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122 T5 motor swap. Its name is Bluey.

LloydDobler

Active member
Joined
Mar 14, 2006
Location
PDX
Hi Turbobricks. I'm not really a regular here but I hope to change that. I've been active on Swedespeed due to my FWD cars but my first love was and always will be Amazons. I got one as my first car at age 16 (back in 1987, ugh) but it died a painful death and was junked in 1994. I went 122-less for 15 years, but found the perfect candidate in 2009. I have a build thread for this car over on Swedespeed but with this new transition I think it'll be more appreciated over here. If you want to read up on the last 5 years of this car, here's a link:

http://forums.swedespeed.com/showthread.php?123266-I-guess-I-ll-be-posting-in-here-more-often...

For those not interested in browsing a 5 year long thread, a quick history:

July 2009: Purchased. Over the next 3 years I rebuilt the carburetors, stopped a whole bunch of surface rust under the front end, did a rear disc brake swap, and fully rebuilt the front and rear suspension. I got the whole front suspension powdercoated as well. At that point I had done pretty much stage 0, and this is how the car looked, and still looks. I have no further plans to modify the cosmetics, except I might go a tiny bit lower.

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In 2012 and 2013 I barely did anything with this car because my C70 got totalled, so I spent those years replacing and rebuilding that car. Here's that thread:

http://forums.swedespeed.com/showthread.php?179954-Deja-Vu

In early 2014 I installed an overdrive tranny in this car just to test it for sale. Other than that, I've only put 3500 miles on it in the 5 years I've owned it, for a variety of reasons. First, I work slow. It was actually torn apart for most of the first two years. Second, it has no stereo so I prefer my other cars for routine trips. Third, it has a massive oil leak due to its age. And 4th, it's gutless as all hell, with 213k miles on it, weak compression, and Colorado altitude, I doubt it was making even 60HP at the wheels. It's slow. Here's a 23.74 second quarter mile time (in a car that weighs only 2400 lb). Forgive the fact that it's shaky and silly, my daughter was 10 when she recorded this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr41nYuGRrw

In January 2012, right before I crashed my C70, I found the perfect parts car. A 1998 S70 T5 manual with only 109k miles on it. It was run down and it needed a truckload of repair work so the owners sold it off to me for $500. It had great compression and even more important, the right ecu with no bus network or immobilizer. Perfect for someone who doesn't want the learning curve of standalone engine management (me). So I parted it out and made about $1500 doing that, and the motor with wiring and ECU has been sitting in my garage for almost 3 years now. Since I just finished dialing in the C70, that's where this thread starts. Oh, and the last piece of the puzzle was that a guy on Volvospeed who is local to me and I happen to know in real life was able to figure out coil on plug for ME4.4, which was the last piece of this puzzle. I wanted COP from the beginning of this project because even though I'll have to cut up the tranny tunnel, I wanted the firewall to stay original on this car.

In September I got motivated and harassed my friend who knows how to TIG weld into welding my oil pans. I have two, in case I jack one up.

We preheated it a little hotter than this:

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Then he laid a couple beads:

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We tested with water and had a few leaks so he had to go over it a couple more times, but in the end I got a shortened oil pan that is only warped .040" total. I plan to fly cut it flat, but before I do that I have to check the fit in the 122. I'm presuming that I'll have to notch the pan to clear the control arms.

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So a few weeks ago I started tearing down my engine:

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Mmmm the coolant even after 5 years is still nice and clear. Volvo motors are so bulletproof.

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The 5 cylinder engine is almost exactly the same length as the B18. I laid the bearing girdle in to start checking the fitment:

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I can line it up with the bellhousing at the rear:

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And it lines up perfectly at the front:

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So with that inspiring confidence, it leads us to today. I had a half day of work (holiday party) and was able to get into it at around 2:30 and yank the exhaust and drive shaft:

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And before I can get the motor out I run into my first problem, the engine hoist won't fit under my control arms.

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Small problem. Jacked it up enough, engine is over and out.

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GET IN ME YOU TURBO MOTOR

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A closer shot of where this lump has been for the last 3 years. Colorado is extremely dry, I'm sure there's no rust in the bores but I'll check it with a borescope before I fire it up.

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With the motor out I can start test fitting the oil pan. This is with it about an inch and a half off the firewall. My only concern with this is being able to get to the crank position sensor without pulling the motor.

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I'm planning to mount it at the 960 motor angle that the pan comes from, so the pan has to sit way off to the driver's side. That sharpie mark on the back of the pan needs to line up with the hole in the center of the firewall.

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I need to notch the pan to clear the control arm. Good thing I didn't machine it for flatness yet.

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The passenger side isn't so bad, just a little off the point.

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I still have another inch or more I can move it forward, until the pan hits the crossmember. I think I'll need the room, so I'll notch it with this in mind.

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Here you can see how much room I have in the front still, the center grommet is where the radiator mounts.

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Here it is with the bearing girdle laid down on the pan, showing the crank journals on center. Just saying, I'm not crazy and it really does need to be this far to the driver's side.

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Good news here, the steering won't interfere with the oil filter. It might if I put a 960 oil cooler on though, I'll have to do more test fitting when that time comes.

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And this is the cramped space where I do all this work. It doesn't look terrible in this picture but trust me, it is.

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A friend got me this for christmas, and upon completing this post I'm going to have a sip. Anyone know if it's any good?

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Next step is to notch the pan and then onward to building motor mounts. Now, I tend to move slow on projects, so I figure it'll be at least a year before this is running. Probably spring 2016 realistically. I usually update about once a month, maybe once every two months, depending on progress.

As for the tranny, I'd really love to just get an M90 and be done, the car's light enough that I don't need radical power. But I'll probably go with a T5 for the ease and availability. I already have a Getrag 265, but everyone's put me off of the gear ratios on that so I'll probably just resell it.

Anyway, hello and looking forward to your comments and feedback.
 
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The wheels are just Volvo Propus C's from a C70 with 1" spacers. Genuine BBS but cast not forged.
 
I like Buffalo trace, we drink a lot of bourbon, mostly straight or Manhattans. Just had Angles Envy, also very good
 
Oh yeah I sipped on it later that night, very nice and smooth. I always take my drinks neat, for some reason ice brings out the bitterness to me.
 
Finally, I got off my butt and got some motivation. Winter has been long and cold, and I've put all my efforts towards parting this out and maintaining my other cars. But tonight I notched the oil pan. It went pretty well for harbor freight jigsaw blades and a $5 garage sale craftsman jigsaw. I only broke 3 blades and made the saw smell funny towards the end. I still need to clean things up with an angle grinder but overall it's ready to be welded back up.

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This side was sort of a straight cut.

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And here it is laid in there, as far forward as it can go.

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Here's the control arm nut clearance, all I need to be able to do is get a box end wrench on it and pull the bolt out the front so this should be fine.

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I kinda wish I'd only notched this side rather than taking it all off. I lost about a half pint of oil capacity and screwed up the cut as well. I'm sure we can patch it when welding day comes. Maybe I'll put a large box outboard to add some of the oil capacity back in. On the one hand it's wasted space, on the other hand it gives great clearance for a big downpipe.

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Another view of the control arm clearance. I'll probably lift it a bit higher than this.

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Now I have tons of clearance at the firewall, and I've been studying the engine. All I need clearance for back here is the crank position sensor, and I think I have plenty. I should be able to actually change it with the engine in place and everything.

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And still lots of room up front. I don't think I can use the front mounted oil cooler adapter though...

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Here's the oil cooler adapter I was talking about. It'll hit the steering toe link if I try to use it. I'm not worried though, I can mount a cooler on the oil filter mounting location, or plumb one in to the turbo lines, whatever I need.

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So I was motivated enough that I spent the rest of the night stripping crap off the motor. I'm very optimistic about the way this is going to fit.

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And exhaust side, all that's left is to figure out how to remove that water pipe. I'll be using a modified 960 pipe anyway.

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And looking at the back of the motor, there's the torque restraint, the crank position sensor, and one heater hose that needs a 90 degree fitting. I don't even need to seal up where the distributor used to be, it's already sealed. I will get the factory cap that goes in the hole just to keep dirt off the seal though. Ignore the spark plug wires, those are going away.

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Weather's supposed to be nice tomorrow too, it was very pleasant working in my garage tonight, didn't get all sweaty. I have a lot of cleaning up to do. There was still some coolant in the motor and some oil in the turbo so those made a mess. Plus there are parts everywhere that I need to organize and box up or put in the scrap pile.
 
Awesome! I'm planning a 4cyl whiteblock swap for my 122 in the future. Love to see other projects. I may just end up with a 5cyl motor.
 
Happy Mother's day. My mom is 1300 miles away so she gets a phone call. Then I work on car.

So since my last update I finished stripping the motor. I was hoping to have my pan welded up and seal tested but my welding buddy has taken on dozens of jobs and then decided to vacation to Costa Rica in the middle of it all. I don't want to get oil or coolant on anything to be welded, but I want to make some progress. So I wrapped the pan in cling wrap:

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Bolted it to the motor, silly but hey the last thing I need is leaky welds due to contamination and welder whining.

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So without much further ado I dropped the thing in. It fit about like I expected. I'm resting it on a piece of 3/4" wood on the crossmember. This sets the angle correct as well as gives me clearance that I'm looking for. I mean 3/4 over the crossmember should be enough right? It's almost perfectly balanced there. Without that engine hanger it rests on the firewall, but only two fingers of force to tilt it forward. I did it this way so I can jack the car up and check things from underneath. I put a piece of string down from the center of the cowl to the center of the grille to make sure I had the axis right.

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Looking down at the crank bolt I'm nicely centered there too. Maybe 1/8" off at the most.

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Clearance for control arm:

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Plenty of clearance on the exhaust side, lots of room for a custom manifold, all well above the control arm bushings.

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A different angle of the clearance.

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And at first I thought it might be too high, but it's easy to forget how high the hood goes in the front. This is one of the main differences between a 122 and an 1800. An 1800 hood will hit the motor if you don't dump it down low enough.

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I'm gonna have to move this brake line here for the exhaust clearance.

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So on to the intake manifold. I'm figuring on using the ME7 manifold due to the bottom inlet.

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Plenty of clearance!

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Especially if you lightly bend the brake line over. I think I'll have enough clearance here for any brake master cylinder I want, even if I go dual circuit from the master down. It also clears the steering by an inch or more. I'm not sure why other swaps have trouble with this clearance, maybe they don't lean it over as far, or drop it down as low as I am.

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Plenty of arm clearance for access to the alignment bolts. This is very important to me, as even the stock carbs make it a pain in the butt to adjust the alignment.

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The view from the front. I have to fit a throttle body, starter, and PCV or catch can in here. I think I'm fine.

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Oh crap. This is something I thought I'd have plenty of clearance for, but in this case it's wedged in there in the wrong orientation. I definitely have to source a smaller alternator. This will be a custom mount/adaptation that I did not plan on.

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So I'll probably put the turbo somewhere around here:

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It's way up high, I'll have to put a heat shield over it

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Exhaust access isn't bad, again blocked by the brake line. Brake lines are easy enough to run.

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I could also mount it a bit lower if needed, but again I'm focusing on using the space offered by the high bump in the hood, and allowing for lots of room below to run intake hoses and get access to the alignment bolts. If all I have to do is pull the intercooler hose to get in there, that's about perfect.

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Side view of the lower mounting of the turbo. I will of course be re-clocking the CRHA and cold side. The straight flange hotside is about perfect for my setup, and at this point I'm running ME4.4 for engine management so I've heard this hotside works better for that, it restricts spool a bit.

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So this is great news, easy access to the cam position sensor.

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And decent access to the crank position sensor, it's the blurry mount past that plug and thin hose guide.

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A bad camera angle but I think I have the motor farther forward than I originally planned, but that's fine. I might have to trim the end of the control arm bolt but in the end I'm happy with the fit of everything.

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And a nice closing shot of the basics. Engine management will either be in the battery box or under the dash, I might invert the battery box to mount the electronics up high there behind the glove box (well, it's a tray in this car) .

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So far so good, fun day with only one real surprise from the alternator. Also I can see I'll have to hog out the tunnel quite a bit from the beginning, the bell housing I have isn't going to fit in there right now at all. But I'll play with that next time.

Next steps are: Start designing motor mounts (I'm not using the stock basic rubber), start designing exhaust manifold, get a 960 thermostat housing, and source possible alternator candidates. That'll be enough for now. It won't be long before I pull that heater box and start chopping up the tranny tunnel.
 
Here's a very simple and foolproof way to mount any motor and be assured it sitts still---but doesn't rattle a car apart:
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Cleaned up a little:
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Detail:
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Stable and gets the engine off the crossmember and makes THAT easier to ditch/mod/remove..
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One of the best ideas I have ever seen..simple, easy and the motor sits still.
 
What does that use for rubber isolation? I think I'd still have to build that off the crossmember only because the steering is in the way everywhere else. And I'm not planning any radical changes to crossmember or steering, or suspension.
 
Yeah that's basically how Mike built the mounts in my car. There's really nowhere for it to go except the crossmember in these cars unless you get really creative.
 
Nice work! Finally someone swapping to a 5 cyl without removing the heater box and cutting the firewall in all directions. Factory look is the **** and I suspect that we have the same taste. :) For the alternator, could it be possible to use the power steering pump bracket to install it higher?
 
I think I can't go high enough without hitting the intake. Maybe I'll take a second look and see if there's a place for it though, I was originally going to have my intake come straight out over the steering box but I've decided now it's going angled toward the fender. That might open up a hole.

The good news is that I've done some shopping and found dozens of options for alternators that should fit and have plenty of amperage. The Volvo alternator is actually really huge, 6" diameter. It seems most are smaller than that. Anything 5" or smaller should work and fit down next to the steering box. I plan to go junkyarding on Friday so maybe I'll find something there as well.
 
In addition to alternators, I've started shopping for radiators, intercoolers, fans, and planning how that's going to go together. I've done measuring and what will fit right now is about 22 x 15. Ideal would be 22 x 17, and what I've found so far is 22 x 19. Eastwood has aluminum radiators that look like exactly what I'd want. I'll also have to do some shopping for very low profile fans, although I think I have some room to stick the fan motor out in to the belt plane, the alternator belt will be very low. It just means I'll have to pull the fan out if I want to do ANY work on the front of the engine.

Then I noticed that a stock Volvo intercooler is 22 wide by about 22 high. But it's 19" to the top of the fins. So I laid that in there as a mock radiator:

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I'd need to drop it about 4 inches, and it will have to go in front of or behind my sway bar, unless I also drop the sway bar mounting, which I could do. So at this point I know unless I get a really tiny radiator, I'm going to be cutting in to the front of the car where the frame rails are joined together. If we go back to really early pictures:

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That beam across the front limits how low I can go with a radiator. So I think I'll cut it out, then fab a new beam (probably just some square tubing) that attaches below the frame rails and forward of the sway bar mounting. Although I could also just drop the bar and shorten the end links and nobody would be the wiser. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. But overall that space behind the bumper is totally un-used air right now, and it would be wise of me to fill it with radiator and intercooler. Then all I have to do is cut and re-shape the lower grille sheetmetal with the V shaped creases in it to match.

Which brings me to 5/22 which was my birthday. I took the day off work to go pillage the yard at my buddy's Volvo shop. One of their guys is really into vintage volvos and has tons of parts in deep storage all over the building. I got super lucky and found this:

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A late '67-up wiper mechanism. It uses cables and cams instead of the pre-67 swaged joints and gears, and is essentially zero backlash. My wiper mechanism is absolutely worn out and has ridiculous slop in it. Like you can freely move the wiper arms 30 degrees or more. So this was a great find and he sold it to me at a great price. The crazy part was that I just learned these exist a few days prior, by reading HUB's build thread here. Thanks HUB!

Then I raided a 960. I got the engine wiring harness so I could dig out the coil pack wiring:

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And grabbed the coilpacks:

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Then I talked to Beust tuning who's going to do the coil on plug conversion, and I forgot to get the coil drivers, which I didn't know were separate on this generation. So these parts are basically useless, I'll need to use newer coilpacks which have the drivers built in. They're better anyway. And Beust provides the wiring harness too.

Then I got these coolant tubes, I've already started sawing them up to make them fit in my car. They're good for measuring and patterns anyway.

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I got these motor mounts, but they're awfully big so I don't think I'll use them. I'll just do a simple superthane round bushing on each side, it'll be easier. That means I'll also be welding mount ears to my crossmember. So much for not hacking it up.

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Picked up a used clutch/pp and flywheel, the flywheel is the right one for the car so I'll use it, and the clutch/pp is just for measuring. I'll buy those new.

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Also bought the 960 radiator fan, it's over 4 inches thick though so I think I'll go aftermarket. Another useless part.

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Grabbed the coolant reservoir, so I can figure out how to mount it and route hoses. I'll buy a new one when the time comes so it looks all spiffy.

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Grabbed the throttle cable, the rad hoses, and the oil filter mount with oil cooler. The hoses and cable are just for test fitting, but I test fit this oil filter and it clears my steering mechanism so I now have an oil cooler.

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I spent tonight cleaning my garage, I put a throwaway file cabinet in there so now I can store paint and chemicals in it, instead of on my bench. This table is now technically clean, these parts sitting on it are current project parts that I'm currently working on. Minus the boxes and rags of course.

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Literally everything you see on this bench are screws and bolts and other fasteners/hardware. I bought wall mount drawer storage so I can organize them. I think my drawers are too small.

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Hung up my old license plates (from my first 122) and the grille from my wrecked C70. it was funny that it just popped off the car, it's scratched and the mounts are broken but it makes for some nice decoration.

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So that's it for tonight, I'm surprisingly tired even though all I did was clean and organize. I threw a full can of garbage away so that's good.
 
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