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Mike K? ruin another volvo. 945 pickup build

Stiggy Pop

In the cool kids club
Joined
Feb 27, 2011
Location
Granville, MA
My Dad and I got on the idea of building a pickup conversion out of a 7/9 as a fun winter project and for me something to haul my dirt bike around in. After some staring at pictures we decided a wagon was the best starting point and I picked up a 1994 945 turbo with 250k on it. It's in typical shape for a cheap 940, needs a little love but a good car to start with. We're not expert metal workers so figured this will be a good project to get a little more practice from. Will be doing lead (or lead free) solder work for the first time. I think it will turn out to be a fun car.

First step in was to gut the interior and take the glass out. Amazing how much the back seat weighs, going to be a pretty light car.

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The plan is to take the whole D-pillar section and move it forward to serve as the back of the cab. Then utilize the hatch as the back of the cab, including hinges so it can swing open. The car also has a sunroof which sets some limitations for the size of the cab. The entire sunroof assembly is too large, so it will get shortened and be used for tilt-up only. Spent a lot of time walking around the car, putting pieces of tape on it and thinking out the plan. Eventually had to break out the saw and ruin the car.

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Intentionally left a little of the d-pillar above the tailgate, this gives us something to work off of when we go to make some kind of side to the top of the bed.

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That gets us this piece.

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And the car looking like this

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Marked the c-pillar and an initial line on the front portion of the roof, we ended up making a final cut further forward. Voila a car with no roof.

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Give the car some credit for being pretty stiff. The door still open and close like stock and nothing moved.

Next step was to work on the cut section from the rear of the car to get it to tuck up against the front section. The rear d-pillar arch has a framed portion on the top which is what supports the tailgate. We need that structure so that was what determined the size of that rear portion of the cab. So the placement of all the cuts were made to get that structure as far forward as possible (to maximize bed length) up to the point where it would interfere with the sunroof.

Here's a cross section of the roof, so we were trying to line up the roof skin and structural channels running along the car. We decided to cut the rain gutters off of the rear D-pillar hoop, then figured out where we wanted the roof joint to be and and cut the roof skin back towards the tailgate opening.

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Idea is to take the rear support section and slide it up under the front portion of the roof and join them right behind the sunroof. So marked and cut the front portion of the channel.

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Notice we kept the rain gutter intact, this way we can carry it over the rear portion of the cab so it that body line is uninterrupted and make it look less 'tacked on'.

test fit. Started seeing it now, and thinking "hey this thing might really work out!"

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Now the question was how to join the sections of the roof. The top of the roof is the same, but the car has a slight inward taper at the rear of the car so the width at the outer radius is different. That means they don't butt right up against each other. We bought a flanging tool from Harbor Freight which worked, but didn't make a deep enough flange. A little file and die grinder work to the dies and it was doing a good job.

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So for the top section of roof we flanged the front, and would have the rear piece come in over top. At the corners, we had to make slice so the slightly narrower rear section could then slip inside.

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And it worked out pretty damn well!

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see where we can take the rain gutter, cut to size, and weld it to the new rear section. That should really help blend out the transition.

did the first welding on the roof today and it's on there for real now.

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taking shape, and I'm liking the way it looks

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The plan is to raise the bed sides about 2", it will be better looking with a little more side to the profile of the car.

I'm at the point now where I really need another car. I need another hatch door to build a tail gate out of, and we need rear cargo glass area metal to build a frame for the new quarter window (planning on using Lexan), and some other stuff to do some of the body shaping we have in mind.

Lots left to do but going well so far, lots of ideas for it. Going to try and keep moving on it so it's ready once dirt bike season starts. I should get a little less than 5' of bed space out of it, so for the bike I'll either need a fold down gate I can rest the rear wheel on, or maybe some kind of sliding floor in the bed so I can extend the deck area.
 
Bringing the bed sides up to about where the hood line is should sweeten those lines right up.
Love what you're doing here, always kinda wanted to do it myself with a 240. Keep it up
 
Is it an:

El CaVolvo

or an

Vol Vomino

????

notice I gave up on picking a name and just made the thread...

Screaming for a D24 swap with an M90. Very excited to see where this goes

I reckon this here truck'll stay red block powered unless I end up liking it so much I want to plunk a big v8 in it...

Bringing the bed sides up to about where the hood line is should sweeten those lines right up.
Love what you're doing here, always kinda wanted to do it myself with a 240. Keep it up

Yup, definitely agree!


Glad you guys are getting a kick out of it. My main thing out of this project is I just want it to be fun. The car is definitely meant to be a laugh and not something I want to stress or take too seriously (basically the antithesis of the 242 build)
 
Looks like you've thought it through and executed well. Overlapping the panels and joggling the structure at the new cab rear corner are great ideas. Already looks much better than most of the ute abortions I've seen! There is one guy here on TB who did a nice 240 crew cab pickup, so yours marks only the 2nd one I've liked so far...

My vote for dirtbike clearance is to put a front tire notch in the cab/bed divider wall. You'd probably have to notch the glass as well, but a plexi bubble could seal that up. Just a kooky idea.

We are in riding season out here right now - when does yours start (I'd imagine after snowmelt has mostly run into streams and the ground has dried up)?
 
Bringing the bed sides up to about where the hood line is should sweeten those lines right up.

I think you have something there.
We can cut a strip of sheet metal from the roof the same height as the distance from the crease line to the top of the fender at the back end and tack that on and see how it looks. Better than arbitrarily just picking 2" and going with that. The plan is to keep the bottom edge of the rear (fixed) window in line with the front door window.

The plan is to have a channel bent up at a sheet metal place that creates the "bed rail" at the chosen height and weld that on. We'll run channel down both sides of the bed and across the tailgate to "finish" it visually. If we plan properly, we can even keep the crease line below the added material rather than blend it in, keeping the styling clues of the front fender.

I LIKE THIS IDEA!
 
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Looks like you've thought it through and executed well. Overlapping the panels and joggling the structure at the new cab rear corner are great ideas. Already looks much better than most of the ute abortions I've seen! There is one guy here on TB who did a nice 240 crew cab pickup, so yours marks only the 2nd one I've liked so far...

My vote for dirtbike clearance is to put a front tire notch in the cab/bed divider wall. You'd probably have to notch the glass as well, but a plexi bubble could seal that up. Just a kooky idea.

We are in riding season out here right now - when does yours start (I'd imagine after snowmelt has mostly run into streams and the ground has dried up)?

We talked about that, there's an off chance I could fit the notch below the glass because the wheel would be dropping down into the lower-rear seat area? I'll hang tire before I'd lose the glass though.

If I suck it up and spend the money on a set of studs I could be riding right now! I could hear my neighbor out this weekend on his 350. Otherwise it'll be April before the woods melt most of the time. I want to drive the ute this season though, if the Husky dealer calls me soon I just might have something swedish colored to put in the back of it :oogle:

Oh the car came with a trailer hitch too, so I can even tow another bike out back!
 
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