Brown 244 GL

[JonnyP]

That is really great. Are you considering making theses and selling them?

[Old Iron]

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

[petiww]

Originally Posted by JonnyP

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.

Originally Posted by Old Iron

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?

[petiww]

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 Péter 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 Péter Gede, on Flickr

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

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.

[petiww]

Finally it looks and works miles better:
20190328_192510 by Péter 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.

20190328_174132 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20190328_192546 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20190328_192553 by Péter 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.

[Vol242vo]

Nice work.

[JonnyP]

Looks great.

[petiww]

Originally Posted by Vol242vo

Nice work.

Originally Posted by JonnyP

Looks great.

Thanks guys!
Yeah, i like that it finally looks like a factory setup
20190409_080126 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
The matte black colour will eventually get fixed, but its not that bad. As i know how matte should it be i notice the difference...

Eventually some general maintenance should come. The car was trouble free the last two years, did not let me down. I want to keep its good behaviour.

This means new coolant hoses, coolant change, possibly a new timing belt, valve gap check, repack the front bearings, brake fluid flush, diff fluid check and change if necessary, tie rod check and change if necessary, ps fluid flush, ignition freshening.
I should also repaint the gas tank as petrol flaked the alkyton off. I should bring the car back to windshield guys as it started to separate from the glass.

Bought 5 new bearings to my next M47 rebuild. I will make this 100% proper. 6306s gapped close to 0, glued in.
RNU304 with a snap ring to countershaft front position is NLA from volvo, so i asked a buddy to machine a new NU304 koyo bearing to accept the stock snapring.
received_561315230943843 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
Other two countershaft tapered rollers can be bought from any bearing shop for small amount of money.
Only bought the output shaft bearings from volvo, a special 6306 (this made the worst noise) and the special cylindrical roller bearing which has three separate part numbers and is $$...
Cant wait to have a tight and silent box to roll with!

[JW240]

Nice updates! Cluster looks great!

[petiww]

Originally Posted by JW240

Nice updates! Cluster looks great!

Thanks!

Long time no update, these months were just, uhm, weird but intense. I'm not going to write long stories in this post, its more of a picture bomb.

So after the last post my buddies Audi 100 Avant got its engine finally started up. Its new heart was in nice condition, just got the heads rebuilt, and properly assembled the whole thing. Needed engine wiring loom insulation fixed, aswell as front left door, ****load of wires needed change... Its a pre-canbus type of car... Door wiring was surely a thing i wont do again, I think 4 or more afternoons were trashed by that.
20190402_212430 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20190413_204022 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20190417_143758 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
This was the first ride after a long time...
And after a few months this is how it sits with lowering springs and Bilstein B8s, and some proper wheels. Its engine still purrs like a kitten, it became a great cruiser with relative nice mpgs. (its a 2.8 engine)
20190717_201723 by Péter Gede, on Flickr

At the end of april we traveled to Kiev with my old classmate and his buddies. It was a great little trip, fun stories and beers, night train and so. It brought some changes in my life which i needed.
Seen a few funky cars there, this was the only 240 I've seen there:
20190501_023942 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20190501_032430 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
Lifted 245 with bigger tires, large rustholes, random taillights...
Crunchy modded lada:
20190501_034255 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20190501_034227 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
This is somewhat normal there.

After this i tried to focus on brownie to pass MOT, which again meant i had to de-cat and de-lambda it, change a few bushes, ball joints, change to legal tire size. Eventually it passed on first try so it was nice.
20190516_215555 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20190517_173932 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20190517_191143 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
My little tool still rocks, pulled old TAB out in 30 seconds without air tools.

Went to 12david34 to have fun in Bratislava, tried to fill the car, almost got the whole thing burned to ashes.
20190518_134707 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
I still dont know exactly where it leaked from, but at least it went directly on the exhaust so thats a nice thing. I havent filled up the car fully since then, I was lazy and distracted to fix it...
When it was still full i called my brother to bring me a 20L can because even after 20 minutes it was dripping fuel. Pulled a hose from injector rail and manually controlled the relay:
20190518_143908 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
Somehow we couldnt get a flow from the filler tube, but this worked. 20L drawn into the can and on the way to slovakia.

20190521_150808 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
Rolled over 444'444km...

20190528_173427 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
Travelled to Budapest to spend a few very nice days. M47 did not like the trip but im still alive.

Prior to national volvo meet i did a few things, this was the best of them all. 3 hours of work to have a pair of GT braces, from plastic coated thickwall Trilogiq tubes.
20190614_203830 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
Meet was, uhm, too short. Met some great guys then it was already ended.
Fixed a carburetted 244 there, because why not.
FB_IMG_1561035795030 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
I did not even wash my poor car for the meet... It wasn't captured much either

By the end of june i got fired from my workplace because we got less and less orders, so its a bit rough now, but eventually it will get sorted. Little corsa went to MOT inspection aswell, spent a bunch of time fixing its brakes, suspension, chassis... It passed, too, so I have two working and mostly reliable cars which is nice.
Had a chance to buy a set of complete but a bit trashed quad rectangle headlight setup for cheap. Fortunately it had H4/H1 cibie inserts. I had the H4s recoated, ghetto fixed the H1s with alu tape and installed them. At first i had mixed feelings but the more i see it the more i like it. Its ****ty condition perfectly matches with the car, while the light output is close to the big TV screens. I still need to perfectly aim them at the garage.
So yeah, this is how it sits now:
20190724_132802 by Péter Gede, on Flickr

[petiww]

20190922_162308[1] by Péter Gede, on Flickr

Random update, to be honest i only bought a proper head unit finally, and redesigned the electric speedo backplate for the ease of cnc machining. Yes, the 3d printed backplate in my previous post #280 did not really like heat, and it started to shrink badly... (no pics of that, its bad... )

20190813_185152[1] by Péter Gede, on Flickr

Still need to somehow properly fit it in its place, but for now its ok... It's a giant step towards modernity, i love it! And holy hell it sounds so nice, and i like how well it can be configured.

20190813_210052[1] by Péter Gede, on Flickr
Fits in so well!

I'm not sure how others would like this, but i wanted something different than top of A pillar mounting of the microphone. Well, it turned out to be a much better solution because i dont need to roll up the windows to talk with anybody!
20190822_010128[1] by Péter Gede, on Flickr

Went with an unique antenna install aswell. I did not want to drill the body anywhere, so i just put an internal one under the unused speaker spot. It works flawlessly! Surely not as strong as an external antenna, but I'm not listening to the radio too often.
20190824_142630[1] by Péter Gede, on Flickr

And here is the cnc machined backplate for the electric speedo:
20190921_133901 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20190921_133817 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20190921_103009[1] by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20190921_134004 by Péter Gede, on Flickr

Actually i want to make a batch of these (backplate + gauge face) for anyone who wants to properly fit electric speedos into the early vdo clusters... Soon in the for sale thread!

[Bricktothefuture]

Sign me up! On my third speedo cable in as many years. Have a rear end from a 93 in my 79 so I could plug this right in.

[petiww]

Originally Posted by Bricktothefuture

Sign me up! On my third speedo cable in as many years. Have a rear end from a 93 in my 79 so I could plug this right in.

Its in the for sale section already! Hit me up in PM how do you want the gauge face.

[petiww]

Wow, its been more than a year since my last post!

Car has been working well, i put it in winter storage last year in late november. Then I started tinkering with the idea of building an evil twin, which is a bit ****tier and im not worried about getting some road salt on it...
So this happened, meet "choco" the second.
20200329_144833 by Péter Gede, on Flickr

Its has a B21A, M45, 3,91 open diff, no carpets (LOUD). It needed a full respray, full brake rebuild, suspension check, new fluids everywhere, butt cheek repair... After a few crazy runs its original engine started to flick the oil light. Well, the damn thing had so much caked on gunk inside that fresh oil and heat cycles started to dissolve it... So it got brownies old B21A engine, with a freshly cleaned oil pan, new timing belt, electric fuel pump... Its ready to rock! If only this depressing winter would bring some snow...

While overviewing its suspension, i finally found out why i had height differences upfront: http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=353163

This made me so encouraged that i decided eventually i will throw away the one remaining decarbon and the other random shock and buy a pair of simple comfy shocks to brownies front suspension. Also cut equally 2 coils!

Brand new TRW shocks, new boots and bumpstops:
20200506_211328 by Péter Gede, on Flickr

While messing with the front suspensions, i also decided i'll convert the brake line holders to be removeable:
20200604_201650 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20200604_201700 by Péter Gede, on Flickr

This needed one hardline rerouting:
20200609_223419 by Péter Gede, on Flickr

Also from the ****load of spare top mounts, i chose the best two, and regreased them totally:
20200606_191206 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20200606_194348 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20200606_195106 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20200606_195822 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
Moves sooo smooth!

All these did not do too much of an improvement to the car, but it definitely became more comfortable and smoother with that new shock pair. Only the tramlining remained...

Random Kofola run to Slovakia with my old classmate
20200601_131115 by Péter Gede, on Flickr

[LC4CARL]

Love the USB's.

[petiww]

Car basically did its thing, turned heads, got the M47 even more noisy.
But the main development of the year was the foldable sleeping platform. Yes, its a sedan, i should have bought a wagon, i know. But i just had to try it out. The idea came when i found out (again) that front seats can be rolled all the way down, making it possible to fit a flat surface on top of everything. The gained flat area is only enough for two people, so the platform could travel in place of the back seat anyway. This way the trunk remains totally useable.
After a lot of measuring and thinking i fabricated this:
20200501_182809 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20200501_192342 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20200503_001022 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20200615_194026 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20200616_221003 by Péter Gede, on Flickr

So its basically a plywood held together with piano hinges. Car got three bolted in support rails, at the sides and in the middle. This way the heavy platform just needs to get slided right or left to be able to turn the front seats under it, one at a time. Then after the plywoods are unfolded, longitudinal side braces can be pushed on, then front support legs just need to get placed under them.

Support bar, goes straight into the rear headrest holes.
20200616_201237 by Péter Gede, on Flickr

With some foam:
20200621_180557 by Péter Gede, on Flickr

Transforming the car is not that easy, and im sure it would be pretty bad in the rain. But it makes sleeping in car much more comfortable. And by much more, i mean its way better than sleeping in the seat, but as i'm 1.85m tall, i always had to sleep diagonally.

This made the summer a bit adventurous, went to a few meets, met new friends, went here and there, basically had fun. Not that it couldn't be done with this sedan nonsense, but it gave an extra boost.
20200718_123836 by Péter Gede, on Flickr

Illegal morning at Lake Balaton, sneaked out to the beach at the middle of the night.
20200905_084655 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
Had to wake up early to check out a diesel brown sedan in a junkyard!
20200905_121119 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20200906_133441 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
The morning after a party at Siófok... Gosh i did not feel my legs when we walked back to sleep.

[petiww]

Tramlining was bothering me so much, i changed back to GT rims, but this time with 185/70R14 tires. Maaan, what a change, finally it does not need constant steering inputs, its actually relaxing to drive:
20201023_110541 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
20200918_144247 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
IMG_3909 by Péter Gede, on Flickr

Scored a low mileage M47II, quickly swapped it in late august. It does not have a bearing noise yet, but i can hear something when the oil is hot. It will be perfect until i rebuild the two gearboxes which are waiting in the garage...

Did some improvements to my instrument cluster:
20201016_222053 by Péter Gede, on Flickr
I no longer have a nausea when i look at my speedo, and i also calibrated it.
Oh and i also sell the conversion kits if anyone is interested:
20201027_013109[1] by Péter Gede, on Flickr

It has never been so good to drive this car.

[petiww]

Originally Posted by LC4CARL

Love the USB's.

Phones love it too! I have to do something about their 12v->5v converter, because it jams the FM signal to the radio. A big red button was added to the very right, and was wired up to power the converter, so this way i can charge the phones when keys are not in the car, and i can shut it off if i want to listen to radio.

[petiww]

Choco is awesome in snow, after silicone oiling the clutch cable its almost nice to drive it too. Manual rack makes it funky, but its great to practice.
20210108_055607 by Péter Gede, on Flickr

[Alex Mcknz]

Originally Posted by petiww

Choco is awesome in snow, after silicone oiling the clutch cable its almost nice to drive it too. Manual rack makes it funky, but its great to practice.
20210108_055607 by Péter Gede, on Flickr

I can't even tell its color because the photo was taken at night plus it is covered in snow.