"Steady as she goes" 89' 245 build/rebuild

Well I have had my car for a good few months now, just driving it along and noting the "issues". I have actually only driven the car a few weeks personally as it spent quite some time at my parents house being put to use a lot because my sister has thing for wrecking cars, so I lent it to them while they were a car down. I get it back from them and drive to/from work for a couple of weeks and all of a sudden my starter goes up, so I figure I'd pull the motor and trans to do an overhaul.

Since the beginning of ownership I have been browsing and occassionally posting in the forum looking for ideas and deals and just generally learning about this new old car of mine. I quickly decided which direction I wanted to take the car in and have settled on a OEM+ resto-mod type approach. I am seeking a clean, stylish, reliable and comfortable daily driver for the short work route and for some long hauls for meets and such.

I have 2 general build phases with the car;
phase 1: OEM+ where I will fix, improve and clean up where I can.
phase 2: resto-mod where I will continue to modify stuff like the suspension, electronics, and performance...this includes an engine swap of sorts (right now I have a Nissan VQ40).

I have basically started phase1 with the recent engine removal and parts purchases. I have no real clue to set plans on when phase2 will start so I want the original B230 to be as reliable as possible and unfortunately the original owners got to a point where they just stopped driving it and caring for it, so it has seen some maintenance neglect. The car has a lot of original or OEM parts on it and it is fairly clean to begin with, so I can only assume this was a 1-owner car that may have been past down to someone in the family where the neglect began, I snatched it up at an auction.

Enough story, onto pictures and some more words to make sense of them.

The first meeting of my two prides:



The big interior clean out, just quick and simple really:









The tear down begins (this was initiated by a starter bolt I could just not remove and lost patiences with, so out it all came):








I've broken it down a bit more from the last picture. I have the engine and trans seperated and all brackets and pulleys removed except the hoisting mounts and the timing gear stuff.

I'm doing all of the work at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds Autocraft skills center (a DIY shop) for government civilians and servicemen. Its a great place and I have been going there since I was 10yrs old helping my dad work on his projects, I'm now 28 and I refuse to change oil lying on my back!

Anyhow, I am still waiting on a host of parts to come in from IPD next week, so in the mean time I am focusing on getting it mounted to engine stand, cleaning up what ever brackets I can and I will start painting things as I can. Right now I am exploring free options of cleaning parts via work through ultrasonic tanks and some parts washers, but I dont think I am getting the results I was looking for.

Additionally, the anal tendacies inside of me are beginning to rear up and I think I will start doing casting line removal on some of the brackets to clean them up even further. I just can't help myself even though I know most them will never be seen.

Nice project. Looks similar to my project wagon except mine's white. Let me know if you have any questions.

I'm pretty sure that interior is vinyl.

socalsean said:

Nice project. Looks similar to my project wagon except mine's white. Let me know if you have any questions.

I'm pretty sure that interior is vinyl.

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Thanks, will do!

I dropped off the brackets and some parts at the machine shop in the area that is known for low rates and great results, so hopefully I will be picking them up tonight or monday if I dont make it out there today (not open on weekends). I'm going to skip out of work early today so I will certainly call them to see if they got processed lastnight.

Meant to work on the engine some more lastnight, but my bro's speratic b-day plans got in the way. I should have it mounted to the engine stand and I should have the head removed in quick order tonight. Stay tuned for results.

looks like another meticulously cleaned 240 is in process.
im sure you have read pat's (groupA) threads, his cars are always gorgeous.

good luck and keep us updated.

slow240 said:

looks like another meticulously cleaned 240 is in process.
im sure you have read pat's (groupA) threads, his cars are always gorgeous.

good luck and keep us updated.

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I have and while I hope my car comes off as clean, I do not think it will be to that level. I'm one of those, never happy with how it looks kind of guys so I often never appreciate my own work.

im kinda the same way, only halfway through i always get frustrated knowing that ill never be happy with it, so i kinda wind up half assing it

ive sworn to make my 242 look better than anything else ive owned, but its a LOT OF WORK

Here is the assortment of brackets and such I aimed to clean up myself before any attempts and yes I will be replacing all of the accessory bushings with IPD urethane inserts where possible:



Here are the final results after my own attempts at parts washing (which didnt work out well), professional parts washing (definitly better) and then bead blasting:




Friday of last week I spent most of the evening cleaning the engine up some more before I removed the pan and any other final parts:





Friday night I had the head removed, anyone see anything of concern?






Saturday and Sunday I cleaned up the deck of the block where most of the gasket was and finished up removal of the pan and the front and rear main seal covers, again feel free to mention anything of concern:





and here she is in all her glory:


I took the head, valve cover, another bracket or two, the intake manifold and throttle body and the oil pan to the parts cleaners (JB Auto Machine of Maryland) monday. At this moment I am just having the head cleaned and I will replace the valve seals before reinstallment. Although I did ask for a quick inspection to see if there was anything of concern.

I plan on doing some fancy work on the intake manifold to help dress it up some, so when I get it back from the cleaners you can see the progress I have made thus far.

Painted parts progress:








I've taken some time away from it with life stuff going on, but I hope to be back into the swing of things over the next few weekends. I'd be happy if I got it back to gether by June.

more:






might start getting it reassembled during the approaching weekend.

Did you put the bare mating surface of your head on concrete?

doh

Wow that stuff is clean. I wish I had the patience and ability to do that on my build.

Interesting that the burn patterns on one of the intake valves and the top of one of the pistons (all the way on the left in both pictures) are quite different than the rest. Wonder what that is all about? If anything....

blkaplan said:

Did you put the bare mating surface of your head on concrete?

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It may not look like it in the pics, but it is polished (and then swept by me) concrete and it was carefully placed and lifted again by me. I checked it after wards and there was no signs of damage. Besides, this is not a performance motor build, so I am sure the copper sprayed head gasket will do just fine. Thanks for the concern and finger pointing though.

So I hope to get more achieved this weekend despite some family being in town. The block is basically ready to be cleaned up a little bit internally (air spraying and some careful scrubbing), some relube'ing and then reassembled. I will still need to break the head down a little more to replace seals and lube the camshaft and all before it gets put back together. So my plan is to pretty much button up the bottom end this weekend, should be fun!

idrive_MD said:

Besides, this is not a performance motor build, so I am sure the copper sprayed head gasket will do just fine. Thanks for the concern and finger pointing though.

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The head gasket has to seal combustion, oil, and water. Doesn't need to be a performance build to be concerned over that. Could have put it down on any other side and you'd be better off. (except maybe the front face cause it would fall over)

Finally going in a positive direction:





Need to order a few parts here and there I overlooked, but all and all its going well. Next weekend I start reconditioning the head/valve seals. Right now I just hope this paint effort wasn't a waste of time, I did my best to degrease all of the surfaces for good adhesion, but I have a lot of people telling me it will just burn off...fingers crossed.

Another weekend with more progress! I actually only worked on it for a few hours on Sunday, but any amount of therapy is good therapy for me.

Anyhow, I got pretty nervous and apprehensive about doing the head work my self because the last thing I wanted to do was put it all back together just to find out I screwed something up. So I took it to this guy who runs a full operation out of his big garage, Mitchell's Machine Shop in Havre de Grace, MD. I dropped off the head and gasket set friday and got the phone call it was done saturday. I picked it up sunday before noon and had it torqued down and lubed up by 3pm.

Here's a before and after:



Mounted:


After that I started to mask off my valve cover to paint the raised letters, so that will be next weekends project. I went ahead and mounted the exhaust manifold too. Beyond that I probably have another weekend or two before the engine is put back together because I am still doing some finishing mods to my manifold. Once the engine is done, I move onto cleaning and servicing the transmission.

this thing is going to look great!

How does the shared shop setup work? Are you able to occupy a bay for a long period/ leave non running cars there? what are the rules? pretty neat setup to have access to

JB3 said:

this thing is going to look great!

How does the shared shop setup work? Are you able to occupy a bay for a long period/ leave non running cars there? what are the rules? pretty neat setup to have access to

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Thanks, I sure hope to make it into something...its funny the lack of love Volvos get around here...I get a lot of "You're doing this to a Volvo, wagon?"

The shop is basically a first come first serve hourly rental. They have flat bays and lift bays, fluid disposal, tire mount/balancing and a paint booth in addition to some specialty tools and equipment (press, lathe, bead blast, welding etc). Its restricted to military and government ID holders. They are fairly common to most large military installations around the world. It has certainly spoiled me over the years. I just wish they had more operating days and hours, but the thursday-sunday schedule still works fine. If you don't finish you can leave your car in the bay for an extra rate charge or push it outside for a lesser rate charge. Since I am just working on the engine with the car outside, i am only paying for my monthly storage and not any shop use fees.

I dont have much going on tonight as of now (although I could really use a drink), so I think I may stop in to finish up my valve cover so its nice and dry come saturday/sunday when I work on it some more.

slow progress: