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White 83 242 Commuter

Like the "GT" horn button. Do these bolt on to regular 240 steering wheels?


IMG_7399.jpg
 
Redwood Chair said:
:nod:

Needs moar early style ratcheting armrest.
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I had a ratcheting one in one of my past 245s, and I'm not really a fan of those ones.

BillyMaysHere said:
or two more smaller ones.

..... .... O

..... o ...... o
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Yup! I have 3 magnets stacked up right now, but I'll get one strong one from McMaster Carr and be done with it.

Tuff240 said:
Armrest is nice for long drives. I leave mine up until I'm on the highway.
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I'm starting to get more used to it, and doing exactly that. It's kinda nice now.

Coupid said:
this car just gets better and better!
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Thanks dude!!

LC4CARL said:
Like the "GT" horn button. Do these bolt on to regular 240 steering wheels?
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oldschoolvolvo said:
The center pad is interchangeable with the 14.5" non-airbag steering wheels.
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Yup, the old hornpad pulls off and the new one just pops back in its place. They usually go for $25-40 bucks on here, based on condition.



I don't have any progress pics, but here's a shot of my lunch bag:

 
Drove the car out to Modesto this weekend (200 mile round trip) so I decided to finally set the toe. Ever since I lowered it, I'd never even looked at the alignment. It had a bad tie rod, wasn't sure of the final ride height, needs strut mounts, maybe add GT plates... so I put off the alignment until
I got all that sorted out.
But for now, I just wanted the toe to be closer to being right. I had no helper, so I got out my tape measure, a wood block, and a rubber sanding block so that I could do it all by myself:




The rubber block keeps the tape measure end from falling out of the tread.





On the other side, I simply measured to the same line in the tread, on the front side vs. the rear side of the tire. I'm embarrassed to admit that the car was nearly one full inch toed out! Now it's 1/16" toe in, and it feels soooooo much tighter and more planted, especially over 70mph.

I'm going to have to do it all over again after I do struts, mounts, GT plates, etc... but I'm happy that it drives better and won't scrub tires away in the meantime.




While I was at it, before setting toe, I went ahead and loosened the strut bolts and pushed the struts to maximum camber. Looks a little less dorky now.
 
slammed145 said:
Drove the car out to Modesto this weekend (200 mile round trip) so I decided to finally set the toe. Ever since I lowered it, I'd never even looked at the alignment. It had a bad tie rod, wasn't sure of the final ride height, needs strut mounts, maybe add GT plates... so I put off the alignment until
I got all that sorted out.
But for now, I just wanted the toe to be closer to being right. I had no helper, so I got out my tape measure, a wood block, and a rubber sanding block so that I could do it all by myself:




The rubber block keeps the tape measure end from falling out of the tread.





On the other side, I simply measured to the same line in the tread, on the front side vs. the rear side of the tire. I'm embarrassed to admit that the car was nearly one full inch toed out! Now it's 1/16" toe in, and it feels soooooo much tighter and more planted, especially over 70mph.

I'm going to have to do it all over again after I do struts, mounts, GT plates, etc... but I'm happy that it drives better and won't scrub tires away in the meantime.




While I was at it, before setting toe, I went ahead and loosened the strut bolts and pushed the struts to maximum camber. Looks a little less dorky now.
Click to expand...

Nice tip on the toe adjustment! I'm about to do front control arm bushings, new ball joints, a new (used) steering rack and inner/outer tie rods on mine, so I'll have to remember that trick!

Car is looking great, as always!

-Ben
 
Jack said:
Boy am I glad I sold this
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Thanks a lot. You're such a dick. You told me this car was fully serviced and daily driver ready.
I don't understand how every single part on a car can be broken, and it still drives around reliably. Because Volvo, I guess?

Fixed some more broken crap this weekend. Pulled the front wheel off and a lugnut seized itself to the wheel stud. It turned for a few turns, then snapped the stud. Luckily, I just happened to have a spare wheel stud that's been rolling around in my hardware bin for years from a prior Volvo project.

Turns out, the new wheel bearing that I installed a few months ago was really loose. I am guessing that I didn't have the bearing race seated all the way. So I gave the race a few taps with a punch, it sounded solid, so I put it all back together with a new cotter pin. That explains the pulsing I was feeling in the steering wheel sometimes on the freeway. I thought it was a stuck caliper, but it was the rotor walking side to side and rubbing the brake pads, heating them and warping the rotor in the process.

Good thing I have a set of vented rotors and calipers on the shelf waiting to be installed, just going to rebuild the calipers and collect some front suspension parts before I dive into that. So I'll live with that annoying brake shake in the steering wheel for now.





While I had the wheel off, I took some better pictures of the steel inserts they installed when they redrilled the wheels to Volvo pattern:










I also borrowed a big Harbor Freight suction cup from my dad while I was at his place this weekend, and tried to pull the shallow dent out of my door. It stuck like a sumbitch and I pulled the hell out of it, falling flat on my ass a few times when it released. Unfortunately, it didn't work.






Car made the round trip to Modesto flawlessly again. Steady 85mph cruising, no drama whatsoever. I passed a brand new S90 last night that looked really sharp, with dealer plates. Very cool LED lighting all around those things! He caught up and gave me a thumbs up and a huge smile. Almost makes it worth fixing all the crap on this infinite project car.
Thanks, Jack. Dick.
 
slammed145 said:
I don't understand how every single part on a car can be broken, and it still drives around reliably. Because Volvo, I guess?
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This, this is where old volvos truly excel. They really aren't dead nuts, drama-free reliable like a Toyota is; but man you can limp these things along under-maintained for years.

I'm sure you know this, but a good PDR place could massage that dent out like it was never there.
 
Harlard said:
Next, on news that are not news :lol:
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Dude not my feelings dude
slammed145 said:
Thanks a lot. You're such a dick. You told me this car was fully serviced and daily driver ready.
Thanks, Jack. Dick.
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:oogle:

slammed145 said:
Great seller, and really knows his parts! Bought a 242 from Jack. He did a lot of minor repairs prior to the sale, threw in a few parts it might need, and checked in during the drive home to make sure I was happy, and the car hadn't exploded.

Excellent seller, and just generally a really cool guy. Looking forward to buying/selling with him again!
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I gave meaning to your life

Ps I love you too


When are we going to fix your suspension together? Come by and look at the other pile... err great car you want at the same time
 
Just quit my job last week, and today is my last day. I've accepted take a new job that pays WAY more but is a longer commute over a mountain pass. I still intend to commute in the 242, but I just bought a back-up plan, you know, just in case. I'm really smart, so I bought a salvage title S80 with a recent head replacement (overheated) and a lit check engine light. It also came with some spare parts in the trunk and has some interesting electrical gremlins. Yay!





I bought it from my dad, and got an insane deal on it. Frankly, I think reliability might be a toss-up. But the S80 is a bit more comfortable and I'd rather stack the S80 into a wall or into the back of a Prius if I had to choose one. So on most days, I'll use and abuse the S80, and on nice days when I feel like it, I'll cruise the 242. Life is good!




In other news, I went to the junkyard and bought myself some wagon springs. I've been wanting to raise the back of the car a bit, and it felt sort of mushy over bumps, so I thought wagon springs might give me just the right amount of extra spring rate. I also bought a new set of struts and shocks, so it made sense to do it all at once. But I was wrong! Upon cutting them to length and putting them on the car, it feels like total crap driving at freeway speeds. It's very twitchy now, won't stay in the lane, and it bounces a bit too much. It was such a dramatic change that I suspect they might be wagon overload springs. But they didn't have the couple of extra tight coils like I'm used to seeing on overload springs, so I don't know. These came off a '93 Classic 245:


Wagon spring (with one coil cut) on the left, my Sedan springs (with one coil cut) on the right.


1.75 total coils cut, and the car still had a severe Joe Dirt rake!





I took the wagon springs off, and put my sedan springs back on with a 1" spacer at the upper spring perch. Much better.



Driving home, the muffler fell off. Thanks, Jack. Dick.






Soon after this picture, I ended up just pulling the whole muffler off before my spare tire strap got destroyed. Car sounded like a Honda with a fart can, but luckily I was in the Central Valley so nobody seemed to notice. I've patched it for now, and Jack is selling me an N/A sport exhaust for cheap, so that's awesome. I just need to drive up to where he lives in southern Oregon to pick it up, so that's not awesome.


And because the muffler incident wasn't enough, the main fuel pump suddenly got super loud as I got close to home. I topped off the gas tank (it was at about 1/8th tank when it got loud) and it got quieter. So I suspect the in-tank pump has failed, and is putting strain on the main pump. I bought a new pair of pumps when I got home:



I've only installed the main pump so far, and holy crap is it loud! it's more than twice as loud as the original pump was. I just hope it will get quiet after I install the in-tank pump, because it's to the point where passengers are commenting on the pump noise.

If not, I am going to pull it all back apart and return it to the parts shop. Any suggestions on what set of pumps I should buy? I'm tempted to just put a Walbro in the tank, even though that's overkill for a low compression NA B230. I just can't stand the noise!
 
Airtex is crap, so is spectra. On something as important as fuel pumps, go Bosch or Rock Auto also shows Delphi is available. I assume a Delphi would be decent. A lot of people go aftermarket, someone should chime in on aftermarket options; don't have any personal experience with that though.
 
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