop. Whoops.

Half the shell on the passenger side skirt is missing. Haven't cut it up and put it in the bin yet, but if a replacement in better condition is easy to source (and hence I don't need to deal with all this tape) then it's bin time for it.

Also removed two spider catching platform things. These images are just so I know where things went. There is every chance that this car will go back together as a factory car, I mean once i've pulled everything down you get a pretty good idea of what maintenance is required, and these need to come off to replace things such as fuel filters anyway.

As always, clean it all, tag the fasteners and store them away...

This stuff works pretty good.

Leaving the side skirts out to dry after blasting them for 15 minutes with the pressure hose thing until the water ran clear. So much spider and dirt.

I'm assuming another non-broken passenger side non painted sideskirt won't be hard to find, and even if it is... I think the car way be better looking without them anyway. I'm assuming they'd be good to keep the body nice and protected though.

Also, the rear trailing arm bushes are shot. Not a problem if the Evo rear end goes in, but something to consider if it doesn't and the car stays front wheel drive.

I'm just mentioning it so I don't forget, depending on what happens in the future.

Things to do:

Pull apart/tag and bag rear end

Pull apart/tag and bag the front half of the interior

Clean/Scrub/Degrease

The List of parts required: (If putting the car back together...)

RH Inner Guard.

2x Blister Packs guard clips

LH Indicator assembly.

Windscreen.

Reo bar

LH side skirt

Rear trailing arm bushes (all)

Fuel Filter

By the way, this to do/parts needed list isn't comprehensive. I'm just doing things the way I think, if you think I could be doing it better/more efficiently/reusing rather than replacing, let me know! I ain't no expert.

Alright, time to tackle... uh the middle of the first list. I don't even know if this needs to come out, but for not-catching-the-carpet-on-fire-reasons it's probably advisable.

First thing: Ash tray is broken. Bin. Add to list.

This photo is just so I know which way the plugs go back in, also check out the crud!

These little fabric triangles are cool. Plastic backed too. Easy to change the material if one so desired...

The hardest part of getting the back half of the console out is working out how to pull out the rear ashtray. It slides, it doesn't fold out like most cars. Two screws under that and two screws under the rubber mat thing.

Oh, hey there bud.

Still as fresh as the day it was made.

Apparently these were used to send the ancient texts?

I had to read a few guides on how to get this guy out.

All the guides said that it pushes up, I figured it would be the same as a V70 of the same era (only guide I could find on it) but obviously that didn't work. I didn't want to force it too hard and it just didn't seem to budge. Hmm. I wonder...

That looks a lot more like this one... and hey presto...

And with that being the last part required...

Both boot struts need to be replaced or regassed, one of the two. Add it to the list.

I found $2.35 under the carpet... so that makes this a $196.30 V40.

Carpet is in pretty good condition - Need to borrow a buddies wet and dry vacuum to really scrub it down though.

Now to clean all of the interior bits I just pulled out to get rid of years of human slime. Ugh.

Probably have to do it again too if I happen to score a charcoal interior.

Things to do:

Pull apart/tag and bag rear end

Pull apart/tag and bag the front half of the interior

Clean/Scrub/Degrease

The List of parts required: (If putting the car back together...)

RH Inner Guard.

2x Blister Packs guard clips

LH Indicator assembly.

Windscreen.

Reo bar.

Ashtray

2x Boot Struts (Regas)

I suppose the quote function will serve as things that have been done? How do I strikethrough? Argh!

Question time:

The passenger airbag has no electrical connection to the seat, the drivers side does. Is it only the drivers side that has airbags in it? Is there a roof bag on the passenger side?

WTF is this thing and why is it preventing the drivers side belt from retracting all the way?

What are these connectors for? There is one on both passenger and driver side, but under the carpet. Heated seat elements? Could that be what the blank plates under the radio is for?

I can answer one of your questions. Yours is a Phase 1 so the seat airbags are mechanically triggered not electrically. As you've taken the seats out, you may want to slip off the plastic side covers and put the orange clips in place to stop the seats from detonating if you accidentally knock them... Plenty of info on the web about how to do this and takes 2 seconds.

There are no side curtain airbags in Phase 1 cars so nothing in the roof or A pillars.

The electrical connection under the driver's seat is for the seatbelt reminder. In its infinite wisdom, at this point in history Volvo decided only the driver needed to be reminded.

Both front seats should have airbags.

Seat belt thing looks like a clamp they use to make life easier with kid’s seats/capsules. Probably a convenience thing on the driver’s belt?

I believe that you are correct on the seat connectors being for heated elements. I have never seen an x40 with heated seats IRL.

Can definitely help with a side skirt and guard liner. Might be able to help with a LHF blinker and ashtray.

Have some good black leather seats from a Phase 2 - you’ll have to work out the electrical side of things.

Ah, so I was walking around with live explosives, cool. I assumed they’d still need 12V to trigger, and maybe by mechanical it meant the metal ball bearing in the liquid which touches the side and triggers the detonator...

Nice one. Also explains what those red tabby things are for. I’ll get onto that ASAP

Nothing in the roof is a nice thing as the headliner is failing and I want to get in there and fix it.

Cool, ill ignore the clamp, it looks factory enough anyway....

Cool, put me down of one of each... as for the seats, I guess the car would just run without bags. No electrical connections means no SRS light to worry about. That said, maybe it’s worth just keeping the seats with bags in them... even if they are 12 years overdue for an “SRS Service” (as per the service sticker in the door jamb)

Something to think about, a long time before they go back in anyway.

Also, the motor is a B4204S

B = petrol

4 = number of cylinders

20 = 2.0 litre (actually 1948cc or something)

S = non turbo

What’s the second 4 for? 4 valve?

Check out my 2 cylinder 3 litre 240, pfft.

9 days later

Not much to report, lockdown means I haven’t been able to get to Sydney to buy any floor pan. So just been disassembling the rear... the drivers side rear, anyway.

Any tips to get this off? The difference between a wheel with a centre cap and one that doesn’t have one seems to be a lot of rust...

Ive tried a BFG but no bueno. Wish I’d left the drivers side rear suspension installed so I could lower it and drive backwards and forwards a few times...

Yeah, was hoping for a work smarter not harder kind of tip but I guess I’ll just have to up the weet bix

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