Duder (CFlo's) Pea Green 1975 245 DL - Survivor Wagon

I'm pretty stoked about my latest 240 acquisition. This is my 4th 240 total and it's a real gem. Of course I've got two others in project status: the beige 242 that is almost done, and blue 245 V8 swap that is still in the early phases. So this 75 will be more of a rolling project, if anything. I want to keep it on the road and do smaller jobs here and there to clean it up and augment the awesomeness it already has. No big plans yet other than enjoying it.







Specs:

• early production 1975 model year 245 DL
• B20F engine with intact K-jet system; air injection deleted
• M41 4-spd + overdrive manual trans
• 4.11 final drive
• mostly original Berkshire Green paint (aka pea green) code 118
• dark brown vinyl interior; seats recovered with brown cloth
• ~230k miles
• has ipd sway bars and braided stainless brake lines

The story starts with Luke (122power) who went and rescued this car from the Cortez, CO "field of dreams." This was a collection getting sold off last year. There was a thread here and it also got posted on BringaTrailer. Looks like there were 15 to 20 cars there, mostly PVs, Amazons, and 1800s. Honestly the 75 looks like it was in the best condition overall. When Luke got it the distributor had been pulled for unknown reasons. He reinstalled it, flushed the fuel tank, did some much needed maintenance jobs and got it running. Apparently it was full of wasp nests and fine red dirt from the Colorado field. Luke flat towed it back home with a custom front bumper setup and wheels/tires from a nearby 83 245.

Somehow it seems all the pea green 75s end up in Colorado, if andysbeta's cars are any indication. Some kind of weird Volvo vortex in spacetime?

BaT posting



TB thread

Colorado seller's flickr album

Based on papers in the glovebox it looks like the car was originally running around in northern CA, in the Sebastopol area. There are receipts from Petaluma and Santa Rosa too. So I think it lived there most of its life before going to CO in 2009 or so.

Through conversations I found out about the car back in September and expressed interest. Of course being a 75 it's smog exempt in CA, which is awesome. But I was also drawn to the overall survivor condition and the awesome green color. I'm in the LA area and Luke is up in Vacaville, between the Bay Area and Sacramento, but he was kind enough to hold the car for me until I was going to be up that way for Thanksgiving with my wife's family.

Insert several months of patient anticipation here!

Glad to see a thread started!

Looks like a solid car to start with!

oh man, awesome!!!

Thats such an amazing color.

Here are some pics from the Colorado seller's album of the car in the Cortez field. The 75 had a very custom roof rack on it, composed of Yakima cross bars and three steel shelves welded together. My wife and I both think that a vintage style stainless rack with wooden slats would suit the car well. I may just have to make one.

When the paint was this faded it was obvious that the passenger side had a respray at some point. Luke was able to wet sand and buff most of it away, and now it's mostly just on the front door...mostly. Looks like a high quality touch up where they blended the paint over a large area, and then it faded differently than the original paint. I will try to get this area even smaller. Guessing it had a slight dent on the door somewhere. The repair looks like it was good quality work with nice single stage paint, probably many years ago. The mismatch isn't nearly as obvious now with the paint buffed out.

That car is neat. I've always loved that color.

TIPSP said:

Glad to see a thread started!

Looks like a solid car to start with!

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blkaplan said:

oh man, awesome!!!

Thats such an amazing color.

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Thanks! I'm excited about cleaning it up and driving it regularly. Already working on one repair which I will get to in a subsequent post...

Anyway below are the pics Luke sent me of his tow rig pulling it home to California and the work he did on the car. Visible in the interior is the custom hacked-in stereo head unit in the upper dash from some PO years ago. This is one of the things I'm going to rectify along with swapping in a crack-free dash pad and thoroughly cleaning the interior, which still has a lot of that fine red dust in it.

Nice find, very cool.

love it.

grnmachine02 said:

That car is neat. I've always loved that color.

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kampman said:

Nice find, very cool.

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oldschoolvolvo said:

love it.

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Word to all of your mothers! (where I'm from, that's a sign of respect)

To continue the story...the day after Thanksgiving this year we drove over to Vacaville from Santa Rosa to check out the car. I had planned on buying it unless I found something that was a surprise. Needless to say Luke represented the car very accurately. I was pleased because it was in even better condition than I'd thought. With the recent buff job and fresh wax it looked much better than the photos I'd seen.

We poked around a bit, I checked out all the weird early 240 features I wasn't familiar with, and took a test drive. It is not fast by any means but much peppier than an NA D24 powered car which was my "slow 240" point of reference. The M41 transmission shifts very nicely but the clutch is a bit stiff; might just be a sticky cable. There was a bit of steering wheel shimmy from flat-spotted tires. I assume it probably needs tie rods, ball joints, and bushings too. It's got manual steering but not the coveted ZF rack. It cornered nicely with the ipd bars. There was a clunk/rattle from one of the rear shocks. I was happy overall so we finalized the deal and also bought a nice early dash pad to replace the badly cracked one.

I drove the 245 back to Santa Rosa with my wife's uncle and on the way we talked about how it was pretty remarkable that this thing had survived so well for over 40 years. He was impressed with how straight the body is. I noticed the rear hatch was squeaking due to the rubber bumpers being dried up, so we shimmed those out and got it to quiet down a bit.

My wife had the awesome idea to take the 245 and our V60 family truckster to a vineyard for a photo shoot. We were at the west end of the Sonoma valley / east side of Santa Rosa, and her uncle works at Chateau St. Jean just a few miles down the highway. So we rolled down there and parked amongst the grape vines and got some great shots in the overcast late afternoon lighting.

Awesome fall wine country Volvo pics follow below.

Very cool wagon! Any idea how long it had been baking in that field?

Love this car! Can't wait to see it progress

In the words of James May: "Behold, the miracle of polish"

connorb850 said:

Very cool wagon! Any idea how long it had been baking in that field?

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Thanks! Yeah it seems like it was sitting for about 4 or 5 years. There are some parts & service receipts from 2009 I think. If I'm not mistaken it got over 30k miles put on it before sitting, judging by the current odometer reading vs. the papers.

Coupid said:

Love this car! Can't wait to see it progress

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Gracias - your 142 is looking great BTW.

Stiggy Pop said:

In the words of James May: "Behold, the miracle of polish"

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He is one of my all time favorite TV car guys. I was watching his "Reassembler" series on youtube when my wife walked into the office one night. It was worse than getting caught looking at porn. She asked what I was watching and I said "James May putting a lawnmower back together." She hung her head in dismay and walked off.

Here's where the story gets a bit more interesting. Originally I'd planned to keep the 245 at my wife's uncle's house for a week, and tow it back after the Lemons race at Sonoma (Sears Point) last weekend since it's just a quick 40 minute drive from there. Well, since the car ran and drove so nicely I decided to risk it and try driving all the way home to LA, about 500 miles. This was the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We did a quick fluids level and tire pressure check, loaded up, and set off. It made the drive in the rain just fine.

When I got the car, the wipers and blower fan weren't working. After some futzing around with the fuse panel I got them both operational. Turns out the fuse for those looked like it was intact, but was in fact old and blown. So swapping some fuses around got everything settled for the drive. I even had some Bob Dylan on the stereo - the car came with a CD of "Love And Theft" in the head unit!

We set out and made it through Highway 12 just fine, past Sears Point, on to 780 and 680 south through the bay area and then 580 east out through Dublin and Livermore. Made it over the Altamont Pass without issue and drove past the original Lemons track (which is a sad sight now since it's been abandoned for several years). We were about 110 miles into the trip on a moderate uphill grade on 580 when the engine lost power and died. My wife, mother-in-law, and daughter were following behind in the V60. I figured it could just be out of gas since I didn't know if the fuel level gauge could be trusted. Two gallons later and still no start. The engine would turn over gleefully, with abandon I'd say, but absolutely no firing.

Had the car towed back to Santa Rosa and spent the night there to try the drive again on Sunday, all of us in the V60 this time. So it turned out I'd have to tow the 245 back with my Land Crusher after all. Shooting the sh*t with Uncle Chuck got us talking about diagnosis on the 245. So we checked for spark - nothing. Pulled the distributor cap - rotor didn't turn while cranking. Pulled the distributor - and its drive & the cam weren't turning either.

It was about this time that a wave of realization washed over me. We were dealing with the classic B20 fiber cam gear failure. I didn't have time to verify before we drove south, but Ian at Hi Performance Auto agreed with my diagnosis.

My team Black Iron Racing did the Arse-Freeze Lemons race in the LM7-swapped E36 "Brougham d'Bavaria" and had a great time last weekend. Got to hang out with Rob Prince quite a bit, plus Luke, Patrick Pieper, Toby, and even an appearance by Pat Dickman. Thanks for delivering those beautiful side skirts! After the race we drove back up to Santa Rosa, loaded the 245 on the tow dolly, and pulled it back home with no drama. I transported a Pantera transaxle for Uncle Chuck, and picked up an M410 from Thomas (dangerkitty) for delivery to Ian. So I was pulling quite the load of driveline bits.

Last night I pulled the 245 into our shop and started the teardown. It's cool that this car still has an OE steel belly pan but it had to come off to pull the radiator, fan, pulleys, and finally the timing cover. Once the cover was off the culprit was clear. Many teeth had been chewed off of the cam gear. Ian kindly loaned me the tools to pull and replace the gear, and he also advised me to clean out the little oil squirter that's supposed to lubricate both gears. Mine looks like it's aimed mostly at the steel crank gear, so I'll clean and realign it so it's aimed directly between the two gears. I think perhaps the fiber gear was under-lubed. At any rate, another good fiber gear is going in tomorrow morning and with any luck I'll be driving it again this weekend.





















Put away for the evening with its much faster buddy...

Poasting in epic thread. It's amazing how well that thing has held up. What is the deal with all the pea green 245s out there? I love it.

SquareD said:

Poasting in epic thread. It's amazing how well that thing has held up. What is the deal with all the pea green 245s out there? I love it.

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Epic! I don't know about that - but I appreciate the sentiment!

Nice write up dude! Glad its getting the love it needs. Had fun at the track running around you guys, or you running around us I should say.
When I followed the guy out to where it was at I was like, "this is in the middle of nowhere." Yeah the bee nests were interesting. That car next to it had a big one in it as well. Man that car looks rough seeing it in the old photos, but its a gem for sure. I may have some other pics to post.

holy smokes. cant believe all this volvo stuff is happening in rosa! love the green. good job bringing home more junk luke!

Dude, I am LOVING this thread so far! Way to keep a classic alive!