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Olga the Second Revised

the white hood doesn't match with the sleeper look of the car, that's why I asked :) Nice to see that you are happy with the 302mm brakes, no clearance problems with the gemini wheels? what brakepads are you using?
 
Yeah, the white hood doesn't look stock, but it has street cred :cool: Jokes aside, I also find it out of place and am looking forward to the day it goes.

The calipers have about 10mm of clearance to the gemini rim. Galaxies are unfortunately a no go without spacers. Brakepads are just normal brembo semi-metallics ordered in a package with the discs. They do spit out a lot of dust though, so I'll be considering some other compounds when they wear out.
 
with the 302mm brakes there should be alot more brake pads to choose between, as opposed to the original volvo front brakes :)
 
with the 302mm brakes there should be alot more brake pads to choose between, as opposed to the original volvo front brakes :)

I've got AKEBONO ceramics on my 302s on the DD; this choice based upon web lore and several glowing recommendations. I do like the feel of the 302's and the combo of the 95 brakes servo pedal mechanism, compared to the early design. Jerry, do you still have the original brake pedal & servo on your sedan? The latter design servo is black in color.
 
I love how understated it looks :) How has it been holding up as a daily?

+1 looking great.

Happy to hear you can get away with the mods at the T?V. Usually not that easy, I hear.

The Cosworth housing is a nice piece, doesn't crack like the original one and boost control is very stable for an internal gate.
302mm brake setup is a good OEM looking setup, running it on an 850, holds up well.

Simons mufflers and clamps from that webshop, bends from https://www.hoerr-edelstahl.de/, had good experience with these suppliers.
 
@DET17
Still got the stock master brake cylinder, I like the draw of the brakes as they are. With no ABS I don't want the brakes to be as "sharp" as they would be with the newer brake master. Will check out those pads you got when the time comes.

@JW240
Thanks for the links! Definitely have my eye on simons components and through hoerr-edelstahl looks like I might save a few bucks compared to the other shops where I'm comparing prices.

What I'm looking at is fitting a simons "turbo" behind a 300 cell metal cat and finishing with either a simons "split" to two smaller and undaunting looking endpipes or trying to hide a 3" outlet from a "turbolight".

But I am definitely favoring two stock sized s-pipes instead of a single potato launcher staring at you, just haven't gotten around to measuring to see how much room I have to work with.
 
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TL/DR: Just one of those days where a couple of beers and a zero cost repair made a world of difference :cheers:

So with winter in full swing, lately I'd been having a motor temperature dependent intermittent rough idle and hickups during light acceleration. Now that all the things in and on the motor are still basically brand new and I've checked resistances at the harness several times, I'm getting into more "radical" ideas on how to smooth out the motor.

After a bit of looking deeper into the mess, I decided these little buggars had to go...

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Those are the four connectors found at the firewall both left and right of the motor; the weakest link between the sensors and control electronics.

After the many years, the insulation surrounding the cylinder pins had almost completely deteriorated leaving the copper wiring to become green and stiff with age. Since I don't plan on replacing the partial wiring harness underneath the hood or removing it from the chasis anytime soon, these connectors don't offer any advantage and just looked rotten.

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Cutting that last wire and throwing it in the trash felt like removing a thorn that had festered underneath the skin for a while, kinda like what my mother found in her hand last week...

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A bit of electrical tape and all is well.

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Since the minor surgery, I can wholly recommend inspecting these things ASAP! The difference is like night and day and was definitely worth the time. When it's really cold outside I no longer get the rough idle or sporatic hesitation when the motor is cold. It even smoothed out the powerband a bit which leaves me hoping for better gas mileage.

Looking at these pictures though, I need to put a deep clean of the engine bay on my list of things to do.
 
Long time no update, just been enjoying a worry free daily driver life at the wheel (most of the time).

But as is with all things getting 30+ years old, things deteriorate and entropy starts gaining ground. So back on the offensive!!!!

Had an annoying problem that I coudn't figure out for the life of me... About 50% of the time when I was out and about running errands I'd get into the car, drive off and notice a high idle around 1,000 rpms at the next red light. I'd then turn off the car and start it back up to have a nice solid idle at 750 rpms for the rest of the drive. ECU and EZK only showed 1-1-1. The Turbobrick swarm intelligence got me to investigate the vehicle speed signal going to the ECU.

Hmmmm, so I took out the instrument panel to begin checking the VSS wire to the ECU and then proceeded to get to the ECU harness when I saw this underneath my floormat...

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Took off the harness...

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Flipping moisture inside the connector coming from somewhere. Pretty aggravating since I just had the ECU out not long ago to test some other brain boxes for eBay sales.

At any rate, the carpet was wet, but not sour, so it hadn't been there long. It hadn't been raining much, but I also had been running the defroster a few days in a row which means it could have been A/C water. So cleaned the A/C drain with a wire and compressed air, took out the blower motor resistor pack and vacumed out a small stash of leaves, cleaned the ECU pins, cleaned the harness (BTW solid signal between the instrument panel and the harnes), ripped up the carpet and soaked up as much as I could with some towels and propped it up to continue drying.

Drove home and the motor seemed fine for the moment, but since it'd been an intermittent problem, it could still have been there.

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A few days later I got back to the garage to take care of the water... Removed the cowl, removed the windshield wipers and the shield to be able to check out everything real well.

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The air intake shield was still well glued, but I did find a crack in the cardboard layer that turned into a hole.

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Filled it wil silicone, treated the space with a layer of sealant and voil?, no more leaks. Other than that I wasn't able to find anything else suspicious, so guess that's solved.

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BTW the car runs fantastic! So the corrosion on the pins was indeed the culprit.

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While I was there I looked around for corrosion and found a few spots that were wanting to become a problem in a few years.

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So after cleaning it up I treated everything with rust primer which then cured into a good layer of epoxy.

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While I was there I also renewed the ground and the connector to the windshield wiper motor to breath new life into its otherwise lethargic movements.
 
And then tragedy happened, I got attacked by a Panda....




.... a flipping old guy in a Fiat Panda side swiped me as I was turning into a parking lot. He said it's because my car has such a dark color, that he couldn't see me and therefore didn't stop and wait for me to take the corner.

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Volvo vs. Plastic Panda

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His insurance is going to 100% pay the Volvo dealership to do the repairs (3,500€), but still aggravating...
 
Bummer to see this happened to you, nice to hear their insurance will be taking care of you and your Volvo. Unfortunate spot to get hit in but I'm sure it'll be repaired correctly. Did the Geminis take any of the impact?
 
Yeah, it'll be all taken care of, just unfortunate, as you say. The geminis only got a scratch and some rubber rubbing. Part of the repair will be getting that rim repainted to look like new. :)
 
Bummer about the panda incident, good thing the insurance doesn't say your car is totalled but actually pays to fix it. Regarding your leak under the wipers, where exactly is the hole you talk about? It's a bit hard to make out in the pictures. I still have a mistery leak on my 740 which I can't for the life of me find. I'm suspecting that area too. After rain there is water in the driver's side footwell (and passenger side too sometimes).
 
UPDATES

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Had a weekend to spare so I got the car tore down in preparation of getting it painted.

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Because my worst fear is rust, I wanted to inspect the car and take care of any future threats instead of just having car painted and never see what might be hiding beneath the surface.

I did find a few things to be expected after 30 years, but because it's basically a Florida car, she ain't been abused by salt and harsh winters. So happy that all I found was on the surface and it was good timing to take care of it now.

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The car will be getting picked up towards the end of the month, until then I'll be hopefully installing a few new things such as wasted spark and overhauling the A/C system for the sommer. :cool:
 
Nice work on preserving it. You might also want to check and reseal the seam between the wheel arch and the firewall in the engine bay. On my car that one was leaking and then water seeps in between where the panels overlap and spotwelded together. This then runs down to the lowest point, which is the seam where the chassis rails and the floorboards are welded together and rots away the floorboards after a while. That's what happened on mine. Just redoing that seal prevents all that.
 
You might also want to check and reseal the seam between the wheel arch and the firewall in the engine bay.

That's a good tip with the seam! I took a look at it yesterday and everything looks fantastic, but probably a good idea to reinforce it with a new coat of sealant. :nod:
 
Well, looks like the corona virus is going to postpone my plans on getting the car painted, but I can still use the time to get deeper into the nitty gritty.

Starting with the airbox cubby.

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At first it didn't look that bad, but hiding in the shadows I did find some unhealthy corrosion.

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Boo!

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So then I broke out the wire wheel and did the usual rust treatment.

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My favorite tool in the workshop now is this little tornado cleaner, which allows me to keep everything relatively dry when doing some deep cleaning.

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Before:

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and 5 Seconds later

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Absolutely fantastic for the interior as well. Gets the dirt and grim out of all the nooks and crannies as well as carpet and upholstry without drenching everything in soapy water.

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After that I moved to the trunk and found some rust creeping around the corner of the fuel pump access hatch.

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But the worst was the dried out sealant causing a leak into the trunk and behind the rear quarter panels.

Here's where rain was just begining to seep through the seams.

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Scraping off the sealant uncovered quite a gap in the panels :-(

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So I broke out the strong stuff and got to "glueing" the panels back together on both the left and right side underneath the rear window.

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Once it's painted, I'm hoping it'll hold for another 30 years ;-)
 
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Well despite the pandemic, she got picked up today and made it to the paint shop!

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Now I got room again in the garage for other projects :-P

Which is exactly why I got this little guy and was able to assemble it today.

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I somehow acquired a surplus 530 cylinder head and it's been laying around far too long, so I'm refurbishing it for a friend. Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Powder) is the best medium for aluminum parts. It does a fantastic job without eating at the metal.

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