'Vivian' 1979 242GT
Prologue: It was 1979, I was fresh out of boarding school and fresh into teachers college. I waited obediently at the lights for the walk signal to cross Miller Street, still enough of a hick to marvel at the North Sydney hustle, bustle and traffic when a gleaming silver, two door Volvo with stripes up the sides coasted to a stop in front of me. To a bloke who learnt to drive in an FE ute that was little more than an engine and rust and who now proudly punted around in '69 Beetle, it was all style and class. Man, I thought, one day I'm going to own one of those!
Well, thirty years seemed to pass pretty quickly, and I'd all but forgotten about that shiny GT when my very good friend Wal's son Eric, proudly showed me his first car: a blue 144 Volvo. I turned to my beloved and said 'I'm going to buy a Volvo!' She laughed (rather cruelly, I thought) but I'd made my mind up, I wanted a Volvo, but not just any Volvo, it had to be a silver 242GT.
That was nearly ten years ago, and true to form, I bought a car with a dodgy auto transmission, a blown head gasket and more oil leaks than the Exxon Valdez. I proudly named her Vivian, after my daughters favourite doll when she was little and because I thought it sounded poetic: Vivian Volvo.
After a month I was ready to give Vivian away, but then I was given the phone number of A-Class Wreckers in Sydney and I met Gerry, who swapped in a good motor and manual transmission and provided me with friendly advice and service whenever I needed it. Sadly, Gerry has passed away and in my opinion the Volvo community ( and the world) is very much poorer for his passing.
I drove Vivian many miles before a change in work circumstances led me to take her off the road, but her time has come again and I plan to have her back where she belongs, cruising the highways and impressing the ladies for her 40th birthday in 2019.
My plans are really quite modest, at least to start with: replace the existing motor with a B230 Turbo motor from a donor wagon I bought from the afore mentioned Eric. I'm beginning this build thread because I know I will need a lot of advice as my mechanical skills can be best described as basic but enthusiastic and there is a lot I don't understand particularly about the EFI set up.
Thank you for reading.
Well, thirty years seemed to pass pretty quickly, and I'd all but forgotten about that shiny GT when my very good friend Wal's son Eric, proudly showed me his first car: a blue 144 Volvo. I turned to my beloved and said 'I'm going to buy a Volvo!' She laughed (rather cruelly, I thought) but I'd made my mind up, I wanted a Volvo, but not just any Volvo, it had to be a silver 242GT.
That was nearly ten years ago, and true to form, I bought a car with a dodgy auto transmission, a blown head gasket and more oil leaks than the Exxon Valdez. I proudly named her Vivian, after my daughters favourite doll when she was little and because I thought it sounded poetic: Vivian Volvo.
After a month I was ready to give Vivian away, but then I was given the phone number of A-Class Wreckers in Sydney and I met Gerry, who swapped in a good motor and manual transmission and provided me with friendly advice and service whenever I needed it. Sadly, Gerry has passed away and in my opinion the Volvo community ( and the world) is very much poorer for his passing.
I drove Vivian many miles before a change in work circumstances led me to take her off the road, but her time has come again and I plan to have her back where she belongs, cruising the highways and impressing the ladies for her 40th birthday in 2019.
My plans are really quite modest, at least to start with: replace the existing motor with a B230 Turbo motor from a donor wagon I bought from the afore mentioned Eric. I'm beginning this build thread because I know I will need a lot of advice as my mechanical skills can be best described as basic but enthusiastic and there is a lot I don't understand particularly about the EFI set up.
Thank you for reading.
and 4 others.
Comments
While I can marvel at the abilities of people to put all sorts of motors in Volvos, I think that every Volvo should have a Volvo motor (even if it is a Yamaha V8).
Actually a Volvo designed V8, built by Yamaha. If in doubt, the V8 shares the same pistons as the Volvo 5 potters, as can be seen in "What This Fits."
https://www.volvopartswebstore.com/products/Volvo/2010/S80-44l-8-cylinder/Piston-kit/9961319/9487401.html
OP, looking forward to seeing more of the project. Funny to think these gems are coming up to 40 years old now!
So far I have removed the engine and gearbox from Vivian.
As an aside: The motor is the second one I have put in and came out of an '80 242GT which my neighbour's sister gave me 'seeing as I had one already and this one was just sitting in the shed and no she didn't want any money for it'. That motor had been rebuilt and I had planned to plus turbo it before the turbo wagon came my way. So now I have a second motor, intercooler, turbo and manifold. Maybe another project down the track a bit?
I have also removed the engine from the wagon ( which originally came from bgpz and was named The Jurbo). The wagon was for sale on this site but I didn't get any takers and it has now sadly gone to the wreckers.
I have the motor, all plumbing, radiator, exhaust, fuel pump, wiring loom and everything else I could think of.
I placed an order for gaskets and front and rear oil seals with IPD which arrived promptly and I've pulled off the manifolds, removed the head mounted distributor and auxiliary shaft, water pump and so on. I'm now cleaning everything up before I start to reassemble the motor. I bought a head gasket and head bolts but the motor was running quite well
when I bought it so I think I will leave the head where it is for the time being.
The Jurbo was an auto but I am putting Vivian's M46 box on so I also purchased from IPD a 740 turbo clutch and pressure plate. I plan to use the fly wheel from my other motor. It looks to be in good condition with no scorch marks so I'm not sure if I need to have it 'faced' or not.
I've also removed an auxiliary shaft from another motor I bought from the wreckers so I can put a distributor where it belongs.
This brings me to a question: I would like to use the LH2.2 harness and computers from the wagon. If I use a LH2.2 distributor will I need a Hall sensor, trigger wheel set up or will the LH2.2 distributor do the job on it's own?
One thing that I'm not sure about are the engine mounts and brackets. I assumed that the 740 Turbo engine mounts and engine mount brackets would be compatible with the brackets on the GT chassis. This doesn't seem to be the case though unless I'm looking at the wrong parts. The block from the turbo wagon seems to have a different mount set up which would make it much too wide to fit in my 242, it also seems that the chassis brackets on the 242 are at the wrong angle. Any advice about this and possible solutions would be very much appreciated.
Sorry there are no pictures yet, I've take plenty but can't get my iPhone to talk to the computer.
Glad you posted this, was looking for one of these.
I think I've worked out the engine mounts too. Have to get some new ones, bought new 740 mounts which will join the list of other things I've bought but don't need like the K-jet fuel accumulator and rubber vacuum hoses.
Thanks for all everyones help.
lol, tell me about it!
JFYI, I found some 240 B230 engine mount brackets in my shed, in between songs. Compare them to the 740 style B230 engine mount brackets.
p/n 1205999 with mount is LH, p/n 1206213 with no mount is RH. B21/B23 and B230 engines all use these.
The 740 mount brackets (below) are very different.
The 740 with B230FT would have a dished flywheel (sometimes referred to as a dog dish or stepped flywheel). The flywheel on a GT would be flat. The clutch kits are not interchangeable between the two styles of flywheel. Hope that helps!