The Tank Mk.2, 1990 244 DL Project

Well now that I'm getting a lot of the parts rolling in, and the plans in my head coming together figured I may as well start my project thread over here!

The Car:

Pretty standard 1990 244 DL. B230F, AW70, extremely little rust (Very rare for the upper mid west) and 150,764 on the clock. Not too shabby! The interior is in awesome shape for it's age. Only faults are 2 small cracks in the dash, which, find me a volvo 10+ years old without a cracked dash and a small rip in the driver seat.

Exterior is in pretty good shape. Almost no rust, just some small spots of surface rust which I aim to take care of. It has one or two dings/dents and a few missing trim pieces. Since the Driver door, SRS light are on, and grille is cracked, I would assume the car was in an accident at one time.

Mechanically, is where she needs love. Needs a timing belt/water pump, a new rear end, new tires/wheels, motor mounts, cam seals/valve cover gasket, and struts/shocks. It's gonna take a bit to re hab it.

Anyways, pics of it as it sits:






So there's the car as is.

Plans for the projects are pretty simple, mostly do Stage 0 maintenance and re-hab this car to drivable condition. There are all the major tune up items other than the stuff I listed that need to go with it, plugs, cap/rotor, gaskets, seals ect.

So far I have
-a new rust free color matching driver fender, to replace the rotting one.
-VX camshaft
-Misc. Tune up items/mostly gaskets
-plugs, cap and rotor.
-D30 Rear end
-Parts for Cold Air Intake I'm gonna scach build

Changes I plan to make? Here they are:

Power mods:
-VX Camshaft
-2.25in custom exhaust that I'll fab up. I know it sounds dumb to some, but I wanna do a side dump exhaust, haters gonna hate. Yes it will still have a muffler. No fart can's or cherry bombs.
-Custom Cold Air intake
-IPD adjustable cam gear
-Accel Wires/Ignition Coil
-A good tune/tune up

Suspension/Brakes:
-Bilstines on all 4 corners
-IPD springs (maybe?)
-Urethane motor mounts
-Urethane bushing kit
-EBC Greenstuff pads
-Brembo Blanks
-16in OEM Hydra wheels
-stickier tires

Exterior:
-Euro style tail's
-E-code headlights
-Black out grille
-Lol-vo badge


Interior:
-Pioneer deck from my 850
-Better speakers
-sparco Suade wheel from my old integra, I would assume one could buy a quick releace for these cars

I think thats all for now. Really excited to get this thing on the road. I'll post updates as they happen.

I saw you were in progress of the VX cam install here, so how'd that go? Get put back together yet?

idrive_MD said:

I saw you were in progress of the VX cam install here, so how'd that go? Get put back together yet?

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Haven't started yet. Car's still in storage, but it's coming out next month. I plan to start the rehab project then.

great color combo, clean up them steelies!

I'm thinking about going to Hydras, but I will likely clean up the steels and paint them for winter wheels

I got nicer steels on my wagon. lol. Painted them with this kinda cool metallic black wrinkle paint:

I guess I've also decided to ditch getting IPD springs. I want to leave the ride height alone, because I've been thinking about doing Rally cross with it, and the roads up here suck, we have lots of snow, and my last experience with a lowered car was nothing but impracticality. I do think however that I am going to buy a set of IPD sways for the front and rear in addition to the Bilstein HD's. Those items coupled with new bushings and tie rods ect. should make the tank handle 80x better

Awesome news for me, pulling the car out of storage tomorrow, then I'm starting my project.

Gonna start with major dissassembly. Hood, rear doors, front fenders, all lights and grille are comming off tomorrow if I get my way.

Well the project got delayed due to work, then moving out of my old house, but this weekend I'm gonna start. Ordered new trim clips, paint, a grille and some tail lights. Gonna fix the surface rust, swap the one rusty fender, paint/polish all the trim, and give er a good ol buff and wax. It will look purdy, then it's time to dig into the suspension in the front, then the engine and do some headwork.

Got the majority of the tear down work done today. Only hang up was getting the front fender off. Done it before, but this time the T30 bolts (2 that you have to open the driver door up get to) are not budging no matter how hard I torque on my handheld screw driver. I tried slipping on a strap wrench, but to no avail due to the rather tight space. I'm gonna go try and buy a t30 bit to put on my 3/8in drive rachet and go that route.

But otherwise, I got the hood off, fender almost off, tail and headlights out, grille out, front trim off and the dash out.

Waiting on paint right now so I can do up the bumper and my trim parts. I also need to get some color match spray paint. When I get bored some night this week my goal is to start sanding some of the surface rust spots down.

Made some progress today. Found a wee bit more cancer on the driver side rear than I would have liked, but it's all been ground out or cut out at this point. The passenger side is so clean, I'm just gonna sand and paint. just need to get some color match paint and a bit of body puddy for 1-2 imperfections I'd like to get sorted out.

Then it's onto the suspension in the front.

Some pics from the day...

some of the cuttin' and grinding


mock up of what I wanna do with the grille.


IPD was nice enough to send me chocolate with my order!! Winning.

Is that big Volvo badge from a big rig Volvo?

245Mike said:

Is that big Volvo badge from a big rig Volvo?

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Don't think so. I think it's from an XC90, so kinda a big rig I guess?

Got the 1st coat of POR 15 yesterday on the side skirts/parts where there were rust/surface rust. Got everything on the driver side, front and rear painted that I wanted painted. Progress is slow, but hey, gotta start somewhere! Never really done this whole body work thing, but man is it a lot of work to do it right. I also discovered that POR 15 bonds to things very well, like your skin, hahaha. Whoops. Lesson learned, I'm wearing gloves!

Going on a parts run today for the car. When I return I will have a non-F-ed up Dana 30, wheels/tires, and front suspension and a drive shaft, transmission crossmember and a few other smaller odds and ends.

Should be a nice volvo day. Get to spend some quality time in my ****ty wagon, and the guy I'm buying the parts from is one of my fav. Volvo nerds to talk to. At least he understands and fuels my addiction to old Sweedish things, and I get to go gawk at his collection of Volvo's again, which is impressive to say the least!! I might grab some pics and share when I return.

Got almost all of my rust proofing/painting done on the car this weekend. Did 2 coats of POR 15 and then topped that off with a couple coats of rihnoliner. Should make for some nicely sealed up rockers and seam welds. Not to mention it's a nice fresh accent on the car.

Gonna start trying to take the front suspension apart next week, but given the amount of corrosion on some of the fasteners, I feel that thats gonna be a battle.

Some pics:



And I put the new wheels I bought for the 244 on the 245 just for funzies. I rather like them now actually seeing them on a 240.

Looks great so far! I've got a timing belt and some surface rust to battle in the near future (on <i>my</i> <a href="http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4153/5433205196_b7b2425bd9_b.jpg">Violet</a>), so this should be a bit of inspiration.

I always liked those Draco wheels far more without caps, and more so on 240s than 740s. Cheap, too, since nobody really cares about 'em.

FuzzyPlushroom said:

Looks great so far! I've got a timing belt and some surface rust to battle in the near future (on <i>my</i> <a href="http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4153/5433205196_b7b2425bd9_b.jpg">Violet</a>), so this should be a bit of inspiration.

I always liked those Draco wheels far more without caps, and more so on 240s than 740s. Cheap, too, since nobody really cares about 'em.

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Yeah, I'm gonna do a t-belt, water pump, tensioner and new cam install here after I tackle the front suspension.

Only thing I'm having a shop do is my rear axle install/rear suspension, because I don't have the ability to monkey around with putting that axle in where I'm at in my garage.

And I feel the same way about the wheels. I am actually glad I got these instead of Hydra's. I wasn't going to buy them, then I saw one with the center cap out of it, and I was sold for the price.

Lol-vo said:

And I put the new wheels I bought for the 244 on the 245 just for funzies. I rather like them now actually seeing them on a 240.

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Oh, how ironic.

I see what you did there.

Got the top end torn apart tonight. And I must say, it looked REALLY clean!! No sludge, gunk, or signs of wear!

Gonna have to get a crank pulley removal tool to pop that off before I can get the whole t-belt off. After that, It's time to re-shim the valves, put in the new cam and adjustable cam gear, t-belt, tensioner and water pump.

The only trick I think is going to be making sure the whole thing is timed right.

Made more progress. Got the headlight buckets on, horn in, exhaust fixed up, and the water pump put back on. It's commin along...

Whats the hold up on that grill, I really wanna see how good it looks! I've thought about making that work on my restoration project!