Greg's 79 245GL Barn Find

carnut222 · 2018-07-29T03:42:39+00:00

After cleaning it up, it sat in mum's shed until July 2018, when I finally got it shipped down to Daylesford where we live.

DCW242

This is the kit I got, I’ll try and get some pics of the results but it might not be for a little while since there are some other jobs to do first.

Ex850R

Does that kit have repair fillers as well?

I looked ages ago at doing this on my old 850R seats that I had kept from the wreck , they were pretty good anyway.

carnut222

Got the tail lamp wiring spliced together yesterday. Closer look at the tail lamp lenses...looks like at least one needs replacement - time to google (unless anyone has a good set sitting around - particularly the RH side)! :P

Also installed the rear door panels. Waiting for my folks to arrive from the US (via NZ) on Tuesday as Dad is bringing a set of small 93 240 wagon rear door tweeter speakers. I thought I could put those in the front door panels where the window winder crank handle hole is to hide it. Whether I hook them up or not is another story as I’m not sure whether they can be hooked directly to the front speaker wires or whether some sort of cross-over is required. It will be good to have Dad here for several weeks to help on the project. He’s more motivated than I am so maybe things will move a bit faster (as long as we don’t kill each other!)

carnut222

Had visitors from South Australia on Fri & Sat. Craig R, Chris A and Ken B brought over Ken’s (ex-Lance Phillips) 121 wagon...Lance’s sons are planning to do it up. I rode down with them Sat to drop it of in Berwick, had a nice lunch with Pam and Lance’s son’s and got to see Gus (Pam’s greyhound - same colour as our whippet Penny). Pam said he’s missing Lance. :( Craig is taking home the ex-David Raynor 242GT that he and Lance bought for spares. Looks a bit too rough to bring back to life with a lot of rust. Always good to catch up with the Volvo mates!

carnut222

The 93 sedan organ donor car is off to Valhalla!

carnut222

More fiddly bits...nothing is ever easy! I thought since I'm using 93 wiring, why not fit the 93 wagon dome lamp frames that use sedan dome lamps. Of course the brackets welded into the 79 body are the wrong size. Cut part of the rear one off and put on a new plate to suit.

The front one had a bit of extra room so I was able to just hack out the opening to fit the new frame...also had to bend the tabs for the wires and put new smaller wire terminal ends on to clear the existing bracket. My dad was kind enough to paint the brackets so they look nice, unlike all the original ones that are yellowed with age.

carnut222

Minor update...got the driver’s door panel installed and ready to do the passenger side (just waiting for Wayne to re-solder a broken wire on the speaker). Had to cut holes for the power window wiring and also cut a square hole where the window winder hole was and installed a late 240 rear door tweeter in that spot for more factory look vs just putting a rubber plug in the hole. Slow progress as both my dad and I have been down for over a week with a bad cold. Need to make up for lost time this week. Have the new windscreen ready to pick up and also more flat black vinyl & fabric paint for the cargo area trim panels. Have ordered the black C-pillar interior trim pieces from GCP and will install those before the rear side windows can go back in. About time to get the carpet ordered as well...

Ex850R

Ohh....

My.

carnut222

Making a bit more progress. Got the front passenger door trim installed. Just need to install speaker once Wayne solders up the broken wire.

There were some ugly holes left in the inner side panel below the rear windows when I removed the child restraint anchor bar.

So I made up some small steel plates to hide them...glued some vinyl to them and I’m going to bolt one of the loop tie-down hooks in the middle to hold it in place and also provide a bit of functionality. Pics to follow once I finish the glue job.

Dad has been helping too - today he sprayed the rear wheel arch vinyl/carpet trim pieces with black vinyl spray. He also sprayed the dark blue rear headrests. Remaining bit to spray is the rear floor panel. The new C-pillar trim panels arrived from GCP yesterday too, so once we install the wheel arch trims we can install the C-pillar trims...then the rear side windows can go in.

carnut222

Not a great pic but you get the idea of how the cover for the nasty holes turned out. Once the side trim is in place it should flow pretty seamlessly. I put some blackout tape on the inner panel to cover any gap between the new vinyl-covered bit and the plastic C-pillar trim. The tie-down hook sits just behind the rear seat so it’ll be good for the dog lead or grocery bags with a bungee cord.

carnut222

Got the wheel arch trim installed then the metal lower C-pillar covers and new plastic upper C-pillar trims in. Coming along.

Today we got the rear side windows installed. I’m a bit disappointed that the tint doesn’t look that dark. Supposed to be 15% VLT. I guess maybe it’s because the tailgate window isn’t tinted yet and the sun is coming straight in the back

ds245

Wow, that looks great Greg!

carnut222

Dad’s been helping a lot now that we’re mostly over the bad cold. He polished up the rear sill panels and I put a coat of wax on them then installed.

He’s also been painting the interior trim bits. We used the tan rear load floor section out of the 81 wagon I wrecked as the brown 79 floor had lots of extra holes for the rear-facing child seat that I deleted. Pic below is work in progress.

carnut222

More mods...using a newer rear seat (93) with the removable seat cushion base required cutting out the seat brackets on the floor. Dad with the hacksaw!

Finished job after a bit of paint touch-up. Now on to attempting to paint the tan rear leather seat black...

Major Ledfoot

This is becoming a father-son project! :)

carnut222

And the deed is done. Dad painted the rear tan leather seats from the EV. I hated to do it as they were in perfect condition, but I had no other use for them. They came out great...used a flat black vinyl/fabric paint. We’ll see how it holds up over time.

carnut222

Been doing a light cut/polish and wax on the paint. It's come up fairly well. By no means perfect (a few spots where it looks like it needs to be sanded as it's fairly rough and a couple spots where the paint is crazing.) Not bad for a freebie!

carnut222

Got the rear floor panel installed. Had to modify the rear seatback as the older-style rear floor close-out panel that swings down when you fold the seat has 2 small hinge linkages. The new style seat didn't have the attachment point weld nuts, so I had to drill a couple holes and put in rivnuts. Will install the rear seats tomorrow.

carnut222

We cleaned up the late-style black side trims today. Dad has painted them with a bumper and trim paint. They're a bit rough on the top due to sun exposure but should look OK once installed. Because the early cars without the wrap-around tail lamps have longer trims on the rear guards, I had to modify some sedan trims - cut to length and glued in wagon end bits. Hopefully once they're installed the curvature will be OK. The sedan quarter panel dives inboard a bit more sharply than the wagon right at the end where I grafted on the wagon end cap.

carnut222

Got the rear seat installed today as well as the side trims...looking more like a car now! :) Had to re-paint the cargo barrier lower attach clips, so once that's done the only thing holding back the rear end is the RH seatbelt retractor and the tailgate glass window tint. Need to clean up the black fabric front seat upholstery and install on the seat frames, but seats can't go in until the carpet anyway. I looked at the rolls of butyl mastic I bought to do the windscreen, and something isn't right about it, so I think I'll pull out the old screen, clean everything up, then get the local guy to come out and put the new screen in with urethane and be done with it. I don't trust myself to have a steady enough hand to apply a consistent bead of urethane, based on previous experience! :)

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