Yv1944856p1106243
This is the vin (door frame and engine bay) of my new project that's definitely a 960 with the i6 engine. It absolutely doesn't look like it's just an engine swap as the firewall is different to a 940 and the body has all the chrome trim.
Does anyone have any input?
BarelyRunning Hey mate i looked it up looks like you bought a volvo, hope that helps
It's year model 93 (P) so it will still be the same nose shape as a 93 940 and ditto front suspension.
960 will have a different firewall, a different bonnet (concealed wipers and thus no external panel between screen and bonnet), and IRS 1 with a sway bar.
Can you post pics of the engine bay?
Pez this is the worst day of my life 
BarelyRunning That's definitely a 960 firewall and engine.
Something very dodgy is going on with the ID of that vehicle if the body stamping matches the under-bonnet plate. 
Does the compliance plate have any details of VIN or chassis number on it? If the numbers don't match, there's a problem; if the compliance plate marks it as a 944, there's another problem.
Speculation: idiot car thief has tried to rebirth this vehicle.
I paid $500 for it with intention of registering it, but I'm not liking my odds haha. No paperwork or manuals in the glovebox either.
I cannot understand why someone would go to the trouble of converting a 940 to a 960 when you can just buy a 960 easily
There is no way that car came like that
ramrod it's very odd, the interior tells me it's a 960, true 2 din radio, relays aren't under the radio but in the kick panel, fuses are between door and dash. I believe 100% it's a factory 960. So I really don't understand this vin 
Then the body was originally destined to be a 940 and someone transferred all of the 960 equipment into it.
It was a 1993 940 with B230FB engine and AW71L transmission (I have the same type of car with similar VIN here)
What does it take to put a 960 firewall in a 940?
Crashed 940 VIN used to re-birth a 960, from back when a 960 was worth enough to bother? That would have flown under the radar, if true. The REVS check says itâs been properly registered, but the states werenât sharing info very effectively among each other in the 90âs. The fact itâs registered with REVS would make me care not a single iota, were it my car ⊠plus oddities & screw-ups occur all the time TBH, according to NSW RTA records my 2yo Liberty RS was factory-fitted with a 2212cc EJ20T.
jamesinc What does it take to put a 960 firewall in a 940?
A hell of a lot of work. (I explored the possibility of swapping my 780's LHD firewall to a RHD one from a 740, but Mister Bear talked me out of it and suggested I wait till the car turned 30 and register it as LHD).
And, it's more than just the firewall that would need to change. The ducting system for the windscreen demister is totally different to 740 /940 - for example, the HVAC pumps air into a body panel cavity below the windscreen which doesn't exist on 740/940/780/ pre-88 760. 760/960 have adjustable height steering columns too, which have a bit of extra funky bracketry under the crash pad. HVAC unit is totally different. Wiring loom = totally different. etc etc
But the telling point will be at the back of the car, where a 960 will have IRS 1 and the 940 will have a live rear axle.
It's worth noting how the US market "940 SE" B230FT sedans (with IRS 1) were actually sold as 960 Turbos in Europe and so the US market cars used the same VIN ID as used on 964s.
So I doubt there's been any firewall change here.
ramrod Then the body was originally destined to be a 940 and someone transferred all of the 960 equipment into it.
There's hundreds of hours and a lot of parts to change a 940 body into a 960 body, it's not just the drivetrain. More likely it's a ID swap rebirth than a parts swap.
The inspector who passed this car originally ought to be hung out to dry. The experiences I've has with an ex-SA 242GT and more recently with the 1800ES tell me how the inspection process has been broken for a long, long time because some of these 'experts' don't appear to have a clue what they're looking at, and then they enter incorrect info into data systems.
Yeah, it appears to be legal now, but it never should have passed.
OP, I guess you should be able to get it registered, as it's legally clean but IMHO, ethically tainted. But you're going to be completely in the dark when it comes to replacing parts in the car in the cases were production changes were made at certain chassis numbers - the breakpoints won't apply since the car's true, original ID isn't known.
Major Ledfoot yeah it is IRS, I had a peek while I took it off the trailer
I personally wouldnât worry too much about âethically taintedâ, the last time a 940 or 960 was worth the effort of shipping interstate & rebirthing (let alone the ability to do it due to write-off r4cords not being handed around) was kinda 30 years ago. Past the statute of limitations of my carefactor regarding what the person who owned it 7 owners ago did.
If getting it registered doesnât cost too much before presenting it for inspection Iâd just be doing it.
Side comment @Major Ledfoot ⊠I went & looked at a grey-imported from Hong Kong 960GLE yonks ago (being sold by the person who bought it new - which wasnât a good thing when I saw the state of it externally from afar - called him to cancel as I didnât want to waste his time & mine 
), pretty sure it was a 1992; it was B230FT.
Forg Side comment @Major Ledfoot ⊠I went & looked at a grey-imported from Hong Kong 960GLE yonks ago (being sold by the person who bought it new - which wasnât a good thing when I saw the state of it externally from afar - called him to cancel as I didnât want to waste his time & mine
Yeah, the Pocket Data Book agrees with you; they did fit them to YM 92 960s.
You're also correct about the B280 being a one-year-only thing (from another discussion in Another Place).
The 'GLE' badge thing, though .... go to a different market, and the same basic car in one place will get a different badge in another.
Plus @Major Ledfoot the car I looked at had so much exterior pounding (it was close to spherical - the hits were fairly evenly distributed all over) it may very well have had an Australian bootlid fitted (without removing the GLE badge) to replace the original, and the guy advertised it as a GLE âcos thatâs whatâs was on the bootlid when he was selling it.
That sheet above is interesting, I always assumed they didnât try selling a B280F 960 in the USA âcos they knew itâd fail so they waited âtil the new whiteblock was available to release the 960 there. But it looks like B6304F was around in that first year ⊠wonder if they just took their time type-certifying the new engine in Oz âcos there was so much originally-created-to-protect-the-local-industry paperwork involved in getting a new engine ADRâd?
^ AFAIK, Japan and other RHD markets got the B280F, and the first run of straight-6 whiteblocks went to the higher volume EU and USA markets. (Maybe just as well, since lots of the early run of straight-6 whiteblock castings were porous - but the OZ market didn't entirely dodge that bullet. Ah well, that explains what happened to one of the forty-something OZ 960 wagons....)
Smogging the engine here may have been a factor for later release, or not - most likely it was because VolOZ didn't plan to sell a lot of 960s here, and the B280 sure didn't help that along; as written elsewhere, it was no ball of fire. (I'm still chuckling at your quip about the Spontaneous Combustion properties of early PRVs....)
