Pics of my meager progress/crack in unibody

[Captain Bondo]

I put early style metal side trim on the car, fiddled with the bumper a little, nothing special. Took some pics of that and the cracks in the sheetmetal which didn't really turn out but give you and idea.
Again nothing stellar.
www.pbase.com/capnbondo/cracks

oh also since my car is just green and black again instead of multicoloered I'm going back to captain bondo. :)

[The Aspirator]

Cap'n is how I'll always think of ya. Didn't you say you work at Allvo in burnaby? I'm livin in Marpole now, which is like 10 minutes away. Maybe I'll stop by one of these days and actually meet you :roll: . hahaha. Can't wait to see your car either, it's gettin pretty hot!

John

[stealthfti]

Cappy,

besides looking at the sheetmetal that is basically below those cracks [covered up by the plastic fender liners], you might want to also closely inspect the subframes about 4in behind the engine crossmember. They do crack right there, from the bottom up. It is a more common problem on the pre-79 240s, but looking at the two pics of the cracking you have under the hood hinges makes me wonder about the subframes themselves.

re those cracks under the hinges: that does not look good. But it can be remedied. And if you end up doing one section or side of the car per weekend at the shop....what the heck: you got it fixed...even if it does take a few weeks to get it all.

another point to consider: when you get ready to do some welding, it might help to support the body under the subframes right next to the trannie, using a piece of 2X4 or something on each side to spread the load out a bit, and to help things get back into position with the engine weight helping to push things back down. I think it would be better to sit the front end up on jack stands under the subframes rather than using a hoist under the jack supports. With the jack stands under the subframes, the body will tend to try to hang back down into position better. The times that I have had to weld cracked subframes went a lot easier once I figured out how to support the body to help the cracks close up.

TF

...and the return of Captain Bondo is welcome news.

[nothing but turbo]

that's one cool forrest green wagon!

[stylngle2003]

Cappy, what headlights are those off of? They look sweet!

[BLOWN240]

.

re those cracks under the hinges: that does not look good. But it can be remedied.
At the last volvo show donw here, we had 6 240's all linged up together. Mine, Dave Barton's, Don's, and a couple others. All of them except one have cracks under the hood hinges. We were looking at them closely and we thought that there was just some body filler of some sort that had cracked.

[The Aspirator]

Cappy, what headlights are those off of? They look sweet!960 or something like that, he mentioned it in another post. :lol:

Kenny, have you ever seen this Volvo driving around Vancouver?
http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=25445

John

[DurableSwedish]

aren't they 940 eurolights?

[Boosted2003]

Interseting powerstroke install. Did you perhaps box in the frame rail after you cut it?

[stealthfti]

At the last volvo show donw here, we had 6 240's all linged up together. Mine, Dave Barton's, Don's, and a couple others. All of them except one have cracks under the hood hinges. We were looking at them closely and we thought that there was just some body filler of some sort that had cracked.
yes, there usually is some seam sealer applied there. It is when it cracks and falls out that is the indicator of flexing in that area. That whole section of the front end [and the entire body] is made up of stamped sheetmetal pieces that are overlaid and spotwelded. There is a certain amount of flex that is built in to the body [as part of the crumple zone design], and over time the flexing that does occur takes a toll on the spotwelds or the sheetmetal pieces. Cracks can and do occur. Some are more visible: those under the hinges for example. Others are not so easily seen or even detected [hidden by fenders and liners; covered by undercoating]. Firming up the front suspension via stiffer springs and removing the rubber strut journals [that do absorb some impact, and give a bit] only accelerates the flexing and resultant stress cracks.

A way to "hear" how much flexing is going on would be to use a floor jack under the engine crossmember and slowly lift the front end up off the floor. You will hear some suspension noises as you do that; but you can also hear the whole front end flexing a bit. A way to further emphasize that front end flexing would be to use a 4X4 across the subframes back by the rear control arm bushing brackets, and slowly lift there. You can really hear the flexing going on if you lift back there.

Once the front sheetmetal is seamwelded at the main stress points, and any cracks are repaired, you can hear the improvement: little or no flexing when lifting [depending on how much repair and seamwelding performed]; you just hear the suspension extending.

[stylngle2003]

how much should one expect to pay for seam welding?
can anyone that can weld steel do it, or should they be proficient in specifically seam welding and or cage building/design?
can you weld the whole car, or are most improvements found up front?
thanks ;-)

[stealthfti]

how much should one expect to pay for seam welding?
can anyone that can weld steel do it, or should they be proficient in specifically seam welding and or cage building/design?
can you weld the whole car, or are most improvements found up front?
thanks ;-)

how much $$? depends on how far you want to go..

to seam weld, you need to be decent with a MIG welder. I use 0.023in wire.

yes, you can do the whole car...talk to JL about that. I did my front sides, the rear sides, and up the floors/inner rockers....the basic suspension support areas and jack support areas. The front end is where the most stress is; but solidifying the rear corners of the floor where the rear suspension is located and tied in helps as well. To answer your question specifically: doing the front end would be more the priority; and the results up front would be the most noticeable.

it is a time consuming job. the actual welding is maybe 20% of the time involved. The prep work before, and the cleanup and metal treatment with epoxy primer and paint afterwards is where most of the time goes.

is it worth it? For me it was. I saved my wagon, and made it stronger. Would I do it again? yes. And I will on a couple of 2 drs that I and son Ted have.

If you want to do it for yourself, then you need to learn how to mig weld. Then, study how the body is put together, and determine where you need to do the welding. Finding the cracks [if any] will help in the analysis part. It isn't rocket science. It just takes the patience of Job, and a serious amount of love for the car.

That topic about the twin turbo 16V recently linked to some pics of a seam welded body. THAT is some serious time spent. And I am sure that there is info online about the subject.

HTH

TF

[stylngle2003]

thanks so much thomas! i was curious because one of these days (like we havent heard enough of these types of stories here ;-)) im going to start an engine buildup/t5 swap, and when i remove the stock engine/trans, i was going to paint the bay black, so i figured, it would make sense to seam weld and then paint it, since you need to protect the welds. again, thanks for the clarifications, now i need to learn to weld....where's andy?

oh annnnnndy...

[Captain Bondo]

Ok, will try to answer everything:

Aspirator- ya, work at Allvo in burnaby. Stop by some time check out the project 245 I'm working on. Fully walnit blasted, stripped to nothing, etc. ALL wiring femoved. Seriously stripped BARE. I'm reassembling it now. Haven't seen that bertone, no.

NBT/Sylingle-
Thanks! They are indeed rather hacked up 940 euro lights with fabricated sheetmetal brackets. :)

Boosted-That PS install is from well over a year ago now. First one The Powrstroke IC's maiden voyage into a volvo iirc :) The car was hit very hard in a front ender before I got a chance to box the bumper shocks. New ic is much more badass. hehehe

Stealthy/Blown240-

That cracking indeed seems to be common. I made a point of examining the few 240's at the shop when I was at work today and most of them are cracked there. Most of them have probably been creamed at some point too but anyways...
I suspect I'll do some research and then try to weld a bit here and a bit there. I'd really like to weld connectors from the strut towers to the firewall. The stock gt braces seem to (sortof) keep the front end from moving side to side, but designed properly welded supprorts should stop the "hood from getting bigger" as viewed from the driver's seat- which seems to be the major issue- that of the frame twisting about the longitudinal axis of the car.


my car is single stage paint so it shouldn't be too major to epoxy and repaint the bits that are visible and epoxyprime or por15 the rest. It ain't no beauty queen anyways. As long as it elicits the obligatory "wtf?" from passerby boyracers it is adequate.

[The Aspirator]

Aspirator- ya, work at Allvo in burnaby. Stop by some time check out the project 245 I'm working on. Fully walnit blasted, stripped to nothing, etc. ALL wiring femoved. Seriously stripped BARE. I'm reassembling it now. Haven't seen that bertone, no.That wagon sounds AWESOME. Is it yours or for a customer???? I've gotta see it, maybe I'll stop by on friday, or next week some time.

Later,

John

[Captain Bondo]

lol I said "walnit blasted". It's for a customer. :)

[The Aspirator]

How much does it cost to get a whole car walnut blasted and can you get it done locally?

Do you guys do mostly maintenace work at your shop or do you get customers wanting all kinds of cool performance upgrades too? I stopped by once about a year ago, the guy I talked to wanted something like $250 for a turbo LH2.2 ECU and didn't know what a CBV was..... Needless to say I haven't been back since, but I'll come by to chat with you!

John

[Captain Bondo]

redi-strip in surrey does it, not sure how much. They are pretty clueless performance-wise (ie read old school like, "why get a boost controller? The turbo+ kit is fine!"). Anyways most of the performance work gets filtered through me now.