262C with LS1

JELG · 2017-07-19T09:36:52+00:00

A sad sight Gutting in progress. I love hydraulics. (don't do this at home)

JELG

Thanks Ken.

I have made significant progress the last few weeks. I have pretty much finalised the engine bay. I made some radiator mounts and have that all installed. I'll post some pics soon on that issue.

I have investigated the wheel stud issue and found that the studs are fine but the new wheel nuts have several threads missing at the taper end. The original closed nuts off another car go on the required 10 turns , So I have ordered sone new nuts .

Items left to do:
Heat shielding around cats and exhaust and floor.
Mount air cleaner.
A/C plumbing.
Cat back exhaust.

Then road testing and hoop jumping!

Stay tuned.

JELG

Here's the latest folks:

I got some new wheel nuts but they were no better. Only 7 turns till tight. The first 3 threads simply aren't there?? I tried turning the taper down on one of them but it was going to use up a lot of nut so I pulled the nuts off another 240 (original Volvo ones) and installed them on the 262. Problem solved.

Then I got to work on the radiator mounting chocks.

I started by prototyping the chocks with plasticene. (Actually some stuff called Claymate.)

I then put the prototypes in a container and buried them in plaster of paris.

Once the plaster had set, I tried to melt the plasticene out of the moulds but it just soaked into the porous plaster and dried out so I wound up picking the plasticene out of the mould.

We made a couple of test pieces and experimented with release agent. The best I found was beeswax. (I keep a few hives so have plenty.) Melted beeswax, poured into the mould and then dumped out, soaked into the plaster and more or less sealed it. Once I was satisfied that I could get the parts out, I poured the polyurethane resin into the moulds. I used some stuff called Flexicast 45. Harness of Shore A45, about as hard as track tires. It comes in two parts. Mix and pour. Seems to have worked well.

When the resin had set, I busted the plaster of paris off and had two nice lower radiator mounts.

I would post some pics but for some reason, I do not seem to be able to. ??

ALVO360

@JELG That's brilliant James! I was planning on upgrading my intercooler down the track and this seems like a great solution to make some lower mounts for it. Using beeswax is a great idea and seems to have worked well for you. Thanks for the post!

Ex850R

Very hi=tek..

I used rubber door stoppers haha. Low tek ..

JELG

I have also mounted the air cleaner. I spent ages with cardboard making a template, which I then cut out of a sheet of aluminum. (Actually an old road sign.)

And I have finally gotten the heat shielding done. I used DCI "Sheet hot".

http://www.dciperformance.com.au/products/category_id:74/category:SheetHot

Yesterday I ran the car right up to temp, and past to see if the thermo fans would cut in. No luck. Checked everything out but all seems good. The computer is supposed to control the fans but must be set too high so I have jury rigged a manual switch for now.

Then this afternoon I started road testing! 2km round trip...all good.

5km round trip...all good

10km round trip.. still all good.

So out to the highway and 60km round trip. Wo Ho... all good.

The car now feels VERY light. Currently absolutely no muffler so a bit on the loud side although not as bad as I would have thought. You can definitely tell that the engine mounts are a lot harder. you do feel the engine but not badly at all.

No drive train vibration under acceleration or overrun . The only issue is that the rack seems to be leaking slightly for some reason, and I need to run the fans if I am below about 50km/h , so natural airflow is not quite enough. At highway speed the temps are very stable. And you sure know about it when you stick the boot in, although in deference to the original diff, I have not yet used more than about 1/2 throttle.

Club meeting tomorrow. With any luck I can show it off.

I'd love to post some pics but ??

JELG

Here is some pics of making the radiator mounts

Plasticine proto type.

Pouring the plaster of Paris.

The molds. You can see where the bees wax has soaked into the plaster.

Soaking test piece in wax.

Test piece. Bees wax for release agent.

And here is one of the lower mounts.

The Flexicast is available from Barnes.

https://www.barnes.com.au/

I have a video of the actual pieces being removed from the mold but it is not yet on line.

JELG

Here's a clip of the very first drive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr15oMh_Co8

JELG

Heat shielding:

This might explain why it is a bit loud.

I managed to re-use a lot of the Statesman components. Air intake tube, original computer box and heat shield, and all accessories. Even the radiator hoses! Otherwise it is almost all Volvo.

Ex850R

Very good! I like the note too.

carnut222

Wow, well done! Congrats!

JELG

Well, Its been a while. I Spent most of last month overseas including two weeks in the US. I had ordered a pile of stuff from IPD and Dakota Digital which was shipped to my brother-in-law in North Carolina. So I had a well stuffed suit case for the trip home, but saved a bomb on shipping.

Just before I left I was able to drive the beast into town and show it off at a club meeting. 110km round trip. Absolutely no exhaust muffler so I had to ease off any time I passed a car. Otherwise it all ran great. But about 20 km from home on the way back, , I glanced down at the temp gauge and found it had jumped to almost full scale! I flipped the fans on manually and pulled over as soon as possible but all looked fine. Engine nice and normal feeling. Hoses soft. ?? Then I noticed that the fuel gauge had also jumped up hugely and was now indicating almost full.

Ater some research, I found that the cluster runs at 10 volts and has a small regulator to keep it there. If the regulator goes bad, the cluster runs at alternator or battery voltage and will give erratic high readings. After a bit of research, I ordered 10 little solid state regulators from Mouser Electronics. Part number KA7810AETU. I ordered 10 as they were dirt cheap but they get you with shipping. If anyone needs one, let me know. I've plenty of spares.

This afternoon I pulled the cluster and found that this car has the old style large regulator. Not the solid state one. :-(. But I made up a harness and made it work. Problem solved.

I mounted the regulator on the speedo body for an extra ground and also to act as a bit of a heat sink.

I have also fitted a Dakota Digital cruise control. Works great. For some reason my car does not seem to have ever had a cruise control. Theoretically, all 262s had them factory installed. ??

Years ago, I bought a NOS 240 cruise/indicator handle and was able to use that. The plug on the handle plugged straight into the Dakota Digital plug, and the wires were even the same colour. All works and looks factory!

I also picked up an OBDII Link Blue Tooth device. There was some debate as to whether it would work as the Statesman is not actually OBDII. I took a punt. As far as I can tell, the statesman is sort of OBD1.5. That is, the Parameter I.D.s are all OBDII, but the fault codes are some odd Holden type. So I can now read all the gauges on my phone or iPad. But can't get accurate fault codes. How cool is that?

I also have a Tach correction box, and a fan control box yet to install. As soon as that is done, it is into town for an exhaust system.

Still bloody dry here. I just bought another 27 ton of cotton seed and 60 ton of hay. Eat beef !!

JELG

Latest progress:

I have fitted a Dakota Digital PAC-2750 fan controller with a Bus Interface module. It talks to the LS computer and provides temp info to the fan controller which in turn controls two fans, set at different temps, disables the fans once you get over a certain speed, and turns on the fans if the AC is on. I had some fun getting the BIM to talk nicely to the computer, but the tech support was great and we got it all sorted.

I have also fitted a Tach calibration box. So the tach now works accurately.

And I have just installed a Speedo drive unit. It talks to the computer and gets VSS (Vehicle Speed Sensor) information and then drives a small motor to spin the speedo cable to drive the original speedo. All fully adjustable. The issue I had was getting the provided cable to attach to the odd VDO bayonet fitting on the Volvo Speedo.

The original plastic part had long since fallen to pieces so I had to make a new bayonet fitting. I then pulled the end off the old Volvo cable and after some stuffing around, installed it with the new bayonet on the new cable and all now works great.

Below is the little bayonet fitting I made up: (this is not the 262 cluster but the one out of my old development wagon). I had to drill through it sideways and weld in tiny pieces of nail for the lugs and then tun the welds down to tidy it up. came out great.

Exhaust is to be done on Friday and I have just talked to the engineer for final sign off.

Almost there...

JELG

Years ago, I bought a NOS 240 cruise control handle and would you believe, the Dakota Digital cruise control unit harness plugged straight into it and works perfectly! Even the wires are about the same colour.

So the dash looks totally bog standard.

I'd love to make it to the Volvo Nationals in Bathurst, but the car will not quite be ready, and I'm triple booked that weekend already. Bummer.

alphax

That's some great work! Congrats on seeing the build through to a very high standard. Getting the engineering signed off and government issue rego on a car with this level of customisation is a great feeling.

OldnDecrepit

That's excellent work. I've got to do something similar to get my speedo working after the gearbox upgrade in the 164.

JELG

Ahh.... A 164. Here is mine in the late 80s. Small bumpers, big door handles and the funky horizontal speedo. It also had a column shift auto. I think I got 13 uni students in it one day. Including two in the boot.

Long gone now though.

OldnDecrepit

Mine's a 1974 model, called Viktoria, fitted with an AW71L.

Andy

Cool stuff mate.

I haven't been on this forum for a while, but with the LS radiator fans the low speed fan is controlled by the BCM in Holdens and the high speed overtemp/AC fans are controlled by the PCM when the coolant temp is above 108C or with the AC on.

If you had EFIlive you could change the low speed fan so it's controlled by the PCM. Piece of piss.

But looks like you have it sorted with the fan controller.

JELG

Hmm. Yep whole set up had me confused for a bit. The PCM pin-out did not even list a low speed fan control pin. It probably would have been more elegant to dig in with EFI Live and get the PCM to do it all rather than stuff around with a separate fan controller. Oh well. works now.

The exhaust is done. I had it done in town and the guy was not very pleased with how it came out. He ordered several length of tube from several different suppliers, most of which he ruined because his bender just would not bend it properly. He communicated with tech support for the bender and they adjusted pressures up and down but in the end had to conclude that it is just crap pipe. He used to be able to bend 3" Australian tube just fine, but no one is making tube in Australia now. It all comes form you know where.

He installed one large 3" truck muffler and it actually sounds pretty good. No droning at all at highway speeds but gives a subdued but noticeable bark if you stomp on it. We squished the tube a bit and went under the axle. No rattling or clunking, but cosmetically not the nicest job. A few creases here and there.

Bush fires have stopped play for now. I was actually reluctant to bring the car home. All a bit scary. I was on top of the hill above Wytalliba defending a property when the fire hit them and wiped out about 60 houses. And on Sunday morning I escorted a fuel tanker down into the community to refuel and rescue a bunch of fire trucks that had run out of fuel or got stuck on the wrong side of the bridge. Very sobering sight. Here's a snap of the bridge. Out of respect, I did not photograph destroyed houses.

And Here's a sobering clipping from the RFS. They do not use "Catastrophic" lightly.

Matt75

I really enjoyed your write up. I'd love a bit more info about how you connected the shifter to the gearbox as this is something I'll be doing soon and not many guys have done it with success and keeping the original shifter.

Great work and no doubt its most enjoyable to drive

Cheers

Matt

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