Intro
I’m DEK2688 by username, but my actual real name is Rich. I’ve been in and around rwd Volvos for 30 years; my first being a ’67 142 in creampuff white when I was 15, much to my parents chagrin. Since then, I’ve owned 14 running/driving Volvos that I can recollect, and many others that did not run or drive - or both.
I cut my teeth as an AME in the aviation industry for over a dozen years on reciprocating wing aircraft before going all white-collar and getting an office job due to progressive chemical allergies.
Volvos sort of fill in the remaining rift, and satisfy the need to feel tools, smell oil and get dirty - but will never be as cool as something that flies.
The object of focus for this thread will be a black-on-black-on-black ‘93 945T wagon that I was gifted. Please join me along the myriad journey of bringing it back to life in this ever-expanding thread.
However appreciate that I’m far from a great photographer and don’t think of taking pictures while I’m working.
I have a nasty tendency to detail things in painful lengthy diatribes, so those with cat-like attention spans will want to find another thread with plenty of pretty colourful pictures and sparkly bright flashing twinkles to be amused by.
OK, I’ll answer that first burning question that you undoubtedly have;
‘How do you get a free wagon?’
One part fortune, one part hard work, and one part TurboBricks.
The start of it all
Thru selling a few selected hoarded Volvo goodies off on T’Bricks, I had the fortunate occasion to meet Craig and Brent; local-to-me brothers that are Volvo-lifers, and the kind donors of the 945.
Craig purchased a set of Gen-1 Grandpa E-Codes in late 2014 from me for his ’89 745. When we met to exchange cash for goods and peek at each others’ Grandpas, we struck up a conversation about his planned L-block engine swap.
I offered to help with the engine swap if he needed it. I’ve played redblock tango a few times in Grandpas, and am painfully familiar with the process. He took me up on the offer without hesitation. I honestly didn’t expect any return for the offer of help.
Spirit and support should be prevalent in our local car community regardless of return.
Craig then kindly offered me the opportunity to see the car and pick through anything that was left over to see if there were any viable parts that I could use - or hoard.
I gladly accepted his offer and we agreed to meet again to see the 945 in the Bat Cave.
03-12-15
The first meeting
I saw the car in the Bat Cave a few months after our initial discussion, and in the process had the pleasure of meeting Craig’s older brother Brent; an equally Volvo-motivated soul and a guy you want to talk with for hours - and can.
We met and talked - and talked - and did the customary peeking and hmm-ing at the various Swedish meatballs that we owned.
I was pleasantly shocked and extremely pleased to see that indeed, the 945 was mostly intact and didn’t seem to be a basket-case.
The excitement went up a few pegs.
I foggily recollect that Craig offered the 945 at that time to me to recompense me for my time - admittedly I sort of blanked out. It took a few differently-worded statements to the same effect from him to register in my rodent-sized brain that he was indeed offering to give me the car in exchange for the work.
The excitement immediately shot up to a few of the higher pegs.
Craig offered up the dog gate, a tailgate load of removed parts, the original 16” meat-slicer wheels with essentially new rubber - gratis - and anything else he had for the car lurking about.
Excitement was up to the top pegs on the board. And on it went. I was trying to not get all verklempt.
By the end of seeing it for the first time I was pretty stoked to get my grubby little mitts on the thing. But it was early February and damn dark, damp and cold in this part of the world. Craig suggested that it would be best to start the swap when it wasn’t so spark and dooky in the Bat Cave. My aging body was grateful for his foresight.
As I was driving home, I had to admit that I had been bitten by the vaa-goon bug again. This wasn’t my first wagon rodeo, nor would it be my first ’93 945T in black-on-black-on-black. My original ’93 945T is the car I still think about as being quite possibly the perfect car nearly 15 years after I sold it.
Was this providence? Perhaps, but it would take a bit of effort to make it happen.
Idle thinking
The 945 did have its minor little issues - like a missing engine, transmission, sunroof and other various bits and pieces. However it was a runner and driver before being a donor, and was mostly mechanically intact and functional, save for the aforementioned big bits that it was missing.
The exterior was wearing a proprietary layer of protective Bat Cave dust and appeared somewhat rough, but workable and with no obvious signs of exterior cancer or serious cave-ins.
The interior was reasonable; the carpeting was obviously toast, but what didn’t need replacing would probably clean up. The leather was filthy and needed significant attention to bring it back to life, but was mostly savable except for the drivers’ seat which possessed a suitable frame and motors, but otherwise was a good candidate for re-skinning and new foam.
However, this was what I surmised after looking at the car in the dark - or at least using my iPhone flashlight to be able to see it. The Bat Cave was every bit as dark, dank and depressing as a real bat cave. Without a lighting source, I would have resorted to examining the car by feel.
So, it initially appeared to be a feasible project to rebuild when applying a strong level of optimism and thinking bright & sunny thoughts.
03-19-15
The longer look
We met to set the plan in motion and get a date nailed down for the swap. In and amongst the varied discusssions between bicycles, movies, political beliefs and Volvos, we actually made a plan.
I managed to squeak in a really good scan of the interior and underhood during which I was furiously writing mental list, which resulted in 3 pages of notes when I got back home. I went to the PnP’s that weekend with my list of needed things and obtained the trim that the 945 needed, which was all of this for about $50:
(To be added when I find it...)
Ruminating in a yard full of wrecked cars
While I was toddling about in the PnP, I had a good think as to what my objective is for the wagon.
Some perspective first; a wagon makes far more sense for my world as it has pretty sizable and very usable space, where my 780 has lots of pretty space that you don’t want to fill with sizable things and de-pretty.
A wagon can carry my dogs, bike, camping gear, projectile-vomiting-drunken-girlfriend, drywall, and rolls of sod without beads of sweat appearing on my forehead.
To maintain a realistic initial objective for rebuilding the 945, I’ll stage the approach in versions:
v.1: Fully-functional vehicle with no mechanical or electrical issues, interior~80%, near to stock.
v.2: Enhanced output and suspension, interior ~95%; etc.
The finished wagon has to be reliable, functional, and practical and have some obvious financial constraints applied - to curtail any perversions for performance mods.
It must:
ultimately serve as a stalwart ‘daily’ driver to replace my 780 which serves in that capacity,
be a non-basket case project to limit the potential for gremlins,
be viable to use for five years reliably following reassembly,
have availability of consumable parts through Volvo, OEM aftermarket, or wrecked cars, and,
parts costs should be average.
The 945 is an ideal platform in those cases. The 940 series is a very basic vehicle without the burden of modern OBD-II stop-you-dead electronics or complex modular wiring, has very simple fuel/ignition systems, sold well on the market, and is well engineered. I’ve had a fair amount of experience with the P70 platform, honestly appreciate the simplicity of the design, and am very familiar with the vehicle systems.
Inside trading and minor thieving
Years ago I had pulled a complete thick pile carpet set from a pristine ’86 765T in dark blue; cleaned it, and stashed it in my hoard for later use or my then 745T - which I ended up selling. This would therefore become the replacement carpeting for the 945. I just needed a few additional blue carpet-ety things to make it entirely complete - like the tailgate trim and wheel arches, and account for any nuances in production or design.
I prefer blue as it hides stains and dirt well, but it may seem Teutonic with the black for certain pundits. Tough tuna. My second choice is grey, but it is nearly impossible to find a wagon with grey carpeting that isn’t absolutely wasted. Wagons are used as wagons after all.
I also ‘borrowed’ the grille to experiment with cleaning it up as a litmus test for the rest of the trim, and to install 7/9 Lambda Sond grille badge that has been lurking in my hoard with nothing to do for far too long.
The shape of things to come - or at least the state of the trim. Lambda Sond with no Cat? Pfaf!
One of the primary priorities is to install a sunroof asap, so I can wash the car, blast out the gutters and drains, and to ensure that the wildlife doesn’t set-up shop inside while the 945 resides in my garage.
I’ll be looking for a donor 960/90 glass roof (or entire V90 with blown engine and nice interior) as the project rolls along. I’ll install a headliner in the car when I’ve got one, which means it’ll be a v.2 thing.
The headliner is one of the few exceptions to using repurposed parts; I’ll break the bank and buy a new one from the stealership in 960 blue-grey which should complete the interior.
03-22-15:
The longer look, part deux
I was able to set my hands on the 945 for the first time to see if it was open to me touching it. It didn’t object or file charges after the fact, so we got off to a good start.
First, I pulled the instrument cluster to clean it, deoxidize the terminal lands, install an outside temperature gauge, and to swap out the tachometer with one from a N-A car. I refuse to have the worlds-most-useless boost gauge staring at me and doing nothing when I install a calibrated and useful gauge in place of the massive analogue clock.
Second, with the intent of starting the leather rehabilitation process, I removed the rear seat squabs, then promptly forgot how to remove the seat-backs as the 900 wagon inner seat mounts are different to 700’s, and that was all I could recollect.
As usual regarding forgotten things, I remembered the 900’s removal sequence by the time I had made it home.
I did take a few pictures of what I was faced with for the interior work, just to ground any pie-in-the-sky thinking...
Lastly, I had to get the 945 back onto its feet. The overload coils that were on it had been sold, and the 945 was shabbily perched on blocks/stands with special-space-saver-spares installed to fill the wheel voids. A $20 set of ’91 turbo wagon springs from the PnP sorted that right out, got it back on its feet again and ready to roll with the original meat-slicers lashed in place.
Well, perhaps not roll under its own steam quite yet.
Before
After
Rust: The unwanted frontier
Unfortunately, despite having a body of a goddess she has a face like a bag of smashed…
No…the 945 has a decent body, but sadly has cancer in the battery tray and lower wheel arch/inner fender.
At some point in its past life, the battery boiled over and released its frothy goodness all over the interior of the battery tray and wheel arch/inner fender. It appears that the residue was never neutralized as the tray is paper thin, the battery hold down clamp no longer exists, and the wheel arch/inner fender has Flintstone-esque viewing ports to the ground.
While not something that will making me fold my tent and scrap this thing, it is certainly not something that I had wanted to assume as part of the initial efforts to get it rolling.
It actually sucks.
The only way of repairing the area is to cut it out and weld in a new section. I need to buy a donor car.
03-23-15
Hack Mechanic need not apply within
I disassembled the cluster, and noted that the cluster had previously been apart and damaged during reassembly.
I’m not entirely sure why it was taken apart, but I am reasonably certain based on the date/mileage on the oil change windshield decal that the speedo is the original. The cluster terminals don’t appear oxidized or burnt, and the fuel and temp gauges appear undisturbed.
Perhaps the P.O. was the curious and ignorant-to-repair-manuals type.
Given that the damage to the bezel was caused by incorrectly re-installing the 4 speedo mount screws, which are 2mm longer than the bezel screws, the speedo was likely disturbed, and may be somewhat likely that it was replaced with a similarly-used one.
Who the hell knows for certain.
The damage to the bezel was the first time I noticed Repair Related Collateral Damage by a Hack Mechanic - and there were MANY other examples of this shining superstars work through the vehicle.
I’ll affectionately name them HM, and refer to all of the humpty work as RRCD henceforth.
See the 4 white dots on the face of the bezel? Those are holes that go right thru! What kind of hack would do this and not feel utter shame?
Plastic scratch remover, Windex, Q-tips, Kimwipes, Deox-it, new bulbs and compressed air were the ingredients used to restore and clean the cluster. I will replace the bezel when I can find a good one.
03-27-15:
Other useful bits
The 945’s original AW-71L with 360K KM was being used by Craig for his 745, so I needed to find one along with a later-style intercooler as the original had grown legs, wandered off, rented itself an apartment, and gotten a VW intercooler pregnant at some point.
A local T’Bricker was selling off most of his 8V project parts collection, including a good used turbo-spec AW-71L and decent later-gen I/C from an apparent ’95 280K KM donor, so I jumped at the opportunity.
What? A Slushbox?
I wanted to stay with the automagic for a few reasons; first, AW’s were installed in 98% of the North American redblock-powered 7/9 series vehicles, (save for the tragic ZF’s which are all dead now anyway), so they are plentiful, can handle some abuse, are relatively simple to work on, and inherently very reliable.
Second, sourcing a decent M46, another 7/9 pedal box, and slave and master cylinders would be like finding hens teeth; then add on new hard/flex lines, new clutch, and a 60-2 LH-spec flywheel from TTV (or JohnV) for a healthy total.
The AW is a good solution - boring and mundane perhaps, but simple, cheap and readily available.
I solvent washed the AW’s exterior a few times to remove the thick gooey crust. It was some of the worst goo that I’d seen in a while, being nearly ¼ thick and set hard on the bellhousing.
Once the exterior was de-gooed, I drained the fluid, removed the dipstick tube, torque converter, pan, pickup screen, bypass tubes, and tailshaft housing and cleaned them in fresh solvent.
I’ll install a new pickup screen, tailshaft housing gasket, seal & locknut, front main seal, selector shaft seals, and pan gasket. I will replace the corroded dipstick tube as the locknut galled when I removed it.
I’ll save the accumulator valve mod and a finding a decent higher stall converter for later on when I have an AW rebuild kit in hand and feel the need and motivation to do so.
Keeping Cool
The I/C wasn’t full of the typical old blow-by oil and crap but I did flush it out with dilute Simple Green and hot water. The rubber hoses were their usual black messy badness, but cleaned up easily in varsol without becoming too gooey. I’ll replace the more suspect hoses eventually as swollen and soft hoses will fail in time at the most inopportune moment, and I’ve had it happen.
I reverse-hosed out the I/C fins and got about 2lbs of sand out of it, then washed up the outside with Simple Green and soft bristle brush - hey presto! It almost looks new. The stock I/C will be sufficient enough for my purposes at the present moment.
Cocked tails
The original taillights had seen much better days. So much so, that they weren’t even on the car anymore. No matter, I never really liked the orange turn-signal elements in the wagons or early sedan 6-panel tails, but there were not really any viable options until the ’95 960’s came out.
T’Bricks delivers where there is need, but Caveat Emptor applies - sellers should well know that errant or missing truth is worth nothing more than a fetid pile of donkey doo.
I bought a set of tails that were apparently both from a ’98 - which they weren’t; one was from a ’98, and the other was from a ’95. No biggie, but the date stamps don’t lie. And people will look.
One tail was apparently ’sun faded’ - which it wasn’t; it was three years older than its mate and was a darker shade of red, and at some point the fog light lens had been washed off with Acetone, MEK or Lacquer Thinner, clouding the plastic. A few rounds with plastic polish/scratch remover and an orbital buffer made short work of that.
We won’t mention the 2 stripped mounting studs on one of the tails to save the pain of doing so.
Regardless, the tails are now installed and functional - but will be replaced. Again.
03-29-15
More idle thinkin’ and parts cherry pickin’
The 945’s 22-year-old a/c system was discharged, non-functional and likely just NFG, and I didn’t wanna fuddle around too much with corroded-together fittings to make it work. Off to the PnP with me, where I was able to pull a compressor, condenser and a/c lines from a ’94 944 with 163K km. This is so that I have about 75% of the system in hand when I go about discovering what original bits are or aren’t working.
Being that the 945 is black outside and inside there is no rest bit in the sun, and she’ll get Africa hot. I am old and becoming increasingly intolerant of things, and in that spirit I must have functional a/c for the 5 days a year that it gets hot here to keep myself road-rage-free.
Its also invaluable in defrosting/demisting the windows the other 10 months of the year we get rain.
I also pulled the struts, hubs, power steering rack, tailshaft housing, O/D solenoid, latch assemblies, striker latches, lock actuators, shifter, heater controls, door soundproofing, door seals and a few other bits from the same car as it was fairly pristine. Three local-to-me PnP’s were sadly in the death-throws of closing, and I capitalized heavily on the 50%-off clearance.
Re-Pow-Ah!
The errant engine and tranny did leave me with a pretty important question;
“What to repower the wagon with?”
I had built a nice ‘95 L-block for my ’90 780 when the original K-block nearly grenaded from a nasty event involving a flaky actuator, a 21-psi boost spike and not enough fuel.
(pic)
Yikes! It still ran, albeit like a Soviet-era farm tractor.
So, why not pull the rebuilt L-block from the 780 and drop it in the wagon? It only has 16,000km on it - and has some v.2 go-fast parts already installed, saving on duplicity.
Besides, I’m half way through building a 16VT for the 780. What would I do with 2 engines for the same car that I barely drive?
Hmmm….
I further ruminated over and devised the repower plan from that point - but in setting the plan forth, I had to remind myself of the reasonable initial objectives; reliability, functionality, practicality, and obvious financial constraints. Then performance mods.
Totally reverse to typical T’Bricks logic.
No boiling my oil
For engine oil cooling, I’ve chosen to stay with the air to oil cooler set-up rather than the later H20 to oil cooler style for a few reasons; first was reliability. Second is the ability to increase the size of the cooler to match any power enhancements later on in v.2.
I was told by a master Volvo tech that 95% of the L-block failures that he had seen were from glycol contamination/blockages of the oil system. Apparently the matrix in the cooler erodes over time/neglect and pinhole/fail, causing coolant/oil to migrate or intermingle between the two systems depending on the oil or coolant system pressure.
While I’m certain that there are plenty of high-mileage examples of the H20-oil coolers still out there in the world that function as intended, the master-tech’s statement above by itself validates (in my head at least) another reason to stick with the tried and true air-to-oil system; elimination of a potential weak point.
Initially, I’ll be utilising a stock oil cooler that was installed on ‘92-‘93ish 960’s here, but also on D24T/D24TIC’s elsewhere and likely others. I’ll have oil cooler lines fabricated in braided stainless at a local hydraulic shop to fit the installation from the stock sandwich plate location to the oil cooler. The installation should look stock, save for the lines.
For v.2 considerations, I found that a 6- or 10-row Setrab SLM oil cooler can fit in relatively the same location with a bit of tilt and wiggle to tend to future power enhancements that may over challenge the stock cooler. I’ll remote-mount the oil filter and sandwich plate to the passenger frame rail and remove the stock block adapter set-up at the same time.
04-02-15
Jerkin on someone else’s’ redblocks
As part of the wagon deal of the century, I made certain promises to Craig about providing work and assistance where needed for the engine swap into his 745.
This was the week for the brothers to cash that cheque that I had written.
Fortunately, a lot of the initial work had been done by Brent, such as removing peripherals, lines and wiring harness for engine removal, so my tasks were easily focused on the bigger-scope stuff on the first day, such as getting both engines removed.
I had set some reasonable goals in my head for the swap and had taken the week off work to facilitate spending two or three full days in the Bat Cave.
I targeted the reinstallation and peripheral reassembly for the 745 for the second day and beyond as needed things that weren’t thought of initially became needed and weren’t on hand. Like mounts. And studs, gaskets, o-rings, seals and nuts, and….
2:26PM, just pulled the ’89.
2:52PM, pulling the ’93.
Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy work in the least. Next to a bilge, it was perhaps the dirtiest, darkest, and dankest environment that I’ve spent two full days on my back, front, sides and feet in.
See them coveralls? They were clean when I started - I’d hedge a big bet that the asphalt underground parking lot had never been swept, pressure-washed or cleaned in its 40-year history, save for what I cleaned using my coveralls with the help of spilled ATF and coolant.
Without the trouble lights on, it was impossible to see anything in the engine compartment other than meaningless shapes. I was happy to be back out in the sun when we had stopped for the day.
But, despite all that, it was a pleasure to work with a couple of brothers that had plenty to discuss, laugh about and who were truly good company.
Craig insisted on feeding me lunch rather than let me do my typical ‘work until I’m ready to pass out and/or pee my pants’; to which I was immensely grateful.
We won’t talk about how much potato salad I proved that I can eat in one sitting or how slowly I was moving afterwards.
The swap was a complete success - and my last hoarded set of 7/9 solid mounts that I’ll admit to owning in a public forum ended up on Craig’s 745.
04-26-15
The pickup artists
Finally, the day of getting the wagon out into the outside world and sun was here - the planets had aligned; the colour blue was red, and red was blue; dogs and cats lived together in harmony; the sun rose in the west and set in the east - whatever. I was actually a bit excited.
I drafted in my bro-in-law because he has a 20-odd foot enclosed car trailer and a Banks-tuned Duramax Silverado work truck that has 25-odd-pounds of furious boost, 473RWHP, and enough torque to tow the entire state of Iowa along with all of its potatoes.
It didn’t even flinch with the wagon safely tucked in the trailer, and only made marginally deeper hippo-farts from its 4” exhaust - which deafens unassuming pedestrians as you rumble by, enshrouding them in thick, black carcinogenic diesel fumes. Awesome.
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t like GM products even while in a life-threatening drunken stupor, but the sheer low-end torque and towing ability of the truck garnered my total respect. The video-game sound turn signals, 3rd-grader cabin design, PlaySkool plastic playpen dash, lawn-furniture seating and thumb-sized panel gaps garnered absolutely no respect.
We simply rolled the car onto a slight downgrade at the Bat Cave parking lot exit, and Brent drove/rolled the wagon into the trailer. Lashed down and locked up, the wagon was on its way.
Craig bidding a tearful farewell as I intently strap the wagon down
A messy inside job
I’ve never had that pit-of-the-stomach feeling of being near to a point of defeat over a dirty car.
Until I met this wagon.
At some point in its shady past there was a nasty incident that involved this wagon, its drivers side rear seat and carpeting, and some gawd-awful and aggressive thing - like used wok oil.
Literally as the 945 had stopped rolling out of the trailer, I was busy ripping out the carpeting and rest of the interior, not taking pictures.
I knew from prior looks that the carpeting was toast - but had no idea of the depths of the damage. While it looked like molasses or coke, it clearly was anything but when I dug in beyond the first layer.
The carpeting didn’t come out intact, but rather came out of the car in soft chunks that tore off like pulled pork. I just wheeled my 80-litre garbage can beside the wagon and started having at it with a thick pair of nitrile gloves on.
I grabbed an N95 dust mask when I saw the black mold that encapsulated the rear soundproofing - and felt a tad green when the aroma of ancient, used, and rancid oil wafted into my face when I pulled the moldy soundproofing out.
I then donned my OV-AG N95 half-mask cartridge-equipped respirator to eliminate the potential for spontaneous Technicolor yawning from inhaling the heady and insipid aroma.
The asphalt-based acoustic dampening patches on the drivers’ front and rear floor pans had adsorbed the oil, had become viscous like roofing tar and smelled absolutely rancid.
I removed as much of the asphalt as I could with a plastic scraper, and then proceeded to use D-Limonene and a stiff scrub brush to loosen the tougher Klingons. I popped out a rear floor pan plug and hosed out the floor to rinse out the oily brown sludgy residue, which permanently stained my garages’ concrete floor.
Needless to say I wasn’t in the mood to take any pictures until the job was done.
Almost residue-free. Notice the chunks missing out of the asphalt pad on the rear floor pan?
After doffing my gear, de-greasing my arms and changing into new clothes, I was ready to take pictures of the results.
I finished by washing the floor a few times with Dawn dish-soap and boiling hot water, which worked well to remove the residual permeated-in smell and trapped residue, making it ready for a quick spray of primer, a new floor plug, a few squares of Dynamat and some repurposed OE soundproofing.
All totaled, it took me more than 8 hours to remove all of the gawd-awful thing on the floor and recount all the damage that it had done. Shockingly, the floor is entirely rust-free despite being exposed to the gawd-awful thing for gawd-only-knows-for-how-long.
The inside of the car doesn’t smell like a grease trap behind a Chinese fast-food joint now, and I did find $2.38 in loose change - and 17 ancient cigarette butts. Total score.
The remaining good elements of the interior were removed and brought into my house to be further evaluated, thrown out or kept, washed or replaced up to and including the dash and HVAC system.
04-27-15
Verging on the trim
All of the remaining and intact hard plastic trim, the one remaining good door-panel and anything removed and that could be was washed in Simple Green and warm water to remove any residue from previous ownership and abuse.
The centre console looked like it had been frosted with white-death donut dust with numerous creamy caffeinated elixirs poured on top for good measure. The console storage bin was an archaeological treasure-trove of lip gloss, degrading pennies, sparkles, hair clips, stickers, mystery residue and assorted hair - and suitable for throwing away. Needless to say, it will be worth the $10 spent at Volvo for a new one.
I removed the floor and vent ducting to the HVAC airbox and then undid the trim clips for the dash wiring loom. Five small bolts later and the dirty dash was out and being taken in the house. A little diluted Simple Green, warm water, microfiber towel and 303 made it look pretty spiffy.
I’ll tend to the damage around the instrument cluster opening that the HM caused by prying the instrument bezel with a screwdriver in an attempt to get it out. We’ll also delve into the damage that the HM did trying to get the radio out - with an even bigger screwdriver…later.
To the firewall!
The HVAC airbox was next candidate for removal, requiring a bit of wiggling and some minor use of profanity after removing all of the retaining hardware. The original heater core had failed at some point in the past and the HM had made his attempt at replacing it in situ. While not an impossible task on 7/9’s, I prefer to take the few extra steps and remove the dash to make life that much easier.
The HM had obviously struggled with the heater core replacement; the aftermarket Spectra heater core was ill-fitting and only three of the four retaining clamp screws were in place. In fact, all of the screws the HM couldn’t put back in the housing were simply left on the soundproofing to rust, only because he couldn’t have been bothered to clean up the coolant residue. The HM also monkeyed around with the HVAC wiring harness, but fortunately thought better of it and stopped before doing anything more than unwrapping electrical tape on the harness and getting bitumen caulking all over the vacuum lines.
I completely disassembled the HVAC airbox, cleaned the blown-in road residue and old coolant from the interior, and inspected its elements. There was a fair amount of loose dirt and pine needles in the fan housing, and the foam filter on the evaporator was packed full of dry clay/dust.
While testing the vacuum motors, the vacuum motor for the vent shutter stuck open and refused to move back to its closed position. While it would move back with some light hand force, there was something amiss.
When I looked at the pivot shaft for the floor/vent shutters, I noticed that it was rusty. I removed the tooth washer from the pivot shaft, pulled out the shaft, removed the rust with ScotchBrite, lubed it with Tri-Flow drylube, reinstalled it and tested the shutters’ function.
I’m certain that I will appreciate functional vacuum motors and the ability to direct airflow.
The heater core was not entirely garbage, but the super thin-wall copper and Mexican solder-job wasn’t gonna cut muster with this guy. I’ve opted for a Nissens replacement; while not as Hades-hot as the original Volvo units, its price certainly doesn’t induce shock, fainting or gasping for breath like the OEM heater core price does. I see a new heater core as a confidence and reliability inspiring thing regardless of cost and time investiture.
The evaporator was likely still good, but in removing the corroded lines (covalent bonding anyone?), the line from the receiver/dryer collapsed despite counter-holding the nut, buggering any chances of reusing it. Volvos price for a new evaporator is unearthly, so I’m opting for an aftermarket version.
The original blower fan had been replaced at some point with a I’m-Gonna-Catch-Your-Car-On-Fire-Cause-I’m-a-No-Name-Brand-Made-In-China blower fan. I found it difficult to rotate by hand, so I can imagine that the electrical system, wiring, and fan resistor pack seriously hated it not to mention the sheer amperage that it probably required just to function. I’ll use a Siemens-VDO replacement - or something that at least can be identified -and made in a country by people who make more than 14 cents an hour.
After thoroughly washing the interior of the airbox sections and allowing them to dry, I reassembled them with some new bitumen goop to ensure the sections seal together. I then performed electrical and vacuum function checks using the dash controls to ensure that I wasn’t reinstalling something that was going to sh*t the bed.
Next I washed out the floor/vent/defroster plastic tubes to ensure that the entire system is residue and as odor free as possible.
The wiring harness was the easy part - clean, inspect, circuit test where possible, re-tape and reinstall.
I’ll be revising the HVAC controls location as part of the audio system work that I’ll detail later on. I’m definitely looking forward to that project as it will be clean.
05-02-15
The roof is on…
The 945 still had a giant gaping hole in its roof from where the sunroof had been unceremoniously removed; not necessarily ideal in terms of protection from the elements or for being able to securely park the car.
Fortunately, there was a local member that was parting a black ’90 744. I managed to arrange an evening sunroof extraction and pick-over of the car in trade for some superfluous parts from my hoard.
Ideally I would have liked to chop out the donor car’s battery tray and frame section as well so that I can tend to that repair soon on the 945, but my chop saw battery wouldn’t hold a charge, and I am not spending three hours with a hacksaw trying to do what a chop saw would do in a matter of minutes.
I got the sunroof home, washed off the debris and brought it in the house. I disassembled it for some Sunday morning fun, cleaned the pan tracks and cable houses, re-lubed the control cables, tracks and pivot points, resealed the frame to the pan with Marine silicone, and finished reassembly. The felt seal will be replaced with a new one if I can find one.
I tested the sunroof with a manual crank handle after reassembly for function and travel stops out of the car, then removed the sunroof lid before installing the pan into the car. I blew out the drain channels, installed the pan, then the lid. I tested the installed sunroofs’ function and did some minor adjustments.
I performed a water-test of the roof to make certain that there were no leaks. I opened the roof and poured about a litre of water into the sunroof pan side panels and looked for any signs of intrusion or leaks past the track, or out of the drain channels. I then closed the roof and sprayed water onto the sunroof lid and felt seal to see if it could be overwhelmed. I was happy with the no-leak results.
It is nice to have a complete-looking roof again, despite the fact that there are bigger bits still missing and a ton of associated work to get those big bits in.
05-12-15
E to the Code, but not quite yet
Life will be good for you if you understand this one basic thing; Headlights designed for the North American market suck.
The silly AmArEeKhaaaan! DOT headlight standard blended with the abhorrent Fjord-designed 9004 bulb emits such an atrocious pillow-shaped orb of light 10 feet away from the front bumper that I swear that you’ll overdrive the lights at anything above 60km/h. Even when new, properly adjusted and aimed with brand-new sh*tty 9004 bulbs, DOT headlights can be easily overdriven at highway speeds.
The 740/940/960 DOT lights are certainly no exception. They really suck. Even the fog lights suck badly.
The headlights and fogs that the 945 has on it reeeaaallly suck now because they are 22 years old, pitted like Edward James Olmos’s face, as hazy as a bong lounge and well, they have a DOT approval stamp, indicating that they aren’t worth one pinch of coon sh*t in a bucket when brand new.
I’ve typically put E-Codes on all my Volvos because they are vastly superior to the DOT crap that we are burdened with, and E-Codes were secretly available from Canadian Volvo dealers until Fjord took over.
Enter T’Bricks yet again for some quality non-NA-market parts selection. I purchased a nice set of previously-enjoyed 940 E-Codes from a member. The thread depicted they were in great shape - no serious lens pitting or milky/rusty reflectors, intact mounting tabs and otherwise functional as headlights, so they had to be the lights for the 945.
Inadvertently, the headlights were mixed up in shipment. I ended up with a marginal set that while functional, just weren’t what the 945 deserved. Perhaps they’d work on something a bit more road weary and for an owner who hasn’t got aviation eyes that see every minor defect and flaw.
Regardless, I polished the glass lenses, which turned out nicely, lightly cleaned the reflectors with KimTech delicate task wipers and water, and made the non-functional beam height/length adjusters functional again. They will be a nice set of lights for someone else.
Other pressing things should prevail over headlights anyway. Or so Karma has dictated.
05-18-15
Put the lime in the coconut
After swallowing the no ecodes for you pill, I needed some positive vibrations.
What could be better than working on cleaning the wiring harnesses and starting the interior reassembly process?
Indeed, there was much to-doing over removing gawd-awful things coupled with seemingly endless amounts of cleaning, but regardless, the interior is finally ready to start being reinstalled.
To start off the day, I did a final clean at the floor wiring runs. I tidied up the stock dash harness and made it secure to the column support where it was partially loosely zip-tied from the factory. I removed the stock amplifier and secured the DIN plugs so they wouldn’t rattle around against other stuff.
I pulled the airbag wiring harness from the car, working up from the connector at the crash sensor. I grouped and taped the wiring bundles for the steering wheel and dash/HVAC/radio/glovebox connectors to tidy them up and make reconnection relatively brainless.
I popped in a new body plug on the rear floor, sealed it in place, then primed the driver front & rear floors to ensure that rust doesn’t start - or is at least mitigated for the time being.
To replace the no-longer-there asphalt acoustical patches on the floor, I used a few pieces of BrownBread that I had sitting around for the last decade. It works very well as an acoustic dampener, and is ½ the price of heavily branded and overpriced Dynamat. It sticks like sh*t to a baby blanket too.
Next, I installed the centre tunnel soundproof, the front driver and passenger soundproof and then the rear floor ducts on top. I routed the seat power & heater harnesses along the ducts with the SRS harnesses for the seatbelt pre-tensioners, making this the first use of zip-ties in this car.
Then the first stereo component in the wagon; a set of 5M RCA cables to the rear cargo area were routed and draped in place. I have to run power and speaker cables as well, but I need to toddle off and get me some before I can put it in.
Before I called it a day and went inside to cry and drink myself into a blind stupor over a silly set of headlights, I applied 12V to the Power Window circuit and dropped the windows down so I could remove the retaining clips and then the windows.
I washed out the door inners using car wash soap, lubed the window slider felt with Jig-A-Loo, then the regulators tracks and gear-winder-thingy with Redline CV-2.
I polished the windows with glass polish and an orbital buffer, then tightened all the hardware on the doors as well, reinstalled the polished windows, and tested their function.
The windows ‘leaped up like frogs in a dynamite pond’, to borrow a touch of Dr. Thompson’s genius.