Duder's Beige Brick - ARUNDL - 1981 242 DL +B230FT

[Stiggy Pop]

I've been shocked that my 680 is still trucking. I hardly drive the car, throw the optimizer on it once in a while, and it's hanging in there. I should get it on the charger now that you remind me.. I also put a PC925 in the solar system for my driveway gates and that is holding up well in a tough environment (sitting in a battery box in the snow waiting for a few amps to flow)

Curious if you looked at any lithium batteries before going for the bigger AGM?

[redblockpowered]

Originally Posted by Duder

Bummer man. Mine lasted a bit longer but was also from FCP I think. In this case OEM may mean that a manufacturer (supplier) that Volvo uses makes this part, but they don’t necessarily make it to the Volvo spec. The “Volvo OE” part I bought could in fact be made by the same manufacturer but to a higher standard and using a different assembly process. A lot of ins & outs, what have yous.

Yeah, must have been the case. I don't remember how the halves were attached on mine but I know it's not an uncommon thing to have happen to the aftermarket ones. I've heard of folks redoing the plastic weld but I just replaced the whole thing having lost confidence in the part.

It's fun to hear about the little differences in aftermarket vs. OE parts on a supplier level. Although maybe less so in this case...

[Duder]

Originally Posted by Stiggy Pop

I've been shocked that my 680 is still trucking. I hardly drive the car, throw the optimizer on it once in a while, and it's hanging in there. I should get it on the charger now that you remind me.. I also put a PC925 in the solar system for my driveway gates and that is holding up well in a tough environment (sitting in a battery box in the snow waiting for a few amps to flow)

Curious if you looked at any lithium batteries before going for the bigger AGM?

Hey Mike, well good to hear your 680 is working out, maybe you have been kinder to it than I was to mine. I only recently bought a smart charger that has a distinct AGM mode so maybe my charging (and discharging) behaviors were what killed it. Coupled with infrequent short trips I suppose.

Ah, the thought of having a driveway with gates is a nice one...someday!

I didn't seriously look at any lithium batteries, mostly because of cost, but also because they are more sensitive with how they are charged - either by an external battery charger or by the car's charging system. Balance charging is ideal for lithium cells and I'm not sure if a Denso 100A alternator would've kept a Li-ion battery happy. But mostly they cost too much... mostly.

Originally Posted by redblockpowered

Yeah, must have been the case. I don't remember how the halves were attached on mine but I know it's not an uncommon thing to have happen to the aftermarket ones. I've heard of folks redoing the plastic weld but I just replaced the whole thing having lost confidence in the part.

It's fun to hear about the little differences in aftermarket vs. OE parts on a supplier level. Although maybe less so in this case...

The breather box that failed on my car wasn't welded, it looked like the halves were stuck together with some form of urethane maybe.

Yeah it's definitely interesting to dive into the details of how a particular part is made, and how the design, materials, & manufacturing details change when the customer is an OE auto company vs. an aftermarket distributor network. There are also myriad complex legal arrangements and restrictions on how an OE part can be sold into the aftermarket, if at all. The classic thing is to grind the customer's logo off of your cast or molded part and sell it in a different box but even that isn't kosher when the customer (car manufacturer) paid for the tooling, or the production line, and so on. Sometimes as a supplier it's necessary to reverse engineer your own part, to an extent! Silly stuff. But yeah maybe the breather boxes are all made by Valeo or Hella or whomever, but they could be produced with different methods, in different plants on opposite sides of the world and have the same corporate source.

[Duder]

I almost forgot another riveting update about a highly critical part... the rear window louvers.

My wife bought this for me as a gift a few years back - this is the Latvian copy of the Volvo-branded part, which you can find on ebay. I believe it's fiberglass with black gelcoat on the exterior to resemble injection molded plastic.

When it showed up there was no installation kit included so I originally just stuck it directly to the rear window using VHB. That eventually started to fail, so I pulled them off and ordered a generic louver mounting kit designed for Camaros and Mustangs I think. This kit included stainless rectangles with studs welded to them and trim tape on the back side. I located 4 of them on the edges of the louvers, so I can add an official mounting kit in the future if I want to. The fiberglass louver part is held onto the studs with thumb nutz.

We'll see how well this holds...seems fine so far.

[MCHN8]

Nice! Patterned gelcoat trips me out. Imagining the labor and old school tech involved.

[Coupid]

Oooh that looks nice!

[Duder]

Originally Posted by MCHN8

Nice! Patterned gelcoat trips me out. Imagining the labor and old school tech involved.

Originally Posted by Coupid

Oooh that looks nice!

Thanks! I think they probably pulled a mold off of an original injection molded part. The level of detail is really good though. My guess is they spray the gelcoat into the mold first, then lay up the glass. That's the way I used to make fiberglass parts, back in my composites days.