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Brown 244 GL

:lol: :lol:

Rear end finally got a treatment I wanted a long time, 25mm spacers and 25mm longer wheelstuds. I did my wheelarches with this in mind, so from the beginning the rear wheels were deep in the arches, looking a bit more weird than an usual 240. My car has only half cm lips, and the rear of the arch is pushed more outwards to gain more room and look okay with wider track.
So finally it looks like this from the back:
20180427_192522 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
20180427_192546 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
:love:
 
Took the car on a 400km roundtrip to Budapest and back to have fun and to meet with Mano and bring some garage stuff home from his buddy.
20180430_115741 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
20180430_120010 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
Could not stand the ugly S tailpipe which got a silver powdercoat and absorbed every dirt particle over 1 year... Its basically black now. :lol:
Fabbed a turbo style tailpipe from laying around pipes, I think it looks miles better.

I guess the stuff we brought home was around 200kg, it completely filled the trunk with no space left. I was dumb enough to cut 1-1 coils from the rear springs just before the trip, so the rear got pretty "low":
31513933_1977487772321846_710027273067036672_ns by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
I was a bit worried that the rear may sit down on the bumpstops on hard bumps, but had no problems the way back. Also it revealed to me that some rake is definitely needed for the car to look okay, and this -1coil from the rears makes it just perfect combined with the front -1,5/-2 coil. At least when its unloaded.
I've tried V70 mk1 rear springs (see the last post), those were good. I may go that route once i buy diesel front springs to stiffen the car up just a tiny bit. Having flat ends on top perches with oem volvo springs which make the car lower and stiffer is nice. :-P
20180416_151606 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
 
Update time!
Although there isn't much to report, but had some great time with the car at least!
To prepare for the annual national Volvo meet i just wanted to accomplish some aesthetical fixes.
As the last time I washed the engine compartment i was amazed how nice it can look, well, minus the underside of the hood.
Some caked on dust, little bit of rust, and mainly limescale was on there. I went with limescale remover, and got most of the stuff off from the surface.
Before:
20180526_100057 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
After:
20180526_163108 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr

As the other i wanted a full polish on the car. A painter buddy tried polishing one part of the hood a little bit to see what can we achieve. It can shine! But damn it has so much iron/rust particles buried in! As I saw the IronX idea in Uncleknucklez 242 road ripper topic (thanks Duder) i decided what the heck, google it. And I could buy it directly from Carpro Hungary.
This was the result, on the boot:
20180603_151114 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
It became much much smoother afterwards. :)
Unfortunately painter buddy could not do the car in time, but will do it once...

Then the meet day came, we gently did the 120km trip to Budapest without much rain, then when we were finally there at 11am it started to pour... Despite the bad weather many cars were out there, but it wasn't the best weather to have conversations with others... At about 1pm it slowly started to clear so we attacked the dragstrip as they just started to open it. :rofl:
Had a great time there, at first we had traction issues by the wet track (brownie only in first gear haha) but mine still ran a 18.6 at first with only my gf sitting on the right.



Credit goes to Viktor Nagy!

Oh, the grey car was on dyno a month ago or so, and did some pretty nice numbers. Stock B200FT setup on a B19A block, but works wonderfully:





:w00t:

Credit goes to Liza Geszter?di!

Brownies best time was 18,07 with only me in the car and a few spare parts and tools in trunk and a fullsize spare. Grey cars best time was 16,6. I thought the A cam makes a bigger difference but at least it drives much nicer. Trap speed was 3km/h bigger than last year. :lol:
We are satisfied with the performance of the grey car, its a solid setup which can surprise ppl. :-P

What comes next? A random cheap 745 automagic which sat for 10 years, (hopefully) A/C conversion, full polish, valvetrain shimming & husher swap, oil change, PS flush... And a few trips here and there. :-P
 
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Nearly flat over 3k rpms? Isn?t that desirable?

Well, its still a stock 13c turbo with a T cam, so its definitely not the most powerful out there at high revs. But i think its fun to drive, with the instant torque down low. :e-shrug: :-P
Drag race revealed it lacks a "bit" of top end though, but after all we need to keep its original block in one piece. :lol:
 
Awesome work OP!
I remember travelling to the UK with my parents in the late 80s. These cars were EVERYWHERE!
I recall finding the headlight wipers, grill GL emblem, TV screen glass headlights, flat hoods, two colored signals etc. especially interesting since we didn't get them in N America.
 
Dig your ride. Maybe a cam change away from high rpm glory?

My B21FT install is coming up on a year in the making. Next time you?re in PDX swing by and help me out.
 
Awesome work OP!
I remember travelling to the UK with my parents in the late 80s. These cars were EVERYWHERE!
I recall finding the headlight wipers, grill GL emblem, TV screen glass headlights, flat hoods, two colored signals etc. especially interesting since we didn't get them in N America.

Thanks!
Yeah, must have been awesome! All "we" had back then in Hungary were just eastern block cars with a lot of smoke. :lol:
Like on this photo from 1983: http://www.fortepan.hu/_photo/display/22511.jpg
Fun fact, good amount of those Ikarus 280 buses are still around and running well...

Dig your ride. Maybe a cam change away from high rpm glory?

My B21FT install is coming up on a year in the making. Next time you?re in PDX swing by and help me out.

Haha, will surely help whenever i get there. :lol:
Yeah, maybe a cam change, and a bigger turbo away from fun top end. :cool:

Meanwhile my brick also got a snail, its pretty tiny but held up for a few days :rofl: :
20180709_171650 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr

I've been just daily driving the thing in the past month as the family car is under renovation. 22km city driving a day, making 21-23MPG reliably. I love driving it!

Had an opportunity and luck to buy a set of hydra rims with center caps. I was after these wheels since day 1, and now i finally own a set. Fortunately they run true, they werent repaired and they have original paint with a few little chips here and there!

I wasn't sure about what size tires i need, but I was playing a lot on tiresize.com and checked local "craigslist" ads for used tires frequently. As hydras are just 6.5J wide, and I wanted a decent fit without sidewall swing, I finally decided to go with 195/55R16. They are pretty close to stock 185/70R14 tires in diameter, so i now have an accurate speedo, too.
20180721_094638 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
20180724_172115 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
I think they fit pretty nice on the rims, and they are a lot more stable than the 195/60R14s on the 5.5J wide GT rims. Grips and corners better, tramlining is worse, but I was expecting that. :lol:

This would have been much better in a wagon though, but we did make it!
20180713_204831[1] by P?ter Gede, on Flickr

Soon the 440'000km service comes, already wrote an A4 paper full with things to do on it...
On a sidenote i bought a 740 wagon (B230F/ZF22HP with LH2.2) which sat for 8 years or so, playing with it too whenever i have time... No title, no definite plans currently, but its interior is almost flawless, it has an early front end. Would be cool to own a late model 940 td with early 740 front conversion, and tdi in place of the inline6 nonsense, as a DD. Would do something like this, it looks pretty nice: http://www.dailyturismo.com/2015/04/10k-ls1-powered-1990ish-volvo-740-wagon.html :love:
 
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Man I love this color and that front end :nod:

Keep up the good work!

Thanks! Yeah, these old colors still rock. :cool:

Man, I've loved reading through this thread. Wonderful work, and beautiful car!

Thanks man! Appreciate it!

Update time... Well, nothing serious happened to the car over the summer, been here and there, had a great time.
As the family opel wagon is under renovation, and we wanted to fix our little wood storage's roof, I borrowed a big trailer to haul home those four toothpicks... It was slightly illegal but looked pretty weird. :lol:
20180805_101951ps by P?ter Gede, on Flickr

Car is still living the dd life for now, meaning it sleeps in a garage but spends the days outside. Trunk had a leak from the beginning, and now it finally bothered me so much to do something about it:
20180807_202606 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
20180807_205313 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
20180807_205327 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
Brand new scissors cut 6mm thick closed cell epdm foam, smeared in silicone grease. Butyl on the chassis joints. Its leak free since then! :nod:

Fought with speedo in these months, now i can say 99% of the time its problem free. First i finally found out why the stepper motor needed shimming. Previously somebody (or me :grrr: ) put in the stepper motor wrong, and its shaft made a little punch under the proper guide hole. So when the shaft is in place, it gets slightly stuck in the deformed hole...
20180808_181639 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
Swapped in another plastic case, now the shaft moves back and forth free and nice.

Also found why the speedo needle would occasionally get stopped around 100 or 120kmh while accelerating. It was just some tiny rust particle on the magnets, so when the needle reached that point, the little clearance made it stop there. With a slap on the cluster it would jump up and show the actual speed again...

Found also the lack of signal to LH ecu. On the speedo pcb the signal track is only coupled if something is soldered in one hole. The track is isolated at that hole if its solderfree... :grrr: :rofl:

Still had some ittermittent problems, meaning it would not count for a while, or being rapsodic. Swapped in new capacitors everywhere on the speedo board, including the plastic case film capacitors. It transformed the speedo firmly, no rapsodic situations, just on-off mode, usually when i start the car.
I suspected the germanium diode, swapped in one from another pcb, and now its much much better. Only experienced one off situation once in two weeks. Could not recognize the problem without this little diag tool my bro soldered in:
20180902_225049 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
Voltmeter shows needle voltage, led shows signal after germanium diode. When the car is stationary, the led should be dark. When car starts, it should flash proportional to speed.
Oh, and i bought a nice tachometer also! :-P

Tacho revealed how crappy these low end vibrations are. Under 2000rpm it shakes the car and can be seen on the mirror. The early hourglass shaped torque rods with original bushings are just too firm... I thought I'd give the late style torque rods a try. How good that i did that! Its resonance free over 1500rpm, and much nicer to cruise in the city. No unnecessary shifting to avoid crazy resonances...

Engine started to make some valve ticking noises, so i went ahead, removed hushers and shimmed them. Few valves were out of spec... Now its all good again, no valve noises, almost feels like the idle is a bit smoother. :lol:
20180822_202011 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr

20180905_060936 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
:cool:
 
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Wow!
Almost half a year since my last update here...
Well, nothing really happened with the car, roads are salty, did not really have time, and it wasn't even with me this winter. Rusty family Opel still waiting to get finished in the garage, and I fixed a few Volvos and other cars in my spare time.

Over that half year while i daily drived this car, i sorta got distracted by the clumsiness of the car. The way it behaves on imperfections, the low rpm torque vibrations, the ****ty engine mount design, piston slap, the slowly getting worse transmission (thats my fault). Driving it on these short distances (2x11km through the city or 2x16km on highway) every day, and facing all these above was not giving great feelings all the time.
It felt great sometimes:
20181018_075358 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
At workplace:
20180924_152603 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr

It was however still very nice on long distance trips.
20180902_102848 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
Somewhere in Vas megye. :lol:

Had to change the front left decarbon because it became harsh on bumps. I definitely want a set of proper lowering springs in the near future, with a set of sorta comfy shocks aswell...

Went to a car meet just before christmas, spot the volvo haha:
48905058_2230791017180081_3333499602199379968_o by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
received_346426732843816 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr

Over the winter I was mainly hoarding parts.
Bought a few special tools and a NOS turn signal switch with cruise control from the usa. Scored a complete but a bit beaten up quad rectangle headlight setup. Got some window scrapers and a few emblems and stickers from Dave Barton.
I really want to finish up the interior, thats why i bought the turn signal switch, so i can eliminate the secondary aftermarket cruise control switch underneath the stock. I still need a tan floortray set, and good speaker covers. Not to mention the trunk, which is nothing but a mess... I may learn how to sew and make my own carpets there.
Cluster was bugging me also, the electric speedo installation(hacking in :lol:) wasn't the best job of my life. It just never sat in the right position, and also the gauge face cutouts weren't in the matching spot aswell.
20181003_151425 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr

Bugged me enough to spend two days to come up with this :cool:
01 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
Copied the exact angular positions of the scales from the K6241 gauge face.
02 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
The backplate will be 3d printed, the gauge face will be laser cut from stainless steel. :)
Hopefully the gauge face could get screen printed nicely, if not it will just get a vinyl sticker.
I added a 8pin panel mount connector on the backplate, to reduce the number of connectors going to my cluster. 3 pin feeds the speedo, 1 pin goes to LH from speedo, 1 pin comes from LH as check engine light, other 3 are free to use as anything.
Hopefully i can clean up the wiring underneath the cluster with this, and install the aftermarket cruise control cleanly.
Will get back as soon as i get these in my hands, I can't wait. :-D
 
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That is really great. Are you considering making theses and selling them?

Thanks! Well, its quite possible that i can make a few sets of these conversion kits. Tomorrow i'm going to get a few gauge faces test printed, as I want it to be as close as possible to the original colour and shine. If we find the perfect setup then it can be printed anytime. Different K value electric speedos can be adopted aswell. :nod:

Great build thread. Nice save. You need to mke me a modern replica of the 240 ambient temperature gauge.

Thank you! What do you exactly mean by a modern replica?
 
Did my first ever 960 whiteblock cam cover reseal, damn, what a pita... Serviced a 940 polar aswell... Fought with a tdci mondeo... Bought a new car:
20190319_143823 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
Fun little car with a healthy engine and light chassis. Has rusty front brakes, huge oil leak from cam cover, few spots that need some bodywork but its mainly solid, and was cheap. Will mostly use it in the city. Eventually it will get lower and will get some good looking wheels.

Slow but steady progress... I finally got the laser cut gauge faces:
20190306_054344 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr

Brought it to an UV printer guy and the first batch came out like this:
20190320_180028 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
20190321_115811 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr

Real nice fit, the last pic shows the problem which will get fixed next time. The matte black paint they used is not quite matte. In darker situations it fits well, but if some light is reflected on it it shows its rough texture. Other than this the printing itself is impressive, i like it! :-D

Today i just realised how bad my steering wheel and gearshift knob smells. When i assembled the car i washed the wheel in soapy water. Eventually the same smell came back which i believe comes deeper from the material. What should i use to deep clean it which wont dissolve the wheel itself?
Gearshift knob is a homemade wood one without lacquer, with a few cracks. I'll get a new one made with good lacquer, which will help keeping it clean.
 
Finally it looks and works miles better:
20190328_192510 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
Trip reset button is now totally centered, and works perfectly wonderful. Only the speedo needle needs a little work and no one will ever notice the trick. :cool:

20190328_174132 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
20190328_192546 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr
20190328_192553 by P?ter Gede, on Flickr

Speedo PCB still requires some trimming to fit in the cluster housing, then all i need to do is wire&crimp up the stuff and install cluster. :nod:
 
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