Jacob's 1982 244GL
Jacob @Biggles
Brisbane QLD
Hi all,
I've lurked around here for a while now and not posted too much, I thought I should properly introduce myself and get a progress thread going.
The car:
I bought my 1982 Volvo 244GL a few years ago when I was learning to drive manual. It has a B23E with an M46 transmission and the normal equipment you'd expect from a GL. I don't have any pictures from when I first bought the car however it has not changed aesthetically at all since then.
The car was in fairly good condition however had several small issues to deal with off the bat. The door pockets were missing, the overdrive worked occasionally and the heater motor was nonfunctioning (if only I knew the pain this would cause later). I purchased the car for $1100 from an old lady that had owned it from the showroom, with complete service history from a Brisbane Volvo specialist. My father is an auto electrician and has a solid knowledge in the mechanical bits as well. He has helped significantly over the time I’ve owned the car. My mates have affectionately named the car ‘Helga’.
What’s been done:
For the roadworthy, the first thing to tackle was the heater blower motor. The articles were not kidding when they said that the entire car is built around it. We used the cleanflametrap.com as a guide and eventually got the job done after a solid day’s frustration.
Next up was the overdrive function. It would often fail to engage and disengage the overdrive however operated fine when it did. After a bit of research I checked the relay and a few other items however they all seemed to be functioning okay. At a loss we took the car to a ‘Volvo Specialist’ on the Sunshine Coast who replaced a part (the mechanical actuator maybe? Sorry, this was a couple of years ago) and deemed it solved. The fix did not work whatsoever and the car still failed to engage and disengage. Frustrated, we investigated a little further and discover that the overdrive unit has a small plate that can be removed with a small flat filter behind it. The filter was very gunky and needed a good clean. The Volvo ‘specialist’ made no mention of this and clearly didn’t think to clean it. After replacing the filter and plate, the car shifted in and out of overdrive with ease.
And with that the major issues were solved and the car was on the road for a while before suddenly shuddering to a halt whilst coming home from work. The diagnosis was the fuel pump had failed and the car needed to be towed, luckily only a few kilometers, fully covered by RACQ roadside assist. After opening up the fuel tank from the boot we were surprised to see that there was in fact no in tank fuel pump present at all, which had increased the load on the main pump and caused it to fail. I have no idea how long it lasted however it was at the very least 6000km. New fuel pumps fitted and it was back on the road.
The next issue was a brake pedal that suddenly felt very spongy and went a lot closer to the floor than usual. The fluid was at the right level and was not leaking. After bleeding and rebleeding the brake system to no effect, the problem had seemed to worsen. When we were completing the bleeding process, we had depressed the brake pedal to the floor, damaging the master cylinder even further. A new master cylinder was fitted and the issue fixed.
The car then drove problem free for a while, I moved to the ACT from the Sunshine Coast and started uni. We now come to about two months ago from now, when the car developed a nasty put put sound coming from the engine bay. Without any guidance from dad now I had moved, I was a little paranoid of a significant issue with the engine and did not want to drive it in case of damaging it any further. A call to NRMA had a mechanic on his way who quickly diagnosed the issue as a leak in the long EGR line that runs near to and parallel with the firewall. After being assured it wasn’t a major issue and could still drive the car, I took it to a local shop and told them what the NRMA guy had told me and asked for a quote to get it fixed. They quoted $350 for parts and labor which I promptly decided against.
I am taking the car back home on break in December where I’m hoping to get it fixed with the help of Dad. I grew impatient this weekend and attempted to remove the pipe myself to see if I could apply a bit of exhaust putty to get rid of the noise temporarily before I drove up. In the process of undoing the nut of the pipe on the EGR line, I managed to shear the other EGR line that’s connected to the EGR valve. Now not only did it have an annoying put put noise I also had a hissing sound caused by outside air being sucked into the injection manifold and the engine was not happy as a result. I have done my best to simply crimp the pipe shut and the hissing has mostly ceased and the engine seems to be running relatively smoothly. Perhaps luckily for Helga, I don’t have much time off between now and when I go back home for Christmas so I will likely be leaving it until then.
Christmas break plans:
Fix or remove EGR system
Fit voltmeter, oil pressure, voltmeter, vacuum and ambient temp gauge. Still need to find senders for ambient temp and oil pressure.
Possibly buy and fit DVS special front springs, king rear springs, Bilstein B6’s. (Still considering my finances on these)
Buy and fit DVS chassis brace.
Buy and fit generic central locking.
Replace/clean flametrap system
Source tan door pockets
Possibly buy and fit Virgos, I’ve got someone that will sell me four in pretty good condition for $120 however without centre caps. Anywhere I could find these on the cheap? At this rate it looks like they’ll cost more than the rims themselves.
And that’s where Helga is at now. Sorry for the large wall of text, I probably should have been briefer but hopefully some of this may help others. I hope to learn and contribute where I can!
I've lurked around here for a while now and not posted too much, I thought I should properly introduce myself and get a progress thread going.
The car:
I bought my 1982 Volvo 244GL a few years ago when I was learning to drive manual. It has a B23E with an M46 transmission and the normal equipment you'd expect from a GL. I don't have any pictures from when I first bought the car however it has not changed aesthetically at all since then.
The car was in fairly good condition however had several small issues to deal with off the bat. The door pockets were missing, the overdrive worked occasionally and the heater motor was nonfunctioning (if only I knew the pain this would cause later). I purchased the car for $1100 from an old lady that had owned it from the showroom, with complete service history from a Brisbane Volvo specialist. My father is an auto electrician and has a solid knowledge in the mechanical bits as well. He has helped significantly over the time I’ve owned the car. My mates have affectionately named the car ‘Helga’.
What’s been done:
For the roadworthy, the first thing to tackle was the heater blower motor. The articles were not kidding when they said that the entire car is built around it. We used the cleanflametrap.com as a guide and eventually got the job done after a solid day’s frustration.
Next up was the overdrive function. It would often fail to engage and disengage the overdrive however operated fine when it did. After a bit of research I checked the relay and a few other items however they all seemed to be functioning okay. At a loss we took the car to a ‘Volvo Specialist’ on the Sunshine Coast who replaced a part (the mechanical actuator maybe? Sorry, this was a couple of years ago) and deemed it solved. The fix did not work whatsoever and the car still failed to engage and disengage. Frustrated, we investigated a little further and discover that the overdrive unit has a small plate that can be removed with a small flat filter behind it. The filter was very gunky and needed a good clean. The Volvo ‘specialist’ made no mention of this and clearly didn’t think to clean it. After replacing the filter and plate, the car shifted in and out of overdrive with ease.
And with that the major issues were solved and the car was on the road for a while before suddenly shuddering to a halt whilst coming home from work. The diagnosis was the fuel pump had failed and the car needed to be towed, luckily only a few kilometers, fully covered by RACQ roadside assist. After opening up the fuel tank from the boot we were surprised to see that there was in fact no in tank fuel pump present at all, which had increased the load on the main pump and caused it to fail. I have no idea how long it lasted however it was at the very least 6000km. New fuel pumps fitted and it was back on the road.
The next issue was a brake pedal that suddenly felt very spongy and went a lot closer to the floor than usual. The fluid was at the right level and was not leaking. After bleeding and rebleeding the brake system to no effect, the problem had seemed to worsen. When we were completing the bleeding process, we had depressed the brake pedal to the floor, damaging the master cylinder even further. A new master cylinder was fitted and the issue fixed.
The car then drove problem free for a while, I moved to the ACT from the Sunshine Coast and started uni. We now come to about two months ago from now, when the car developed a nasty put put sound coming from the engine bay. Without any guidance from dad now I had moved, I was a little paranoid of a significant issue with the engine and did not want to drive it in case of damaging it any further. A call to NRMA had a mechanic on his way who quickly diagnosed the issue as a leak in the long EGR line that runs near to and parallel with the firewall. After being assured it wasn’t a major issue and could still drive the car, I took it to a local shop and told them what the NRMA guy had told me and asked for a quote to get it fixed. They quoted $350 for parts and labor which I promptly decided against.
I am taking the car back home on break in December where I’m hoping to get it fixed with the help of Dad. I grew impatient this weekend and attempted to remove the pipe myself to see if I could apply a bit of exhaust putty to get rid of the noise temporarily before I drove up. In the process of undoing the nut of the pipe on the EGR line, I managed to shear the other EGR line that’s connected to the EGR valve. Now not only did it have an annoying put put noise I also had a hissing sound caused by outside air being sucked into the injection manifold and the engine was not happy as a result. I have done my best to simply crimp the pipe shut and the hissing has mostly ceased and the engine seems to be running relatively smoothly. Perhaps luckily for Helga, I don’t have much time off between now and when I go back home for Christmas so I will likely be leaving it until then.
Christmas break plans:
Fix or remove EGR system
Fit voltmeter, oil pressure, voltmeter, vacuum and ambient temp gauge. Still need to find senders for ambient temp and oil pressure.
Possibly buy and fit DVS special front springs, king rear springs, Bilstein B6’s. (Still considering my finances on these)
Buy and fit DVS chassis brace.
Buy and fit generic central locking.
Replace/clean flametrap system
Source tan door pockets
Possibly buy and fit Virgos, I’ve got someone that will sell me four in pretty good condition for $120 however without centre caps. Anywhere I could find these on the cheap? At this rate it looks like they’ll cost more than the rims themselves.
And that’s where Helga is at now. Sorry for the large wall of text, I probably should have been briefer but hopefully some of this may help others. I hope to learn and contribute where I can!
Comments
I reckon you should keep the wheels/hubcaps on, they'll look much better with the car lowered.the car looks lovely, especially as it is the right colour.
Cleaning out the flametrap sooner saves a LOT of grief later ... unless you like changing rear main oil seals.
volvopartswebstore.com/showAssembly.aspx?ukey_assembly=236513&ukey_product=1125815
See if FCP will do a decent shipping price for these 2 little things. Otherwise... how long since Helga had a new timing belt? How many kays on her? If the shipping price for those 2 little things is going to be large, you're best off planning for your next scheduled service and ordering the bits you'll need for it.
But if I plan an order, I start a spreadsheet, enter the car model, and go through every category. When I do that I always see things I want that I didn't think about.
Consumables in advance like air/fuel/oil filters (unless it works out cheaper getting them here from stores/ebay now with the typical exchange rate that Liberal always presents us with as a reward for voting them in. Once you have a spreadsheet with approx. price to get the stuff here, you can compare.
"O" rings for injectors... A few years worth of sump plug washers - things you would think are easy to get here, but I still haven't found a source for sump plug washers where I live - I always wind up using and enlarging a fibre one usually meant for a Camry I think.
I got a call saying that they were unable to fit the struts in as the lowered spring was not captive by approximately 4mm when lifted. Gave Ash a call and he said he's never heard of this before. Ash very kindly got in direct contact with the mechanic doing the work however was unable to troubleshoot the issue. Two possibilities offered: Collapsed strut mounts or spacer left in but mechanic didn't think it was either of those. Any other possible reasons? Strut part number is correct, spring is DVS. Not too sure how experienced the mechanic was in fitting modified gear but he's been good previously.
Any ideas for how best to proceed from here? I'm in Canberra so Ash is quite a distance away however I'd like to avoid running into the same issue at a different mechanic. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I Do you know if you still had the oem struts or by chance have the part number from the old ones? Can work out if it needed spacer from that maybe
I'm hoping to swap out the old B23E for something with a bit more go, namely a B230FT. I've done a lot of reading but haven't got much else going for me so I was hoping for some advice on how best to proceed.
Due to time and skill constraints, I was initially going to get the conversion done professionally by Berrys however it seems like the price of labour is a little too drastic for my wallet.
I'm limited by the M46 for now, so the initial power output will need to be appropriate for that. I read the excellent article on the T5 swap and would be keen to follow along but it won't be for a little while at least.
Based on what I've read I want the following for around 200kw (eventually):
93+ B230FT squirter block
LH 2.4
KG2T
Bigger turbo - 15g, 19T or other?
Chip?
I understand the M46 will limit me here, how much of the above is relatively safe to achieve? I also don't need to do everything at the start, I can upgrade as I go however if it's better to do it right the first time I would prefer that. What is best to do first?
Berry's suggested just getting a complete car to rip everything out of? Do most things from the 940 swap over nicely? Based on what he was saying it's just the intermediate shaft and wiring that needs to be altered however I thought it was a little more complex than that.
Finally, while I am still very new to this, I have a very experienced auto electrician at my disposal who is quite good with the mechanical side as well, though hasn't touched a turbo setup before. Is this something we can tackle (in 4 weeks)? Any recommendations or advice is welcome, thanks!
The M46 is good for a reliable 100KW and that's about it
It frequently dies even at stock turbo power levels, let alone 200KW
200KW and reliable and cheap == stock AW71 Trans which just works.... (will work even better after doing some very minor mods as well)
Turbo...
Easiest option is
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Kinugawa-Monster-Turbocharger-VOLVO-740-940-TD04HL-20T-w-7cm-Housing-300-HP-/272213201459?hash=item3f612bd233:g:gngAAOSw7FRWZpTV
Toss the BOV back onto ebay (does not work with LH2.4) and replace with a stock HD unit (IIRC IPD sells a nice one)
There are better options using a flat flange housing but requires more work for DP
DP/Exhaust... you want 3" turbo back
Engine wise... you want a 1994+ 940T/s engine in good condition, you only really want the block and head
Conversion wise you want the bits from a 1990-91 740/940 turbo for the IC/Pipes and more
Injectors == Volvo T5 injectors from a 850 (easiest and skips effing around with a resistor pack)
Auto electrician wise you will need your guy to extend the wires for the AMM to the other side of the car... and that's about it
You will want the full interior and engine bay harness from a 1989+240 so you can convert it properly to LH2.4 its all just plug and play in one way or the other....
How difficult/expensive is it to source all of the parts you mentioned to do a basic B230FT install? Would it be better to get a whole car or could I get away with finding the individual bits? Whats a ballpark figure for all the bits to do a stock install?
Thanks again for the help!
I made the engine bay loom from a 740t play with my existing kjet interior but there was quite a bit of mucking round with it even for someone who isn't phased by wiring diagrams.
Keep in mind that 7/9 series have head mount dizzy which doesn't clear the firewall on a 240 so you'll need the correct distributor and possibly to swap intermediate shafts if yours doesn't have the dizzy gear cut.
If you're going completely to a 2.4 loom you may also need the newer instrument cluster to work with the later style electronic speedo.
I had to have new oil cooler lines made up since the oil filter relocation bracket used on the 7/9 series doesn't give enough clearance for the downpipe.
All in all, without knowing your level of experience I'd say there's a fair chance you can knock it over in 4 weeks if you have as much done beforehand as you can (new engine cleaned and prepped, wiring mocked out etc.).
Took me about that working sporadically between work and other stuff.
Re wiring: You need to decide if you are going to use an LH2.2 or LH2.4 wiring harness. They are not the same. Quick run down time. LH2.2 will support about 200 maybe 250rwhp before it runs out headroom. LH2.4 will support 300 with modifications to the tune. LH2.4 is a "learning" system and will adjust the tune according to how you drive. LH2.2 will not. LH2.4 will also support E85 with mods and large enough injectors. If you plan to keep it for a while then LH2.4 is the way to go and isnt more or less complicated although it does require the fitting of the "special" notched flywheel and the diff speed sensor. LH2.2 is easy and will still give good results. I ran an LH2.2 setup for 4 year with 12psi. It was a very fun car. I'm running LH2.4 in a 245 turbo and while its capabilities are better, getting everything "right" has been more of a challenge. The easiest method here is to grab a wiring loom out of a 240. The turbo computers plug right in with minimal changes to the wiring. If you want LH2.4 grab the harness from a 90+ 240. Dont use a 940 or 740 harness it will be a nightmare to condense it down to the size of a 240 engine bay. If you go for LH2.2 you will need to grab the EZK Ignition box and wiring from a 740 turbo and splice that into your LH2.2 fuel harness.
Ok so with turbos. Find yourself a 15g from an 850 turbo or an 18t. I missed out the 16t because some have variations in the housings and making a WG bracket could end up being fiddly. Already had this happen to myself. Any RWD turbo like a 13c or 12b wont net you the power you are looking for and are really tiny turbos. A 15g will spool real fast and will make 250rwhp with the right setup. The 18t will make about 350 but will be harder to come by. If it were me I'd start with the 15g if you are capable of reclocking your turbo. If not then just grab a 13c and boost away until you learn how it all works. If you use a 13c then you can grab all the water and oil lines from a 90+ turbo motor. The pre 90 stuff wont work. If you are using a 15g or any FWD turbo then you will need to fab up some lines. Make sure the drain is big and goes straight down. Dont use heater hose it will set your car on fire. Ive seen it and its stupid. Make sure your drain is atleast -10an or 3/4'. Any smaller and it might not drain right and will just smoke out the exhaust. If you get a 15g try and get a flat flange exhaust housing. These flow quite a bit more than their conical counterparts.
The rest of the hardware just swaps over pretty easily. You will need to fab a downpipe but thats not too much of a big deal. Grab yourself two 90 degree bends and a length of straight pipe. If you buy a turbo make sure you get the downpipe side flange so you can mate it to your downpipe.
The rest is just swapping things over and making it all fit nicely. The hype about squirter blocks isnt worth the price premium imo. Grab the lowest +90 engine you can find and go with that. If you change your oil often and dont make the thing ping its ass off then you will be fine.
James has his thread on doing an lh 2.4 swap into a kjet car in rwd section.
That 240 is not worth the money, you can also start with a squirter 93 on non turbo block and it wont have many issues for your power, the major difference between the turbo and non turbo later engines is the oil drain and sodium exhaust valves, pistons are the same as is the head. And the motor won't be worn out like a turbo motor could be.