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ETA 4 years

brickcupra said:
Nice, I wished my father did something like that , but NOOO!!!
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My dad taught me plenty of handyman stuff along the way. I learned a lot about sweat equity from him. He never modified or did major repairs on a car though, so I learned (and continue to do so) as I went.

His Mom showed up a few weeks ago with a chunk missing out of the sidewall in her tire. i told her she wasn't taking the 2hr drive home with my kid in the car, so she needed to put on the spare. She promptly asked for help, being the useless millennial she is. So I told mini-me to round up the tools and get to work. I hope she felt silly watching her 12 year old son come to her rescue.

Toybox said:
One of my favorite eye-rolling stories I heard from a guy who actually attended the wealthy high school where it happened? a kid was given a shiny brand new Camaro for his 16th birthday, and while showing off, he managed to flip it over in the school parking lot on his third day of ownership. As punishment? Daddy didn't give him another brand new Camaro until he turned 17. :roll:
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I went to a similar school. Always grumbled that my parents couldn't give me everything I wanted. now I'm grown and thank them for everything they worked their ass off to give us. All 3 of my kids are learning the same lessons and so far are taking it much better than I ever did.

Toybox said:
I trust your brain can stitch together the above examples I cherry-picked? I hope it's not too late to suggest disconnecting the battery until you figure it out. A charging system active while the key is out is awfully close to a fire waiting to happen. Might not be so catastrophic, but the melted charge wire already gives you a clue... you'll be teaching the young-un about fusible links, yes? And if you're going with the delightful overkill of a 1/0 cable, you'll want a mega fuse in there also.

You can test the battery with a simple voltmeter. 12.6 is nominal "full" when it's been at rest for a while. Of course there are much more exhaustive tests while under load, but this gives a quick and dirty baseline.
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Yup, battery got unplugged right away. With a couple holiday breaks coming up we should have time to trace wires and see what we come up with. I want to dig in and fix it, but I have to remind myself it's his project.

The 1/0 wire is what I had on hand. I learned Pick n Pull charges the same for all battery cables, so you have to find a BMW with a trunk mounted battery and on a 50% off day it costs about $3 for 10ft of 1/0 wire and since it runs through the cabin it looks brand new. The clerks even know the loop hole and laugh when I bring it up.
 
mblue240 said:
she needed to put on the spare. She promptly asked for help, being the useless millennial she is. So I told mini-me to round up the tools and get to work. I hope she felt silly watching her 12 year old son come to her rescue.
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Or maybe even proud? Ya never know, it could happen... especially if you leave that door of possibility open in your mind.

Or it might not. A gal I knew in college was, to put it gently, the most full-figured female I'd ever met. One day she asked me why I had a trunk full of tools in my old jalopy. I spoke of possible repairs, or tire changes. She looked at me like I had four green heads. In my naivete, I said, "Don't you think it's important to be able to change a tire?" She laughed openly, and said, "Are you kidding? I'd just perch on the fender until someone screeched to a halt to help a poor damsel in distress..." And then she indicated that it never required more than about 20 seconds of perching to accomplish the task. And of course most guys would ever complain about a chance to rescue.

Men & Women. Funny creatures we are, sometimes.

I learned Pick n Pull charges the same for all battery cables, so you have to find a BMW with a trunk mounted battery
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Brilliant. :lol:
 
Today's project was swapping in a black center console (which I forgot to take a pic of). We knew something would be messed up, since there was an extra hazard switch. The wire spaghetti started when I spotted this odd door chime and household thermostat.

20191128_101329 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

It looks like there is no immediate wiring for the factory chimer, but I'll dig more. The thermostat was hooked to the heater control and I'm guessing sent a signal to the Mercedes heater control valve that's in the engine bay.

20191128_101324 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

The PO said his Dad did all the work and Dad is an electrical engineer at Intel, I don't know how this passed as acceptable. Some connections were crimp terminals (none the same), some were twisted wires wrapped in tape, and a couple were soldered.

20191128_104131 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr


Any idea what these wires might connect to?

20191128_112436 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

This was all we removed today, there is still a handful of wires I saw behind the dash I need to trace...then we can start with the mess in the engine bay.

20191128_134139 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

We then added the new-to-me tweed rear seat. He cleaned up the rear headrests, then found out they weren't in since the aftermarket speakers got installed in the way. We'll eventually redo the rear shelf to look mint and accept the headrests.

20191128_131609 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

20191128_124052 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr
 
Oh boy, just like my 780! Wire nuts, scotch splices, twisted wires, 3+ spades holding just two wires together. You name it, it was there

Good stuff keep it up
 
Christmas included STS bronze shifter bushings, Homer modified shifter, and IPD exhaust.

2020-01-04_02-49-32 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

Then we went shopping at R&R (I forget their new name) with a long shopping list. #1 on both of our lists was brown carpet, no amount of work was going to make the interior look good as long as we had the nasty tan carpet.

20200103_163320 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

20200103_162920 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

We also got another center console, since the black one we had came from a car that had the knee bolster. A center speaker cover, 1x hockey stick, 1x dash vent...and a set of wheels. My son had been eyeing them the whole time we were hunting parts and when he asked about them the shop wanted them gone, so we struck a deal.

20200103_162858 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

They're missing two chrome centers and need a refresh for sure. RWD offset, 5x108, Prime brand knockoff 3 piece rims (Pretty sure they're 1 piece). We'll probably end up painting the centers gold.

Since swapping carpet is an easy job we jumped on that right away. that's when the day took a turn. There was standing water in the front passenger foot well. We found rust behind both front seats, the worst being the driver side. Also found that someone jacked up the car using the driver's foot well.

20200103_161747 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

20200103_161744 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

20200103_161805 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

20200103_161813 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

I know in the grand scheme of rust repairs this isn't bad, but I don't have the tools or knowledge for metal work. Now we have to have a discussion about the future of the car. Either we'll fix it with a fiberglass kit or part the car.
 
Some great scores and judging by the look on your sons face he’s definitely been bitten by the Volvo bug!

First things first...if you have an angle get a wire wheel on it and take everything down to bare metal to assess the amount of rust you’re up against. That may not be too bad, I wouldn’t contemplate a part out just yet.
 
12 years old and already on his 2nd car.

49540621177_c003823e60_c.jpg
[/url]2020-02-15_04-23-53 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr[/IMG]

Seeing that I've kept my first car for 17 years I could see my kid keeping his forever. Every time i looked at the white car I saw another issue that needed fixing and the cosmetics were going to kill any budget we set. This new car is an m47 with the body in surprisingly good shape. We'll need to replaces lenses and trim, but overall it's a much better start. The wheels don't come with it and it needs a clutch before we can really drive it. The IPD sways, springs, and billy shocks will come off the white car. We'll also pull just about every replacement part we bought for it, then we'll part or sell it.
 
Nice find. What’s the story on the 2 242s? Those wheels on the 244 are sweet looking to bad you couldn’t get them with the car!
 
The car came from an old Volvo friend, I counted 6 240's in plain sight. We had our eyes on a 245, but I like knowing my money went to someone i know rather than a random guy on OfferUp. The wheels could have come with the car, but they're more than I paid for the car so I'm good with what we have.

We'll save the Virgos off the white car, have the black Prime wheels, and a set of 17" steelies to work with.
 
I love working on this car. Mostly because my son is out there with me, but also because every little thing makes a big impact. We're still working on the white car, so we can sell it shortly after the yellow one gets delivered. Today we put the corduroy rear seat back in, got the headliner attached at the back window, swapped the tach for a big clock, put the big steering wheel back in, and removed another 6 feet of home made wiring.

The car is being used to store the parts. After we pull it all out to get to work I was pretty amazed at the stash we have set aside just for this car.

20200418_110952 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

20200418_110941 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

The car will be sold with stock suspension. We bought the cheapest front struts IPD had, plus Turbo Gas for my 83, and sway bar hardware for my 89.

20200418_122712 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

I have to button up the my 89 taking the one space in the garage, then this car gets pulled in and we can tear into it.
 
We started into the yellow car. It is by far the dirtiest car I have ever worked on. It has plenty of exterior grime from sitting outside for a few years, but it also had clumps of mud falling out of the rear wheel wells. The first wash got it looking decent, but far from my standards.

20200608_175642 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

Then we moved into the interior, which was BAD. I shook out the driver's floor mat and brown dirt/dust flew everywhere. The mats and carpet got pressure washed with at least 10 passes before the water ran clear.

20200609_111527 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

20200609_110401 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

This could explain some of the foul smell.

20200609_124214 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

Then we found bad news...the same reason the white car is on the chopping block. This time it's in just the one location, so I think we'll look into getting it fixed.

20200609_121522 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

20200609_124216 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

Car phone!

20200609_124620 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

Tomorrow we shuffle parking spots around and the white car will come into the garage. Then we yank the suspension to return it back to stock, steal the VX cam, and decide which parts we want to keep for the yellow car. Hopefully the white car is for sale in a week.
 
Cut that rust out and replace with a new piece. It does suck because its 2 pieces you have to replace. The lower piece is the floor pan, while the upper piece is where the seat mounts to.
 
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