Not another 240 project

[schaff70]

Yet another 240 project for your enjoyment.

I decided when I got back from my 6 month deployment that I would start fixing all the things that were slowly going bad on the wagon & make some improvements along the way. I've been collecting a number of parts for a couple years now.

Here's the background on the car:
When we first started taking our cars to Eurotech Autowerks in Virginia Beach, one of the mechanics had a black 245 that was lowered with some mesh wheels on it. From that day I decided I wanted a 240 turbo wagon. I told Rick, my mechanic that I wanted a 240 turbo & he always kept it in mind. In April of 2004 I was still driving my 1996 850R. Rick tells me that his ex-wife is selling her 84 245 Turbo because she wants something newer. He offered her car to me for $2000. I sold my 850R and bought the 245, finally giving me the chance to not have a car payment.
Here's how it looked:






Rick had the car painted about 6 years before I bought it. The engine had about 60,000 miles on it, but the body had about 240,000. He recovered the original leather seats in a black tweed cloth. The dash was even crack-free.

For the next 3 years all I did was pretty much drive the car & maintain it. The only notable changes I made were new tires (Falken Ziex 512 205/60/15), painted the grille & headlight trim black, added a Euro plate & amber turn signal lenses, silicone vacuum hoses, did some polishing in the engine bay, added some spark plug heat shields and new Magnecor plug wires.















Inside I was lucky enough to find a Recaro Classic power leather seat in a 740 turbo wagon at the junkyard (score - $50 ). I bought a Volvo Momo steering wheel from E-Bay and upgraded the stereo. You need to know I'm a junkyard hound & you'll see more junkyard bargains as this thread progresses.





As the stereo sits right now, I have a Sanyo CD player with a motorized hidden face piece, Polk Audio 4" speakers in the front doors (j/y $8), 4" Polk Audio 2-ways in the stock rear location (j/y $8), Polk Audio 6 1/2" components in the rear doors (j/y $8), Sony X-plod 4x40 watt amp (2 channels driving the components & 2 channels bridged mono for the sub) and a Boston Acoustic Competitor 10" sub box with a passive radiator (pawn shop $50).









The car was in such good shape, I had to wait until I found a replacement set of black door panels before I decided to cut holes in the originals for the component speakers.

My plans for this project include a new exhaust, intake, exhaust manifold, air box modification, E-fan, suspension mods and completely rewire the stereo & add more speakers. I should have 15 speakers, 2 amps, a capacitor and a new MP3 head unit when it's complete. I also have some exterior cosmetic changes to make.

Let the fun begin!

[norcal505]

how, what a great turnaround!!
btw, you should just take off your front VA plate
you dont really need it, unless a cop has stopped you.
many cops have pulled me over for not having a US plate in the front, and i just recently put it back on for the timebeing b/c im gonna get my Swedish plates refinished. BTW, my plates are real, as the car was bought through Swedish Delivery

also, lower it more!!/swap the pre-86 mudflaps to 86+'s, i think they fit the body way nice, and look way nicer

[schaff70]

I wish I could run without a front plate, but Norfolk cops man the front gates on base & check for stuff like that & state inspection stickers. I'm hoping to get Ohio plates next year so I don't have to deal with it any more.

Made some progress this afternoon. Got the new daily driver washed up. 1997 Rav4 with only 83,000 miles on it. Bought it from a little old lady (seriously).





Installed a set of Bosch driving lights on the wife's Land Cruiser



Cleaned out the garage to make some space.



Then I got started ripping out the interior and the old wiring from the fog lights that are no longer on the car. Removed the old stereo, RCA cables and amp wiring. Seats and carpet are going to get cleaned while they are out.







Notice the triangle goodness in the trunk. I should be able to get the rest of the old wiring out tonight. I need to go pick up a new wiring kit with 4ga power wire. Half the problem with the old setup was the wiring. It was way too small for the amp, so the sub would cut out or get distorted at higher volumes. I'm hoping to get started on the amp rack for the rear cargo area this week.
Just got done eating fresh corn on the cob & a burger so for the next hour or so, this is where I'll be:



Until next time.
-Todd

[Vol242vo]

Nice, needs less blue hoses.

[2fast242gt]

whats with that pice of sheet metal rivoted to the strut to firewall braces lol is that some kinda half arsed heatsheild?

[jamin01]

looks good.
One thing, in the trunk well there it looks like you have rust developing under the ****ty tar crap they put over the metal. Is it sound deadening material? Anyway, I have just spent the last few days stripping it out of my car as it is a harbour for any water that seeps in and creates ideal rust conditions, looks like it has started in your trunk. Strip it with a heat gun and get rid of that horrible rust!!! I hate it with a passion.

cheers

[homer1300]

What's the sheet metal on the left firewall brace for? Shielding exhaust manifold heat?

[Sp3aK]

Uhh dude when can I come to your house and party? lol... Good stuff anyway, are you gonna do some go-fast stuff to it?

[schaff70]

The sheet metal was a temporary fix to try and stop the rapid deterioration of my wiring harness. I also rigged up an air intake in the front spoiler to help draw heat away from the turbo.
I have a few 'hot rod' parts set aside, you'll see more later (hint hint : a N.O.S. MVP 3" downpipe is waiting to go in). There's no rust in the back cargo area, but the paint is a little discolored. I do have a rust hole behind the back bumper. I need to pull it off so I can get to it & stop the rust before it gets worse. There's also a small rust spot developing in the pass side spare tire well that is bubbling the paint on the outside. The biggest thing is the rust on the floorboard behind the driver's seat. I didn't realize how bad it had gotten over the years. Before I re-install the interior I plan on having a new section of floor welded in.

Progress is slow right now mostly because it's been in the high 90's at home. 2 days ago it was 99 on the way home. I don't mind the heat, but the humidity is torture. This weekend should be cool enough for me to put the new head unit in & run the RCAs.

I'm collecting all the cables/wires I need to hook up the amps. I'm going with all Monster Cable wiring. I picked up a pair of Monster battery post connectors, RCAs, fused distribution block & subwoofer wiring. I need to buy a good chunk of 4 gauge power wire so I can get started.

[schaff70]

I took advantage of some mid-80 degree temps today to start working on the car. My buddy Aaron stopped by yesterday to drop off his tools and tool cabinet while he heads out to south Texas for Border Patrol Agent training. He's coming back to pick it up in May next year. I found a nice temporary home for it & I'm sure I'll get some use out of it while he's gone.


So far I pulled out the radiator, intercooler, intake, intercooler pipes, battery, battery tray and the positive battery cable. I'm debating on if I want to eliminate the A/C. I've had the car for 3 years & I've only used it about 5 times (on the way to SE 5.0 it was a life saver).
I'm going to go ahead & try to remote mount the oil filter & get a bigger alternator while I have everything apart.



The next step is to start removing the downpipe and exhaust manifold/turbo. I'll start soaking the bolts in PB Blaster tonight.

[TerribleOne]

I fell in love with your car the first time I saw it.. let me know when you're done and you can give it to me.

[schaff70]

I came soo close to giving up my Volvo a couple months ago when an Estoril blue BMW M3 sedan with a manual transmission went up for sale in DC. If I wasn't out to sea at the time, my wagon would have been sold.
Let me know when you plan on having another G2G. I thought I was going to be able to have one at my house this summer, but some things came up (as usual).
If the weather stays cool like this weekend, I'll make some good progress this week. I still have that 3-row radiator in my shed for you BTW.

[spruill242]

i hope your working on the car.....this nice weather isnt going to last much longer.

[norcal505]

nice progress
just please, dump the rav4

the lc, is awesome
any side pics of it??
i love them, i always have dreamed of owning one later (the same model), with a complete ARB package

[schaff70]

OK... after winding up with a really crappy work schedule, I haven't had much of a chance to work on the car in the past 2 months. I pretty much only get 4 days off work a month.
Going to the Phillips Volvo meet got me motivated to get wrenching on my car again.
This afternoon I was able to get started on the rear suspension. I installed the Koni reds (adjustable, set at position 2), IPD rear sway bar and the rear springs of unknown brand. I kept these springs from the black wagon I had, I was just never able to put them on the rear because the spring perch stud turned with the nut when I tried to remove it. I wound up doing the same thing to the passenger side when installing the new springs today I'll have to deal with that some time in the future. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get the IPD adjustable panhard bar on. I'll post pictures tomorrow.
Thanks to TerribleOne for getting me motivated.

[schaff70]

Alright... I finally got a chance to take a weeks' vacation from work & get back to working on the car. I'm a little late, but here's a pic of the rear suspension - Koni red adjustables, IPD bar & unknown brand red lowering springs (really low!).



Inside the car I've been working on the audio. I got the front door finished. I was never happy with the way the front speakers mounted, with the majority of the support resting on the 22 year old door panel with water damage on the inside. I have a replacement set in the shed, but I'm hanging on to them. I pulled the door panel and made a backing board of 1/4" MDF that is screwed directly to the door. This gives me something solid to mount the speaker to. I painted it flat black to protect it from moisture. I also ran the new wires to the crossover mounted just above the FI computer. I replaced the 4" Polk 2-ways with a Blaupunkt 4" component set. For the tweeter, I was going to mount it to the trim piece above the windshield as I had them in my black 245, but decided to try & mount them inside the dash vent for a cleaner install.



It took some minor trimming of the plastic to get the large tweeter to fit. It kind of restrics the movement of the dash vent, but I rarely used them anyway.



For the rear seats, I'm keeping the Polk 6-1/2" components I installed in the rear doors. For the 4" Polk 2-ways in the stock location, I needed to make some changes. Again, they were mounted in the stock particle board mounts which constantly popped loose. I took the old particle board & traced a template onto 1/4" MDF. Using a jigsaw, I cut & trimmed the MDF until it fit in the stock location well enough. I gave it a quick coat of flat black paint and added some carpet (Wally World black) to the face with some spray adhesive. I ran new wires to the speakers & filled the hole in th ebody with some poly craft fluff (or whatever it's called). The stock speaker panel is on top.



Rear speaker and panel installed.



Rear speaker with the grille installed.



I need to pick up some black paint to color the screw heads since I couldn't find any black screws.

Today I decided to take advantage of some free help (Father-in-law & my son) to help me pull the hood off.





Installed the new 7" Hella H4 halogen lights.



Test fit the new grille.





I have the fog lights that mount in the grille, I just need to work on a proper wiring harness for them instead of relying on a cheapo Rallye kit from Pimp Boys.



Hopefully this weekend I will be able to finish the speakers on the driver's side (front & rear). From there, I can wire up the new head unit & work on getting the dash back together.
That's it for me tonight, I got up at 4am to do some shopping... what was I thinking??

[stylngle2003]

looks awesome as usual, Todd! keep it up

[GhengisKhan]

Excellent... you are starting to give me ideas.

Now if I can figure out how to save this thread...

[Krisverde]

were did you get the recaro seat? are they any good?

[schaff70]

Originally Posted by Krisverde

were did you get the recaro seat? are they any good?

The Recaro seat was a once in a lifetime find at the junkyard ($50 ). It was in a 745 turbo along with a ton of IPD goodies.
I picked up a nice set of black Prelude seats here locally that I need to figure out how to mount them in the back instead of the rear bench. I might wait until summer for that project, it all depends. I'm on the lookout for another pair in black so I can have a complete set of 4.

[Blue245Ti]

Car looks eerily (sp?) familiar... Differences, I've the stock black leather interior, a blue flathood - originally silver, but whoever owned the 242GT that it came from, repainted the car, commando bumpers, and I've deleted the roof rack... Was able to find the iPd roof rack plug kit locally at one of the old-school hardware stores... Also am running Hydras...

-J

[schaff70]

I got the driver's side front speaker & backing plate mounted up today. I also got the tweeter in the driver's side air vent and ran new speaker wires for both the driver's side door & stock rear speakers.
Below is the picture of the MDF backing plate I made for the driver's door.



I also changed the chrome rear hatch handle with a black one I picked up last week. I'm still on the lookout for a set of black door handles.

[schaff70]

This has to be the slowest project thread ever created.
Anyway, last weekend I hit the local PNP & was lucky enough to score a 93 Volvo 850 front bumper & that weekend all body parts were 60% off, so I got it for under $20.

I always knew the 93 850 front bumper would look pretty good on the 240, but my fabrication skills suck. Today I decided to give a go at fitting it.
I pulled the old bumper off, but wasn't sure how to get the complete 850 bumper on the car, so after a careful inspection, I realized the lower half of the 850 bumper was a separate piece, so I took it off & began fitting it to the stock 240 front bumper. 3 of the holes lined up with the stock 240 front spoiler, so all I had to do was drill 3 new holes and fix it to the bumper with some stainless bolts.

Here's the initial test fit, I still need to figure out what to do with the ends and eventually paint it black (it's dark green now).









Anyway, let me know what you think, I'm headed back to the garage.
-Todd

[growley]

That looks great!

[schaff70]

I got some more done on the stereo last night & today. After realizing there was just no way to mount the 6.5" Polks in the rear hatch without removing the rear wiper motor & lock mechanism, I chose to mount them in the spare tire well on the pass. side. I took the old piece of wood out of the car & used it as a template. From there I cut a new piece from 1/2" MDF. After a couple test fits, I drew a line on the underside to mark for clearance and used a template to cut the holes for the woofers.



After a lot of trimming due to the shape of the basket on the speakers, I was able to get them to fit. I attached another piece of MDF to help separate the 2 woofers into compartments because I will be running them from a stereo amp. I used a pair of elbow brackets to support the wood while I used liquid nails to hold it in place.





Inside the car I took another piece of 1/2" MDF and mounted it to the outside of the frame rail to help make a 'box' for the speakers. It's not airtight, but I wanted it to sound better than if it were all free space. It's held in place with 2 bolts & I painted it silver because I couldn't find my can of black paint.



I stuffed the space behind the MDF board & the body with some poly fill material.
Here's how it looks in the test fit with the speakers.



Here it is all put together:



I also have grilles to put over the 2 speakers to prevent any damage.

I took the wood board from the front half of the rear compartment & used it as a template for a new one which I cut from 1/2" MDF. I cut another piece of 3/4" MDF and cut holes out of it where the amps & sub will fit. I still need to cut the channels for the wires & cables to run. I will put another piece of 1/2" MDF on top of all this with some overlap to conceal the wires, it will sort of be like a 'lid' with the amps showing through. I'm going to try to find some LED lights to install under the top board so it will glow while the amps are on.